I don't own Robotech: Rick being with Lisa and still wanting Minmei, 'nuff said. Nor do I own Ranma, alas.
An infrastructure and rebuilding chapter, as well as a few funny points, which just kept growing hence the lateness of my putting it out. The songs used in this chapter are: Samurai Heart, an ending song from the Gintama series and Anastasia by Slash, who I also don't own, as well as Awake and Alive by Skillet who own themselves.
Chapter 16 Where do They Get Those Wonderful Toys?
The operation had been an incredible success. Not only had they captured an enemy battleship, a veritable trove of information and material, but the Valkyries hadn't taken a single casualty and they were able to escape back into the gas giant's atmosphere before the two nearest Zentraedi forces could come after them. They hadn't hurried though, the complete destruction of three ships and a little fewer than 250 battlepods seemed to have taken them aback a little and since the battleship would have been free to use its siege mode, they were right not to force the issue. Then too, the closest group had merely picked up the enemy commanders mangled heavy pod before retreating back to its former position.
Two Spartans moved methodically around where the assault ship's outer hull met the enemy battleship, using special liquid adhesive guns to seal the ships together. The adhesive was incredibly expensive, and not something the ship could make as no-one on board knew how, and doing this would use nearly half of the stores of it onboard. The senior pilot looked at a little device on the side of his screen and when the red light on it changed to green he sent an all clear signal to the assault ships environmental section.
Emotion among the pilots from the squadrons not relegated to taking the battleship apart was high as they parked their planes along the Daedalus' assault bay, barely noticing that a dozen closed trucks were heading up and out into the battleship around them. The instant air began to circulate the pilots popped their canopies and jumped up, shouting and cheering, jumping about and thumping backs, celebrating the lopsided win with the destroid and deck crews and Blue squadron, who had been the first to pop their canopies. "Ooorah, ooraaahh!"
Ranma grinned and joined in the shouting and cheering but he stopped as someone in the crowd shouted "Hey Ranma sing us a song!" Some others who knew of his curse swiftly joined in.
"Oh hell no! I ain't a bloody nightingale that'll sing on demand!" Ranma made to escape but several hands grabbed him before he could get away. He could have broken away easily of course but as it was all in good fun he didn't bother.
Roy shouldered his way through the crowd to reach Ranma, a wide grin on his face as Rick followed him, his own smile only a little smaller than his commanders. "Come on Ranma, just one song and then we'll all get out of here okay? Don't make me make it an order."
Ranma growled but then brightened. There is always the direct approach ain't there? "Alright, but I sure as hell ain't singing in this form, I don't want ta start a riot. Someone get me a glass of cold water. And where's Max, if nothing else works let's see if changing right in front of him makes him believe me!"
Ben and Motoko looked at one another. "Uh, he already took off; he said he wanted to see Dr. Lang as soon as possible to get the same modifications you have."
Ranma groaned as everyone around them laughed. Most of the pilots knew about Ranma's changing form and how Max refused to believe in it, the whole thing was an ongoing joke to them all. Of course what made this even funnier to Roy and the other commanders was that Dr. Lang and his tema had just passed them with a group of UNSF engineers to examine the ship, so Max wouldn't be able to find him at his lab.
Once he was handed a glass of water the aqua-transsexual walked back to his jet and hopped up onto one of its wings. Looking at the rowdy crowd on the ground around him he shrugged and dumped the water over his head. Shaking her head to clear the water from her eyes Ranma ignored the mutterings of surprise and shock from the people who hadn't seen his transformation before, as well as the screams of anguish from one or two of them who had apparently been followers of the 'wild flower'. Mokoto had to look away from how cute Ranma looked with the water in her hair and plastering her flight uniform to her body. Tonight's the night, I'm going to convince Lucretia to go out with me, or, or something I'll figure out later, probably jill furiously god damn it.
"Alright you bastards, one song then I'm outta here! Got it!" The pilots and soldiers shouted and cheered which Ranma took to mean agreement so she went on. "The song is called Samurai Heart, and the original is Japanese so it might not scan well, but fuck it, I'm the one singing so I damn well choose the song!" She reached into her cockpit and punched a few buttons and soon background music began to blare out of its exterior speakers.
With that she began, staring out with bright eyes as her hands clenched into fists. "Got your head in the clouds, you're not even listening are you? You deliberately miss the signs I drop for you, but we're the same, we can understand each other right? That's just a delusion you probably won't even notice me here. Alone yet mixed in a crowd, I feel empty looking up to the sky, playing catch with myself in this one-sided conversation, my loneliness increases."
