In this chapter I'll be using two songs from elsewhere, one of them is Unbreakable, a song I heard in an AMV, made by some pro-christian rock group or other. The other is the opening song of Ah my Goddess season one. Google this song if you want the rest just imagine the singer has the same voice as Belldandy in singing it in the second season episode 4.
Chapter 11 A sing along gone a' wrong
Claudia did indeed chew her out for several long embarrassing minutes, but at least she waited until the two of them were alone in a jeep heading back to the command tower. After she was finished Claudia agreed to meet with Kasumi that night for an old fashioned pajama party, despite being too old for it (at least in her opinion, a woman pushing 28 had no real reason for one after all).
Lisa was a little surprised when the three got together that night and were joined by Ranma in his female form. Kasumi however said she invited him/her and since Ranma had gone out and brought back popcorn, three bars of chocolate, which had become incredibly scarce as it was something the ship could not produce itself, and some movies to watch Lisa had no objections. Though where the man turned woman had found chocolate was beyond her, she knew there wasn't much on board at this point, not even with the supplies taken from Mars added to their stores.
The night passed quietly, with Lisa finally sharing with someone else the story of her and Karl Ryber. She shared her fears and insecurities, as well as how close she had come to really dying that day. Claudia took up the story talking about her problems with Roy when they first started going out, the way women would flock to him, the way he would flirt shamelessly without realizing it, and how it took him years to admit to feeling more than just lust toward her.
Kasumi in turn told them of Dr. Tofu, and how his strange reaction to being near her at last made her realize that a relationship with him would never work, and her budding feelings toward Ranma, who blushed throughout that part of the conversation. Ranma however opened up to all of them about his fiance problem, telling how his father perjured his original family name so badly that Ranma had abandoned it at 20 to join his mother under her family registry. How most of them had been possessive, self absorbed and violent, how it had ruined his friendships with his childhood friend Ukyo for a time, and how Shampoo had confessed to having fallen in love with him, and how much he had been tempted to marry her. But it would never have worked, as Cologne and her granddaughter were among a small minority among their people who treated men equally, and how he would never have been allowed to continue training or chase his dream.
After the sniffles and crying was over with the four of them watched movies until they fell asleep.
Elsewhere others were having discussions based off what had occurred on Mars, though their conversation was grounded in the military action rather than the emotional turmoil that visit had created.
"I'm sorry I failed Lord Breetai, I've no excuse save that the Micronians seem to be very, flexible tactically. Who would have thought they would blow the base simply to destroy one of the mines? Give me another chance my lord."
Admiral Breetai looked the hologram at the younger (and smaller though he would never point that out, among the leader-class size was a point of honor right next to valor shown in war) Zentraedi admiral coolly. He knew that Kyron had made that point deliberately, linking his own failure to Breetai's, and thus making him unable to censure him for it without seeming to be a hypocrite. Still that didn't mean he was wrong. "You are correct these Micronians seem to have an endless supply of tricks. Finding out why this is and in fact what they have done to the fortress is what our next operation will be centered on." He gestured and a map of the solar system, or those portions of the solar system that his fleets could see, appeared there.
In the center was the space fortress. "Zor's ship has changed course to once more head towards their third planet. What I want you to do, is to loosely blockade their path. Send attacks of varying strength but no more than 300 Regulds at a time at their forward, aft, above, below and port sides. We want them concentrating on you and yours. Do as much damage to their fighting forces as possible." He carefully did not notice the way Kyron's eyes began t gleam at that idea. "But keep their attention on those sides. Grind them down with constant attacks from those sectors. While you do this I will place a Boquomouxy Quel-Quallie scout pod on the starboard of them at regular intervals. With its ability to listen in on enemy transmissions we will learn all we can about this perfidious race. Remember Kyron, only battlepods for now, no ships of the line. Dolza's orders are absolute and we must capture the ship intact."
"It shall be as you command lord. I will start my attacks within fifteen hours." Kyron bowed and ended the transmission.
Once he was gone Breetai turned to his aid. "That man is even more of a fool than I thought. Imagine being distracted from the battle by a single opponent so much you forget to control the rest of the battle!"
Exedore nodded. The 11th fleet was a clan fleet, much like Breetai's own 2nd battle fleet, though far smaller. The difference however was that Kyron had discouraged, to the point of killing troopers who could use them, the use of command pods. Without those tactical control was a near impossibility, and without Kyron himself to direct the battle, the whole fight had become little more than a mindless brawl. That was the real reason the assault had failed, not the Micronian's defense or tactical ingenuity. "You are correct lord, though how the Micronian knew he could communicate and what they were saying also interests me." That the two combatants had been communicating was all they knew at this point. "Still as a blunt weapon Kyron has few equals."
"True and with him taking up all their time and effort we will find out how these Micronians do all these tricks. And then we will know how to defeat them and complete our mission."
Lisa woke up to some muffled noises from the kitchen. Claudia woke up as well, stretching and practically purring at the smell of fresh food and more importantly coffee that reached her nose. She was not one of nature's morning people and her ability to operate was in direct proportion to the amount of coffee intake.
As if summoned by a heavenly choir Kasumi walked in with mugs of coffee and tea. Claudia gratefully grabbed one as Lisa reached for a cup of tea, looking around questioningly. "Where's Ranma?"
"Taking a shower, as it's my turn to cook he gets to take a shower first and then clean up the kitchen after." Kasumi replied setting down her tray.
Claudia smirked behind her cup rim. "A shower huh, that has all sorts of opportunities, tell me is there any chance he might walk out of there with only a towel on, or better yet naked? After all if I was sharing an apartment with my boyfriend morning attacks would be one of my favorite pastimes."
Kasumi blushed heavily. In fact the two of them had taken to making love in the morning, either after or during breakfast if they had the time. Lisa on the other hand blushed a bright red but shot back in her stead. "Oh, and what would Roy say about you checking out another man?"
"I'd say it's payback for all the times I've caught him checking out other women. And I'm only looking, nothing wrong with that. That's always his argument anyway."
To Claudia's disappointment Ranma came out of the bathroom already wearing pants, though as a consolation prize seeing him shirtless was way up there. Claudia openly goggled as Lisa blushed and looked away, though she still watched out of the corner of her eyes. Ranma bent down to pick up a shirt he must have dropped on the way to the shower, and Lisa gulped. Stomach muscles shouldn't ripple like that!
Ranma sat down and the four began breakfast. Lisa, to take her mind off rippling muscles and the large surprise found directly below them asked "What are your plans for the morning Ranma, I know you're scheduled to be on patrol this evening."
"Talk to Minmei, see when her birthday parties supposed ta be. Then meet up with Rick ta shop for birthday presents. After that" Ranma blinked and looked down at his data-pad beeped the little jingle it had for an incoming message. He spend a second reading it before moving on. "Apparently after that I have a meeting with the review board in one of the conference rooms. Huh, wonder what that's about? My written report about the asshole back on Mars isn't finished yet if that's what they want. I wanted to see about the repairs on my Valkyrie."
Lisa shrugged. As she wasn't a Veritech officer she wasn't part of the review board. "Well whatever it is good luck."
"Ain't never had much luck, always have time for skill though." Ranma grinned at her and she smirked back.
After breakfast the four went their own ways, Kasumi going to classes Ranma heading to the park to see Rick and Claudia heading back up to the bridge while Lisa went to her apartment to change.
"Are you certain he's ready for the responsibility?" Gloval asked Roy Fokker and Eric Prescott. While he was required by military law to sit on the promotions board, with as many casualties as the Valkyrie flights had sustained this was actually going to be the first time he had done so. The fact was they at last had the time to really do things right rather than simply brevet people and shove them up the ranks. The board had been meeting for several days before they reached Mars, and now that they had left their red planet behind they were ready to continue. On their docket for the afternoon was one ensign Sugita and Gloval couldn't help but worry how the wild young man would take being given some responsibility, and he really wanted all the choices for the board done before they actually convened.
Then too, the idea of giving anyone with barely half a years in the military a Lt's tabs bothered him, and Ranma wasn't the only one being so swiftly promoted. That was the story everywhere in the Veritech squads, their losses had been so heavy that it was necessary. Gloval had first thought to take experienced sailors from the running of the space fortress and shift them over to Valkyrie duty to serve as officers, but Roy had convinced him that would be worse than useless. None of those sailors were trained pilots, and even if they passed a hurried qual course they would have less experience and skills than the pilots they were getting out of the academy. And only a bare fraction of retrained personnel made it to, much less lasted, in the Veritech forces. And even those few officers who made it rarely lasted long, even if they had prior experience. Fighting the aliens was simply a meat grinder beyond any dogfight anyone on Earth had ever envisioned. Indeed, some of the old saws, especially among the non-coms, likened fighting the aliens to tanks battle in WW2 rather than aerial battles.
Roy shrugged. "Let's face it at this point he's got the most kills of any of us, the kid is just deadly. If he can train up his flight to be even half as good then this will be an excellent move." What he left unsaid was that of the original survivors of the battle on earth there were only 9 survivors, and all of them were now filling captain's posts, despite few of them having the experience necessary, now that the third class of the academy had graduated giving them enough pilots to fill out the full 25 squadrons once more. As he had said when the space fortress was hiding in Saturn's atmosphere in this war, there were only three qualifications that mattered: being a killer, being a team player, and surviving.
"More" Eric added "it may settle him down. He won't ever like the paperwork required but he cares for the people around him, even if he doesn't always show it, and giving him responsibility over them may calm him down even further."
"Very well, we'll see how he responds."
Ranma sneezed as he entered the white Dragon taking a splash of water right in the face at the same time. She looked at Minmei's grinning face and smirked as she wiped her hair out of her eyes. "Hello to you too, soon-to-be birthday girl. Damn good thing I didn't wear silk today."
"That's for not coming in to see me for the last few days. I swear the more time you spend in the military the less I see of you. But that's not important right now, have you heard!?" Minmei squealed excitedly grabbing the redheads arm and dragging her back outside and down the street to another store which had a large poster on the side of it. She pointed excitedly "Look, the mayor's organizing a Miss Macross contest! Singing, swimwear, and talent contest! The prize is a recording contract with a movie thrown in if the first album sells well! I'm going to enter, it's a great chance to achieve my dream! What about you?"
