I don't own Ranma or Robotech mores the pity, both could do with some upgrades
I love all the suggestions I'm getting on ways to beef up Ranma's mech and designs I could use, I've looked at most of the mech designs at and have to say none of them look quite what I want, though some of them do have pieces that I could take to design what I do want. Unfortunately most of the designs, like the Armored Valkyrie variant, (that's a Ryoga machine if I ever saw one) seem to take away from the speed and maneuverability of the original design, or are beyond the space fortress's ability to make as it is now. However, that doesn't mean other variants won't be used by other pilots, especially considering my other plans. For those of you who suggested a sword for Ranma, remember he's primarily a hand to hand fighter, he doesn't particularly like weapons, but... Motoko on the other hand, much like CJCold pointed out, does, and i hope he will like what she has now. Blue squadron will be sort of the testing bed for many of the designs being discussed/added to the Valkyrie.
I'd also like to give a shout out to Kariston Draconis, who gave a very comprehensive pm review of this and one of my other stories, as well as several interesting and thoughtful ideas of where I could take either one.
Oh and I made a mistake when talking about the battery factory they are putting into Jupiter's atmosphere in the last chapter, which I will correct in this chapter.
Now on with the show!
Chapter 15 Arrh me hearties!
Captain Gloval sat on the bridge the morning of the third day after the Macross had entered Jupiter's atmosphere watching as the Daedalus frontal section opened. The opening had originally been used to load and unload the assault landing vessel, to get the maximum number of destroids on or off and into battle at any given time. Now it was being used to jettison the first of the two self-sustaining robotically maintained ships that they were placing in inner atmosphere orbit over/in Jupiter, taking the first step in humanity having a strategic presence in space. The SDF high command should have done something like this before, I hope to god that they are using the time we're buying them to do something, anything to help us all. We need the help, badly.
The first and largest factory, the one designed to take in and generate fuel from the atmosphere, slowly inched its way out from the interior of the assault ship, actually scraping against the inside of its walls as it did. It had to actually have been built inside the amphibian assault ship, as there was no way it could have been moved through the passages that connected it to the main space fortress. But when it was out and the activation codes inputted by the skeleton crew aboard (who would then use a specially created shuttle, made with no viewports and covered by hull plate armor) it would be able to start gather the necessary ingredients for the fuel of the space fortress.
The battery factory ship would be much easier to move out from the Daedalus as it was far smaller. Yet the time spent on it had been equal to the far larger fueling station. That was because unlike the larger factory, this one wasn't entirely self sustaining. While the factory could siphon off everything it needed for the batteries power source from the atmosphere of the massive gas giant, it still needed solid material from which to create the battery packs. Therefore it needed to be able to take on loads of other resources, which had forced the designers to add that to the design, as well as create machinery and robots who could break down the material. Right now it was going to make due with a full load out of the worst mangled Destroids and Veritechs, as well as about two tons of plate armor, but eventually someone would need to stop in with another load of metals. The designers had thought of drones that could exit atmosphere and collect material from one of the planetary bodies orbiting Jupiter, but that idea had been scrapped due to the alien presence in the system.
Ideally the battery factory wouldn't actually be totally mechanical, a crew would be able to provide much better overall control of the project, but Gloval had declined to even consider that option right now. He had enough morale problems with the crew and civilians without asking for volunteers for what would be extended hardship duty.
Gloval sighed as he turned away from the view that thought reminding him that he had work of his own to do. The reality of their losses in the last action had at last sunk home to the civilians, and in part of the crew of the space fortress, and the results had not been pretty. There were several riots, which the MPs were forced to suppress. Thankfully his own forethought in preparing for this eventuality had the MPs and police ready and waiting, so despite the destruction to property and quite a few injuries there had been no deaths reported and the riots stopped almost as soon as they began. Morale among the majority of the crew however had sunk to a whole new level, and the morale among the pilots and destroids remained abysmal, and disciplinary problems were still appearing on his desk at an alarming rate. Thankfully he could hand most of those back over to Roy and Mannstein, who dealt with them as they normally did (rationally for the former, harshly by the latter).
Thankfully after that initial round of rioting the civilians had settled back down. Thankfully resentment of the military wasn't prevalent among the civilians, oh, there was a small minority that loudly declared the military at fault for everything, from not contacting the aliens to the fold space accident that landed them all here, but the majority of the civilians saw that as idiotic and appreciated the military defending them. No, the main problem among the civilians was a growing fear that even the best the military could do might not be enough. They were all trying to ignore it, but the fear of what could happen the next time these new alien mechs attacked them was in most of their minds. And Gloval had no way of combating it, though hopefully the concert that was planned in a few days time would at least cheer people up.
Ranma looked up interested as Kasumi led in a woman who topped her by two inches (and thus topped him by more, no bad Ranma no height envy, bad). The newcomer had dark skin, a creamy black that was pretty good looking despite her severe, almost stony face. Silver hair cut short, almost in a crew-cut and a tattoo of some kind of lizard on her face made her even more striking. "Hey Kasumi we ready to start?"
Kasumi giggled at how eager Ranma was. The redhead wanted very badly to hurt something, and this deconstruction/construction job was going to let her use that feeling. She had moved past the sadness with the help of the wake, as had Motoko (though the fact Motoko had crashed at Lisa's place last night as it was closer than her own quarters was very amusing, and Kasumi was wondering how Lisa had handled that) but she still had a lot of anger to take out on something. "Yes Ranma, we're going to start as soon as I do a final check on the rooms. This is Sonya, she's going to be helping us, and maybe working for me if I am able to use this to generate enough interest for a startup company." That had actually been her idea, she wanted to use this project to showcase what she could do, and then take the example public in hopes people would be interested in her interior designs, thus she could work for herself rather than anyone else.
Ranma held out his hand in greeting and after a moment's hesitation Sonya took it. "How'd you do my name's Ranma, if Kasumi didn't tell ya."
"Sonya." The woman looked at her a bit strangely then shrugged and the two of them turned to watch as Kasumi went around, checking her map to the ten rooms she had bought before coming back satisfied.
The rooms were six on this level, then four on the upper, which would let her build in a second tier of their new home. Built by his hands, designed by mine, regardless of if we're on a ship or not, it most definitely will be our home, far more than my family's home ever was. "Alright the first thing we need to do is knock the walls of this first room down in that direction, then we'll move on to the others."
Lisa sighed as she at last got off duty and made her way back to her room to change, the two factory ships out of the Daedalus and their startup crews back onboard. Christ that was nerve wracking, not difficult but so time consuming. Hopefully Motoko will have taken herself off by this time. Her mumblings of 'Lucretia this' and 'kiss me there' was amusing but also disturbing. I wonder who this Lucretia is that has her so riled up. She was relieved to find this was in fact the case and she changed into a pair of jeans and t-shirt, clothing she could get dirty in, and made her way to where Kasumi had bought some space in the ship, shaking her head at the whole idea.
It had come about as a way to make money for the ships council and to help the civilians spread out of the city, letting anyone civilian or military decide where they wanted to live as long as they could pay for it, and making rooming in the ship sections dirt cheap in comparison to the prices offered in the city. Unfortunately the idea had backfired, with nearly the entire SDF crew moving into the city to apartments which were much more comfortable and larger than most of the areas inside the ship. Despite enjoinders to move back out, no one wanted to move into the ship area. Most of the civilians in fact didn't want to be reminded of the fact they were in a ship at all.