That part had been mellow, getting more and more emotional and loud with each line, but the next part was belted out in a hard, unyielding tone, much like the voice she had used when singing March of Cambreadth at the rally and her eyes began to blaze with blue gold fire. "Hey! Hey! Answer me, is anyone there? Even though I've looked all this time there's still no answer. Hey! Hey! I'm the only one that decides who I want to be, so no matter if I laugh cry, love, hate, I'll continue living on! Hey! Hey! Samurai Heart!"
She began to move, a fast paced kata that had her legs and fists cutting through the air, her face even fiercer, but there as a certain joy in it, the joy of battle as she sang the next stanza in the original Japanese. Only Roy, Motoko and a few others understood but the tune was so catchy the others kept cheering and rocking along. It was still a relief to them all though when Ranma changed back to English, which had of course become the lingua Franca of the UNSF. "Hey! Hey! We can't go on living on our own, you can't put your heart into something if you throw it away! Hey! Hey! You don't have a reason to give up! You're gonna hold on and keep living on this road! Hey! Hey! Answer me, is anyone there? Even though I've looked all this time there's still no answer. Hey! Hey! I'm the only one that decides who I want to be, so no matter if I laugh cry, love, hate, I'll continue living on! Hey! Hey! Samurai Heart!"
She came to the end of the song and she stopped moving, her eyes going back to normal, but her face and posture was still fierce as she stared out at the crowd of pilots who were cheering and hollering. "Hey! Hey! Samurai Heart! Hey! Hey! Samurai Heart! No matter if I laugh cry, love, hate, I'll continue living on! Hey! Hey! Samurai Heart!"
Once Ranma finished the song she jumped up into the air and disappeared mid-leap into the Umi-Sen-Ken, using it to duck out of the crowd even as her fellow pilots began to shout for an encore. Eventually though they realized that Ranma was gone, and began to disperse to continue the party elsewhere, mostly in the city of course. The police and MP's would be very busy later, but really who could blame them?
On the captured battleship Dr. Lang and Commander Drake, who had been second in command of the Prometheus and bouncing around from one job to another for months until Gloval had finally gotten fed up and ordered him to take over the intelligence division (after he jailed Griftel for gross incompetence and dereliction of duty in a time of war) were both in ecstasies, an emotion shared by every other engineer and scientist they had brought with them. "Look at that, the outer shell of the ships appears to be trying to heal itself!" Dr. Lang shouted into his intercom, looking at the section of the hull where it had been bashed through by the Daedalus.
In another truck commander Drake watched as portions of the outer hull started to somehow reform itself, merging with the special air sealant the two Spartans had used to make the connection between the ships airtight and having helped the process along. He shook his head, not quite believing what he had just seen before pressing his own com button. "That's amazing, but it looks like a mindless, automatic reaction. Look, it's stopped now it must somehow assume that the Daedalus is part of the same ship, so now it's stopped. Incredible, if we could figure out how it does that and apply the process to our own ships, the benefits to their long term combat capability would be immense." Both they and their fellows continued to move through the ship in their trucks, having completely ignored the impromptu performance occurring behind them.
Dr. Lang nodded thoughtfully as the truck rode under serried ranks of battlepods. He looked out of the trucks canopy at them musing that if the aliens had been prepared for their boarding action they would undoubtedly been able to put up a better fight. A part of his brain began to count the battlepods they passed, and the number would not please him when he thought of it later. "Yes, I wonder if there is a reason why they don't have shields though, if we were able to come up with them I don't see any reason why they wouldn't be able to."
Drake shrugged. "If Commanders Sugita and Hayes' reports are to be believed, they have so many numbers that self preservation wouldn't be a priority. That would certainly correlate with what we've seen of their fighter tactics. Or maybe they do and we just haven't seen it yet, maybe on their main command ships and that's all. The shields are pretty energy intensive after all." Drake had an engineering background, not enough to keep up with Dr. Lang or his fellows but enough to follow along, and he had helped design the barrier control room before his latest job was handed to him.
