I don't own the robots, or the martial artists.

I enjoyed reading some of the reviews, and I'm glad everyone enjoyed how Lisa has joined Ranma and Kasumi, though no one commented on the sections I added to chapter 1.

Chapter 13 an unlucky number indeed

Ranma was still sleeping the next morning when Kasumi and Lisa woke up, and they left her to it. "How long do you think Ranma will keep sleeping?" Kasumi asked amusedly.

"I don't know, I don't think he actually slept at all, he kept meditating rather than sleeping." Lisa shrugged, reaching over to hand Kasumi some miso sauce. "He had to use his ki a lot to move his Valkyrie around and he said that took a lot out of him."

"Oh dear," Kasumi said, her face showing a certain amount of worry. "Yes I've heard about how much it takes out of him to enhance his robot's armor. Moving it without any battery aid must have taken even more out of him. He'll be very hungry when he wakes up, I'll have to prepare some extra food for him." Kasumi smiled happily and began to bustle around even more. Truthfully she found she could no longer predict how quickly Ranma could recover from using his ki, in fact he was getting better at recovery than anyone else she had ever heard of bar Happosai the ki-letch/leach.

Lisa looked at her with a smile on her face. Say what you would about the odd relationship she had agreed to try, Kasumi was a breath of home life that she truly enjoyed. "So what's been going while we've been, out of touch, shall we say?" She asked deliberately making light of the ordeal.

Kasumi went along with her. "Well, while you were out gallivanting not a lot has been happening here, at least on the civilian side. Auntie has been neck deep in work on enlarging the hydroponics sections, and Minmei has been almost completely consumed by her new singing career, so much so that I'm a little worried about her actually." She made no mention of the morale nosedive that had occurred, she knew Lisa was uncomfortable with her fame. She went on more seriously "The military side however has been having problems, at least according to the news reports I've been following."

"The attacks have been coming more and more often, and that alien commander Ranma tangled with, Kyron I believe, has been at the forefront every time. I know Max, Roy and a few others have clashed with him, but he never stays in the fight long. Your presence has been sorely missed, the soldiers I have talked to have mentioned it quite a few times."

She smiled wickedly "I gather much of that was in the feeling of not knowing what they had until it was gone, you'll probably find yourself much more respected now that they have done without you a few times." Lisa had confided in her the festering resentment the Veritech pilots felt having a tactical officer in charge of them, but having done without her for nearly a week seemed to have killed that emotion with extreme prejudice. "If you feel up to it we should probably stop in on the bridge at some point today."

Lisa nodded, that sounded like a good idea. Really, good food and rest had killed most of her exhaustion from the ordeal, and she was never one to sit idle if she could help it. But she cocked her head quizzically, "we?"

Kasumi nodded. "I'd rather like to see where you work, Auntie has been on the bridge several times but I've never gone with her. And this viewport out into space she has talked about a time or two sounds fascinating." Lisa nodded, and the two turned back to making breakfast. As they were setting the table Nodoka came out of her room, still wearing what she thought of as pajamas. The two younger women took one look and would have described it as either a marital aid or negligee, although the thought also occurred to both to hope they looked that good when they were forty-five. "Hello dears, how are you this morning? Have you recovered from your incarceration Lisa?" She kissed them good morning on their foreheads.

"We're fine auntie" the two women chorused, smiling at her. Lisa loved the little moments when Nodoka acted motherly to her. While she was a grown woman, she had never really had a mother growing up and so these moments gave her a glimpse of what could have been. Kasumi too loved it, but she at least had some memories of her mother.

The three women sat down at the table and began to eat and talk together in low voices. Nodoka filled the other two in her hydroponics project. It was started with the idea to enlarge the hydroponics section to allow them to add animals once they got back to Earth. Of course despite the amount of room she had to play with this was causing her some issues as she had to help design farms that could handle animals, as well as figuring out how to incorporate safety precautions if the ship lost gravity or power for any reason. That, Lisa was surprised to find had actually happened twice while she was gone, and it worried her a lot as without power the ship would be a sitting duck, and they would be swiftly overwhelmed.

Nodoka changed the subject suddenly, looking at Lisa. "By the way Lisa I have a bit of a bone to pick with you, two bones in fact." Lisa looked at her in surprise and Nodoka went on "I understand that you have many duties you must see to as executive officer but I think you and Gloval have both been falling down on the job in one way, and that is the need to train those under you. A captain trains his executive officer so that he is ready to take a command him or herself, and the executive officer trains his successor and so on. Young Vanessa was grossly unprepared for taking over your position." She softened her gaze a little. "It isn't your fault dear, as much as it is Henri's but both of you need to take the time to train your officer's better." Her eyes hardened noticeably. 'I have already had words with him" both women winced at her tone, and knew that the captain had probably not enjoyed that discussion much. "and he will be taking over some of your duties to give you time to train up Vanessa."

Lisa nodded, that was part of their job as officers, but it had fallen by the wayside as more and more crises popped up that she or the captain had to deal with it had been forgotten. "Alright auntie, I'll think up a training program and have Vanessa start on it tonight. What was the other issue?"

Nodoka grinned "I haven't heard about how you and my son got together. Tell me how his manly charms won you over and spare no details!" Lisa and Kasumi shared a commiserating glance then looked back at the older woman and they knew they wouldn't escape her until she found out all she wanted to know.

After Lisa had told a bare bones version of how she and Ranma had decided to try out a relationship and how Kasumi was okay with it, Nodoka sighed happily. "Ah it does my heart good to know that my little stallion has finally come into his own, being confident without being arrogant, kind without worrying how weak it would make him look. I shudder to think how he would be if he had arrived in Nerima having had only his father as a role model."

Lisa nodded. "I agree I don't think I would have fallen for Ranma as I have if Kasumi hadn't broken him to the saddle first so to speak." She gasped and brought her hands up to her mouth looking at Kasumi fearfully, realizing how bad that sounded.

Kasumi however took it in stride, her best oblivious airhead look on her face. "Ara, does that mean you want to take Ranma for a ride soon Lisa-san?" Her expression turned from oblivious to teasingly sexy in an instant. "I can assure you it is quite the wild experience!"

Lisa blushed heavily, sporting a little nosebleed at the idea and the memories it conjured as Nodoka laughed. Seeing that Lisa was uncomfortable with this line of discussion however the former angel of Nerima adroitly changed the subject. "You asked me how my studies are going and as to that, I'm basically on my last class until the co-op, and I have hopes of getting my advisor to agree to let me work for myself as part of that."

Lisa cocked her head quizzically "how would you do that, I mean wouldn't you need to work with someone who needs a building or interior designed?"

"Normally yes, but I think I can get around that. You see I have been saving quite a bit of money from my job at the White Dragon and from Ranma's paycheck. I almost have enough to buy ten adjoining rooms in the ship area of Macross."

Lisa nodded thoughtfully. With the city being built most everyone who could had moved into it, so space on the ship side, the side which would have initially been for the crew of the battleship, was cheap in comparison to even a one room apartment in the city. Ten ship sized rooms would give Kasumi the same amount of room to work with as a two story penthouse suite. "I'm also nearly done with my plans for the interior of that space, and with Ranma's help I'll be able to build it."

"Oh, Ranma can do construction too?" Lisa asked dryly.

Kasumi nodded. "Martial arts construction, a must have for anyone living in Nerima. Even I know a little, and most of the real marital artists were just as adroit at putting buildings back up then destroying them in the first place."

Lisa blinked shrugged and then asked "So what kind of plans are you going to be making?"

"I don't know quite yet. I think I want to mix styles a bit, have some areas be traditional Japanese, others European and maybe one or two new age. I can see using that in a computer room for example, or an office. But European definitely for the main sitting area, I want to find some very nice plush chairs and maybe some bean bags, those are so comfy."

Lisa nodded she liked the idea of those chairs as well. She looked at the time and got up to put her dishes away in the washer. "Well if you want to come with me Kasumi, we need to start getting ready. I'll take first shower if that's all right, I'll clean up the living room while you take yours."