Ranma gave the other girl a gentle squeeze, "Thanks Minmei, but no thanks. I like singing and all but not in front of crowds and it ain't something I want ta make a career out of. You go right ahead though, and if ya need help with anything let me know. Now, when's your birthday party again, I want ta make certain I get time off ta attend."
Minmei smiled happily, her adoptive big brothers support was something she treasured. "My party's tomorrow here at nine. Can I expect a birthday present?" She asked batting her eyes playfully.
"Maybe, but don't push yer luck okay?" Ranma grinned and tousled her hair. "I'll see ya tomorrow night alright, and I'll try ta stop by more often from now on ok?" Minmei nodded, gave the other girl one final hug and let her go.
Not ten minutes later Ranma was eating at a vendor with Rick discussing birthday presents with him. "I can't believe ya were just gonna show up without one Rick. That's dumb man, really dumb. Even if you're going out with Sammy, ya need ta have a gift for the birthday girl or don't show up. That's doubly true if ya think ya got feelings for her." Ranma was not the brightest when it came to girls but never let it be said he couldn't learn from past mistakes. The row he had with the old men when he didn't show up for Akane's birthday party with a present was tremendous, though he did get some good advice after it from Cologne and Shampoo, whose subsequent birthday present of a bonbori inlaid with images of furry demons from hell on the handle went over very well, gifts were always better after all when tailored to the individual.
"Look I don't even know what she wants, so how am I going to get her anything."
"It's not whether she likes it or not, it's the giving that counts. And as for presents, let's finish eating and head over now. I've still got an hour ta kill before I need to meet with the review board, whatever that is."
Rick nodded and scarfed down the rest of his tofu dog. The frozen meat they had gotten from Mars base Sara was going to be distributed to the various restaurants but not yet, as tests were still being run on it. As they were walking he asked "So have you decided on an appropriate punishment for Roy and Eric yet as your part of that bet you three had going?"
"Heh, yep. Pretty simple too. Trust me, you'll like it."
The shopping went pretty quickly, with Ranma finding a nice looking bathing suit that Kasumi had ordered him to get as her gift for Minmei, as well as a sarong that he felt would complement it for his own gift. Rick found a pair of earrings that held Minmei's birth stone, which he had discovered in a hint-hint wink-wink conversation with Nodoka the day before, that woman was scary... Just in case, he also bought another pair that had an orange stone that almost matched Sammy's hair color. All the bases covered the two left the shopping district, Rick to go exercise as he was still keeping up with the regimen Ranma had set him, and Ranma to go find some hot water and head to his meeting.
Ranma opened the door to the conference room and was surprised to see Captain Gloval sitting in the center of a half-circle table with Commander Fokker, Commander Prescott and two other officers he didn't know as well as Colonel Mannstein around him. Realizing something was up, he marched in, back straight head held high and saluted them as soon as he was in the center of the room. "Sirs!"
"At ease ensign. This review board is meeting to discuss the possibly of giving you a Lieutenant's rank. As such you will be questioned on certain decisions you have made to be deemed worthy of this honor. Do you have any questions before we begin?"
Ranma shook his head slightly stunned that this was happening, but jubilant at the same time. It meant he was trusted enough to lead, and that would allow him to protect the fortress better. Hey maybe I can even train my flights too! In the shopping district two recruits suddenly shivered and looked wildly wondering why they had the sudden desire to space themselves.
The questioning began, centered on his actions during Operation Blitzkrieg, and his, as he put it morale assault on the enemy, the battle in the asteroid field and finally the one on one battle with the new type of enemy pod he had seen on Mars. This last was the only holdup, but as he put his instinct into words, that the new pods was important and possibly a leader, most of the board was willing to let it slide, after all the chance to decapitate the alien assault was well worth the risk. The only two that weren't were the two officers he didn't know. After the last question the board spent several minutes deliberating before Commander Prescott stood up and moved to stand in front of Ranma. Gloval was speaking some kind of ceremony but he didn't hear it at all. He was too busy staring down at his shiny new tabs.
Gloval wasn't down however and what he said next pulled him back to reality. "Furthermore it is the decision of this body that Lt. Sugita be awarded the Medal of Valor for his rescue of Commander Hayes at the risk of his own life."
Eric pulled out a box containing an arrow head shaped medal made out of titanium and placed the ribbon around Ranma's neck. Ranma was going to protest but Eric whispered "Don't bother, I know you think that you didn't do anything special, but for the rest of us non-martial artists, that mission would have been suicide. Just go with it, hell you can use it as a paperweight after this if you want. I understand that's what Roy does with his."
Following this advice Ranma simply saluted, and after a few minutes he was released. Eric stayed there as Motoko Aoyama was up for review to be bumped to lieutenant later that day.
The next two days were relatively quiet as Ranma got used to his rank, but for the most part he watched and took part in the repair of his mech. While the engineers didn't want any help yet, it was obvious that they needed it, so Ranma watched and memorized and learned.
Mechanics and repair were always an ongoing source of concern on any battleship, and none more so than Macross. There was always something breaking down and needing repair, not even counting the factories, which had been taken over entirely by the civilian sector. Repairs on the Veritechs though, needed to be done by the overworked navy mechanics. Thankfully, while the VF-1S was more expensive to build, it was easier to repair, with more modular parts for ease of access.
Ranma smiled as the last part of his Valkyries new arm was connected and passed whatever test they were running on it, at least judging by the green light. In a few more hours, it'd be as good as new. His thoughts were interrupted as his data pad beeped at him, and he looked at it quizzically.
About fifteen minutes later he found himself in Prescott's office. "New recruits, what about the old flights, I mean we haven't taken any causalities since leaving Saturn have we?" That was true too; for once the squadron had come through a battle without having lost anyone. In the battle on Mars it had been the destroids that bore the brunt of the battle and the casualties. While losing the entirety of Silver squadron had hurt, the Veritechs had only lost three more of their number. The enemy battlepods inability to get off the ground for anything but a shot hop had really hurt their ability to take on the Valkyries who were above the area touched by the gravity anomaly.
"Not to battle we haven't, but we have to poaching. With the new recruits being inducted we're now back to the full 25 squads we can support, and every squadron but Skull and Vermillion have turned over half their number to bolster the new squads with veterans." Eric almost choked on that last word, as barely any of those pilots had been in the SDF longer than half a year. "We're keeping you, Motoko, Rick, Tina and Rachel. You keep Rick as your wingman and get to watch over two more recruits, while Motoko keeps Tina" Ranma nodded, that made sense the two worked well together, though he didn't think the bottle blond (he still hadn't memorized any of their names, even though he had begun to try) was as good as Motoko or had her drive. "and I keep Rachel as mine. Here are the dossiers on your new pilots."
Ranma read the first one. "Ben Dixon, decent physical scores, okay simulator scores. Came to us out of a construction company." Ranma shrugged and turned to the next dossier, and when he did he groaned in agony. "Not this guy!"
Eric raised an eyebrow and pulled the file to him. "Name Max Sterling, top physical condition, top simulator scores, how the hell do you have a problem with him? He's the best of the bunch, I had to get in quick to get him before the other commanders saw his scores."
"He hit on me in my girl form." Ranma said flatly. "And he didn't take a hint."
Eric laughed. "Well sorry Lt. he wasn't in your chain of command then so it wasn't against regs. And besides you are rather cute as a girl you know." He stopped speaking as Ranma began to glow blue-gold and growl. "An-anyway" he went on hurriedly. "These are the two you're assigned, make the most of it. You're to meet them at 1630 on the lower deck, and then put them through their paces on a routine patrol."
Ranma gritted his teeth but nodded. "Meet them at 1630 on the lower deck, aye, routine patrol aye. Understood sir." He turned to leave but then turned back in the doorway. "Oh and sir, you're payment for the wager you and Roy made with me before Mars just went up to join his. Look forward to it." He left whistling cheerfully at the suddenly very worried look Eric was wearing.
Ranma waited at the meeting place for five minutes longer than the assigned time but the two new trainees at last arrived. He stood straight as they neared him. "Dixon and Sterling?"
They both stood to attention in front of him and the big one, Ben took it upon himself to answer "Yes Sir, Ben and Max that's us sir!"
"Good. I ain't a stickler for saluting or that shit so you can drop the attention stuff right now." They both dropped the salutes but were still paying attention to him, which was a good sign. "Alright listen up an' listen good, my name's Ranma Sugita." He paused as they both twitched "Problems with my name ensigns?"
Ben again answered "Er no sir, it's just there's a lot of weird rumors about you, and then there's the rumors about how good a pilot you are."
"Yeah well, they're probably all true, but don't ask me to confirm any of 'em I ain't here ta put on a show or anything. You both are here to fly and to kill the enemy. That is our objective, our only real objective, and we do that through teamwork, training and skill. To that end, once I figure out what I have ta work with I'm gonna work yer asses way harder than they ever did in the academy to prepare ya for out there because let me tell ya, fighting the aliens is about as far away from easy as it's possible to get. They ain't like the old hands say it's like fighting other humans. Every alien comes on expecting to kill or die, ain't been even a single instance of aliens retreating without it being ordered from on high as part of the larger campaign, and there are dozens of them for every one of us, sometimes more, and thse fights can go on for hours, way longer than any dogfight on Earth could last."
"Now I'm gonna tell ya one more thing: no grandstanding. I know that sounds weird to ya if you've heard any rumors about me, but let me tell ya, I never put anyone but me in danger with anything I did, and I was always in complete control. If I see anyone trying to show off, or to push past what they know is their limits and in so doing endangering anyone else, I will ground your ass then you and I are gonna have a 'talk' in the training room!" To emphasize this point he allowed his battle aura to briefly appear then disappear. The two of them nearly jumped back, and their eyes widened in surprise and not a little fear.
"I know it's customary for Lt.s and their ensigns ta be friends and all, but I'm gonna wait on that until you both have some battles under yer belts, same goes with explaining what that was just now. No offense, ya might be really decent guys," he avoided looking at Max, but at least Ben had a blank slate as far as he was concerned "but I've seen too many squad mates die in this war ta want ta get close ta before you prove ya can survive. After that we can be pals. Now, get your gear and meet me in hanger 9, where I'll introduce ya to the other pilot of our foursome ensign Hunter, when I ain't around ya follow his orders. Now get going, we've got a patrol ta do."