She reached the first of the rooms and opened the door then stopped, staring at the amount of damage already done to the interior. The first wall had been completely knocked down, the second wall had been opened to the side and a doorway installed, and the three other interior walls had all been removed, leaving one or two plates still in place that needed to be removed. What had once been six single rooms had now been opened and connected into one large area. She stepped through the new doorway from the first room (which now consisted of the area of two of the originals) and looked up as she saw the ceiling also completely open. "This is amazing…" she breathed "How in the world did you do this much already in barely half a day?"
Kasumi and Ranma answered at the same time as Ranma walked over to give her a hug. "Martial arts construction."
Sonya looked up from where she was sanding down where the wall had been between the fifth and sixth rooms, making the area look as if there had been no divider there at all. She wondered what that was, putting ones arms around another, and then looked away as the three turned to her. "This is Sonya, she's going to be my first worker, well if people like my designs. Oh I'm so excited, it's going so well, and Ranma says he can even do the plumbing and electricity."
Ranma grinned holding out her hands, calloused and scarred after years of martial arts, regardless of the fact Ranma had only had this body for a few years. "These ain't just weapons you know, I've turned 'em ta a hell of a lot over the years. I can even repair a Valkyrie now; me and the doc were going over the schematics for it yesterday."
Lisa shook her head in amazement then kissed the redhead on the cheek while Sonya looked on, again wondering what that had been. She wasn't ready to kiss her on the lips as a girl, not yet, though she was moving in that direction faster than she had expected. In her mind Ranma was simply Ranma, and it was becoming harder to ignore that. "You are certainly full of surprises. Now what can I do to help?"
Two days after they had started work on their new home, Ranma glared out at a huge crowd that was filling every available seat in the huge amphitheater. "I cannot believe I agreed ta this."
Minmei giggled. "Oh it won't be that bad. Come on Ranma, we sing a few songs, take a bow and you get out of here before the concert ends so hopefully you don't get mobbed." They watched as the announcer started to work up the crowd then Minmei gasped. "Oh that's my cue, just remember to sing from the heart and ignore the crowd okay, good luck!"
Out in the crowd the three spies sat together wondering what this was going to be like. They understood the purpose of course, morale on the ship had plummeted so much even they could feel it, and they had experience with such things among the Meltraedi after a costly campaign, though it appeared as if this wasn't going to be anything like the contests and set combat performances they were used to. The riots they had seen had actually been more comprehensible to them, two units battling it out as a show for other divisions, but when they were told it was unplanned (by a young man who had looked at them very strangely when they asked him about it) they had been shocked.
Now they looked around and were shocked to see so many Micronians all in one place. They had heard Minmei's singing and it did touch them somehow, evoking emotions and feelings they were unused to, but still to command so many people, Minmei was even more important and awe inspiring than they had thought. When she began to sing, that thought went out of their minds and they just felt, the singing and the shouting and everything so far beyond their experience that they simply could not understand it, all they knew was that they liked it, they liked it a lot.
After Minmei did ten sets the announcer announced Ranma's presence and she walked out onto the stage, wearing her dress uniform. She stood at the front of the stage for a moment, letting the cheering of the audience die down to a mere susurration of sound before speaking.
"This is supposed ta be a thank you for all of our soldiers, so I chose two songs that speak ta my own emotions about our losses, as well as how I feel about continuing the fight. I hope ya'll take both messages to heart and remember those who died, why they died, and why we all keep fighting." She paused a moment then smiled. "If any of ya are fans of Heather Alexander you'll recognize both songs." Without further ado she launched into Sacred Fire.
When the song ended she paused for a moment, then before the crowd could decide to start cheering or even had really decided on its group reaction she launched into the next song, March of Cambreadth. "Axes flash, broadswords swing, shining armor, piercing ring, horses run with a polished shield fight those bastards till they yield! Midnight mare and blood red roan fight to keep this land your own, sound the horn and call the cry, how many of them can we make DIE!"
She stared out into the crowd, her eyes pools of dark determination as she continued the song, "Follow orders as you're told, make their yellow blood run cold, fight until you die or drop, a force like ours is hard to stop!" Her arms swept out encompassing the three rows filled with the Valkyrie pilots who had survived. Motoko was the first on her feet, stomping in time with the music, followed swiftly by Roy, Max and the others.
This time she turned to section dominated by destroid operators, her voice and stance challenging. "Close your mind to stress and pain, fight till you're no longer sane, let not one damn cur pass by, how many of them can we make die!"
Her eyes swept over to where a large portion of the ship's crew was seating as a group. "Guard your women and children well, send these bastards back to hell, we'll teach them the ways of war, they won't come here anymore! Use your shield and use your head, fight till everyone is dead! Raise the flag up to the sky, how many of them can we make die!"
Now here eyes swept over the entirety of the now cheering crowd. "Dawn has broke the time has come, move your feet to the marching drum, we'll win the war and pay the toll, fight as one in heart and soul! Midnight mare and blood red roan, fight to keep this land your own, sound the horn and call the cry, how many of them can we make die! How many of them can we make die! How many of them can we make die!"
As she finished the cheering shook the rafters of the sky way above them and the pounding of feet shook the metal plating beneath the amphitheater. Ranma smirked, knowing she had given morale the boost it needed and focused everyone on the fight to come as well as why they were doing this in the first place. She walked off the stage satisfied and immediately disappeared into the Umi-Sen-ken sneaking away. Let Minmei have the fame and adulation of the crowds, let her even take the credit, Ranma had what she wanted.
The next day as she walked into the work area of their apartment/house with Kasumi and Lisa, she was surprised to see Sonya standing with two other women, one of whom Ranma recognized as Anya from the White Dragon. Before Ranma or the others could ask what they were doing there they all pulled out little strange red-haired dolls that looked remarkably like Ranma's female form. "Can we have your autograph please!" the question came out in triple stereo and Ranma groaned in dismay as beside him Lisa and Kasumi both broke into laughter.
Little did Ranma know what repercussions his/her concert would bring once the spies brought a copy back to their fleet. While they didn't understand most of the terminology, indeed they spent the remainder of the night looking for examples and explanations of much of the words the songs used (what is a horse, a mare or a sword?), yet the meaning had shown through, and encapsulated the feelings of the Meltraedi whenever they battled the Invid. The fact this Micronian understood that sentiment and was able to show it so strongly shocked and awed them, and would do much the same to the rest of their fleet.
Gloval glanced over Kim's shoulder as the helmswoman/gunner slowly eased the battleship out of the densest part of the atmosphere and into the upper stratosphere where a spy plane or Veritech, Or he mused A Zentraedi battlepod, certainly those new types of mech could survive in here. Though a part of me is almost hoping that they try something. Now he had every remaining Defender and Tomahawk destroid ready in the open hanger bays behind the two spy planes, and the barrier and weapons systems were all ready to go, itching for something to kill.
Gloval worked hard to keep a smirk off his face. Since the concert morale had skyrocketed, and his troops now had that edge of tempering, an edge they hadn't had before, to help deal with and survive losses that had broken their morale before. The civilians weren't so sanguine about it, but the military was now refocused and ready.