Kasumi nodded and her friend left. As soon as the door to the bathroom shut Nodoka turned to look at Kasumi. "Are you certain you're all right with this Kasumi-chan? I don't want to see anyone hurt here, even if I do approve of my son being with multiple women."

Kasumi nodded serenely. "I am more than happy with it Nodoka-san. I've known all along that more women would be attracted to Ranma and have always been fine with it. He loves me Auntie, and nothing can or will change that." She smiled. "Do you know one of the first things Ranma said to me when we arrived on the island?" Nodoka shook her head. "He said to me 'pursue your dreams, I'll support you'. He said it again after I got into the college here. Even after we got together officially, when I asked him about it he said 'be yourself, do whatever you want with your life, I will support you however you want me to. I love you.' Well, not in those words, but that's what he meant. Do you have any idea how rare it is to find someone who cares like that, with no desire to change you?" She smiled eyes a little watery.

"He loves me, Kasumi, the me that is a morning person," and horny as all get out in the morning too, I swear I will make you collapse first next time Ranma or, well, collapse trying! "and likes to be pampered, the me who is a bit of a slob, who loves to cook but doesn't like to clean up, the me who wants to design living spaces and would be alright with the idea of a family in the future but not now. Ranma's heart is too big and too generous to neglect those he loves. Regardless of how many women come to care for him and vice versa I will always have a place in his heart."

Nodoka looked at the other girl and smiled happily, gathering her into a hug. "His heart is not the only one so large, my dear." Kasumi simply smiled returning her hug.

Lisa came back soon and Kasumi went to take a shower. Once they were done, the two left to head to the bridge arm in arm and laughing about the idea to make up their hair the same way and get Lisa some brown contact lens to fool people into thinking they were twins.

Nodoka waited a few minutes before checking on her son, who was still asleep. She let him to it and pulled out her computer to work on her plans for the hydroponics area.

Claudia and the other bridge crew looked up as the hatch to the bridge opened admitting Lisa and Kasumi Tendo laughing about something, "He made deals with how many families?!"

"Oh, no one but Genma knows the full amount but 28 showed up over the course of the four years Ranma spent in Nerima. Some were easy to get rid of but quite a few were very hard, especially with Ranma refusing to take any of them more seriously than the others, even going so far as refusing to live with us after the second one showed up."

Lisa shook her head as Claudia walked toward them grinning and the three younger girls grinned and moved to join her. "The wayward commander returns, how are you Lisa?"

"Very well thanks Claudia," Lisa answered walking over to her console and touching the edge fondly. "I missed this place for some reason. So," she turned to Kasumi, "this is where I work, is it what you expected?"

Kasumi looked around then shrugged. "It's a little too metallic and aggressively functional for my tastes." She paused as she looked out the main viewport at the magnificent vista of space "On the other hand the view is incredible…" she breathed, staring out into space in awe. She moved to stand in front of it reaching out gently to touch the glass with a hand as she stood there.

Lisa let her stand there alone for a moment, beckoning Vanessa over to a distant corner. Vanessa started the discussion by gripping Lisa's upper arms. "I can't tell you how glad I am to have you back Commander, I know I've been fouling up your job since you left! I just couldn't handle all the information coming at me at once, and the pressure of combat made it even worse!"

Lisa frowned at her. "Well then we have our work cut out for us don't we Lt.?" Vanessa gulped but nodded doleful agreement. "Now, from now on every night we spend on duty you're going to work on two tactical problems per night on your console. Every time you lose more than a set amount of troops we start over. After six completions I am going to put you through the UNSF tactical officer's course. Then you are going to start helping Claudia and I on the logistics aspect of this job. Am I understood?"

Vanessa nodded glumly but what Kasumi, coming up behind her said put a smile on her face. "Perhaps it would help you if you had some munchies as incentive." Vanessa nodded quick agreement, Kasumi's cooking was practically legendary among those who had tried it, and Lisa smiled.

"Alright enough pampering the bridge crew Kasumi, I'll talk to you later but right now I need to get to work. You're welcome to stay and enjoy the view a bit more though."

Kasumi nodded and went back to staring out the window in awe. I can see why Ranma wanted to go into space so much, this is… amazing. She didn't see the speculative look Claudia was giving her or the even more probing glance she sent Lisa's way.

Ranma woke up around two in the afternoon, not fully recovered but close to it. He sat up from the carpet where he had been sleeping and pushed inward to study his ki reservoir for a moment then grinned. His ability to refill his well of ki had gotten way better in the past few months, and he could tell he was at about half strength. A day of a lot of good food and a lot of exercise would help build the rest back up. His stomach apparently agreed with him and voiced said agreement by loudly growling at that moment. He grumbled but got out of bed and went to the kitchen.

Nodoka looked up as he came in and smiled at him. "Afternoon sleepy head, how are you feeling my son?"

Ranma shrugged. "About as well as I can be feeling. Moving and armoring my Valkyrie takes a lot out of me. But," and here he grinned fondly, "at least I was able to save my Valkyrie. I've gotten really fond of that mech, and it becomes a little easier every time I push my ki through it whichever way I do it. But I do want to see Dr Lang later," he said seriously. "I need ta figure out a way ta add another battery ta my Valkyrie. I use way too much of my own energy ta do anything through it, but I need ta keep using it." Nodoka nodded calmly and told him about what had been going on for a few minutes while he ate then kissed him on the cheek promising to see him for dinner, but she had an appointment with a construction crew. Ranma nodded and kept eating for nearly an hour straight, slowly, he wanted to savor Kasumi's good cooking, but steadily.

After that he left to go see Minmei. He arrived at the white dragon and no sooner had he entered the restaurant that he had been splashed by water, turning into a girl. He looked up expecting to see Minmei but instead saw her aunt standing there looking sheepish. "Just wanted to try it once, just to see why my niece likes to do it so much. It is rather fun watching the change isn't it? My husband and I heard over the news broadcast yesterday that you had shown up again, we were all ecstatic to hear you survived!"

"Hey Mrs. Lynn, don't bother apologizing, I'm sort of used to it, and thanks fer caring, it's nice. But where's Minmei? I sort of thought she'd be one of the civilians to greet us as we landed, for Rick's sake if not for me but she wasn't there."

Fei sighed. "Well as you know she started a singing career after the Ms. Macross contest. The problem is she has been run ragged ever since, she hasn't even been home the last few days. We've tried to get her to cut back but she loves to sing so she won't listen to a word we say."

Ranma narrowed his eyes. "Has Rick been by yet?"

"Yes he stopped by last night. But then he went off with that girlfriend of his. I don't know where he is." Mrs. Lynn sniffed disapprovingly. She knew her niece had feelings for Rick but didn't know how to take the next step, and as for Rick he seemed to not know either or be afraid to take that plunge and just wanted to stay with his present girlfriend because that was safer.

"Do ya know where Minmei should be?"

"She should be in the recording studio downtown I'll give you the address. I hope you can get through to her where we couldn't Ranma. I think she's working herself far too hard for her own good. I realize this is her dream but she's still a young girl."

Ranma nodded. "Don't worry about it Ms. Lynn." That said he went into the kitchen found some hot water and changed back to a guy before heading back out. He briefly wondered if he should go find Rick first and bring him along but decided against it. He would tell Minmei they had all come back and then the ball would be in her court. Ain't gonna get more involved in their relationship then I already am, it just ain't worth the trouble.

Fifteen minutes of roof-hopping found him outside a large upscale building and he inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. Mayor Luan gets points for this much at least; it looks like the companies legit, now to see how Minmei is doing. If I find anyone has been taking advantage of her or anything there's going to be hell to pay! He walked into the building and up to the receptionists desk smiling his best lopsided smirk at the woman behind it. "Excuse me can you tell me where I could find a Lynn Minmei?"

The young woman looked up and was almost immediately awestruck, here was the 'Wild Horse' of so many videos and pictures, the man who had starred in many of her more perverted fantasies and oh my god he's just as hot in person! It took her a second to collect herself. "Ms. Minmei is on the twelfth floor in the second recording studio or across the hall in the interview room."

"Thank you." He bowed and walked off, and the girl stared after him avidly, trying to memorize every line of his back for future…use.