"Command this is blue 5, requesting permission and flight path to take a few recruits out on patrol. Designate Blue 6, Blue 7, Blue 8 and myself as training flight."
Lisa's voice came back to him, professional but with an edge of humor as usual when they weren't fighting for their lives. "Roger that Blue 5, you're cleared to exit the ship, be aware we already have patrols out aft, port and starboard, advise you keep to the underside or topside of the ship. Have fun babysitting Lieutenant, and…" she paused then went on in a much warmer tone that for some reason made Ranma flush a little "congratulations on your promotion. You've earned it, and speaking for myself, you earned the Medal of Valor too."
"Um keep to the top or bottom aye, uh thanks for the rest Lisa that means a lot coming from you, Blue 5 out." Still flushing he changed his radio's channel before addressing his flight. "Alright you lot, we've been asked to keep to the top or bottom of the battleship. We're going to do a few simple exercises first, get ya both into the swing of things, check yer skills and that."
What followed was two hours of tedium as Ranma made the two trainees fly through every formation he could think of, then shoot targets he and Rick picked out and finally move around doing exercises in their soldier mode. Ranma followed them through the formations, while Rick sat in orbit over them, watching. As they were going through the target practice a second time Ranma flew up to join Rick. "What do you think Rick?"
Rick, not having met the two trainees before was blunter than he would otherwise be. "Ben's pretty poor at flying, and only decent at shooting, nothing special but I think he's got a better handle of the soldier mode than the other two modes with his rifle, maybe make him a sniper like commander Prescott did in the first asteroid battle with some of the others. Max though, he's something special. Almost as good a pure flyer as I am, and the rest is almost as good as you. Damn impressive."
Ranma agreed though inside his head he added the qualifier If only he wasn't such a fracking flirt. His musing was interrupted as Rick went on, his voice oddly cool. "By the way, do you know why Motoko got the other Lt's slot and not me? Not that I'm complaining or anything, I'm just wondering why."
Ranma kept his own voice neutral as he answered. "I'd say it's one of two reasons, one, yer disrespecting Commander Hayes when we're on the clock like ya have a few times, and before ya say anything this is about professional respect, it don't matter if you dislike someone as a person, if yer on the clock ya treat them with respect. Which is something I'll have to do with Max I suppose, damn it. "Two, Motoko's a girl, and they need some female officers in the Veritech squads to avoid complaints of favoritism."
Rick was silent for a few minutes as below them the two green pilots finished their exercises. "I-I guess I can see those are good reasons. I'll try to watch my mouth from now on."
"Good, but for now" he switched channels to include the other two "alright you two, that's enough for today, tomorrow we start on real training. Look forward ta it." For the second time that day both trainees felt a sense of unmistakable dread fill them.
The next day started early for the group now designated blue flight 2. With two of its members wanting to get off work by seven Ranma had gotten them assigned to the morning and afternoon shifts. Normally with the 25 squadrons now fully filled out, they would be on 4 hr. on 8 hr. off shifts, but Ranma asked for two shifts to properly train his group.
First Ranma worked them through what he called an easy exercise routine, which caused Ben to nearly collapse and even Max to sweat like a pig. Rick was able to keep up but barely. When he explained why endurance and physical ability was so important though, Ben stopped complaining.
When they went out for their assigned patrol, the group found themselves well ahead and using their radar to scout in front of the battleship. Ranma however had brought along a little bit of extra equipment which he dropped from one of his wings. With a small remote control he took control of the small spherical blob, which had been before Ranma got his hands on it, a sensor drone and completely covered the thing with padding to absorb hits. "Alright you two, now we're going ta work on yer situational awareness. Rick, take point, its yer job ta keep an eye out for anything incoming."
Rick grinned inside his cockpit, it felt really good when someone who was as formidable as Ranma was put his trust in you. "Count on it Ranma." He gunned his thrusters a little taking the point position about three klicks ahead of the other three.
Ranma turned his attention to Ben and Max. "Alright, like I said this is ta teach ya situational awareness." He used his controls to suddenly push the drone back at them, and they both dodged wildly. "Fire can come from any direction, and while simulators can train yer reflexes a little, nothing compares ta real life." He flew the drone back towards them and almost clipped Ben before the other pilot could respond. "Come on you two, there is no second place in this contest. Hell I'll give ya an incentive, every five times I clip ya, ya have ta buy the flight a meal." A chorus of gaps and groans met his ears and he grinned. "None of that, now DODGE!"
For the next fifty minutes the two newbies dodged and ducked wildly as Ranma commanded the probe to go after them, almost always from their blind spots of behind and below, building up the sixth sense in them that spelled life or death in pilots.
The training was still underway when Rick's voice cut in over Ranma's radio. "Blue 5, this is Blue 6, I have incoming bandits from below, directly forward and sides. Numbers unknown but at least four groups."
Ranma immediately halted the probe. "Roger blue 6. Moving up to your position, remain on station." Ranma gunned his thrusters, leading the other two up to join Rick. Once there his own sensors picked up the approaching enemy at extreme range. "Fantastic catch blue 6, calling it in now." He changed his radio channel used for communicating with higher. "Blue 5 to command, blue flight two has spotted enemies incoming. Four groups coming in from forward, by their heading they'll meet up right before hitting Macross. Advise on course of action and recommend you check in with the other scout flights on the other sides of the ship."
Claudia's voice answered as they were too far away from the ship for anything but the long range communications gear to reach them. "Wait one Blue five, scrambling fighters now, contacting other flights now."
Ranma waited a few minutes as the dots marking out enemy mechs came closer. After a moment he was relieved to hear Lisa's voice coming over the line, having obviously taken over the long range gear from Claudia. "Blue five do you think your flight is up to getting us a numbers count? We've got incoming from below aft and port as well, we need to know what we are dealing with here."
Ranma understood his orders to be to get close enough to get an accurate count and said so before changing back to the flight channel. "Alright you lot, we've got our orders, do a fly by and get the boss a head count. That means we fly close enough for our sensors ta tell 'em apart but not close enough for 'em ta target us or vice versa. Let's go!"
The flight flew forward then peeled off to get a close up of the group coming in from the port side of their trajectory, using their superior speed to keep out of their range. "What do ya think think, fifty or so?"
"About that Blue five." Rick answered. "Want to call it in?"
"Yeah. Blue five to command, we count fifty incoming battlepods in the first group, assuming the other three are the same size that makes it 200 battlepods or so coming straight on."
Lisa's voice came back immediately along with a tiny info dump that made a wide cone going forward from the fortress appear on his radar screen. "Affirmative blue five, be aware we are going to fire secondary weapons into this area, would recommend you bug out of there to the port side in the next two minutes and meet up with the recon flight from Green." Her voice tightened just slightly but Ranma could hear the pain there. "Be advised the enemy seems to be coming from that side in slightly larger force and Green flight 3 tried to do the same maneuver as you but failed, losing two of their flight. The survivors are falling back to the ship, but the enemy is hard on their heels."
Ranma sighed. "Roger command." It was selfish of him he knew, but he hoped the two lost pilots had been people he didn't know. "Okay people, new heading, we got ta get out of the area before the big guns come out ta play." He boosted his engines and the other three followed him. They left the target area not a minute too soon as behind them space lit up briefly with huge beams of varicolored power. "Hoo boy they don't play around on their timing." He laughed.
As they flew along their new trajectory their radar picked up the advancing wave of battlepods and then the two Green squad Valkyries just ahead of the swarm. Ranma thought for a moment, then passed a new course to Rick and the others. "Alright gents, here's what we're looking to do. We want ta disrupt the arc of their advance, give our Green friends some more breathing room. Missiles only, don't get it stuck in with them, that'll come later, right now our objective is just ta save our friends, not stop the attack. Can I hear a confirm there?"
Three affirmatives answered him and the four pilots rammed their engines to max, cutting across the course of the enemy attacking from the port side of the ship. As soon as they were in range Ranma ordered "Pick your targets carefully, one missile each target no overlaps. Fire!"
The first four missiles lept out then another four and another until all their missiles had been launched. After a few minutes the missiles hit the first line of alien mechs. Some of the mechs targeted were able to evade or shoot them down, but others weren't, and the attack allowed the two green pilots to pull away. Ranma angled the flight in behind them as they moved back to the space fortress. "you two alright?"
The pilot his IFF designated Green 10 answered. "Thanks for the save Blue flight 2. We're jiving back to the barn."
"Right behind you. Blue 5 to command, orders?"
Lisa's voice came back to him immediately. "Blue five fall back to base, the attack from behind used some kind of radar jamming on the flight sent out to investigate, it was so good they're nearly on top of us!"
"Roger that command, returning post haste. Okay everyone we're heading back into a dogfight, remember to watch each other's backs, and lets kick some ass!"
He was answered with three roars and blue flight two again pulled ahead of the two green Veritechs, who wanted nothing to do with the dogfight occurring near the back of the ship. Ranma was the first to spot the lights and flashes of the dogfight but within fifteen minutes they had come close enough to see individual combatants. "Command any specific spot you want us?"
"Negative Blue five, they seem to be more concerned with taking out the Veritechs and destroids than attacking the ship this time, if they come too close to the destroids though I'll route you there."
"Affirmative command, alright boys let's get it stuck in!" And with that he used his lasers to open up on a battlepod at extreme range, followed by two more from bursts with his cannon. The others followed suit, though they weren't as accurate just yet. That changed as they closed with the fight, and the others began to get confirmed kills.
Once the dogfight surrounded them, Max began to show his stuff, using all his weapons and modes to full effect, taking out seven enemy pods in two minutes of combat. Rick wasn't far behind, though as usual he preferred to remain in jet mode. Ranma however was on a whole different level. Even Max watched a little awed as he went through the enemy like a reaper, changing forms constantly killing pods with single shots of his rifle to vulnerable areas and using his overpowered lasers to great effect even closing in and using his fists and feet in soldier mode to kill his enemies, something Max and Ben had never even thought possible. In the same amount of time Max racked up ten kills Ranma had over twenty five and counting.
Ben however was not doing so well. He followed behind Max guarding his flanks and sniping at a few enemies, but about twenty minutes into the dogfight Ben decided he'd had enough of the secondary role. He charged forward yelling "Now you'll see what I can do!"
Moving away from where Max and the others could cover him he was almost immediately hit from behind, and then took two glancing blows to his front. His thrusters inoperable, he fell out of the dogfight, only his momentum keeping him going. "Agh they got me!"