He frowned when he thought about how little he had to do with the change in morale. He had made no speech, buried under administrative duties as he was, made no appearance, and knew that he had in part not wanted to face their losses himself, and that had been a cowardly decision on his part, one he had yet to correct. He knew he had to, but how was the question.
As he sat there thinking about that he watched as the two spy planes shot up and out of the hanger bay, backed by two barrier bubbles on the inside to keep the atmosphere out of the rest of the ship. They would have to do this at least six more times to get a picture of the entire planet, and even then, once the last one was finished the data gathered from the first one would be old. Still, it was the only thing they could do to get it and they needed that data to plan their next move.
Miriya's eyebrows rose in surprise as she and the two carrier captains saw the information of what the Micronians were doing. "Sneaky, they're trying to get an impression of how Kyron has blockaded the planet and in what strength. How many times will they need to perform this maneuver before they have enough information?"
The captain, a slightly scarred and wrinkled warrior who had lost her leg at the knee in some bygone battle, shrugged. "It depends on how aggressive they choose to be. They could use just the first one to get enough data if they were aggressive enough to think they could punch through the backstabber's blockade at that point. The real question is where we should put ourselves to take advantage when they do decide to break out."
"Hmm." Somehow Miriya knew this wasn't about breaking back out, but what it could really be about she couldn't say. Still… "Put us in orbit around the planets southern pole for now, then start us on sweeping orbital pattern beyond his fleet, we won't be a part of the cordon Kyron has set up, and that will let us cover large portions of the globe without joining forces with that madman." The captain nodded approvingly and soon the ships engines lit off. Miriya stood up, face and posture giving no hint at the amount of pain her still broken leg, the only injury that had yet to heal, caused her and went back to her room.
Once there she powered up her computer and watched again the recordings of Kyron's past fights against the Micronian ace. These recordings were spotty at best as they did not come from either of the individuals involved, and only included a distant recording of what rumor had as their first meeting on the red planet, so she still had no idea how this Micronian had realized Kyron could understand him, or how he knew his continued verbal needling was getting to the backstabber.
Kyron was known as a decent pilot, a little too prone to rely on his pod's armor and firepower to get him through, but he was a veteran warrior, whose only real shortcoming was his temper. This Micronian figured that out in a single battle and then continued to use it against him so well that Kyron ceased being a leader and became a lone berserker. So what is my weakness, and how would he target it? My ego, possibly, but how would he target that? Draw the battle out perhaps? Or my lack of long range missiles? But neither of those weaknesses can be countered, they aren't nearly as dangerous as these strange energy attacks he used in their second match or against me this last time. I was lucky to already be moving when he tried it against me, if I hadn't it might have ended the battle right then.
Honestly the third match, the one that had occurred after the Meltraedi had arrived in the system was next to useless. It was obvious the Micronian ace was one of those rare individuals that realized training was a constant thing and had gotten far better since the second time they had fought while Kyron had not. I need to find out what those odd attacks are, and if not stop them from being used or at last know the tell tales so I can predict them. She reached over and grabbed a large weight to use while she continued to watch the second battle, looking for clues and tells that would help her overcome her adversary.
Lisa sighed happily stretching her arms above her head, arching her back to get the kinks out after a hard days work on inventory and planning. That done, she looked back down at her computer screen, and Operation Undertow, a plan she had come up with that may allow them to get the resources they needed to rebuild the destroid and Veritechs lost, as well as give them valuable intel on the enemy. She scowled thinking of how little work that useless ass Griftel had done for them. Even following a reprimand, both verbal and in his official record, the man had still not done anything with the information they had been able to gather. In fact he had spent more time refuting the information gathered from battle debris and the information she and the others brought back after their escape than generating his own. I swear to god if that useless lump isn't off this ship in the first twenty minutes of landing back on Earth I'm going to pull a Ranma on him and kick his ass off myself!
She shook her head, getting the image of that asshole out of her head and hit the send button, sending the plan to the captain to look over. She stood up, and after a quick shower, she walked out of her door, intending to meet up with Kasumi and see if she wanted to go out. As she opened her door however she was surprised to see Claudia standing there, about to ring her intercom. "Claudia, hey what's up?"
Claudia smirked at her. "You're awfully cheery today aren't you? I was wondering if you wanted to go shopping with me and the girls? Apparently a new dress line as just come out."
Lisa shook her head. "You know that really isn't my kind of thing Claudia, I only shop when I really need to. Besides, I was hoping to drag Kasumi to the movies tonight, I hear they're starting a 'chick flick marathon', thought she might get a kick out of some of those cheesy American movies. You want to come with us?"
For just a moment Claudia looked at her with something like suspicion, but it vanished as soon as it appeared. "Hmm, I really do want to see the new clothing line, and I doubt I could drag the gossip girls away from it with a Veritech. How about we all meet up for dinner then?"
Lisa nodded. "Sure, you pick the restaurant, and I'll call you when I know what time we'll get out of the movies." Claudia nodded, and the two walked along the corridor together chatting. Though Lisa didn't notice, Claudia spent a portion of this time looking at her friend very carefully, as if she was trying to figure something out.
Henri Gloval looked up from working on yet more paperwork as his incoming mail beeped at him. He reached over, and smiled as he saw it was from commander Hayes, who was the last person who would bother him with anything stupid or idiotic, and the header had him intrigued. With that thought he opened the e-mail and perused its contents. After a moment he scowled, and made to close it angrily but he stopped himself. Calmly Henri, it's not the plan that is the problem, it's the necessity of having one like it at all. Lisa's right this is the only way to get the material we need. He grimaced, he had been so bogged down in long term planning, dealing with the civilians and paperwork he hadn't kept up on their logistics needs, and with a few taps on his keyboard he brought up the information, then cursed imaginatively as he looked it over. We're down to barely five percent of our stores outside of food, and even there, we're running low on sources of protein, of course we've been out of meat for a while now. We can't do anything about that need, but we can address the material concerns. With that thought he went back to read Commander Hayes plan more carefully.
Motoko showed up in the academy's park with her bokken over one shoulder, eager for her sparring session with Ranma. She wasn't quite up to using ki attacks, at least according to him, but she was getting closer and every spar with Ranma built on her skill and reserves. More she needed something to take her mind off her own problems. She had been spending more and more of her off duty time (which she and the other pilots had a lot of at this point, until the academy graduated its next class) finding excuses to see Lucretia where she worked. It was difficult to keep coming up with reasons she needed to shop in that store, but she was making progress getting to know the shorter blond girl. Unfortunately Lucretia wasn't sending any of the signals she knew, either welcoming or warning her off. She didn't seem to have any body language to speak of, but she did seem friendly enough, though closed mouthed about her own life. Motoko found her a very intriguing mystery, one she was becoming more enamored with.
She found Ranma waiting for her, but instead of already going through a routine he, and Motoko was a little irritated by the fact Ranma was back in his male body, was looking over something on his datapad, and scowling. "Hey Ranma, what's got you scowling so much?"
"Oh hey Motoko, I'm looking over some information about metallurgy and stuff. The doc wants me ta figure out the best metals for a weapon for my Valkyrie. I don't like it, weapons are all well and good for those who like them, but I'll trust my own fists over a weapon any day, but we need every edge we can get. Do you know anything about metal's in stuff?"