Another minute running up the stairs found Ranma on the twelfth floor. He looked in the room he was told and found Minmei sitting there with several other people around her some with equipment others with papers and one on a cellphone. He took a moment then to study Minmei and frowned at what he saw. There were bags under her eyes, her hair was frazzled, and her eyes were a little red, as if she had been crying. His eyes narrowed as he heard the man on the phone talk to her. "No no, let's take the interview from the top again, and this time Minmei sound as if you actually care about the questions you're being asked alright, and then we need to get you cleaned up for a live interview and a show, you know the one I had to postpone a few days ago?"

Ranma had heard enough. He barged in, opening the door with a violent crack as it slammed against the wood work. "Yo, Minmei, what's up!"

The man with the phone and the others all turned to stare at him. "Wh-who the hell are you, what are you, somebody get this idiot out of here!" Minmei on the other hand looked as if she had seen a ghost right up until Ranma negligently reached out and picked the man with the phone up holding him in the air as easily as if he were a feather.

"Names Ranma Sugita pal, and I happen ta be a friend of Minmei's so unless ya listen and listen real good we're gonna get ta see if you can fly." He paused then continued speaking, directing his words at one of the cameraman who had been trying to sneak up on him. "Oh and you with the camera don't even think it, you'll bust your camera and you'll just make me angry."

Minmei took the silence this comment caused as a signal to shake off her stupor and she jumped up off her chair and slammed into Ranma sobbing incoherently into his shirt. "Ranma, they said you went missing in action days ago, oh my god I'm so glad you're alive did anyone else survive!?"

Ranma put one comforting arm around her shoulders, letting her cry herself out even as he continued holding the other man up in the air over his head. "Hey little sister I thought I told ya, I always come back, and yeah the others all survived. Lisa's even back on duty, though Ben is in the hospital with a concussion and a broken arm. Rick's fine too, though he may still be sleeping, he's the one that busted the rest of us out y'know, really derring-do stuff."

Her arms tightened around him for a second then she pulled back, looking up past his head. "Um you can put Mr. Manager down now."

Ranma looked up at the man and shook his head. "Nah he gets ta stay up there while we have speaks. What's this I hear about ya working yourself inta exhaustion?"

Minmei giggled, feeling happy for the first time in days. She hadn't had Kasumi's long connection to Ranma and hadn't believed her or Nodoka's continued reassurance that Ranma would somehow find a way to survive and probably drag the others along for the ride. But now her two favorite people had returned and all was right with the world again. "Oh it's not that bad, I have to push now because I'm still a new talent, I have to push to get people to remember me and that mean a lot of work."

"But not so much ya should be neglecting your family or your school work" Ranma countered. "Or do ya think that just 'cause you're a singer don't mean ya need an education or a family? Your aunt, uncle, Kasumi, even my mom all said they were worried about ya."

Minmei looked down and the manager looked even more worried than he had a second ago from just you know, being held off the ground like a sack of wheat. "W-well, I just, I haven't been allowed to go out in public much for fear of being mobbed, and um, I've just been so busy…" Minmei frowned, it sounded lame even to her. And she really was tired.

""What is going on here?" Everyone turned to see a older man in a very good business suit in the doorway. "I come down to see how things are going and I see one of my managers held up in the air by a soldier, a lieutenant if I'm reading the rank tabs right? Can someone explain what is going on here?"

"Oh Mr. Deray" Minmei exclaimed and walked over to introduce the man to Ranma who was very reluctantly returning the manager to the ground. "Ranma this is Mr. Deray he owns this recording studio."

Mr. Deray frowned as he got a good look at the young girl who had become the most popular star they had on the strength of her wonderful singing voice, bubbly attitude and connection to the city at large. "Minmei, when was the last time you had a good night's sleep, you look terrible, no offense."

Ranma broke in here, and explained the worries all of her friends had for Minmei, and how he had come into hear her being berated for looking like she was tired by her manager.

When he finished Deray glared at the manager. "You're out of here." When the man made to protest Deray went on "I told you to keep her work load light and only work on the CD and public appearances, but you couldn't follow a simple directive. Fine, I'll find someone who can." He turned to the rest of the crew. "The rest of you get out too. I'm going to look into this and see if any disciplinary action should be taken here but none of you are going to work with young Minmei from now on."

He looked at Ranma. "So you're Nodoka's boy, she's talked about you a time or two at city council meetings. Do you want to be part of the process to choose a new manager? That way you'll know how hard Minmei is working and can approve it."

Ranma thought for a minute then shook his head. "I wouldn't know the first thing about it, how about we use my mom instead? She can be the watch dog on this, though if anything more like this happens, I'll be back."

He growled the last bit and Deray laughed. "Heaven forbid. Now as for you young lady" he turned to Minmei, and his face softened noticeably "Go home, spend some time with your family and friends for two days then come back and get to work again. We all need some down time after all, and singers are no exception." Minmei nodded happily, that sounded like an excellent idea.

The two youngsters bowed in the Asian style to the older man and left the building. "You want me ta walk ya home Minmei?"

Minmei shook her head. "I'll go see Rick before heading home. I really want to see him again, I was so sad when I thought you both had died! I won't clam down until I see he's alright with my own eyes, just like you."

"Okay, well I want ta go see Dr. Lang, so I'll see ya back at the White Dragon this evening, and ya better be taking it easy still, okay?" Minmei nodded, gave him one final hug and walked off towards the bus station. Ranma shrugged and jumped to a nearby roof and away.

Motoko Aoyama stretched her arms above her head and sighed, feeling a little irritated. Exercising alone wasn't nearly as satisfying as sparring against other people but there were far too few people she could spar all out with that wouldn't take the opportunity to ogle. In fact in the last two years their number thus far was three, and all of them had their own issues.

Nodoka of course didn't, and sparing with her teacher was always fun and profitable as she walked away with more tricks of the blade to add to her own repertoire. Unfortunately they couldn't spar as much as she wished they could with their differing work schedules.

Kasumi was good, a master of aikido in fact, but fighting hand to hand was not Motoko's proffered style, and fighting someone with a soft style gave her nothing she could use herself. Motoko had reluctantly concluded that working out with the other girl as fun in many ways as it was had no real point.

Ranma was even better than Nodoka, she always came away knowing a few new tricks and she knew their bouts, even with his refusal to use a weapon, built on her speed and strength. Unfortunately she had barely gotten any time to practice with Ranma before he disappeared. Now that he was back, she hoped they could pick up where they left off sparring every other day together because she had little luck finding a replacement.

There was a very small pool of martial artists on board the Macross, and of them all only Max Sterling and colonel Mannstein in addition to the three already mentioned were in Motoko's class (okay Ranma and Nodoka were both far better than she was but she could at least go all out with them even if they couldn't do the same with her) and Max had swiftly proven to be unsuitable. Not that he wasn't anything but a gentlemen but it was obvious he found her attractive and his flirting got on her nerves, though if she swung that way she might have been flattered.

As it was however she did not, in point of fact Motoko was what more indecorous people would call an utter flaming dyke. She had liked women since she hit puberty and found out what kissing was, and the idea of a man touching her filled her with disgust. She wasn't open about it, but Ranma at least had picked up on her preferences a few days before his week long absence. The fact she found Ranma's female form almost irresistible was probably why, she had a thing for busty tomboys. Max however was almost incapable of not flirting with every pretty woman he met, and Motoko was pretty, with a firm lithe body and a pretty face without any blemishes dominated by almond shaped dark eyes and framed by black hair that flowed down her back.

She looked up as a shadow passed by overhead, and she blinked as she recognized the man who was jumping from one rooftop to another. "Ranma!"

The marital artist looked down and rather than landing on the roof on the other side of the street hit the side and bounced back toward her, landing next to her on light feet. "Hey Motoko, how's it going?"

Motoko smirked, tapping the blade stuck into its holder on her duffel bag, "just got finished my exercise for the day. How are you doing, any lingering effects from your incarceration or are you cleared for duty? And if so are you going to be going out on CAP patrol with us tonight?"