Ranma cursed. "Goddamn it Ben!" At the same moment he noticed that another flight from Blue had taken to the surface of the fortress to help out the destroids, but had instead been encircled and their position around a secondary cannon was in danger of being wiped out. They couldn't take to space again with the amount of fire coming at them, and Ranma noticed his friend from Mars was leading the attack against him. Even as he watched Kyron, if that was the alien's name rather than its rank killed a Defender with a single shot from one of his mech's arms. "Damn it, Max, Rick you two grab the idiot and get him back to base, my orders. I'll go see if I can pull Motoko and her flight out of the frying pan."
Even as they acknowledged his orders Ranma changed into guardian mode, leaving the main dogfight and coming up from behind the attacking aliens on the battleships surface. He gunned down two from behind then blew up another that had tried to follow him down before coming up behind Kyron's pod. As he saw another Defender go down he decided to use the same strategy as last time and keyed his radio, standing on the side of a destroyed tertiary weapons box in soldier mode. "Well if it ain't the loser from Mars, how's it going ya giant asshole!"
Kyron turned with a snarl of rage to see the flyer type mech he had fought on Mars, and immediately lost his self-control. "YOU! KILLL HIM!" He bounded towards his enemy, completely ignoring the Micronians that he and his squad had pinned down a moment before in his desire to crush the Micronian that had bested him yet let him live, something he could never forgive.
Ranma ducked behind the protrusion he had previously been standing on. "Blue 9, you guys alright?
"We're fine now, pulling back to link up with the main company of Defenders, then we'll come back and assist. Where's the rest of your flight?"
"Watching over an idiot who is going to get the beating of a lifetime later, as for coming back to help me, don't bother. I'm gonna have some fun here."
"Heh. Roger, stay safe Blue 5, we'll see you in a bit."
Ranma looked around as the fire let up for a moment, and turned his soldier mode Veritech around, bent over and slapped his robot's rear "You couldn't hit the broad side of a battleship! Kiss my ass!"
He rocketed up and forward, taking cover behind a block of some kind whose purpose he didn't care about right now as the alien fighters all took potshots at him. Three tried to jump over his cover and come at him from on high but he almost negligently killed all three with bursts from his head cannon. Turning he fired around the protrusion, nailing one battlepod in the leg and taking Kyron's left arm off.
As they attempted to encircle him he jumped over his cover blasting away on full auto with his rifle and head lasers to both sides, taking out two more mechs before using his thrusters to slide left, barreling into an enemy battlepod, snapping one of its legs off and dodging the main body as it fell. He ducked his Veritech behind it, using it as cover for a moment before two shots from Kyron's arm cannons destroyed it.
Ranma was already moving however, racing to the side and blasting away with his rifle taking out two more pods before ducking behind another protrusion, this time a fin of some kind, probably designed to make the space fortress slightly more aerodynamic than your average brick.
Kyron didn't relies those two pods had been the last of the pods with him at the moment and he stalked forward, firing with all his remaining weapons. "Come out Micronian and face your master! You will rue the day you ever faced Kyron!"
Suddenly Ranma jumped over another protrusion to the side of where Kyron had though he had Ranma pinned. Grabbing the barrel of his enemy's back mounted gun he twisted and with an unheard screech of metal the gun came off its stand. "Careful what ya wish for fucktard!"
Kyron whirled in an attempt to throw Ranma off then ignited his thrusters slamming him back against another protrusion in an attempt to crush the Veritech between his pod and the wall. He could feel the clangor of impact and turned to make certain his enemy was finally dead but found to his shock that somehow the Valkyrie was not harmed.
"Ow." Ranma intoned then kicked out, firing his head lasers at the same time, forcing Kyron to retreat to protect his legs but still losing the two small anti-personnel lasers that were on the front of his mech. Before Kyron could open the range again, an open palm strike crashed into the front of his mech, hitting with enough force that Kyron's mech actually left the ground for a moment. Kyron tried to kick out with one leg but Ranma dodged it, grabbing his leg, and was about to rip it off when Kyron hit his thrusters again pulling out of Ranma's grip. Ranma continued to use his head lasers, but they didn't have enough power to do any real damage to the alien's mech.
Kyron continued his flight into open space, rejoining the dogfight then going through it and surprisingly taking the survivors of the attack with him. "Alas we're out of time for today. Another time Micronian!" Within fifteen minutes the dogfight had died down, the last of the aliens falling back out of the defenders range.
Rick, Max and Motoko's flight took up position above him and Rick's shock was easily heard in his voice. "What. The. Fuck! These bastards don't retreat like that, what the hell?"
Motoko answered him. "I don't know but something tells me its not good."
Ranma nodded, changing into fighter mode and joining them. "I agree. Blue 1, Command, any ideas what's going on here?"
Lisa's voice came back, showing her own worry and confusion. "No idea Blue 5. Still not your worry right now, you're errant pilot is down in hanger 4, the rest of blue squadron is cleared to land there." She went on issuing landing orders to the other ten squads that had scrambled for this fight, then rotating out two more squads to take over the recon flights in force. She also pulled back the Defender companies letting three stand down but keeping two, the two with the least casualties, on standby.
Casualties had again been heavy, with green squadron losing 5 of its pilots, which was the heaviest hit but not by much. Tan would need a new lt. and had lost two other pilots, and Vermillion, the 'elite' squadron on standby for this shift had lost two Veritechs. The other squads had lost one or two pilots each save for Blue squadron which other than Blue 8 being shot down but recovered had suffered no casualties. Prescott had keep his flight back from the battle sniping away, only moving in to help out when one of the other flights had gotten in trouble, something that she had ordered Vermillion to do as well.
The losses among the Defenders had been extreme, one company down to quarter strength, and two more down to half strength. Again the rule was proven that Defender destroids couldn't handle battlepods in close range. Casualties weren't nearly as heavy as they could have been though. By her count there had still been about 150 enemy combatants still fighting when they retreated. It sure as heck hadn't been her hastily planned defense that scared the aliens off. They would have to find some way through the radar jamming, this assault had come too close to the fortress before being seen, and that was deadly.
"Is Blue 8 alright?" Ranma asked.
"He's fine; according to the flight crews his Veritech is pretty mangled though. Was that the same command-type pod you saw on Mars blue 5?" Lisa asked, wondering if this meant that some new alien commander had taken over the battle against them and if so what it meant for the changes in tactics/strategy they had been seeing.
"Yep, same asshole, he says he's named Kyron, well I mean he says 'you will regret the day you met Kyron' but that means it's his name so yeah. Not exactly a good conversationalist." Through their canopies all the other Blue pilots, even Eric gaped at him as they brought their fighters in to land.
Gloval cut in at that point having come onto the bridge halfway through the fight. "You mean to say you've actually exchanged words with this alien Lt?"
"Heh, more like exchanging insults with him. It was in my report about Mars sir," he added reproachfully. "I filled it out and everything, took me hours last night, it even made me and Kasumi not have time ta," he paused blushing and Lisa surprised everyone on the bridge by giggling aloud for a moment before she stifled it behind her hand. They all looked at her in surprise, though Claudia was also smirking as she got the joke but Ranma went on gamely "Er, w-well anyway I said I'd targeted him cause it was a new type of pod and that he had blown up one of the other pods without any of the others complaining, and that he didn't seem ta understand any of my taunts that had ta deal with family or any of my curses except for the ones that deal with the body."
Gloval frowned. While not a lot of information, that did give them some idea of the culture they were dealing with, and the fact he hadn't seen this report was troubling. He would have to think about that later. "I'll look for your report then, but is there anything else you noticed Lt?"
"Um, only that he seemed ta hate anything that touched on size, like shrinking and anything like that. Those insults almost drove him mad." He finally skated to a stop in the hanger and looked down to see Motoko already out of her Veritech and heading towards him. Ben on the other hand was over by Rick and Max, who had already landed and popped their canopies. "Er, listen command, I gotta go, just read my report, it's got a copy of my radio transmissions." He paused then sighed. "If ya want I guess I could write up another one about the fight we just had too."
Gloval smirked at the resigned tone in Ranma's voice but shook his head. "Unless anything happened that you think we need to know about I don't think that's necessary. Well done Lt. Command out."
Ranma climbed out of his cockpit and was almost immediately accosted by Motoko. "Have you given any more thought to training me more, it's obvious you have techniques I could use?"
Ranma looked at her for a moment. Since they had met, Motoko had impressed him with her drive, she really was the only person he'd met on Macross that he could call a martial artist, and he had seen her exercise in her own style many times. The Hawaiian native was a kendo practioner who, ironically considering how Hawaii-mad his father was, made Kuno look incompetent. She had been asking him on and off for training but she didn't have the ki control Ranma had nor the endurance. She was much closer to both now than when they met, but still not quite enough. "I keep tellin' ya, I practice weaponless martial arts, ya need a sword instructor." A sudden thought hit him, and he nearly smacked himself for not having though of it weeks ago. "Why don't ya talk to my mom, she's a great swordswoman." He wasn't being facetious here, they had sparred a time or two and while Ranma won, he didn't win as easily as he had been against his old man before leaving Nerima. "She'll be able ta teach ya a lot, and if ya learn all she can teach, then you'll probably be at a level where I can take over and teach ya about ki ok?" Motoko grinned triumphantly and punched her arm into the air in jubilation.
Ranma grinned back, ruffling her hair for a moment but then his eyes hardened as he moved toward where the rest of his flight was standing. "Now ya gotta excuse me, I got something to take care of here." He paused momentarily as a crew of deck workers moved toward his plane, which was still in guardian mode and carrying a little souvenir. "Get that thing ta Dr. Lang would ya, with my compliments, and ask him if I can have it back when he's done with it." The workers nodded and he walked on. Behind him Motoko gathered her own flight together and followed quietly.
Ranma stopped and simply stared at Ben Dixon for a moment. The big man tried to laugh it off, but even he could tell he was in trouble. "Heh, sorry about that Lt., who knew that they'd circle me so quickly like that? I'll do better next time promise."
Rick groaned silently, but stood back. Max however stood at attention next to his friend. Ranma spoke, practically growling "what did I say before our scout patrol the other day and before this dustup huh? No grandstanding, don't push yourself so ya put you or your teammates in danger. Ya did both Ben. Now it was your first fight but ya still gotta pay for that so tomorrow you and me are gonna spar in the training room for a bit. I'm gonna beat yer desire to show off outta ya one way or another. Got it?"