Motoko gave him a flat look. "I'm a swordswoman, of course I do. You have to understand metal to figure out how to tell a good sword from a bad one." Ranma looked at her blankly and she sighed. "Sometimes your ignorance about weapons and those of us who use them really irritates be you know, we're not all like that idiot Kuno who just swung his sword around without understanding what he was doing." She paused, and then her eyes widened, and her hands shot out to grip his collar, dragging him forward. "Weapons? For your Veritech, like a sword? They've designed one? How the hell can I get one?" She shook him back and forth agitatedly.
Ranma brought his own hands up to grip hers and stop her shaking him. "Sorry Motoko-imo I guess I kind of forgot that you would like something like that. I'll talk to Dr Lang and see if I can set ya up with one okay?"
Motoko nodded happily and stood backing, bending down to pick up the datapad Ranma had dropped. She brought up the information, and looked to see how small they could cut hull armor, and nodded, punching in some information. "Okay, you don't like weapons, so something simple would be best. A short sword or knife, heavy bladed, about the length of the Valkyries form would be best, a metal that can keep an edge and cut through the armor of the aliens fighters. Magclip it to your arm or something, or have a hollow section of a wing and put it there. As for the metal of the sword, something like 5160 carbon molly/carbon steel, though you'll need to be aware of how it's treated, heating especially will be tricky to get a metal that can keep the edge enough to slice through rather than batter through and not get stuck. Or maybe something like 9260 would be better, especially given the size of the blade we're talking about here. Hmm…"
Ranma shook his head taking the datapad from her and tossing it to the ground. "You've obviously been thinking about this fer a while, I'll get you in touch with the doc tomorrow, you can talk about all that with him. Right now, lets get to sparring."
Motoko nodded and without any warning whipped out her sword in an overhand i-ai strike that Ranma dodged almost negligently and the spar began.
Ranma struck back almost immediately, his foot coming up in a sweep which Motoko blocked with her pommel, but then had to duck another kick, answering with a slash of her sword before going into a complex combo, using her own legs and her sword together.
Ranma ducked and dodged around, striking back from time to time then took to the air when she tried to slice low, using the momentum of Motoko's own attacks to stay in the air, using one hand or another to block her strikes while returning some of his own.
Motoko grimaced. Ranma in the air was even more difficult to hit than when he was on the ground. But she had a surprise for him. A minute later when he pushed off her blade again she drew it back by her hip, and with a yell of "Shinmei-Ryu style, Soaring Eagle!" She brought it forward and a slightly misshapen wave of ki left her sword toward Ranma from barely a foot away.
Ranma's eyes widened in surprise, and he brought his arms together to protect his chest, taking the shot. It through him back a little, but Ranma recovered quickly and landed on his feet, shooting forward. Motoko tried to revere from her swing, but her sword was still out of position when he hammered her stomach with strong jab, followed by grabbing her sword arm and pinning it in place, bringing up his other hand to gently pretend chop at her neck. "match over." He said simply. Motoko grimaced again then gave a whoop as Ranma let her arm go to grab her around her middle with his arms, lifting her into the air and shouting happily. "Awesome job imouto, that was a great first attack! I can't believe you're able to do ki attacks already, that was fantastic!"
Motoko got over her surprise quickly and grinned in triumph looking down into Ranma's grinning face. "Well, I needed to surprise you somehow, figured that would work! Now put me down you great lump!"
Ranma did so, still grinning. "Now we can start you on learning how to use yer ki, this is great! Come on, I'll walk you through some exercises, and we'll get started. Wow, won't mom be proud of you when we tell her!"
Motoko nodded, and followed him, wondering what her family would think of her if they knew she had become so proficient in their style to use some of their attacks without having been formally instructed. They had stopped teaching her when she had openly declared her sexual preferences. Screw them, she thought angrily, I have a new family now, one who accepts me for me, preferences and all. Hmm maybe I can get Lucretia to come out with me tonight to celebrate…
Two days after she had submitted her plan to the captain, Lisa was called to present it to the combined survivors of the destroid companies and Valkyrie squadrons. They gathered in the largest anteroom in the ship and Lisa was there waiting for them. The filed in, some saluting, some merely nodding to her while Roy and Mannstein were looking on from the sidelines. Normally they would have given the presentation to their own commands, but this time, as it was Lisa's plan from start to finish Gloval had decided to see how she would do if thrown into the deep end. When the captain explained it to her he called it a part of her training for higher rank. She didn't call it anything, Lisa merely smiled saluted and walked off, a far cry from the woman who hated public speaking.
Lisa simply stood by the podium at the front of room, not acknowledging Ranma, who in turn didn't try to get her attention. Even as much as half a year ago she would have had to cough or yell to get the male-dominated and anti-tac officer pilot's attention. Now however she was greeted with respectful silence as soon as the last group trooped in. And unlike her own old style of extreme reserve and formality, she began with a question, a small smile on her lips. "Who here when you were kids played at being pirates?"
The question actually startled a laugh out of a few of her listeners. She smiled at that sound and continued, "Now imagine if pirates had a submarine and you'd be close to what we are at the moment. The Macross is a submarine, traversing under the surface of the ocean of Jupiter's atmosphere. The aliens can't tell where we are, but we can tell, roughly anyway, due to our scouting operations where they are. On the other hand, just like a pirate ship fighting a fleet, there's a hell of a lot more of them then there are of us, and our logistics aren't nearly as good either. However, we can take a page from those old time pirates, and take aboard some salvage."
Behind her the screen on the wall lit up, to show a large image of the Daedalus, being thrust out of the deeper section of the atmosphere as the rest of the ship lay in its siege mode, like a man laying down on a bed of water, the water being the thermosphere of the gas giant into the exosphere. The 'fist' of the Daedalus broke the atmosphere and began to disgorge its payload directly underneath a trio of alien battleships. "First we will have surprise on our side regardless of where we strike, which will be chosen randomly beforehand. We've seen the aliens don't seem to react well to surprise unless they have one of their leaders right there to help direct them, but even if they do have such a leader on sight we will still be able to overwhelm their CAP and close with their ships before whoever it is can start reacting. We use the Monster to destroy one of the three battleships in this force, the alien likes groups of three for some reason, and then we wipe out their air forces, and destroy the second before a small team of volunteers, attacks the last ship from one entry point while" here the Daedalus was shown punching upward again, only this time it didn't stop just below the enemy battleship it actually rose up and impacted the bottom of the hull, driving slightly into it due to momentum and being covered by the small barrier shields, "the destroid companies board the last battleship after its weapons have been destroyed and clears it out from within."
Motoko and Ranma both grinned at one another while Ben and Rick looked a little sick and Max looked thoughtful. "Once the ship has been cleared we use grappling hooks en masse," and here the view changed again, to show the exterior of the Deadulus, and several large grapnels firing out from different areas "to capture the enemy battleship and drag it down further into the thermosphere. The aliens have shown no interest to come into the thermosphere where their battleships at least could survive, so once we have disappeared into it we will be able to dissect the ship at our leisure. Thus hurting them and enriching us at the same time. Questions?"
One of the destroid operators raised a hand "what will the Tomahawk and Defenders be doing while this is going on?"