Ranma smirked posing dramatically for a minute "Nah, no way something like gettin' captured can keep me down, and yeah except for Ben we're all cleared for duty, though I told Rick to stand down for the next two days, he didn't get a lot of sleep when we were out there and he ain't at 100%. Besides with Ben down for a few weeks my flight'd have an odd man out, and this'll give me a chance ta fly with Max for a bit. I'll try ta get out with the rest of the squadron tonight if I can, though my Valkyrie probably won't be ready so I'll need ta take one of the spares, which sucks."

Motoko winced sympathetically. While she didn't have the ki control or reservoir to connect to her Valkyrie with that she had more than enough knowledge on how pilots tweaked and modified their mechs in little or large ways. Her own for example had a far faster reaction time than a normal mech, and her Valkyrie could change faster into soldier mode by a slight margin than others as well as carrying an inch more armor around the fists than usual. She had no idea how many modifications Ranma had added to his mech, but suspected it was a lot. "Sorry to hear that, but your presence will be a welcome one regardless. The fights haven't been that large, but they have been constant, twice or even three times a day."

Ranma asked her then to describe what had been happening as they continued to walk to her destination, the city park, where she usually spent a few hours resting in the closest place of nature that she could find on the ship. After she was done Ranma nodded thoughtfully and agreed he'd be out there with the rest of blue if he could swing it. "But what about yer own training Motoko-imo? I can tell yer ki has grown."

Motoko smiled at both the nickname and the compliment. She had joined Minmei in being referred by Ranma as a little sister during their training together before he went missing and she was fine with that as it was the only real relationship she would be happy with a male assuming with her. "Well I haven't been able to do more than a few wind blades just yet, but the ones I can produce now are far more powerful than the last time we sparred. Would you be up to resuming our matches every three days? With Nodoka-sensei working on her new project my lessons haven't been as often as I would like."

"Sure. But for now I should probably leave, I want ta see Dr. Lang about something, then I want ta exercise myself a little bit before checking out one of the spare Veritechs." Motoko nodded farewell and Ranma jumped away, first to a tree top then up to another roof and away.

"What do you mean you want the attacks to be smaller than normal, and why aren't your forces taking part anyway?" Kyron asked insolently from the other side of the communication. He may have to put up with having to work with the Meltraedi, but he obviously couldn't be bothered to be polite to his nominal superior.

Azonia bit back a sharp retort, knowing that at least in part Kyron was merely trying to get a rise out of her. The man wasn't an idiot, but he could sometimes give a very good impression of one, and angering someone whose fleet outnumbered yours by five to one (and had quality superiority to boot) was obviously idiotic. "Because we have succeeded in getting our spies on board the SDF, and I want to give them a day to get situated. We need to give Anya, Lucretia and Sonya time to start their information gathering."

"Why do we even bother spying on this pestilential Micronian filth? We should be slaughtering them all, not finding out more about them." He grumbled, the memories of his humiliating defeats at the hands of one particular Micronian festering in his mind. He hadn't run into that one lately, but he still felt the sting of his humiliation at its hands.

Azonia decided to bring out the big guns. "Would you argue that with Dolza, Kyron? After all, the order to take Zor's flagship intact comes directly from him."

Even a Zentraedi as arrogant and egotistical as Kyron couldn't control the moment of pure atavistic fear that name evoked in them all. Dolza's own fleet was twenty times the size of any other fleet, and he personally terrified every Zentraedi and Meltraedi. It took Kyron a moment to regain his poise "V-very well, if he has ordered it we have no choice, but why aren't your forces going to join the attack?"

Azonia smiled as she heard the hatch to the bridge slide open to the side of her and knew that Miriya had come onto the bridge and would hear her reply, just as she had planned it. "Because when I do use my Queadluun-Rau I want to crush them as much as possible. Your attacks while Breetai was gone have been excellent in forcing the space battleship to change coarse Kyron, and it's obvious to me that they intend to retreat once more into the atmosphere of one of the gas giants. That will give them time to retrain more of their forces from the ground division to the aerospace division and possibly build new fighters. This time they are aiming for the larger gas giant ,that means of course that they will need to pass through the planetary ring system, where we will once more be able to ambush them as they traverse it much like Lord Admiral Breetai was able to do before. The cosmic dust will work nearly as well as the asteroids to block their radar, and the moons and large asteroids will allow us to hide our numbers easily. And we will have more area to play with as the planetary ring is larger. And such a battlefield will give my star fighters every advantage in the book. We will literally destroy their mech force, and the way will be open for assaulting the rest of the battleship directly."

Kyron leaned back, lips pursed thoughtfully. The plan was a good one, even if his own forces were relegated to second place in it, after all compared to the Queadluun Rau of the Meltraedi that was precisely what they were and he wasn't so arrogant he didn't realize that. "So starting tomorrow I'm allowed to ramp up the attacks back to the size I've been using? And perhaps one full scale attack right before the battleship enters the planetary ring?"

Azonia frowned for a moment then nodded. "As long as the fighter attacks go in first and force them to activate that strange shield system the fortress has, that is an excellent idea. Anything else?"

Kyron shook his head and without even a salute cut the connection. Azonia stared at the communication screen for a moment after he cut the connection, seething inwardly at the disrespect. After this campaign is over you had best hope to have redeemed yourself in Dolza's eyes Kyron, or I am going to take great pleasure in purging the 11th skirmish fleet from the galaxy root and branch. Your head will make a fantastic decoration in my room stuffed and mounted, or perhaps just the skull mounted on a light? Sighing she turned to Miriya. "You heard of course."

Miriya nodded. "It's a good plan, though waiting the two weeks it will take the battleship to reach the largest gas giant will be hard."

Azonia shrugged. "It is a good plan, and I trust that you can deal with two weeks of boredom before testing the mettle of these Micronians. Though I doubt that the battle will go as well as that fool thinks it will, after all I'm counting on it."

Miirya looked at her in shock. "Why would you think we could fail? You were correct after all, we'll have every advantage and we're better than any of the forces they have faced thus far."

"Because I want to let them escape into the atmosphere, the amount of time they spend there will let us find out more about them." Azonia sighed at Miriya's blank look. "Think for a moment Miriya, our short term goal is to learn about these Micronians. Why should we only concentrate on those particular Micronians that are on Zor's battleship when there is an entire planetary network that we can go and invade?"

Miriya's face blanked and Azonia sighed again. "I know that isn't your area of expertise but we can learn far more about these Micronians that way than by looking only at the ones on the battleship. Our first priority of course will be to find out how they can get their own females to work with the males on an equal footing. Have you seen the imagery relayed from the spy ship about its final battle?" That transmission had been the only bit of data to get out, and was why Dolza had agreed to let a few Meltraedi run the risk of contamination by infiltrating the space fortress. But because he hadn't given her the orders himself, Azonia was under the impression that contamination was something like a disease and would make certain that none of her troops outside the three chosen spies would have any direct contact with a Micronian. Attacking their data streams and computers however was another story.

Miriya nodded. In fact she had been impressed by the skill shown by the Micronian ace, as she obviously was, though why she had been making those weird yet strangely catchy noises was a mystery. Perhaps some kind of battle chant? She knew a few warriors used those occasionally to pump themselves up for combat, though the length and odd background noises accompanying the Micronian's was something she had never heard before. That particular pilot was going to be her first target when she at last took the field against them. "And you think you will find the answer to that by hacking their home planet's data net?"

Azonia nodded. "That is one of many questions we want to know the answer to. And since Dolza has allowed it" again both speakers needed to pause to allow each other to get over the automatic fear that name caused. "We will find out as much as we can. And to do that we will need to place most of the fleet in orbit around the planet rather than chasing after the space fortress. Besides, that will put us in a good position to attack the fortress on its final leg back to the planet."

Miriya nodded slowly, that made sense too. "Very well Admiral. I will prepare the fighter squadrons for the asteroid battle. We will use that battle at least to slaughter them, and then let them retreat into the planet's atmosphere with their tales between their legs. We can also show up the males at the same time." Azonia nodded approval and the two women shared a cold, chilly smile.