Ben nodded glumly and Ranma turned to Max. "Max, good job out there, but ya need ta work on yer teamwork. Watching out fer your squad-mates needs ta be second nature to ya. We'll work on that though, but again damn good job fer yer first fight." Max nodded taking the critique soberly. "Rick, ya did good too, sorry I had ta ask ya ta babysit the noob." Rick grinned, shrugging philosophically.
Motoko, who had been watching this nodded. Ranma was handling being in charge very well in her opinion, using both the carrot and the stick offered in one discussion. She wondered if she should be taking notes.
Ranma grinned then. "For now we're off duty till tomorrow and Rick and I have a party ta get to soon, and I don't know about him, but I want a shower beforehand. So I'll see ya later."
He was about to turn and leave when Max called him back. "Um, is it alright if we go with you, only neither of us has any plans for the night and it might be nice to get to know one another."
Rick and Ranma shared a glance and Ranma turned the decision over to Rick with a flick of his hand. Rick thought for a minute then nodded. "Alright you can come, meet up with us at the academy in an hour. We'll see you then." The two walked off nodding at the rest of the squadron, who were also all going off own their own errands, before leaving the hanger.
"Kyron seems to have followed orders thus far, the damage his forces did to the Micronian defenders was good, as well as the fact that they never spotted the Boquomouxy Quel-Quallie scout pod we placed near their starboard side. Though I imagine Kyron wasn't pleased when he lost a third of his assaulting forces to the battleships main guns."
Exedore nodded but added a qualifier. "The scout teams have already begun to pick up complete radio transmissions. They are running into problems sifting through it however. The teams are reporting getting a lot of video and radar transmissions that don't make any sense. The Micronians seem to have no idea of emission control. It will be a few weeks before we get any real information."
"Time doesn't matter Exedore, so long as we can keep pounding on the Micronians mobile forces. We need to keep them away from their homeworld, but that is simple enough. Tell Kyron he did well, and allow him to keep attacking."
"Kyron himself will not be taking part in the next few battles my lord, His Glaug suffered too much damage again and he needs to wait three days before a replacement can be sent."
"No matter, keep using the 11th fleet's forces. Remember what Lord Dolza told us, we are to bleed them dry."
Rick and Ranma, both dressed in their uniforms, met up with the other two young men who were also in their uniforms and walked with them to the White Dragon restaurant. "Oh yeah, I've been in here before" Ben exclaimed, "they've got great food and they have a really cute waitress!"
Rick bristled at that but the four walked in and were immediately assaulted by the loud noise of a party in full gear. Music was going, there was food set out on tables and the restaurant was packed with well wishers and friends. Minmei, who had been standing near the doorway with Kasumi, saw them and yelled aloud. "Ranma, Rick!" She came over and hugged them both fiercely. "We heard about the attack are you both alright?" Kasumi simply clung to Ranma in a hug that would've bruised a weaker man's ribs.
Rick answered for both. "We're fine, the fight was tough but we made it through." He began to blush, glad that Sammy was stuck on the bridge dealing with the battle damage as he reached into one of his pockets and pulled out his gift. "H-happy birthday Minmei. I hope you like them."
Mayor Luan moved over to greet the pilots as Minmei opened the jewelry box and squealed happily over the earrings. "Oh Rick they're beautiful thank you so much!" She kissed Rick on the check which caused him to blush even harder.
"Hello Rick, Ranma, nice to see you both made it through the recent trouble." Mayor Luan said. "Who are these fine young men you've got with you?"
"Hey sir, this is Max and Ben, they're new pilots assigned to my flight. They didn't have anything ta do so Rick brought 'em along to get ta know 'em tonight." Ranma, grinning at Rick's embarrassment put one arm around Kasumi's waist holding her to his side gently handing over his own gift to Minmei with his other hand. "Happy birthday little sister, this is from both Kasumi and me."
Minmei opened the gift and gasped in pleasure at the swimsuit and sari revealed inside. "Oh guys, it's wonderful! Thank you so much, this is the bathing suit I was going to buy myself for the Ms. Macross contest. Thank you sooooo much!" She grabbed them both in a hug, showering them with kisses. Rick looked on a little jealously until Minmei turned away grabbing his arm and pulling him into the crowd.
Ranma, with Kasumi still by his side led Max and Ben to a nearby table, grabbing some food on the way. As they sat Ben asked "So who's this pretty lady Ranma, your girlfriend or what?"
Ranma kissed a blushing Kasumi gently on the forehead. "This is Kasumi, and yeah ya could say she's my girlfriend. So keep yer eyes to yourselves guys." He said this half jokingly but both the other pilots got the impression he was very serious too.
Ben changed the subject as Rick rejoined them with a plate of food, having gotten away from Minmei by promising her he would dance with her after he ate something. "So how well did you guys think you did in that battle? I think I got five before I y'know…"
He subsided under Ranma's suddenly hard glare but thankfully Max saved his wingmen from any further grief. "I didn't do so well, I only shot down twenty or so." He turned to Rick and Ranma. "How many do you think you got sirs?"
Rick shrugged. "I don't know twenty, maybe? I don't really keep count."
"Who cares?" Ranma answered bluntly. "Our objective ain't racking up kills, it's ta defend this fortress. I've never kept kill totals and you know why, it's 'cause it don't matter. The aliens don't care about the lives of their fighters so killing them in droves ain't going ta matter ta them."
"But how will we know who's the best if we don't keep score" Max asked ingenuously.
Rick looked at him askance but Ranma again answered bluntly. "We keep score by seeing who's alive at the end of the battle. This ain't a game kid, where you get extra points for getting a high score. Our objective, our mission is ta defend people like Kasumi or Minmei and everyone else here not ta rack up kills or earn bragging rights. If ya joined just ta prove ya can do it, or ta show everyone how good you are, ya need ta rethink your priorities." Ranma left the two of them there as Kasumi pulled him to his feet and from there to the dance floor.
Max and Ben sat for a moment each with their own thoughts. Ben realized that maybe he really did need to rethink how he felt about all this. Nearly being shot down in his first battle put him in an introspective frame of mind.
Max on the other hand was thinking very hard about what had been said but for an entirely different reason. All his life Max had been the best in practically anything he put his hand to. School, sports, martial arts, girls, video games, and then in the simulator at the academy, he had been the best at them all. Now here he was being told by the best pilot on the ship (he had listened to the rumors to that extent at least, and from what he saw they had understated Ranma's skill) there was no point to being the best except in letting you do your job better. This did not compute and he determined to watch Ranma and learn from him for a bit before he decided about it.
For Ranma and Kasumi the night passed beautifully, with the two of them dancing for three songs before Kasumi made him dance with Minmei for a few turns, leaving the younger girl flushed and happy, but Rick irritated. The night picked up for him though when Ranma and Kasumi left for their home and he was able to dance with Minmei himself. Despite this however and his attempts to make his feelings clear without actually saying them they parted the night as 'just friends' still.
That evening, Gloval sat in his office smoking on his pipe contemplatively as he looked over the intelligence reports. While he wasn't used to getting and sifting through intel, even he could tell that their intelligence department hadn't come up with any real conclusions yet. Oh, there was some about how long battlepods would take to make if made by humans, and some information about the cost and size of the industry needed to make them in the numbers seen thus far, but what was not there was more telling. There weren't any strategic or tactical recommendations or analyses; there was no intel on how many battlepods they had destroyed during this war, or what those losses could mean, positive or negative. There was no medical intel on the aliens, nothing about their communication systems, which he knew Lt Laird and Lt. Commander Grant had intercepted a time or two. And there was no report about Ranma's fight with 'Kyron' or its implications.
Gloval scowled, and pulled up a list of the ships sections and their personnel, and frowned as he found that Griftel, the lt. in charge of setting up a intelligence section on the ship prior to a higher ranking officer being assigned, was alone in the section. More, as Gloval kept digging he found the Italian lt. commander hadn't even put in a request for more people. Scowling Gloval pulled up his full file.
While Ian Griftel hadn't had any bad marks in his record, what was there was damning if one knew how to read officers performance reviews. After translation from mil-speak the report basically stated he was a lazy nonentity, who simply could not be bothered to put in any effort, would do just the bare minimum to slide by, and who had an inability to think long term or out of the box. Gloval idly wondered for a moment how the man had made it into the intelligence division with these kinds of reviews in his file, but decided in the long run he didn't care. He had to somehow deal with the problem now.
Really he should have caught it before this, but he was always so busy all the time, but there were so many other things taking up his time. First there were the civilians, and dealing with them and the council took up a lot of his time. Then there was the running of the ship and keeping good order. Lisa did a lot of this of course, but much of it had to be done by the captain. Third there was keeping abreast of all the little scientific/construction projects going on everywhere and what they could mean.
Nor was he alone in this. The SDF had been supposed to launch with a skeleton crew and add the rest of the crew in pieces on a 'show the flag' tour across the globe before starting a four month shakedown cruise the disparate groups together. The SDF-1 had been forced to sail with barely half of its allotted crew of 20,000. Add to that the combat losses, especially in the gunnery section, had been heavy, knocking that number down from 11,000 to a little over 9,000. Morale among the maintenance was lousy as a result, despite the amount of money they were making with all the overtime. . Frankly without the city around to give the troops something to do on their off time, the ship would probably have mutinied by now. The civilian teams of engineers and were slowly taking on more and more of the maintenance of the space-fortress, but it was still an issue, and would be for the foreseeable future.
That was neither here nor there at the moment, however. At the moment, Gloval had to light a fire under a lazy lt. commander's ass. He reached forward and pushed a button on his intercom. "Bridge, this is the captain. Send someone to get Lt Griftel and tell him he's wanted in my office. I want someone to escort him here. Make it clear that I am displeased with him." The officer of the watch, Captain Connor replied in the affirmative, and Gloval leaned back in his chair to wait.
The next day Ben was put through the ringer as Ranma basically stomped a hole in him from one end of the training area to another. Max and Rick looked on, one amused and the other in shocked awe as he did so with both arms literally tied behind his back to, as he put it, 'make a point'. After that both new pilots continued their situational awareness training, which basically came down to dodging madly as Ranma and Rick tossed small, hard balls at them yelling 'Dodge'. It was not a fun time for the newbies, but the two experienced pilots enjoyed themselves.