Lisa shook her head. "For this operation, the Tomahawks will be used to help clear the ship along with the Spartans, but I'm afraid the Defenders have proven not to be the best in close quarters." She let the harsh snort of laughter this caused in the crowd subside before continuing. "The initial push will be made as i said by a small group of volunteers, whose objective will be to find the engine room and/or the bridge and make certain the enemy can't blow the ship up."
A Valkyrie pilot snorted. "Who would be daft enough to volunteer for point assault on clearing a ship?"
Ranma grinned evilly, "Me, dipshit."
Motoko nodded firmly behind him. "Me too."
Max, not to be outdone, nodded as well, pushing up his glasses and smiling genially. "Sounds like one heck of a party, I wouldn't miss it for the world." Ben gulped, his memories of fighting on Breetai's battleship were not pleasant ones, but he nodded gamely anyway. At least these guys won't have a fucking unkillable giant hidden away anywhere.
Lisa nodded, having come to expect something like that from Ranma. "In that case Blue squadron will, once the enemy CAP has been suppressed be given the duty of first entry into the enemy battleship. Any other questions?" There were none and she nodded sharply. "In that case, this operation will commence in two hours, let's go get us some plunder gentlemen!" This caused the crowd to cheer, and most of them left with smiles on their faces.
Mannstein left as well after nodding approvingly to Lisa. That had been a very good presentation, which took into account the makeup of her audience and made them enthusiastic about the operation. There was none of her stiff formality in that presentation, and she had everyone understanding and following along. Ranma made a point of saluting Lisa as he left near the back of the crowd, and she mouthed 'be careful' at him, which made him smirk a little.
Ranma jumped out from the heavy truck smirking as he landed on the deck of the Daedalus' cavernous assault bay, grinning as Motoko jumped down to join him, long black hair billowing behind her. The deck was playing host to every surviving Valkyrie, formed into 15 flights of four regardless of nominal squadrons, ready to ready to be the spearhead of operation Undertow. Behind the Veritechs stood the tremendous form of Apocalypse, ponderous under the weights of its own firepower. Behind it stood the two companies of Spartans, armed with their combat batons, while behind them stood the single surviving company of Tomahawks. Oh yes, this is going to come as one hell of a surprise.
The aliens had blockaded the planet far differently this time, stationing ships in a loose cordon around the planet right outside the atmosphere, able to cover the entire planet with their own radar in clumps of three, but these flotillas were just a little too far from one another to come to their aid against a swift and heavy raid, and that very closeness made taking them by surprise easier. Gloval briefly thought that maybe the distance between the flotillas was purposeful, some kind of trap for them, but if the aliens gave them the space to set up, the siege cannon would wipe out any reinforcements that attempted to interfere in the operation.
Still they would have been vulnerable in a normal engagement if Lisa hadn't come up with Operation Undertow. Outside the exterior of the Daedalus was completely covered with every barrier bubble that had been created thus far, and there were several inside waiting to slide forward once the Valkyries had launched and the doors closed.
Ben and Max, stood by their own Veritechs, still painted with Blue squadron colors, something that Ranma wanted to change in the future. Motoko had also been given a new VF-J, having not had the connection to her old Valkyrie to want to put forth the effort to save it from the salvage heap. She was however already planning ways to personalize it to match her own and then some, as were Ben and Max. Chief Morgan also stood by, wondering what the 'space horse' had come up with to repair his Veritech. He would have sworn Dr. Lang would have vetoed trying to repair it, but here it was.
They all crowded forward joined by several other pilots who wanted to see what changes Ranma had wrought in his machine. Seeing their interest Ranma hopped onto the top of the trucks deck, and pulled off the tarp, revealing his Valkyrie laying there in soldier mode. "Alright, the doc and I have worked out a lot of little toys on this baby, and I put the entire thing together nut and bolt so here you go." He pointed to the arms, both of which had new shiny paint jobs, red upper arms and black lower arms, with the fists and cuffs painted with a fire blue pattern. "The right arm, the one I use ta shoot with can't move its pinkies or lower finger anymore. Ta offset this, Dr. Lang designed and I installed a mini-battery which does something" he didn't want to go into the connection between ki and the reflux energy, not with this lot, not until he understood it himself, all he knew was that it worked "to the rifles ammunition clip, enlarging it by twenty times without adding the weight need ta do the same thing. Ya want a scientific explanation talk ta the doc, but if it works he'll be putting it on all yer own Veritechs as soon as he can build the batteries and put in the hours ta do the work."
Every pilot shared either confused or ecstatic looks at this. Most of them, Roy and the other two veterans most definitely included in this group, didn't care how it was done so long as it worked for them as well as it did for Ranma the martial arts wunderkind. Max in particular was looking interested, though internally he was irritated that Ranma was able to get the new toys sooner due to his friendship with Dr. Lang.
Ranma went on pointing to his legs, also painted new colors, this time matte black with red kneecaps and blue highlights around the thrusters. "The fuel tanks for the thrusters have been shrunk to half their original size, again to allow me ta use the space for two new medium sized batteries, combined they'll give me enough power as an extra regular-sized one. The doc has figured out a way to make these strengthen the armor automatically, but the programming for that portion hasn't been finished yet, so I'll have ta to it myself, but hey. All in all, I got the moves and energy now ta hang with anything, and hopefully soon the changes will be made to all the other mechs." He didn't mention the added benefit of removing the barrier in the programming of the helmet, that was a secret he wanted to keep for now, even from his closest friends, they'd only worry needlessly. "I've also got a bit of surprise for close range, but yer all gonna have to wait to see that.
Max and Ben looked at Motoko, whose machine was also in robot mode, but she shook her head mischievously, indicating she wouldn't answer their questions. "My Valkyrie hasn't had nearly as much additions, just a little thing I've been wanting for a while, that's all."
Roy, standing to the side with Rick who he assigned as his wingman for this op, coughed and everyone watching turned to him. "Alright the shows over boys and girls, everyone to their planes and let's get this show on the road. Unless any of you want to tell the captain you were too busy gawking at what may become our new toys to take part in the operation…?"
No further threat was needed and everyone rushed off to their own Valkyries. It was time once more to get it stuck in only this time surprise would be on their side, not their enemies.
Lisa watched poised at her station as Kim inched the ship upward, already transformed back into the less maneuverable siege mode, it's left 'arm' already raised into position at the shoulder level (really the level of the largest secondary weapons turret), with the ship moving at a shallow angle out of the dense atmosphere just enough to send the Daedalus up into the stratosphere. She watched as the tip of the Daedalus punched out of the dense gases, then even before Kim had begun to turn she shouted: "Daedalus open bay doors, all Valkyries scramble!" She counted under her breath as her tactical screen kept changing as the fighters launched until they were all out of the ship and then her orders snapped out again. "Daedalus close bay doors! Radar give me a heading!"
Vanessa nodded sharply "Heading hasn't changed since the last recon op, two ships bearing 180 degrees aft current position, one more directly in front of us, accompanied by 200 plus battlepods." She then added in one of the most unnecessary things she had ever said on duty or off "Valkyries engaging the Zentraedi CAP."
Lisa again began to give out orders, not even looking back at captain Gloval who nodded in approval. This was her show, well her and Mannstein's really, and it was her job to make it work. She turned to her intercom, "Colonel, fire at the most distant ship as you bear please." She then turned back to Kim, "Keep us steady here Lt., all Barriers operating and in place along the Daedalus?"