At the same time that Azonia was discussing her spies those self same spies had at last declared the outer apparently unused portions of the space fortress into the areas being used by the Micronians. Sonya, the leader by dint of marital skill and age, looked at her fellows, Anya and Lucretia. Anya, the shortest of them tugged at her blond hair. "About time, who knew how long it would take to get around a ship when you're micronized." Lucretia nodded absently, keeping her eyes open and making certain none of the Micronians were nearby. The section they were in might show evidence of recent habitation, but there wasn't anyone here currently.

Sonya looked at the odd letters on the door. "I wonder what these marks mean, too bad the Zentraedi hadn't worked up a written vocabulary as well as a verbal one." The letters spelled out 'forward maintenance center four'. The Meltraedi spies had entered the battleship from the bottom front portion of one of the main gun nacelles. It wasn't a section that given the crew being at half strength didn't see many people. The only exception had been when the maintenance crew had to try and repair the main cannons, and as such a lot of the tools had been left behind.

Sonya picked up a flat rectangle thing, and when she pressed a button on it gasped in surprise. "A computer, so small? Amazing!" She pocketed it in her specially made overalls. She and the others had created them themselves, smaller versions of their own uniforms. Lucretia had designed them, and Anya and Sonya had made them. Modifying their uniforms was a bit of a pastime among the Meltraedi, no one knew why it had started, but it allowed them to personalize their uniforms a little. "I think we need to figure out how to read their language before moving on."

Anya shook her head. "I think we need to keep moving, find someplace that would let us observe the Micronians without them knowing it."

Sonya had been looking at the computer, trying to figure out its functions. Lucrteia however had been looking at the tools left behind, and found a map of the interior of the ship. "Maybe this could help us." The trio nodded, and taking the map set off again.

"Hey doc, how's it going" Ranma said grinning as he realized that greeting had become almost his calling card when seeing Dr. Lang. This time however the doctor did not jump in surprise or shout at him, instead he simply looked at the younger man wearily. "Hello Ranma, if I didn't say it yesterday, glad to have you back. Now realizing I am rather busy at the moment what can I do for you?"

"Nothing for me personally doc, just wanted ta ask what" Ranma paused as the lights went out, and for just a moment he could feel the energy of the ship subside, almost as if the power everywhere aboard had simply fallen silent. As the lights came back on a second later he smirked, "Well, I was gonna ask what that was, and if ya needed any help, and ta ask yer opinion on what I reported about the aliens not having much ki in them."

Emil sighed tiredly. "I've been working on that problem since these short blackouts began two days ago, and I still haven't made much headway. We've run down several problems in the couplings and dozens of place in the energy buses that could have caused a short, but nothing that could have caused something ship-wide. Maintenance is still behind the ball, but not that far."

"huh, well have ya put some fuel in the engine?"

"Fuel. For the reflux engine." Lang said looking blankly at him.

"Well yeah, ain't that how it works, even batteries need ta be plugged in and recharged. Ya keep telling me that this reflux stuff is like ki, well ta regain ki people need ta eat and sleep."

"Fuel, for the reflux engine," Emil said again, staring at the wall across from him blankly. "I'm an idiot. Of course, fuel, just because we can't see the energy inside the container decreasing doesn't mean it's, it's potency remains the same! Gah, and I was so certain it was some kind of limitless energy stream, there's no such damn thing! Now, to figure out what the hell the intake needs to be…" He looked back at Ranma. "Ranma thank you for once again making me see the simple solution to what I assumed was a complex problem. Now, what was your other question?"

Ranma smirked a little. "Always happy ta knock ya off yer ivory tower doc. Seriously, I'm gonna make a plaque that says 'keep it simple stupid' and figure out some way ta make it follow you around. Right now though my question was do you have any theory on why the aliens have so little life energy? Something tells me it's really important."

Emil leaned back in his chair thinking hard. "Hmm, I can't tell you really, but I do have two theories. One, these aliens despite their size simply age far faster than we do, thus a grown soldier would only have as much life energy as a human child. And two, evolution. For whatever reason they seem to value size and physical strength, perhaps pushing their bodies to such size somehow stunted their growth in life energy. Or perhaps something in the cloning process takes away from a person's life energy. Why exactly do you think it's important?"

"I-I don't know really just something's bothering me. I need ta meditate about what I saw on that ship, something is really bothering me about it, that and Dolza having zero ki. I mean he felt like a, a robot almost, one of those mobile drink dispenser things, no energy at all, but he gave this air of… dominance maybe? The others, the little one especially were scared of him, even the tall guy Breetai was, but I just couldn't sense anything really scary there… I don't know, just wanted ta ask, see if talkin' made my mind cough up something. I'll see ya round doc, good luck solving the engine problem."

Dr. Lang nodded absently, wondering what if anything Ranma's observations meant for a moment before turning his mind onto his own problems.

Lisa looked down at her data-pad blankly before opening it and looking at the message that had caused the pad to ping as she looked over Vanessa's shoulder at the tactical problem she was working on. The girl was having a lot of trouble, but she had shown a little improvement so far today, and that was a good thing on her first day learning it. Right now though Lisa turned away from the work she was having the Lt. do to read the message.

'Can't go out tonight, going to join Blue on patrol, rain check or movie night at apartment? R'. Nice, to the point and about as short and simple as I could hope. He is in my line of command after all, way down the line but still that adds to the problems of us…getting together. As to the message itself, I was going to cancel on him anyway, and it's not like going out into the city is really my idea of a good time. Some dinner and dancing can be nice but actually being in public for very long isn't my idea of fun at all, especially since the Miss Macross context.

So, 'join you for dinner at WD, with K or no ok'? She sent the message and received an answer before turning back to look over Vanessa's shoulder again.

About an hour later she looked up as Kim, who had taken over Vanessa's sensor duties, made a sound of irritation. "What is it Kim?" Without Gloval on the bridge she was a bit looser about using first names rather than ranks. After all it was sort of an all-girls club, and in that environment the closeness was better than the respect and discipline that was the case otherwise.

"Um," Kim paused for a moment. "We either have another one of those spy planes out there, or a small attack incoming at long range from aft. The only reason I'm hesitant about saying which is there are no other signs about incoming enemies, and if this was a normal attack there would be."

Lisa frowned as she moved over to see the screen Kim was looking at. She frowned more but nodded. "Maybe a raid rather than an attack, but yes it looks like it." Within moments Lisa had recalled the aft recon patrol and scrambled the two ready flights. She also had the other back up squadrons ready to go just in case. It all happened smoothly without any of the hesitance or mangled orders the squadrons had reluctantly acclimatized to, and they all responded with alacrity at the cool calm and above all professional authority Lisa showed. Vanessa looked on throughout and wondered very briefly if she should be taking notes, and how long it would take her to get that good.

Ranma flew out of the hangar to join the rest of Blue squadron, or the remainder of Blue squadron was more accurate. While blue squadron had not taken the beating a few of the other squadrons had, it still had lost two of its pilots permanently, and was for this battle missing Rick and Ben. That cut it from three flights to two, but all the remaining fighter pilots by this time were among the most experienced still flying. And for this little sortie eight Veritech fighters of one squadron and two other squadrons should be enough.

"All right blues," Eric spoke into the com, "this is probably going to be a small spoiler attack, but in case it isn't I want everyone's eyes wide open and their attention both on the dogfight and on their sensors. They may be trying to draw out the ready squadrons so they can ambush us at the edge of the fortress's radar envelope, they've tried that a few times before, and it has worked before. I don't want it to work this time! Stay sharp and let's hit them!"

Ranma nodded approvingly at the commander's pre-battle semi-speech, and he and Max fell into line behind Motoko's flight, which was short one, but had worked as a threesome before. Within 30 min. of launching the flight was within visual range of the incoming battle pods, and they could see that surrounding the normal pods in a loose sphere were at least ten of the radar jamming type.

Eric's voice came over the radio again. "Green and gold squadrons are going to hammer the attacking pods, our job is to handle any outriders and take out those radar jamming pods before joining the rest of the dogfight. Flight one, peel off to the left and down, flight two to up and to the right. Scissor them and meet at the center of the dogfight. Break on my Mark... Mark!"

Ranma and Max obeying approved combat doctrine followed flight two on its path. The assault was successful and within 10 minutes the flight had destroyed all of the radar jamming pods and joined the dogfight.