Rick's day became even more amusing when Ranma invited him along to see his punishment for Roy and Eric. "But first we got to go pick up Claudia."
They went up to the bridge where Lisa looked at them quizzically. "I hope you're not here to threaten the captain again lt. Sugita" she said dryly before turning her attention back to the work being done outside on the little damage the space fortress had sustained in the last fight. It's almost as if the aliens have given up on simply smashing their way in and are instead now going to wipe out our defenders first she mused. That could be a very bad sign, especially with our growing logistics issues.
Rick blinked at the accusation but Ranma merely shrugged. "Nah, not here for that, but I've decided it's time fer Roy and commander Prescott to have their penalty game. Just thought Claudia'd like ta come along and see what I do to her fiancée."
Claudia looked at him head cocked to one side. "You know he never told me what he made you put up as a stake in that, what would you have to have done?"
"I'd ah had ta pose in my girl form for a pinup calendar." Ranma answered blithely.
Claudia's eyes narrowed and she nodded affirmatively even as the other women's eyes widened in shock. "Yes Ranma I think I do want to see what you do to him."
She followed the two pilots into the elevator and through the corridors to Roy's office, where he had just been finishing a meeting with the squadron commanders. The door opened as they approached and most of the commanders exited, but several stopping grinning as they realized something was up.
Ranma entered the office and saw Eric was just about to exit. "Oh don't go Commander." He turned and grinned at Roy. "I figured out what yer punishment is gonna be guys or should I say" he pulled out a small water gun and swiftly spritzed both of the older men in the face with it "girls."
Immediately both felt their bodies begin to change and their eyes widened even as the audience gaped in shock. Roy had turned into a blonde woman whose bust was a at least a E cup though she hadn't shrunk at all, still standing at 6 feet 4 in. Eric on the other hand had shrunk, and now stood only around 5 ft. 11 in. and 'her' bust was nowhere near as noticeable being only a mid-B cup.
Roy looked down at 'her'self and her eyes widened. She pulled her shirt forward and stared at her own cleavage, shaking her head as she almost got a nose bleed. Eric was far faster to reover, and it only took her one feel of her privates for her to turn to Ranma and shriek "What the hell did you just do!"
Ranma grinned as the other commanders began to edge away from him, though Claudia simply broke out in laughter, falling to her knees and pounding the floor as she howled with laughter. "Package of instant spring of drowned girl." Ranma had gotten it from Shampoo as a gag gift for his twentieth birthday, saying that maybe his wife and he would like to switch roles at some point. "It'll only last a day and ya can change back with hot water, but I wanted ya ta feel my pain for abit. Just be glad there's no way ta turn ya inta a girl long enough ta get the full treatment." He laughed, and the watching squadron leaders, realizing it was not permanent began to laugh too.
Claudia hover had gotten control of herself and marched forward grabbing Roy's arm. "Serves you right trying to make Ranma pose in a pinup calendar, who knows what you pilots would have used it for. Come on Romilda we're going to make the most of this." With Roy protesting the entire way Claudia dragged him off to the shopping district. Eric starred hard at Ranma as he and Rick left as well, still laughing. "Of course you know, this means war."
Later that same day Lisa found herself called into captain Gloval's office. When she arrived she was surprised to see Nodoka there. "Sir, you wanted to see me?"
Gloval looked a little uncomfortable as he replied. "Yes commander, come in please." Lisa did so, head cocked inquiringly and the captain continued. "Commander Hayes, have you heard about the Ms. Macross contest that the civilians are holding next week?"
"Yes sir. I was told that it was a way to boost morale among the civilians."
And that was indeed the reason Mayor Luan had thought up the idea. The civilians had largely fallen into three very different camps. One was the camp that was happy to be here, not only happy with the city and the life there but to be in space. This camp was composed of welders, factory workers, small business owners and intellectuals who were thrilled to be here and/or thrilled with the amount of work and money they were getting.
The second camp was comprised of people who were decidedly not happy to be here. They were unhappy to be dealing with the military at all and felt that because the spaceship fired the first shot they should be doing everything in their power to make peace with the aliens. This group was a vocal group, but really only talked to itself as no one else had the necessary lobotomy to understand them.
The third group was the smallest. These people were the so-called famous actors, that had been in the city for the opening ceremony of the battleship, politicians (here for the same reason but with no real power to speak of and thus useless) and workers, family people and others who were not happy for various reasons. This group didn't particularly care about peace, they just wanted things to return to the pre-alien status quo.
The morale of the last two was pretty bad, and the first had taken several hits with the number of battles fought and men lost.
"Yes, that is the reason for the contest. I feel, and the rest of the council feel, that the military needs to have some representatives take part, to show a softer side of the military and to put a human face on the SDF for those parts of the populations that don't deal with us on a daily basis." He coughed uncomfortably and she looked at him blankly.
"Sir you can't seriously be asking me to enter this contest?"
Nodoka smiled at her. "Oh but I'd think you would do very well my dear. You are after all a beautiful young woman, and I have heard your singing voice, it's quite nice." Lisa blushed at the compliments, which were made all the better coming from a woman who was herself beautiful, but she was still going to protest when Nodoka went on. "In any case Mayor Luan has specifically requested you and at least two others. Lt. Aoyama and lt. Young have both volunteered, and I understand the other young ladies are going to help her get ready for it. You don't have to do well or even put in any effort at all, all we are asking you to do is participate." Well, she was telling a bit of a fib there, Motoko had not in fact agreed to participate until Nodoka had bribed her with swordswoman lessons. That she was taking to them like a duck to water was merely a bonus.
Lisa calmed down and thought of it for a moment then sighed and nodded. "Alright, I'll do it. Was that all sir?"
"Er, yes that will be all." As Lisa left Gloval shot Nodoka a grateful look. "Thank you my dear that would have been incredibly awkward without you here."
Nodoka smirked, moving around the desk. "I think I know how you can make it up to me." Gloval gulped, Oh boy.
Elsewhere at the same moment Lisa was being railroaded into joining the contest, another person was having the same done to her. Kasumi looked down on the bowed heads of every male classmate she had for the last two semesters, all bowing before in supplication, stopping her from leaving her last class of the day. "Kasumi-sama, please represent the college in the Ms. Macross contest!"
For a moment Kasumi simply stood there in utter confusion. "Ano, why are you asking me? Surely there are several other much prettier women who you could ask."
The one directly in front of her, apparently the spokesman answered her. "But none of them can match your grace, your beauty, your poise, your voice!"
She blushed slightly but not so much. She got compliments from Ranma after all, and they meant far more to her then the compliments from faceless almost strangers. "Why are you all interested in this contest anyway, the prize is certainly not something I want, else I would not be going for an interior design degree." She paused as she noticed that even some faculty members were among the people kneeling, and she shook her head. "No, I'm sorry but unless there is a really good reason for me to enter I won't even consider it."
One of the faculty members kneeling coughed uncomfortably before taking over the narrative. "Um there have been a few additional incentives added to the official prize. If the representative of an institution wins not only do they get the individual prize but the institution gets 10,000 M dollars." M dollars was the currency the ship used in place of the UN scrip or the food vouchers that they had been using before the hydroponics gardens had their first harvest. M dollars had been created after that, backed by a full day's work in the factory or a full day's work in the fields. 10,000 of them would give the college enough to pay for practically anything they wanted.
It even made Kasumi pause and think for a moment. "Alright, in return for a tenth of that money if I win I will enter this contest." The students cheered but the faculty had to get together to debate the point. They deliberated for ten minutes then nodded agreement. "If you win, you get a tenth of the money. But only if you win."
Kasumi nodded serene agreement before bowing and moving through the throng. She had a few people she wanted to talk to.
At the same time Kasumi and Lisa were being conscripted a dastardly nefarious plan (alright not so nefarious but certainly hilarious) was being concocted by Roy and Eric. "So we're agreed, he can't be allowed to get away with this."
Eric nodded. "Hell no, and this is definitely a case of the punishment fitting the crime. I'll go and sign him up right away. It's not like enough people know about his other form to object if we can do it." Roy grinned. Ranma was going to wish he never pranked them.
Later that night Lisa came out of her meditation at a knock on her door. She looked up quizzically, wondering who would be coming to see her so late at night. When she opened the door she was surprised to see Kasumi and Minmei. "Kasumi, it's rare for you to come see me rather than the other way around, and Minmei, how are you?" the younger girl smiled but looked as puzzled as Lisa did. "What's up?"
Kasumi smiled. "I have a proposition for you both."
A week passed, and every day there was an attack that chewed up the Veritech squadrons, though much less so than the first attack now that the radar teams knew and could compensate for the radar suppression the aliens had suddenly started using. Yet the morale of the troops would have sunk badly if they didn't have the Ms. Macross contest to look forward to. Thanks to the sterling efforts of Mayor Luan and his PR department it was all anyone could talk about.
On the day of the contest Ranma and his flight had originally been scheduled to be on patrol but because three of the four wanted to go watch the contest, Ranma had allowed them to skive off. He was well able to scout around on his own, and besides, it wasn't like everyone else hadn't begged off for the day. However further complications had arisen to this plan. "What do you mean I'm entered into the contest!?"
Minmei shrugged. "I don't know, I definitely didn't enter you all I know is you're names on the register, 'Ranma Sugita'. You're scheduled to go right before me. Maybe somebody entered you as a prank?"
Ranma growled. "Roy and Eric, it's gotta be. I am so gonna pound on them… Well whatever, just tell the organizers that I didn't enter myself, I can't go or whatever."
"We can't! Not at this late a date, they'd have to reorganize everything, I already asked."
"Well I can't go, I'm scheduled ta patrol at the time of contest!"
Ranma showed Minmei the recon rotation schedule and after a moment Minmei said "But you're scheduled to start at ten, the contest starts at six. You'll be able to participate at least in part, that way you can be there, get knocked out of the contest early and get back to take your patrol, so everyone wins. Besides I'd like for you to be there and I'm sure Kasumi would like the support."
"Yeah, everyone wins but me." Ranma groused. He looked at her puppy dog expression and sighed. "Fine, I'll do it, but the moment the clock hits ten I'm out of there." Minmei nodded happily and went with him to grab a change of clothing and a bathing suit.