In all honesty, he was very pleased with the level of trust in him this appointment showed. He didn't have any background in Intelligence after all, but on the other hand he could hardly do a worse job at it than the incompetent he had replaced. It did worry him a little that his former commanding officer hadn't jumped at the chance to take this job. Connor seemed content to merely be in charge of the second shift bridge crew and Commandant of the Academy, though that bothered him for some reason. If Drake knew anything about his old captain, he was ambitious, and he wasn't acting like it now.
He ignored that for now and watched as the truck passed through the areas that were already begin taken apart by the Spartans, grimacing as he saw piles of alien bodies stuffed to the side of the corridor. Two of the dozen trucks in the convoy broke off, making for the pile and he shook his head. Scientists were alright, he could talk to them more or less, but doctors…
Dr. Lang hmmed in thought. "That could be true I suppose. It will be interesting to see what all we can find out about their culture and thinking from their computers. More, I am eager to see their engines. If they fold the same way the space fortress does it will be a fantastic find, even if we can only use it as a spare at this point." The space fortress had initially had five fold engines for some reason, yet Dr. Lang had done the equations and could tell that one would have been enough to move the ship the other four were there to add to the speed in fold. However humanity could not recreate the fold engine that the space fortress used, but maybe they could use the alien's fold engine.
They came upon a large intersection and found Apocalypse there, having barely been able to move along the corridor and even in this intersection it loomed, a dangerous, brooding presence. Colonel Mannstein's voice came out of the huge Monster destroid, "Commander Drake, Dr. Lang, the ship is secured, but you will find I left a few Spartans and Tomahawks in both the bridge and the engine room. The engine room can be found to the left of this intersection, the bridge to the right. Please be aware in the event we've missed any of these aliens both places will be targets for a counter attack, and I expect you to follow my orders and the orders of my officers in that situation."
Both men nodded, and the convoy broke up, both teams going on their way on very different missions of discovery.
Once Mannstein had reported that he had command of the ship and had given his orders to the various groups over there, Lisa sighed, stretching at her station before she nodded her head approvingly at Vanessa. "Good work, only one or two mistakes with your distribution of the CAP, we'll go over those next shift. Right now, I think we've all earned a bit of down time. Captain?"
Gloval nodded. "Yes, I think you have. Don't worry I can handle the com until the next shift arrives." The second shift was comprised of four young ensigns who had been washed out of the academies destroid/Veritech program and been relegated to second string bridge controllers. They weren't trusted in combat yet, and so were called in on off shifts whenever the regular bridge crew needed a break. Captain Connor led them, having enough free time as in his own words 'chief paper pusher' at the academy to take on another job.
Lisa nodded as the younger girls squealed and began to swiftly finish the little tasks they were doing, they knew the pilots would already be out on the town partying and they wanted to join in. Lisa on the other hand wasn't much of a party person, and she had other plans. After spending a few minutes making notes on the battle and the 'Daedalus maneuver', as well as a few notes on how it could be used to greater effect in the future, she shut down her screen "Well, I'm off then, I hear a Kasumi-made meal calling me." This elicited a groan from the captain, who knew the young lady in question was as good a cook as Nodoka but had more free time to devote to it than his lady friend, and a sideways glance from Claudia.
She saluted the captain then walked off the bridge but as she stepped into the elevator Claudia caught up with her. The doors had barely enough time to close before Claudia turned on her friend. "Alright what the hell is going on with you Ranma and Kasumi? I thought maybe you were trying to poach Ranma from her or maybe poach Kasumi from Ranma, but now I don't know, you've been spending so much time with both of them, what the hell is going on?"
"I don't know what you're talking about, and how is this any business of yours?" Lisa sniffed. "My private life is just that, private."
"Yeah from most people but I've been your friend for years and I want to know you're not getting into something that will hurt you down the line. I'm just worried about you Lisa."
Lisa smiled at her friend. "Thanks for caring but seriously, I'm fine with the way things are going. I'm not getting in over my head or anything like that. We… we're sort of in a triangle relationship, but we're all fine with it."
Claudia looked at her in surprise. "And you are alright with that, having to share a man, that's not something I would've thought you would be willing to put up with Ms. Feminist."
"With any other man, no it wouldn't be worth it. With any other man I wouldn't have moved past Karl, but it's Ranma, and he's worth it. He, they make me feel so special, so loved, unique and needed, all those things. I've been happier since getting together with them than I have been for years."