Kim nodded distractedly keeping most of her attention on using the ventral thrusters set along the 'legs' of the ship which were normally used to help launch it off the ground and make it hover, as their main thrusters to keep them from sinking back into the denser portions of the atmosphere.
Sammy, in charge of the barrier operators answered verbally "all barrier bubbles in place around the Daedalus and at the front of the assault vessel."
Lisa nodded then turned her back to the Valkyrie battle for now, knowing she had a minute or two before the ship completed its turn to allow Mannstein a clear shot at the most distant target. Not, she realized a moment later, that she could really add anything to the carnage occurring out there.
The force of Valkyries that erupted out of the radar blocking stratosphere of Jupiter right into the Zentraedi combat air patrol had several things going for it that their opponents did not. For one they had surprise, which was still the deadliest weapon in any battle. Two, they came up firing right into the enemies typically loose formation, in a dense powerful force And three, these pilots they were facing were the cream of the crop, the one who had survived everything the Zentraedi had thrown at them even the Queadluun Rau and come out tempered to a fine edge, and their grim determination matched their skill and they attacked with ruthless efficiency.
Then there was Ranma. As he zoomed through the enemy formation (more like a big ugly ball, the aliens really didn't seem to go into formations for their mechs) he whooped in glee. "Yeehaw!" He zigged and zagged from side to side, his fighter mode moving to his hand like a extension of his body. As he changed to guardian mode the responsiveness sky-rocketed further and he dodged incoming laser pulses by the slimmest of margins, and returned fire almost negligently as his ki reinforced left hand crashed into another pod, crushing in its side. He transformed into a soldier mode and moved. It was like everyone else was moving in slow motion, his spatial awareness and danger sense heightened to an amazing degree by his training now coming into its own as his Valkyrie finally, finally allowed him to move and react with the speed he had trained himself to. Within the next five minutes he took down sixty battlepods, moving faster than most could even see, all they saw was a black and red blur as he flew like death incarnate through their formation.
Not that his friends were idle, covering one another's backs and watching in awe and not a little terror as their friend wreaked fearsome havoc among their enemies.
While the rest of the Valkyries engaged the Zentraedi CAP two flights from Skull ignored the growing dogfight to hammer missiles and shots into the nearest battleship's engines. While it could get a few more battlepods out, including one Kyron who luckily or unluckily had just arrived on a tour of his fleet, the engine soon exploded under their fire, destroying the entire ship.
News of the battle reached Miriya and the Meltraedi carriers swiftly and she made her way to the bridge to watch what little of the action could be seen from this range. What are the Micronians up to, this doesn't seem like an attempt to break away from the cordon, are they simply trying to hurt Kyron's forces? "Can we get some video from the battling battlepods from this far away?"
The captain nodded "Yes commander, wait one." She nodded at one of her techs and she turned back to the tactical field. "If we launch right now our powered armor would get there in two hours, but if we do a fold jump…"
She trailed off and Miriya shook her head. "No, that would be far too dangerous." The Meltraedi/Zentraedi fold space engines were not very accurate, and only a fool trusted them this close to a planet, but she knew the captain had to make the suggestion. Unless the Micronians were idiots, they would be long gone before even the Queadluun Rau could get there. Besides, my armor hasn't been personalized to me yet, and I won't…"
Her thoughts trialed off as the ship received video of the battle from the battlepods and she looked on in shock and awe as her adversary from the battle in the asteroid ring ripped through the Zentraedi battlepods like they were so many immature Invid grubs. He's faster than he was before, and his reaction time is far better too, somehow this Micronian has found a way to make his mech react like power armor. This will make our next battle more… interesting. She smiled, a feral hungry smile that even her fellow Meltraedi had to look away from as the green haired woman looked on avidly as her opponent came face to face with Kyron, who had just exited one of his carriers before its engines exploded. "Get me a radio feed from the nearest pod to this battle, let me here what they are saying to one another."
"Commander, the battleship," the carrier captain began but Miriya cut her off angrily.
"I don't care what the battleship is doing! If you care about it record our readings for now, but follow my orders and get me that radio feed!" The captain nodded hastily and leapt to obey the ace's commands.
In his Monster class destroid Mannstein grunted in satisfaction as the battleship furthest away from their current position came into view from where he was standing on the interior of the assault ramp. "Fire!" His crew obeyed almost before he could get the words out, and four heavy grazers shot out, skewering the ship in the distance and a moment later the ship exploded violently. "Objective two destroyed," he calmly reported, "falling back." As the monster turned and made its way inside, the assault hatch shut and the Daedalus once more sank into the planet's atmosphere as the barrier shields came up to cover it once again.
amn
As his friends continued to rip into the unprepared and surprised battlepods, Ranma agilely dodged fire from the side. He turned to look and saw Kyron's pod boosting through space toward him. "Now you die Micronian!" The voice blasted out of his radio and he shrugged. Well, time to see if Kyron actually learned something.
He changed to jet mode and flew to meet the enemy commander, dodging fire from Kyron's arms and back cannon before transforming into guardian mode right as he reached Kyron and a bicycle kick smashed into the enemy pods nose like front, flipping it backward as Ranma transformed into soldier mode.
Kyron righted himself and tried to open the range firing blast after blast at his strangely silent enemy, but Ranma simply dodged them all then without warning closed the distance. Two ki enhanced hands reached out gripped and pulled the right arm off of Kyron's mech, ducking under one leg in passing before coming back up and ripping off the electron cannon from his back and tossing it away.
Suddenly Ranma felt angry, this Kyron guy just reminded him way too much of some of his rivals back home. He began to use the mech arm still dangling from his Veritechs arm as a mace, pounding on Kyron's mech like it was a punching bag. "You are fucking pathetic!" He snarled. "You haven't improved at all since the first time we fought! What the fuck did ya think I was gonna do, roll over and play dead if ya got angry enough, or that you'd somehow miraculously be able to get better than me all of a sudden?! Pathetic, that's what ya are, all talk and no thought! Ya face the best, ya gotta work ta be the best, or ya ain't worth my time anymore."
Kyron tried to fight back, tried to get in a blow or a blast from his still functioning cannon, but to no avail, and his mech was literally battered into submission, all its joints crushed, all the armor battered to uselessness, the thrusters and remaining cannon both crushed and broken, and Kyron himself swiftly losing consciousness from the continued pounding back and forth.
Ranma let go of his makeshift weapon and it floated away from the momentum. He looked around, noticing that the dogfight had died down and that his flight had formed up behind him. "This is Blue one, Blue flight moving to primary objective."
Lisa's voice answered crisply. "Roger Blue one, sending telemetry data now of an intercept course toward an area of the battleship that has already lost all its weapons.
"Roger, command."
When he turned back Kyron's battered mech was slowly moving away on its one remaining thruster toward the nearest yet still extremely distant flotilla. Ranma doubted the battlepod had the legs to reach the, but wasn't about to persue anyway. "Don't come after me again Kyron, yer just not worth my time anymore." With that he turned around and joined his flight flying toward the last enemy battleship in the area.