When they arrived at the outdoor amphitheater that was holding the event Ranma was surprised to see Lisa there as well as Kasumi. After a brief expatiation of why they were all there (Ranma had only heard about Kasumi participating, not Lisa or Motoko) they went in to change. Grabbing a black piece of cloth out of her bag, Ranma, who had changed back at his apartment, tied it around her head, covering her eyes.
"Ranma...why are you doing that?" Minmei asked, confused, though Lisa and Kasumi had simply smiled in appreciation.
"Keeps me from being pummeled" Ranma responded easily.
Kasumi moved to stand next to the redhead on one side and Lisa and Minmei took the other with Kim Young and Motoko joining them. Kasumi briefly whispered something in the redhead's ear causing her to gulp and blush heavily but otherwise they changed without incident. Kim and Lisa started up a conversation while Motoko took a long, long look around then resolutely kept her eyes down as she changed quickly.
At precisely six the announcer, a thin, rather effete man took the stage. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, let me welcome you to the Ms. Macross competition, I'm you're host for the evening Pouf, and I will be introducing and asking the contestants questions. To my right you'll see our panel of judges. Now without further ado, let's get this show started!" This proclamation was answered by a roar of approval from the crowd.
Motoko Aoyama was the second name to be called and she walked out wearing a normal bikini, red in color, to set off her rapidly disappearing tan. She got a round of applause, but no more and no less than the other competitors, who were all pretty. Lisa was then called at about the fifteenth, and she walked out to a round of applause. She had worn a severe one piece that set off her legs and accented without revealing her bust. It was simple but elegant. She took her place in line and waited through five more people before Minmei came out.
She had worn the two-piece bathing suit that Kasumi had bought as well as the sarong that Ranma gave her. From the roar of the crowd they certainly approved despite her more childish figure in comparison to some of the other contestants, though that might have as much to do with her being so well-liked as it did the swimsuit. One contestant in particular was put by the amount of praise this unknown girl was getting. Lois Kent was a famous actress back on earth and she had become more and more incensed by how little people were paying attention to her here in this stupid space city. She hoped to revamp her fame with this little contest.
Next of the five friends to come out was Ranma who had worn a simple blue one piece with the phrase 'untouchable' on the front and a picture of a fist below it. She got some applause anyway, because despite this her figure was one of the best out there, and a lot of the crowd figured she was just spunky. Next was Kasumi, wearing a gold colored one-piece with a conservative cut, but again she got applause because it did little to hide her figure. Kim Young came next to last, and wore the most daring swimsuit of the five, a bikini that barely covered anything along with another sarong. While the crowd seemed to like it the judges did not, they were looking for poise and personality, not simple sex appeal.
So unfortunately she was among the first to be cut from the completion, along with Lt Aoyama, who simply fell a little flat to the judges. The judges thought about cutting Ranma as well, but another woman got cut instead. The two girls retreated with the seven other women that had been cut, one ecstatic that this ordeal was over with, the other sad she hadn't lasted longer, but philosophical about it. After all, she didn't really want the prize, just a bit of face-time.
The next competition was for dresses and again contestants were called out by number of points earned so far, least to greatest. Of the four remaining friends Ranma was called first, and came out dressed in his uniform, as he/she didn't actually ever willingly wear dresses if she could help it. She walked out with his/her natural grace, stopped and stood there waiting for the others. This got a thunderous applause from the crowd, more than half of which was composed of military personnel.
"That's the redhead I was telling you about Ben, isn't she hot? I thought Lt. Aoyama was beautiful but wow! Pity I haven't been able to find her since then, I'm sure we could hit it off if I met her again." Max grinned, glasses gleaming behind his glasses as he watched the stage from where he and Ben stood at the outer edge of the auditorium. Being lowly ensigns, they hadn't had enough m-dollars to purchase seats.
Ben looked at his friend quizzically. "You do know that her name's Ranma right? I mean you have heard the rumors about him, and we know that ki stuff is real so…"
"Those rumors are just that, rumors. Ki is real obviously, it can even be scientifically proven according to this paper of Dr. Lang's I skimmed but magic? Changing from one form to another by getting splashed by water? No way can something like that exist. They must be siblings, they look alike anyway, and I've heard that Japanese families sometimes give twins the same name in spoken form, but the written forms will have different meanings. Ranma probably changes meaning like that, from wild stallion to wild… orchid, flower or something like that. Who cares about that right now, isn't she hot? God I have to meet her again."
Ben stared at his friend for a moment, then shook his head slowly and turned back to the stage in time to see Commander Hayes march out.
In a stark contrast to Ranma's flowing automatic grace Lisa took full advantage of her military upbringing and marched out as if she was on the parade ground, back straight, arms moving in synch with her steps with a control that would have made the most sadistic drill sergeant weep in joy. She stopped, turned sharply and saluted the crowd, earning another thunderous round of applause. The announcer shook his head, this was turning out to be a very odd talent/beauty contest, and he wasn't sure where it was going. The next few contestants were more normal though and he settled back into his routine.
Five contestants later Kasumi was next, having lost a few points for the conservative nature of her swimsuit. She came out dressed in the same dress she wore on dates with Ranma, a sleeveless blue dress with tight shoulders that hugged her hips before flaring out loosely around her legs. Again it accented her body without putting it on display, and while the response wasn't as enthusiastic from the crowd, she got points from the judges for style.
After two more contestants Minmei came out dressed in the china dress she used at the restaurant which got another round of applause from the crowd though lost her a few points for lack of imagination from the judges.
After this round, several more contestants were cut, and the actress was in the lead by a slight margin, with Kasumi the closest of the four to her. Ranma was still in the contest because she had received points for coming out in her uniform, as was Lisa, but both were near the bottom in terms of points. Well Lisa was near, Ranma was at the bottom.
"And next is the question and answer portion of our completion, where we get to know our contestants a little better before the singing completion. While contestants can earn points in this part of the completion with well thought out or imaginative answers to the questions, no one is going to be eliminated in this round. First up is contestant Sugita, I see you're wearing a uniform, what do you do in the military and what do you hope to accomplish in this contest? Please say your name before answering the first question."
"Ranma Sugita, I'm a lieutenant in the Valkyrie squads, I fly and kill aliens, and as to this contest, I didn't enter myself." Ranma said bluntly. "I was entered as a practical joke by some people who seem to think that just because they are my commanding officers I won't kick their asses for this little stunt!" She grabbed the mike and growled out "I know you two jokers are watching, I hope you get a good damn laugh from this, 'cause yer gonna get the beating of a life time when I catch up with ya!"
The majority of the audience laughed thinking this was a joke but two individuals in it stared at one another in horror. "He wouldn't really beat us up for this would he?" Asked Roy, "I mean it was just a joke and all, and he got us first."
"Yes but that was as payment for a bet" Eric muttered glumly. "And remember those rumors about his threatening the captain when he found out he was dating Nodoka. I'm afraid we're just going to have to take our lumps, I fear that if we try and run it'll only make the beatings worse." Roy groaned rueful agreement.
"Hahahaha, she's so full of spunk and fire. I really like that." Again Ben looked at Max oddly as he heard this then shook his head sadly.
Back on stage the announcer had vein going on his forehead but gamely pressed on. "Please refrain from cursing or threatening random people on stage. Let's move on, um, is there a special someone watching for you despite that?"
"Huh, um well yeah, I'm in a relationship if that's what yer asking." Ranma answered honestly.
"Oh?" The announcer found his footing again and pressed on with the rote response "Well would you like to share his name with us, maybe wish him well?"
Ranma raised an eyebrow. "When did I say it was a guy?"
The announcer backed off from that line of questioning as the crowd laughed, booed or cheered depending on their gender and/or moral values.
"See Max, ya better give up on her, she's already in a relationship." Ben said, hoping to steer his friend away from the cliff he saw looming in the future.
"Ah but she said it was with another woman my friend which opens up all kinds of possibilities." Ben had to nod in agreement with that, he was a guy after all. "And besides, a rose cannot truly bloom when paired with another rose. It just means she hasn't found the right man yet to show her true joy." Ben began to back away from his friend at that point. Maybe if he distanced himself none of the splatter would get on him when Ranma learned about that idea.
"Um, w'well then, let's just move on to the next question. What do you think of education today?"
"meh, I think it's important if ya know what ya want ta do with yer life, but how many kids go inta school knowin' that? And the way it's taught is too damn boring anyway. I mean, who cares about these authors and these so-called classics if yer not going inta writing or theatre, or geography if ya know ya ain't gonna be moving around much? We need ta start in high school of maybe even middle school and get kids to figure out what they want ta do and what they need ta start learning to do it. Otherwise ya get people like me who barely pass classes we don't care about and barely get the jobs we want because of the bad grades from classes that don't matter towards our jobs."
The audience laughed and cheered at Ranma's off the cuff answer while the announcer tried manfully to restrain his anger at how flippant this redhead was. "Um I think that's enough questions for now, let's move on to the next contestant. Contestant Monroe, what do you think is the greatest problem facing society as a whole…."
Ranma moved back to her spot in the line, grinning at Kasumi and Lisa as he did. She stood there in line looking at her watch occasionally. About fifteen minutes later, she moved back of the line and then off the stage, ignoring the odd looks she was getting.
The stage director tried to stop her from walking off whispering angrily "Where the hell do you think you're going the show isn't over! You can't just walk off!"
"For me the show is over dude. I got patrol in ten, if I leave now I can get there in time." Ranma answered flippantly. Ranma went back into the changing room, swiftly changing out of her full uniform to her flight suit.
The stage manager nearly followed her in, but was waiting for her as she left. "You can't just leave, you're in the finals, how will that look to everyone if you just leave?!"
"Not my problem. I ain't gonna shirk my duty for this dumbass contest that I didn't even enter willingly!"
"What seems to be the problem?" Mayor Luan, one of the judges had followed them having heard the shouting as Ranma walked off.
"I got patrol, I've been scheduled for days now, and ain't no one can cover for me 'cause most of 'em are out in that audience. I already okay'd the rest of my flight skiving off, I can't do the same."
"But the singing contest is the last one, surely you can"
"How about a compromise" Luan soothed "Ranma would you be adverse to bringing along a microphone and singing while out on patrol?" To his mind this would be a major PR coup, Ranma almost certainly wouldn't win, but he and Lisa would have done a spectacular job of putting a face, and very pretty faces at that, on the armed forces, a win-win for him and the ship in general.