As Ranma flew into the dogfight he knew for a fact that this jet he was using now was not responding as quickly or as promptly as his normal fighter, and he also missed the enhanced firepower of the VF 1J variant. Still, it was what they had to hand and he was going to have to deal with it. A moment later he was glad he came because he spotted his old friend Kyron. He immediately said "Max cover my back I'm going to go say hi to an old friend."

"Roger "Max said. He had tangled with the command pod before, and walked away with a respect of its firepower but not the pilot himself. He was good, and probably could've taken Max out if they were both limited to the ground, but out in space he had no chance whatsoever, and Max had made the alien run with its tail between its legs the three times they'd tangled. He could however get in a lucky hit, and with those massive cannons on its arms one hit would have destroyed any of the human machine that didn't have Ranma's ki-enhanced armor. Besides which Max didn't have the personal animosity that Kyron and Ranma seem to share.

"Hello you bastard." Ranma grinned as he said the now familiar taunts as he rocketed toward his enemy. "It's been a while since I've seen your cowardly ass!" Having gotten better since the last time they tangled Ranma emphasized this remark by firing off several hard shots from his rifle, before changing into his soldier mode and kicking the command pod in its posterior, sending it tumbling end over end for a moment.

Kyron righted himself and turned to fire blasting three hard shots through the space that had previously been occupied by Ranma's mechanical fighter, but Ranma had already moved, transforming into Guardian mode and zooming up and away from where the shots had been aimed.

He fired back at Kyron sparking three shots off Kyron's side, one of whom almost removed his left arm entirely. It was still under Kyron's control however and he proved this by firing again at where Ranma was currently.

Ranma almost negligently dodged by turning his guardian mode Valkyrie on its axis to dodge the shots then blasted back again. Kyron this time moved, diving down and coming back up. His back cannon roared sending a beam of coherent light at Ranma.

Ranma jumped over the shot and changed back into fighter mode. Blasting through the dogfight he took out two more pods before coming back at Kyron with his missiles, all six homing in on their target.

Kyron was good enough to shoot five of the six out of the air. The sixth one hit smashing into the front of Kyron's command pod but it didn't cause enough damage to take him out of the fight. Kyron returned fire with all his weapons at once before using his leg thrusters to charge Ranma.

Ranma dodged all three of the shots, and then changed into soldier mode to meet Kyron's charge. His hands lashed out catching both of Kyron's arms and ripping off the one that had already been weakened by his earlier rifle blast. He then used that arm to batter Kyron's front causing further damage to the already damaged the tour of the command pod.

"It looks like you haven't learned anything Kyron, come on, man! You're not even trying!" He teased and then laughed as Kyron shouted his routine threats again. This guy was too easy to rile up, he reminded Ranma of Ryoga back at home. "Yep, same old MO, use brute force and armor to take apart your opponent, no finesse, no skill. I don't know about having you as my rival anymore Kyron it's just getting too easy." And with that Ranma backed off a little kicking the command pod upright and grabbing it around the center and one of its legs using it as a shield his three other battle pods tried to range on him. Laser shots impacted on the command pod for a few seconds before they were all taken out by Max.

Utterly humiliated by this treatment Kyron blasted out of Ranma's grip and away opening the range swiftly through use of three central thrusters that he had heretofore not used. "Another time scum" he blustered, "I will make you pay for this humiliation!"

Ranma shook his head again. "That guy really needs to work on his lines." Max laughed and the two joined up with the rest of blue squadron as they returned to the fortress, battle over for now.

The three Meltraedi spies came out of the maintenance corridor they had been following, having had to hide several times as Micronians came by, and found themselves up high on what was supposed to be the main bay of the space fortress. What they saw instead was so strange they didn't understand it. "W-what is all this?" Anya asked. She looked up, and was astonished to see the ceiling of the hanger had been painted to resemble the sky of a planet, presumably the third planet in the system which was the home of these Micronians.

Lucretia didn't bother answering too busy looking down and seeing the Micronians walking around below them in and out of odd closed off areas.

"I don't know said Sonya, ignoring the sinking feeling that had suddenly hit her gut, "But I think we have our work cut out for us."

The next two weeks as the space fortress traveled to Saturn fell into a pattern (well, for everyone but the three spies). While the attacks were larger than the first attack that occurred a day after Ranma and the other ex-prisoners had returned, they weren't of such a size that required more than a fifth of the squadrons to respond any given time.

Not that this gave the captain or Lisa any false sense of security. They all too well remembered what had occurred the last time they try to fight their way through an asteroid field. To that end, while only five squadrons were on call at any given time, the other twenty rotated daily through various exercises on both simulators and in outer space to give more experience to the fighter pilots.

Further, the survivors of the battle in Saturn's rings were ordered by Lisa to give lectures on how that fight had gone for every squad. While the squadrons were not dealing with the sheer exhaustion that had led to some of those casualties, she did not want anyone to believe that that alone had led to the massive losses that they had sustained in that fight. Nor did she want the fact that they still had twenty-four of the twenty-five squadrons now fully manned after the third class of trainees joined them go to anyone's head.

To Rick and a few of the others this was seemed a little too much, after all the planetary ring of Jupiter was far more open than the asteroid ring around Saturn, most of the mass caught by the super-gas giants gravity had been forced into its moons, leaving dust that could block their radar but not their eyes. The majority of the pilots disagreed. And even Rick had to admit that being prepared and making sure all the other fighter pilots were also prepared could only help them in the event of an attack. He just wasn't certain if that attack was coming. Rick tended to only think in the short term, and to him the daily attacks were more than enough to worry about.

The closer the fortress came to the outer edge of Jupiter's planetary ring, the more worried old soldiers like the captain and the commandant and, strangely to some Ranma, became. While his personal life with Lisa and Kasumi was going great (better than anything else in his life ever) his instincts were telling him that something big was on the horizon.

About seven hours out from the asteroid rings outer room edge, their caution and worry were rewarded. Vanessa, for once working her normal job as radar and sensor analysts, spotted several incoming attacks on various vectors, all of whom were larger than the ones they had been seeing the past few weeks.

The attacks had been picked up at the edge of the ships envelope Lisa decided to call the captain before issuing any orders beyond scrambling the ready squadrons.

As he had expected something like this to occur Gloval was on the bridge within 2 min. of being summoned. As he analyzed the data he saw something that hadn't occurred to Lisa, the fact that these attacks were coming along very strict lane and had not separated to envelop the ship. This meant several lanes of fire were still free to fire through and Gloval immediately ordered the barrier defense systems online.

As the twenty small globes began to glow with light and move around randomly on the space fortress' outer armor incoming shots along those lines of fire proved that Gloval had made the right decision. With the barrier systems already activated all but one, which banged into the Prometheus' side armor, were deflected or absorbed.

Gloval nodded at Lt. Young, "Return fire with secondary weapons against the forces in front of us, ignore the shots coming from our rear for now, we can't slow down to turn and engage them, going forward is the only viable plan." He then turned to Claudia. "Sound battle stations, sound alarms and get the civilians into their shelters, we may need to change into siege mode at any moment."

As those two turned back to their stations he turned to Lisa. "Keep the firing lanes at the front of the ship open. As soon as we have targets we will go to continuous fire on the secondary weapons, and at some point we will be firing the reflux cannon, I don't want any of our own fighters destroyed in that assault. The rest of the fight is yours to command."

Lisa nodded grimly and began to relay orders to all squadron commanders to scramble fighters. She would rotate the main 5 squadrons out to delay and damage one incoming attack then back in to rearm as the rest of their Veritech force hit them in turn.

Hopefully she could get away with that strategy for a little while and defeat two or three of the incoming assaults in detail before the remainder close with the space fortress. Thank God Dr. Lang was able to enlarge our radar envelope she thought. It might not be as powerful within that envelope as I would like, but the range it gives is really nice. It would also allow her to rest the destroid squadrons for a few more hours before they would be needed. Though I wish there was some way I could take some of the pressure of the battle off the Veritechs, that's just not going to happen. In space, it had been proven again and again Veritechs were the best defense, none of the destroids even came close to being as effective, not even the defenders with their long range autocannons because of their inability to defend themselves in close range.