"And you're not worried how that will look when it gets out? What about when we get back to Earth, you know gossip moves faster than the speed of sound, what do you think your father will say?" Claudia just could not believe that any woman, let alone a strong career minded woman like Lisa, would be willing to put up with sharing a man like this. Sure she could see Lisa getting together with Ranma, they did seem to hit it off for some reason, but to share him with Kasumi?
"My father's opinion about my personal life matters not at all to me and frankly I don't care what anyone else thinks either. I'm happy, Kasumi's happy and Ranma's happy, what else matters?" She softened her voice reaching out to grip Claudia's shoulder.
"Claudia I understand you're concerned for me, and I even understand it, but think about this: how many men do you know could separate their professional relationship with a woman from their personal relationship, especially when she's senior to him? How many of them would be happy to support a woman without trying to change her? Ranma and I have been going out for over a month and we've had no issues while on the clock, and he has told me and Kasumi several times that he wants us to have our own dreams, our own professions, and that he will always care for us so long as we care for him. How many men could say that and mean it? How many men could accept me like that and mean it?" Lisa's eyes were watery as she finished speaking and the elevator doors opened on her stop. "Now if you'll excuse me, I want to go see my boyfriend and girlfriend."
Lisa walked off leaving Claudia behind still looking after her. After a moment she shook her head and decided she would just be happy for her friend and not worry about the impropriety. Besides, she had her last bottle wine and a certain cocky CAG to spend some time with herself. With that thought she turned around and re-entered the elevator whistling quietly.
Fifteen minutes later Lisa walked into what was quickly becoming her self-made family's home. It wasn't finished yet by any means, but the kitchen was fully wired and furnished, and several large futons and beanbags were already in the main sitting room, though the plating underneath was still bare as were the walls, and nothing had been done on the second floor area. The kitchen, the first room you entered from the hallway was done in natural colors, light tan wallpaper, wooden tables and wood finishes on all the furniture. The appliances were also chosen to match, in either tan or green. A few paintings in Japanese style and a wall hanging with Japanese lettering spelling out the words 'hearth and home' finished the image. The whole thing gave off a nice simple and homely feel that Lisa loved.
The sight of Kasumi at the oven was even more welcome. Her words on the other hand shocked Lisa out of her thoughts. "Okaeri nesai anata. Y-you're home early today. What would you like to do first? Would you like dinner, a bath or maybe you want me!?" Kasumi turned and grinned over her shoulder wickedly at Lisa, who stood gaping at her for a moment before laughing aloud.
"W-where in the world did that come from Kasumi? It sounded like you were quoting something." Lisa asked, still giggling as she took a seat at the table.
"Oh it's a common line in hentai stories dealing with housewives. I thought I'd try it to see how it felt. Rather silly frankly, a little too rote. Making love should be more spontaneous than that. And I certainly don't think that the woman should be the only one making the preparations like that."
"And there's the fact you're not a housewife Kasumi," Lisa said firmly. She knew how Kasumi's old family had treated her and both she and Ranma went out of their way to combat it if they saw Kasumi starting to fall back into old habits. "You are a vibrant young woman who has a promising career ahead of her and can do anything you set your mind to. And why in the world did you use that line on me and not Ranma?"
Kasumi smiled hugging the other woman briefly then moving back to finish up cooking dinner. "Oh I know that, there is a distinct difference between enjoying cooking for people and enjoying being stuck in a house and forced to work as a drudge. And I used it on you because I used another such line on Ranma when he arrived." She giggled wickedly, a look on her face that would have sent Nodoka reaching for her fans and Soun into a dead faint. "Of course with him I added a little visual aid. A word of advice my dear, the naked apron look should be listed as a lethal weapon."
Lisa gaped at her then burst out laughing again. When she calmed down she asked, "Would you like me to leave then, if you two want some alone time? I- I'm not mentally prepared to go that far just yet."
Kasumi waved Lisa's offer away. "Oh no, it's a dangerous time of the month for me, so no fun time." Contraceptives and pills were all well and good, but Kasumi knew that the women in her family were sometimes a little too fertile, and Ranma was well, he lived up to his name, for her to take chances (she routinely took two morning after pills just in case!). Yes she wanted to be a mother someday, but not for several years yet. "Besides your first time with Ranma should be a special time for you both, just as it was with Ranma and me. Don't worry, when the time comes you'll have fun."
Lisa smirked. "I don't doubt that. You two should really learn to lock the door when you're 'busy' you know."
Kasumi blushed then smiled naughtily. "Oh, but it's so much better actually riding than watching my friend." The two shared a giggle then giggled all the harder as Ranma poked his head in, hair wet from a hot shower.