Far off on her carrier, which had the translation software Exedore had come up with, Miriya had listened to the exchange between the Micronian ace and her smile became even more shark like. Oh yes, this is a warrior who truly knows what it means to be the best. Well, we'll see who the best is the next time we meet Micronian.
She frowned as she watched the Micronian ace join with a few of its brethren and slammed missiles into an already damaged part of the flotilla's last battleships but instead of peeling off, the jets transformed and landed on the hull before entering it from the whole they had just blown. What are they doing now?
Ranma stayed in Guardian mode until he touched down in a corridor in the interior deck of the ship. Once he did, he reached up to one of his wings and hit a small inset release button, which popped open a small section of the wing. That portion fell away and out dropped out a short sword about the same length as a Valkyrie's lower arm. It looked sort of like a cross between a short sword and a knife, a heavy leaf shaped blade with a good jagged edge and a heavy pommel.
When Motoko did the same however what popped out of a much larger section of the wing was most definitely a katana. A little longer than A Valkyrie's arm from shoulder to fingertips, it was slightly curved, the blade was slender, single edged, and the hilt was large enough to be gripped by two Veritech hands or wielded in one. A moment later they both stood in robot mode, in one hand gripping their rifles, in the other their swords.
Max looked at them in a little bit of shock and quite a bit of envy. "I have got to get me one of those," he muttered.
"Wait a bit before putting your order in," Motoko replied. "Dr. Lang is assigning two of his assistants to refitting and redesigning Valkyries. Wait until they're up and running before you start jabbering orders at them, it might make them get set up quicker."
By this time Ben had joined them and Ranma issued orders crisply, covering one end of the corridor. "All right, I'll take point Motoko your last Ben and max in the middle. He looked down at his controls for a moment flicking onto that would start to make a map of the battleship it interior as they traversed area command. "This is Blue 1, we're in and moving on. We've no idea where the bridge or engine room are though."
Mannstein's voice came back crisp and clear, this part of the operation was under his control as it was in essence a land assault. "Roger that, you have 10 minutes to make as much chaos as you can before we start our own assault. Bridge or engine room should be your targets, fore or aft, choose one and go for it, over."
"Roger, colonel," Ranma said, all business as his hand flashed up and out slamming the knife into the neck of the first of the alien's response team, sending it back in a splash of blood while his rifle came up and splattered the other two. "You heard the man team, let's get a move on."
What followed was 15 minutes of pure slaughter. The aliens, seemingly surprised at the humans boarding action, were slow to respond and once they did responded mostly with their crewmen armed only with their own rifles rather than battlepods, which were no match for Ranma and the others. Ranma move through them like a windmill, never stopping, never slowing, slicing, blasting, kicking, punching his way through every obstacle they tried to put in his path.
Ben and Max both were a little leery of shooting the aliens at first, this was the first time they ever killed someone who actually bled after all, but soon got into a rhythm. Max took the close in shots covering their sides while Ben took the distance shots. As they made their way forward Motoko guarded their back, which was not the soft option. The aliens knew precisely how to defend their ships, after all the Invid tried to board them all the time, and the best way to fight a boarding assault like that was to attack it from all sides.
But as deadly as Ranma, Motoko was just as deadly with hers saber. She was a true swordswoman, and even without the added benefit of the inhibitor removed from her helmet she moved with surgical precision and a astonishing amount of grace. She spun, slashed, sliced, used her jets to bounce up and off of walls and ceilings, slicing down and firing, always moving. Within those 15 minutes the four of them accounted for at least a hundred Zentraedi and still hadn't seen a single battlepod.
That changed when they came across to an intersection to find three battlepods and ten more guards dug in across from them. Ranma dropped his sword for a moment, reaching out to the side of the wall and ripping a piece of the plate t off using it as a makeshift shield against the hard point in the opposite end of the intersection. He let the aliens blast away at his shield for a moment before throwing it straight at them jumping forward right behind it.
As they cleared that hard point they were interrupted by Roy's voice coming through sharp and clear "Attention Blue flight brave for impact and Daedalus assault in 5,4,3,2,1!" Ranma and the others braced themselves and within a second the entire ship shuddered bucking and heaving.
Lisa looked at her radar screen as the ship moved forward slightly, until it was directly below the one remaining enemy battleship. The Daedalus, which had fallen below the atmosphere, again rose to meet it, looking nothing so much like a punch thrown by the robot-like battleships siege mode.
In another galaxy, Lisa would have thought up the Daedalus maneuver as a way to bring the destroids firepower to where they could do the most good, inside another battleships interior. The front of the Daedalus would punch into the side of an enemy ship before opening up and letting the destroids to fire directly into the inside of the ship. The 'swing of the super-carrier did still stop this time, much like a jab as it would have in that hypothetical other universe. Then, when it was embedded in the superstructure of the enemy battleship, the front of the Daedalus opened up.
Even as Kim controlled this maneuver Lisa turned to Vanessa. "Keep a close eye on your radar, I want to know the moment you see any incoming enemies as soon as possible. You have control of the grappling maneuver." Vanessa gulped but nodded. Now that the main battle was over, it would be a good exercise in how well she could control mid space maneuvers and keep the Veritech and Valkyrie squadrons working in real time.
The hatch slammed down and out poured the first Spartan company, armed with their combat mauls and their shoulders mounted weapons already firing. They swiftly mopped up what few aliens were in the area they had impacted, and then out came the two Tomahawk companies, and then Mannstein in his Monster to act as a command and fall back position. He stopped as soon as he was out of the way of the way of the destroids still pouring through, and connected Apocalypse's computer to that of Ranma and his team. He almost gaped for a moment seeing how far they had gotten towards the bow of the ship from their starting position and nodded decisively. This was a maneuver he and Lisa had all thought of for quite a while, and he immediately started rapping out orders, as the Spartans and Tomahawks broke from their normal homogenous companies to form small fire teams consisting of three Tomahawks and two Spartans.
"Teams one through seven break right and head aft. Your objective is to take the engine room. Teams eight through fifteen advance on these headings" and the HUD of their robots all lit up showing where they should go, "remain in contact with one another and form a defensive perimeter, expanding outward slowly. Company three," he said to the Spartans armed only with their specialized grapples, "start tearing this thing apart."
They all hastened to obey as behind them in the mouth of the assault transport ship a huge conveyor belt winched out along the floor. Once it touched down on the deck of the alien ship it powered up, and the Spartans began to rip and tear pieces of the ship off for transport into the bowels of the battleship. This way, even if they were forced to disengage rapidly as someone on the ship rigged the engines to explode they would still have gotten some resources from the fight.
Ranma killed another alien and looked around, his soldier modes head moving with the motion. The last few minutes their defense had been much better, and they even had brought up over a dozen battlepods in the last few matches. Yet in close they were still no match for his team, and he switched out the magazine on his rifle for the first time in this battle, the energy enlarged magazine having finally expended itself "Flight, ammo check."
Ben sounded out "I'm down to my last clip, about fifteen shots."
Max was next, "I'm about the same, twenty-five shots."
Motoko replied, "I still have to full clips, thirty shots in the one I'm using."
Ranma passed Ben one of his ammo clips and ordered Motoko to the same for Max. "Alright, we're obviously getting close to something important here, Motoko you stay here, guard our in line of retreat. Ben, Max you're with me!"