Ranma looked at him askance. She had been planning to change back into a guy before heading out, but whatever. "Yeah okay if you've got one good to go right now."
Within five minutes she was on her way. Another five minutes of Ranma travel™ brought him to the nearest elevator to the hanger, and another ten brought him to his plane. He scrambled up it, not bothering to say hi to the few workmen on duty at the moment and into his cockpit. Once strapped in he began to maneuver around to the entrance. "This is blue five requesting clearance to take off for recon flight."
Claudia's voice answered him full of wry humor. "Roger blue five cleared to take off. I'm afraid you're going to be all alone out there, but it's not like that's a big deal at the moment. I'm all alone up here too. Captain Gloval let everyone off to watch the contest except the barrier crews." And they have a TV in their room so it doesn't matter. It had been a calculated risk on Gloval's part who felt the benefit to morale was worth the chance they would be attacked without sufficient defense. "Blue 12 just came in a few minutes ago, so you're timing despite the contest was pretty good. How'd you get them to let you go by the way?"
"I didn't" Ranma grimaced and related the deal Mayor Luan had forced on him.
Claudia shook her head. "Only you Ranma, oh well, it's not like anything should happen, the aliens already sent an attack our way already today."
"Hmm" Ranma taxied off the runway and out of the hanger and into space.
Back at the contest Minmei had just finished her song to resounding applause, even from most of her remaining competiion. Kasumi enfolded her into a hug and Lisa, who had already had her turn smiled at her encouragingly. "That was fantastic Minmei, where did you learn that song I've never heard it before?"
Minmei blushed ducking her head into the older girl's shoulder for a moment. "I wrote it myself." Needless to say with the amount of military people in the audience 'My boyfriend is a pilot' was a major hit.
"And our next contestant is Ranma Sugita. Unfortunately due to her military duties she was unable to finish the contest here, but we have arranged to have her singing pumped here straight from her Veritech cockpit. Ms. Sugita can you hear me?"
Out in space about a kilometer off the starboard bow of the space fortress hovered a Boquomouxy Quel-Quallie scout pod, which had for the past week been taking in, recording and sifting through every radio and video transmission coming out of the fortress. Unfortunately just because they had been taking in a lot of information didn't really imply they were any close to achieving their mission's goals. It would help if they had some reference point to start with, but other than a basic language translation program the spies were on their own. Well, saying they were spies was being a little generous. Okay, a lot generous. You could say they had been picked out of the small group of pilots who were rated on the scout pod randomly and you would be much closer to the truth.
Bron, a large almost overweight Zentraedi who was the leader of this team turned and looked at his fellow 'spies' Rico and Konda. "Well, do either of you have any idea what this is? I confess I still haven't been able to make heads or tails out of any of the data we've been getting. Even after a week of spying on them we're no closer to understanding these Micronians than we were before we started this mission. Lord Admiral Breetai will not be pleased."
"Ugh that is an understatement of a lifetime. These Micronians are so… chaotic, so strange and different, I'm beginning to understand why our ancestors forbid us from interacting with them." Rico, the smallest and least senior of them said. He had served on several scout missions against the Invid before, mostly because in the scout groups his short stature didn't matter as much to his fellows.
Konda shrugged. "I agree, yet at the same time there is something strangely interesting about them. These last few videos in particular. Whatever they are doing, some kind of morale boosting thing, does seem… compelling."
"I agree, though I fail to… wait, incoming patrol. Make certain our emissions are kept low and the optical screen is up, but ready our weapons just in case." Konda and Rico nodded and turned back to the controls.
Command I'm getting something on my radar here, don't know what it is, could be a sensor ghost or something. Moving to investigate."
"Roger Blue 5, stay frosty."
Ranma moved closer stretching out his ki enhanced radar slowly, being careful to not piggy back the system with his consciousness, just funneling a bit of his ki into it to power it. Even with that aid, the optical screen and was able to block his radar until he was right on top of the thing before he could do more than sense it.
The ship in front of him was larger than even Kyron's command pod, with green painting on most of it and large lasers at the front with even large thrusters at the back. An instant later most of it began to disappear from his screen again and he cursed, before blasting away with his lasers and rifle, remaining in jet mode for now as he tried to maneuver around the thing.
One of his shots apparently hit something vital as suddenly the cloaking device failed and before him the small spaceship appeared again, moving rapidly away from him. The thing immdiatley began to fire off missiles at him and back away.
Even as he began to wildly evade the missiles coming at him Ranma was almost fatally startled when his microphone form the contest began to speak. "Ms. Suigta can you hear me?"
"GAH, yes," he used his head lasers to kill a missile that had almost got him, using the resulting explosion to move back a little and began to fire at the enemy ship again. "What do ya want?"
"It's your turn Ms. Sugita, you can start singing now."
"Oh great now ya want me ta sing. I'm a little busy here damn it. Fuck missiles too?" Ranma swung his jet one way and the other dodging more and more missiles and shooting down any he could. "Alright I'll sing this kinda does seem ta scream musical accompaniment. Ya know the song 'unbreakable', play it."
Ranma transformed into his soldier mode and began to sing, moving through the massive missile swarm like a dancer, singing with all the emotion he could pour into it. "Where are the people that accused me? The ones who beat me down and used me, they hide just out of sight, can't face me in the light, they'll return but I'll be stronger!" Using his head lasers and rifle to take out the incoming missiles as his own missiles locked onto the enemy ship, exploding along its side, taking out a laser and one of its engines slowing it down. "God, I want to dream again, take me where I've never been, I want to go there, this time I'm not scared, now I am unbreakable, it's unmistakable, no one can touch me, nothing can stop me!"
The enemy ship skewed to bring it other cannon to bear, firing even more missiles in one huge swarm.
Inside the spy ship Konda was working the weapons systems while Bron tried to transfer as much of their data to a hard disk that he could, sending out a real-time recording to command at the same time, but he noticed Rico seemed frozen at his station. "Rico what the hell are you doing!"
Rico turned to the others, his gray face pale. "We're getting a transmission from the fighter attacking us, its… it's a female!"
Fear gripped all three for a second, and then they jumped into action, trying desperately to break off the engagement, flushing all their missiles at once. Unfortunately Ranma had gotten behind them before they could react, turning his back for the moment on the missile swarm still tracking him.
"Sometimes it's hard to just keep going but faith is moving without knowing. Can I trust what I can't see? To reach my destiny, I want to take control but I know better!" Again and again she strafed the enemy ship until its engines finally died, whereupon she turned and used her rifle and head lasers to deal with the remaining missiles. "God, I want to dream again, take me where I've never been I want to go there, this time I'm not scared. Now I am unbreakable, it's unmistakable, no one can touch me, nothing can stop me!"
As the last missile exploded Ranma closed in, losing her rifle in the process to the remaining laser emplacements but getting close enough to be under their range of fire. She began to use her Valkyrie's fists to start pummeling the side of the ship in. "Forget the fear it's just a crutch that tries to hold you back and turn your dreams to dust, all you need to do is just trust! God, I want to dream again, take me where I've never been, I want to go there, this time I'm not scared! Now I am unbreakable, it's unmistakable no one can touch me, nothing can stop me!"
After a few seconds the ship's armor gave way under his fists and he pulled the armor apart to get at the interior. "God, I want to dream again, take me where I've never been, I want to go there this time I'm not scared! Now I am unbreakable, it's unmistakable, no one can touch me, nothing can stop me!"
With the last chorus the interior was before her and she saw three aliens sitting in front of a ton of strange equipment. One of them turned to run to some kind of small area set apart at the back of the ship while the other two were scrambling for their weapons. Before either could raise them however, she opened up with her head lasers, stitching all three within seconds. That done she jetted out the entrance she just ripped in the side of the ship.
But before she could call it in and ask for someone to come and help her tow in her prize the ship exploded behind her sending her Valkyrie tumbling a little. "Well fuck, sore losers. Command this is Blue 5. Reporting destruction of some kind of spy ship, I tried ta take it intact but they must have had some kind of dead-man's switch on it."
'Roger that Blue 5, are you good to go?"
"Roger that command, continuing sweep."
Back at the contest the line had died leaving the judges and audience somewhere between awe and utter ravening terror at the emotion, the rage, the fierce joy and battle-lust in Ranma's voice as she fought and destroyed her enemies. Lisa, already having had her turn at singing (the most embarrassing thing she had ever done, the captain owed her big time for this) smiled grimly. Only Ranma could both fight a brand new enemy ship class and sing a song at the same time. Though it looks as if the judges and audience didn't like it so much…
Out in the audience Ben surreptitiously checked to make certain he hadn't pissed himself. The pure emotion and raw edged pleasure in the fight that Ranma had put into that song was beyond scary.
To his side however Max sighed. "I think I'm in love, she's utterly magnificent, like a modern day Amazon."
For some reason Ben knew that phrase would come back to haunt him…
The audience stayed restless and quiet through the next three performances, none of which came off as well as those singing them could have hoped, still in shock from the raw feelings Ranma's singing had shown. That ended as Kasumi took her turn. She stepped to the front of the stage and smiled demurely. "I will be singing 'Open your mind' by Yoko Ishida in the original Japanese. I apologize but it really doesn't scan well in English." With a deep breath she began "Fukai ao no sekai koete meguriau…"As she sung, the audience settled down swiftly. It was as if a calming balm had settled into all their minds soothing their worries away. When she finished the applause was thunderous from the audience and the judges both and the competition continued.
Ten minutes after the last singer performed the ballots were in. The announcer took the paper from the last judge in line and opened it. "Alright ladies and gentlemen, the moment you've all been waiting for. The winner of the Ms. Macross contest is…..!"
End chapter
This chapter was dedicated to weebee who wrote RDF Life, if you haven't read it it's pretty good.
In the original anime, the unification of Earth is really just glossed over. Real unification though, without borders and a fully integrated military, would be impossible to achieve in so short a time (the time from the crash landing of Zor's fortress and the launch of the SDF-1) if it ever really could be. Hence the reason I wanted to show that the SDF-1 was going to go to different countries to pick up its crew piece by piece to fly the flag and drive home the seriousness of pushing the UNSF. It also helps to explain why the civilian recruits are so important at all levels, though of course I've been concentrating on their contributions to the Veritech forces.