As the first five squadrons went out to meet one of the incoming assaults, she spent a brief moment sending out a prayer to any God who was listening that her friends would be all right.

With Ben still sidelined by a broken arm Blue flight three was down to three effectives, and Ranma had ordered Max and Rick to fly together and was acting as the squadron's troubleshooter. That meant he would go wherever the fighting was most difficult and keep an over-watch on the rest of the squadron. Commander Prescott had thought that this use of the odd man out was a good one and gave his ok.

Squadrons Blue, Gold, Bronze, Red, and Orange came into outer missile range of the enemy battle pods, and immediately started exchanging missile fire with the pods that were loaded for artillery.

As per usual when facing the almost rocket-like alien fire of the artillery pods the Valkyries got the better of the exchange, losing only one Veritech in bronze squadron and hammering the artillery pods under to a pod.

Per Lisa's orders those first five squadrons rotated back to the space fortress as the next five lined up their shots. This rotating fire was continued until the first assault thus targeted had been completely wiped out by missiles, with the defenders only losing four Valkyries to take out 150 pods. They were only able to do this once however, as it had taken too long and the other assaults got too close to the space fortress for the starfighters to be able to rearm and head out again.

When this occurred Lisa immediately pulled all the squadrons back into the Defender's firing envelope. She assigned each squadron a small angle of the assault to defend, keeping Skull, Vermillion and the other elite squadrons back to use as emergency reserve. She turned over command of the destroids to Vanessa and Mannstein while she took command of the Veritech's positioning and rotation. Each squadron's area overlapped a little allowing them to go to one another's aid without having to call it in, but she wanted to make certain she could rotate the elites out to relive any area that started to fall below a certain level in ammunition or started taking too many casualties.

For a time this defensive plan works to a T, keeping losses as low as possible while forcing the enemy battlepods to run the gauntlet to even come close to the space fortress. However the pressure from aft began to warp the defensive envelop, with the enemy concentrating their assaults there. Lisa was forced to push more of the Veritech squadrons to that area, and they began to be left behind by the fortress as it continued.

About three hours into the battle hoping to flush the ambush in the planetary ring if it was there, captain Gloval ordered the space fortress changed into its siege mode and the main cannon fired. Lights all over the fortress flickered on and off as the fortress powered both the secondary weapons and the transformation for a time.

Once the transformation was complete the reflex cannon fired its monstrous beam of power, lancing out into the darkness and impacting the distant planetary ring, cutting a large swath into the dust that made up a large part of it, as well as impacting one of the smaller unnamed asteroids almost incidentally destroying three enemy battleships caught between the fortress and the planetary ring. Once that was accomplished the star fortress turned slightly in place to both sides, using its cannon like a huge giant flyswatter to destroy the incoming assaults on those sides along with the carriers behind them.

The attack from directly aft however continued. The space fortress changed back into flight mode and continued forward into the space it had created calling two thirds of the squadrons back to rearm but leaving the rest out there and moving further away from the dogfight.

By this time nearly 6 hours had passed the fortress since the attack began. Another hour passed then the space fortress entered the zone it had cleared, and the Valkyries fighting behind the fortress were practically running on empty. Lisa recalled them and sent out another ten squadrons to relive them, along with Skull and the other elite squads. While tactically sound when looking at the information she had at the time, this decision was precisely the wrong one as when the Queadluun Rau appeared, it was at exactly the wrong time for the embattled battleship.

Miriya smiled. She hadn't agreed with Azonia that they shouldn't bunch up their forces; she wanted to hit the enemy battleship with all their fighters at once. However Azonia had correctly guessed that the enemy battleship would fire into the planetary ring with its siege cannon before closing. Thus, instead of losing the majority of her Queadluun Rau hidden behind the large asteroid/small moon closest to their axis of advance, they had lost only 10 fighters space fortress fired. Now her entire force boiled out from their hiding places behind the moons humans called Thebes and Amalthea.

"Flight commander to all flights: Wait until the enemy starfighters are about to enter the fortress, close the distance quickly and kill!" Within seconds she suited action to word, firing her ventral thrusters and zooming out of her hiding place in the asteroid ring into the newly created open space around the fortress firing three of her missiles at an enemy fighter and her two main lasers at a second. Both fighters exploded and she continued on, the other Queadluun Rau at her heels.

The Queadluun Rau model power armor was the pinnacle of Zen/Meltraedi technology with two fusion reactors, six ventral thrusters on a light but powerfully built and heavily armored frame. They had both the legs and armor to stand up against anything any other race could put into the field, with two thrusters as large as a Veritechs and many vernier thrusters for maximum mobility, and more armor than even a Glaug. With two medium bore impact cannons the size of a Glaug's smaller arm cannons, 126 mini-missiles stored in their kneecaps and bulky shoulder packs, and two bundles of three pulse lasers under-slung on their arms they also had more firepower than nearly any starfighter in space. While at long-range their lock on ability was not nearly as good as the human Valkyrie, they were far more maneuverable, armored and armed. Even in a standup fight, they would've been more than a match for any destroid or Valkyrie, but as it was every advantage accrued to them, and the reaped a bitter harvest from the weary Micronians.

Lisa paled as a new type of fighter closed the range faster than she could react, far faster than she had thought anything the aliens had could move. They were so fast in fact that the Defender fire, fire that had since the beginning of this war proven deadly to enemy battlepods, was completely ineffective. As three of the front runners closed the distance and proceeded to ram missiles into one of the secondary turrets, she forcefully shook off her initial panic.

She swiftly recalled most of the other squadrons to aid in the defense of the fortress, but only three of them were able to break off the engagement still going on outside the asteroid ring's area.

And even when they did these new fighters proved to be more than a match for the Valkyrie. There seemed to be far fewer of these new fighters than there were battlepods, in fact for once the human seems to have an edge in numbers, but it was availing them very little. Even as she watched two whole squadrons were cut off from their fellows and wiped out.

She forcefully blocked out the number of casualties they were taking and tried to coolly analyze the new attack and route the incoming squadrons to the defense of the fortress. She knew however that this time their enemies had outfoxed him, and the destroids and Valkyrie squadrons were going to pay the price. If they couldn't, the whole fortress could possibly fall.

Ranma and Blue squadron were among the second group to engage the new class of alien power armor, and they did so with blood in their eyes at the loss of so many of their fellows to the enemy's firepower. For all their anger however they didn't break ranks, each Blue squadron member guarding the others back. While this allowed them to better match these new mechs, they were still losing members on a one-to-one basis.

That was before an enemy mech painted purple rather than the normal green of these new mechs rocketed into their defensive envelope from the wreckage of Gold squadron, and immediately engaged all of Blue flight one by itself. A swarm of missiles impacted Blue two, while pulse laser fire almost hit Commander Prescott and a cannon round each destroyed Blue three and four.

Ranma, sensing that this pilot was different from the others, rocketed in to meet it.

Miriya smiled as the one she recognized as the destroyer of the scout ship came out to meet her from its fellows. "Now we will see how good you really are human," she said to herself and began to fire, not even waiting for her lock on systems to engage.

Shots clipped the other mech's wings, but it didn't halt its ascent toward her, and she frowned as she noticed that it had not even been damaged by that shot. Interesting. Another two shots went home, but these were answered by one shot that nearly grazed her and five that missed her because she dodged them downward and the two closed to hand-to-hand range.

Almost immediately Miriya realized this was a mistake as the other mech transformed into soldier mode and hammered three hard blows with it's legs and arms into Miriya's mech, only two of which she was able to block. The third hammer blow smacked into her fighter's head, and she frowned as she lost long-range radar and the visual out of one of her power armor's eyes. Using her main cannons she forced the other pilot to dodge to the side and backed off, engaging at long range once more.

As Ranma and the enemy ace exchanged fire Rick and the other Blue squadron members were putting up a valiant fight, but without missiles of their own were losing badly, and the other squadrons weren't performing any better.