Motoko grinned evilly as she looked around. The intersection was littered with bodies and pieces of holes blasted out of the side of the walls. It was perfect place for her to cover, the aliens would actually have to enter the intersection to be able to box her in, and that would put them well within range of an assault with her katana.
Ranma and the others dashed forward, coming up against seven entrenched battlepods almost immediately. Ranma and Max both ripped off portions of the wall, to use as cover and the three Valkyries traded shots with the battlepods until the last one exploded and they rushed forward into the breach. On the other side of the destroyed battlepods they came to a huge and extremely heavy door and halted for a moment.
Ranma reached out with his senses and after a moment nodded "okay, this looks to be it. They've got heavy defenses in there along both walls, can't tell if they're in battlepods, but prepare for that anyway. Wait a minute and then follow me in. Watch out for any equipment though, remember command wants at least one computer alive and in one piece."
Both of the other Valkyries nodded their heads in reply not bothering to answer verbally. Ranma nodded in reply and concentrated his ki into his Veritech's fists. With a shout he brought them forward "Moko-ha Reiku!" and a beam of blue/gold fire slammed into and instantly burned through the door. It continued through the other side impacting a battle pod that had been a little too close, vaporizing the top half of the mech and the driver inside.
With a shout he charged forward through the hole in the door and before the aliens could respond was in among them. Only a few of these aliens seem to know what to do in close quarters, and none of them were a match for Ranma. He slashed out catching one alien behind the knee slicing the entire lower half of his leg off as his rifle came round and blasted a battlepod. He then grabbed the new battlepods remains and used it to shield himself from fire from the left side of the room as he responded to fire from the right with his rifle. As he did this Ben and Max charged through grabbing pieces of the first battlepod Ranma had downed in the room to use as cover and started to clear the room. Their fire slaughtered the left side before turning to the right and eventually return fire petered out.
Ranma stood up cautiously, looking around and nodded in satisfaction. He keyed his com and said "Command this is Blue one, we've taken the bridge intact, moving back to a defensive position."
Mannstein responded crisply. "Roger that, be advised I have teams moving up to join you. We're clearing this bitch level by level. Once team ten joins up with you, fall back to my position to rearm if you need to, otherwise just start causing some havoc until I tell you to stop he said," chortling a little at the end.
Ranma nodded, "Roger that," and he and the other two raced back to join Motoko where she had stopped. When they arrived, they found that she had just decimated another heavy assault, and was leaning against the wall panting a little inside of her Veritech. She had taken out at least forty aliens, including five battle pods.
Ranma nodded, "nice job imouto. "Ben take that corner, Max the next one, I'll take the third Motoko you stay put. Grab some of the debris for cover, we'll dig in here and hold until relief arrives." Motoko grinned at his praise but didn't bother moving, save to push some of her sweaty hair back under her helmet.
They didn't have long to wait, evidently whoever was in command of the alien defense by this point, if there even was someone, had decided that the bridge was a lost cause, and pulled out its troops from that section of this battleship to help reinforce around the engine room. It wasn't doing him any good really, in close the Spartans were more than a match for any of the aliens, and even in the battlepod they weren't really able to take on the Tomahawks direct firepower. The battlepod's main advantages in any fight were maneuverability and sheer numbers. In this fight however they had no maneuverability and number superiority was actually on the side of the humans in most of the fights they ran into considering that most of the aliens weren't in pods. The destroids still took losses, but it looked as if they had caught the aliens completely flat footed by this attempt at board.
Either that or the aliens just didn't have any overriding intelligence driving their defense at all. Ranma considered that might be the true reason, as without Kyron they had seen that his troops just didn't seem to know what to do with themselves. Ranma shuddered thinking how hard this fight would've been with someone like Breetai in charge of the aliens. The phrase 'pure hell' came to mind rather forcefully.
"Movement!" Max said suddenly, "hold fire, friendlies." Swiftly two Spartans and three Tomahawks came around the bend of the corridor moving swiftly. All but one of the Spartans fell into the makeshift cover that Ranma and his flight had been using. Ranma's Veritech pointed down the corridor towards the bridge bridges "The bridge is down that way, all the computers are still on from what we could tell."
And the one Spartan that had taken cover nodded and raced down towards it. That was the Spartan of the company commander, and he had two computer techs on board. Their job was to copy everything on the aliens computers, taking any and all information that could. One of the Tomahawks nodded at Ranma. This was a company Lieutenant and his job was to secure this position until relieved or told to retreat. "We'll take it from here commander, go on and do that voodoo you do so well!"
Ranma returned the salute, and is Veritech copied the motion. "All right troops let's go raise some hell!" Motoko and the others nodded and followed him down the corridor. They were only attacked two more times however, and within 40 minutes the call came in that the engine room had been taken.
Mannstein nodded grimly as that report came in he'd taken a few losses and any losses at this point were painful ones, but overall this battle had been remarkably simple. The aliens just couldn't seem to grasp the fact that the humans were attacking them from multiple points at once, and Ranma and his team seemed to have brought the lion's share of the defenses down on their own heads, and they never recovered, leaving his men to attack them from behind or simply spread throughout the ship.
He looked at the schematic of the ship they had compiled and smiled happily. There are still a few areas where the map was vague, but he had a map of the ship that could be used in future engagements.
Now though he directed a few of the grapple equipped Spartans forward towards the sections of the ship then had holes in it towards the exterior to patch up those places so that the ship could be brought down into the denser atmosphere of Jupiter. "Command, this is Mannstein, I estimate maybe 20 min. before we're ready to drag the ship back down. Enemy resistance has faded almost to nothing, suggest you get the Veritechs in here now."
On the command deck of the battleship, Lisa nodded and in space along the hull of the Daedalus into the assault transport specially made hatches opened up and grapples fired into the enemy battleship further latching the battleship to the assault transport. While this was going on the rest of the Valkyrie forces that had been flying CAP moved into the sections of the battleship that had been blown off into space. They would make their way from there into the assault transport or help with the deconstruction of the interior. Roy and Skull squadron were the last ones in and as they entered, all of them carried debris from the battlefield in their soldier modes. It wasn't elegant by any means, but it added quite a bit to their stores. Once the ship was taken down into the denser atmosphere of the planet, the interior would be completely taken taken apart and added to their stores. Once they were all inside the enemy battleship, the space fortress began to descend once more into Jupiter's thermosphere.
Miriya looked on in shock as the fist of the battleship, and that was the only way a power suit user like her could think of the enemy ship, as some sort of enemy that was lying down punching up into one of Kyron's battleships, dragged it down into the depths of the planet. Inside she was castigating herself. Of course, she thought in a snarl, information goes two ways. They must've done this just to get more information on us. It never occurred to any of us to think that they would want to or be able to think like that. It should have of course the Invid do the same thing to us as well, but it didn't. I wonder what they'll find out, and how they'll use that information.
Ranma and Blue flight weren't going to be part of the deconstruction of the battleship's interior for a bit as other than Ranma himself all of them were running on fumes in terms of battery life. They had to head back into the space fortress to get new batteries fitted, giving them a bit more time before joining the deconstruction efforts. Ranma looked over at Motoko as they both that exited their Valkyries, smirking. "Well that was fun" he said sardonically, "I wonder what we'll do for an encore."
end chapter
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