Max shot a flight of mini missiles out of the sky, but two still impacted his mech on it's leg blowing off. With a grimace Max transformed back into fighter mode and slipped behind Rick, who took the frontal position of the two. He began to lay down covering fire even as he glanced over at where Ranma and the enemy ace were battling it out, moving faster than even he could follow.

Ranma changed into fighter mode and flew away from the enemy ace as he/she/it/whatever attempted to use a full flight of its many missiles on him. With the added range Ranma was just barely able to shoot them all down before closing in again, transferring into Guardian mode at the last second and kicking the enemy pod in its side as its came up behind him.

The enemy pod grabbed his leg however and twisted around throwing him through space to impact on a piece of a moon that had been clipped by the space fortress's fire. Ranma changed into soldier mode and used his foot thrusters to skate along the edge of the asteroid underneath and around coming back and firing before the enemy fighter could break off the engagement.

Rather than attempting to do so however, the alien mech had stayed in close and fire from all six of its arm lasers forced Ranma to duck under and dive forward to avoid them. He accidently let up on his grip controls as he dove, but in so doing he lost his rifles, both his own and the one he took from Kyron.

However this allowed him to come in close and he reached up with his arms grabbing the underside of his opponent's arms and crushing the laser bundles there before the other pilot kicked him away. The kick was so strong that Ranma could see cracks in his canopy and his armor buckling under the blow but he just grinned fiercely. Whoever this guy is he's way better than Kyron, this is the best fight I've had since, well leaving Earth frankly. Just a one-on-one smackdown he thought to himself.

Eric tried desperately to get a handle on the battle his squadron was in, but knew he was losing the bubble badly as yet another Blue squad member died. With a snarl he opened fire on the enemy mech that had killed his pilot, destroying it in turn but leaving himself open to fire from behind. He was able to transform into guardian mode and turn around and blow four of the mini-missiles targeting him out of the air but the other six impacted. He was able to take two of them on his wings and back, but the others hit his main fuselage and a moment later Eric Prescott was no more.

Even engaged with the enemy ace as he was Ranma saw on his HUD the blue dot marking blue one disappear. He froze inside even as he ordered the rest of the squadron, now only really a flight size, to join Vermillion and Bronze in falling back towards the ship.

The enemy ace however wouldn't let Ranma escape, keeping in close and firing missiles and cannon at him faster than he could react to. More and more he had to force his own energy into his mechanical fighter to keep the armor strengthening technique up, and he was losing both battery and personal ki fast. This guy is good, he thought grimly I'm going to have to pull out all the stops.

Even as he said that Lisa's voice crackled over the com "All starfighters, all starfighters retreat to the fortress repeat retreat to the fortress. We are nearly through the asteroid field and will be immediately entering Jupiter's atmosphere. All fighters must be inside the fortress before we hit atmosphere!"

Lisa knew that breaking off this battle was not going to be nearly as easy as it had been the last time they did this, and had called up all of the destroids and placed them at the aft of the battleship hoping that the amount of firepower rather than aimed fire would allow them to break off with his new battlepods who had taken such a ravening toll of the Valkyries. Lisa didn't even want to think about how many pilots had died in the last few hours but she knew that it was a grievous toll.

She watched one battle in particular on and off, the enemy ace and Ranma had been battling for more an hour now, and neither of them had been able to score a kill. She shuddered to think what that ace would've been able to do to the rest of their starfighters, and Defender destroids if Ranma hadn't occupied his attention. Their losses had been more than enough without its help, she thought grimly, looking at the number of squadrons and gun teams that had disappeared from her screen.

Ranma shouted out "Moko Takabashi!" slamming his robot's hands forward and firing a beam of golden light at his enemy, but rather than be shocked or surprised the enemy simply dodged to the side only losing one of its shoulder guards. It lost control of that arm and it flailed loosely at the mechs side but the alien blew off one of Ranma's legs at the knee in return.

The enemy fighter used its ventral thrusters to body slam Ranma backward. Ranma poured all of his energy into his strengthening technique as the two barreled through three asteroids before impacting the side of the space fortress.

Ranma slammed his arms down in a hammer blow onto the back of the enemy mech destroying two of its thrusters before kicking away with his one remaining leg. Two point-blank blasts from the enemy's cannons impacted his robots chest blowing off the side of his cockpit and Ranma gasped grabbing at his air mask on his right side even as his cockpit was opened to space.

He slipped it on and kept fighting, crashing a one-two punch combo into the enemy mech's torso destroying one of its cannons, but in return his arm was caught and the other enemy star-fighter tried to break it.

Ranma grabbed one of the enemy mech's arms behind its armored elbow and even as the enemy mech began to crack his own arm's armor ripped its arm off at the elbow. Rather than be dismayed by losing its last remaining arm the enemy fighter again fired its last remaining main cannons, catching Ranma's own left arm, overcoming his armoring technique and blowing it off in a welter of electric fire. The enemy mech then used his thrusters to open the range and fired ten mini-missiles at Ranma.

Ranma changed into star-fighter mode using his remaining thrusters to thrust away from them incoming missiles and getting more range before turning and blasting them via the small lasers set into his Valkyries head. The missiles blew up four at a time, but three of them still got through his fire to impact his Mech, blowing him backward but his armor strengthening technique was still up and running, allowing him to just barely survive the blasts.

Lisa's voice suddenly made itself known in his helmet, "Ranma pull back! We're entering the atmosphere and there's already only two hangers still outside the atmosphere! You're the last fighter in!"

Ranma looked around and noticed it was true, in fact the only enemy still within firing range was the enemy ace that he had been fighting, the other fighters had all pulled back. Indeed, now that he could concentrate on it he could feel the wind blowing through the hole in his cockpit. He opened all channels of communication hoping that the enemy pilot would hear him, though it looked as if the enemy pilot was pulling back already not wanting to fight both Ranma and the atmosphere. "I guess we'll have to finish this some other time, I hope you get better in the meantime, I know for damn sure I will." He forced his mech to bow briefly from the waist before turning and rocketing away.

Miriya pushed her helmet off her hair letting her green hair float in the cockpit of her power armor so she could wipe away the blood from one of the cuts that she had taken when her head crashed against her console with her one working arm, thankfully losing power to her suits arm didn't translate to anything on her, unlike her other arm, which was broken in at least two places if she was any judge. This battle had been the toughest she had ever had; she was out of missiles, down to one laser cannon and had lost both of her arms as well as most of her back thrusters, and her powersuit's main body had taken several hard hits, resulting in at least a few of her own ribs breaking.

However it was also obvious that if she had more missiles she would've won this fight outright with that last exchange. The enemy Mech had no weapons left but the four lasers in its head and had lost both arms and one of its legs. Still, it had been a very close thing, and she nodded as the enemy tried to communicate with her via body language, even if she couldn't understand the verbal communication it was trying. She bowed her mech's head slightly as the Micronian fighter bowed from the waist, much like a Meltraedi would after a training battle, before rocketing away to catch up with its retreating mothership.

As she clutched her ribs with her still working arm she reflected I'll take a technical victory this time, but next time you will fall before me Micronian ace, I swear it.

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief as the enemy fighter nodded at him and turned away, transforming into fighter mode himself and rocketing towards the nearest hangar bay, which opened as he closed. It opened just enough to let him inside and then closed behind him with a crash as he skidded along the floor, losing power even as he landed.

He wasn't even able to stop his star-fighter impacting the far end of the hangar, though thankfully it had expended most of its acceleration on the floor of the hanger. As he lifted himself out of his battered Valkyrie he thought, That was too damn close. I need to find out a way to make this fighter stronger, at least make it react better. This whole fight was too damn close, and I get the impression they let us escape at the end there, they sure as hell didn't take as many casualties as we did. Whatever the case, those new fighters of theirs are monsters and we need to figure out a way to combat them, or we'll never make it back to earth no matter how long we stay hidden here.

end chapter

Hope everyone liked my intro to Miriya. It always irritated me that Max was her equal after only what, six months, whereas she had been an ace for years at least. In this story she will be tougher, and both her and Azonia, another character the original shortchanged, will have their roles beefed up. Physical descriptions of the spies will be in the next chapter. I tried to make the combat in the planetary ring of Jupiter different from the asteroid ring ambush, hope i succeeded.