"Hey Lisa, Kas-chan you need any help with dinner? What are you two laughing about anyway?" The two girls simply smirked at him and Ranma fought off an irrational moment of fear as he saw the look in both their eyes. He shook it off quickly and helped bring out some munchies to the table.
Lisa and Kasumi joined him and the three ate dinner, trading jokes about Ranma's old rivals and some old competitor of Lisa's from her days at the academy until Kasumi smiling left for a moment and came back with a bottle of wine. "How about some wine to celebrate the recent operation?"
Lisa smiled and waved her forward. She took a glass and turned back to the discussion. "But seriously Ranma, you never wanted to be anything that couldn't use your martial arts in some way? I thought every child went through the stage of wanting to be a fireman or actor or something like that."
Kasumi giggled sitting next to her and pouring a glass for herself. Ranma waved her off, he had seen his father drunk and dumb way too many times to be at all interested in alcohol. "Nah, I never got the chance ta do much dreaming, and all I ever wanted to do besides martial arts was ta go into space. That was my dream and I stuck ta it. Besides" he grinned "with all the crap I've seen, dreaming of being a prince or magician or samurai kinda lose their luster y'know."
Lisa giggled, sipping her wine and looking at Kasumi with one eyebrow raised. The other girl giggled a little more in turn before speaking, sipping at her own glass as she did. "Well, I wanted to be a policewoman when I was younger, then I wanted to be a goddess and then a magical girl... You could say I was easily influenced by anime when I was younger."
Ranma smirked. "Well I could definitely see ya as a goddess, but a magical girl? You have way too much common sense ta pull that off."
Kasumi laughed and Lisa shook her head. "I remember that show, something about defending love and boys or something? Ugh, and those costumes, you wouldn't catch me in those if my life depended on it. Now if it was defending truth and justice and wearing something like that Catwoman costume, the one from the American comics, sure." She snorted. "Especially if it came with that body type included. I was a little self conscious when I was younger."
Ranma snorted. "Not anymore though right? I mean, not ta put too fine a point on it or nothin' but ya do know yer beautiful right?"
Lisa leaned over and kissed him on the cheek amused at the way he could give such a backhanded compliment. "Thank you Ranma."
Kasumi grinned leaning over in turn and kissing the other cheek to balance it out. "So what did you want to be when you were younger Lisa?"
Lisa settled back into her chair, smirking and sticking her tongue out at the other girl, "Not telling."
The discussion between the trio continued for a few hours, as the girls talked about dreams Ranma talked about cartoons and they all talked about the odd way one could influence the other. Ranma nearly choked on his food laughing when Lisa and Kasumi both started to call him Goku, after the Dragon Ball Z manga, after all many of the things he did had something equivalent in that manga.
The discussion was interrupted momentarily when Nodoka called and told them that she would be spending the night with captain Gloval. This made Ranma wince a little, but it wasn't as if he hadn't gotten used to the thought. He turned back, watching with some amusement as his two girlfriends got more and more drunk on simple rice wine. Neither girl seemed to have any head for alcohol, and had barely finished two-thirds of the bottle but Ranma could see in their faces that it was getting to them both. Maybe what my dad said was true, practice does make perfect, even for this.
Kasumi was giggling every other second uncontrollably and, while not showing any sign of being drunk in her face or body language, Lisa's eyes couldn't seem to focus. She also took a while to answer each question and she clearly had to concentrate on enunciating each word.
Kasumi smirked across the table at her girlfriend. Giggling between words she asked "so what is the dream you thought was so embarrassing that you didn't want to share with us earlier?"
Lisa smiled in turn and said, "I wanted to be a stripper when I was around nine or ten." She sobered a little as she went on as her friends gave her surprised looks. "There was this assistant of my father at the time, he had just been made commodore, and this one guy was always watching me for him. This was before Karl of course" she said, sighing then went on, "and I always asked him, you understand I was having daddy abandonment issues at the time, right? Well I always asked him what kind of girl a soldier would like hoping I could somehow convince my dad to stay home, and he would always tell me a stripper." Her two friends looked between caught between laughing and just commiserating. Neither of them had good father figures after all, though only Ranma would actually say he loathed his father. Kasumi merely disliked her father intensely, and wanted nothing more to do with the man, but the idea of someone playing that kind of trick on a young impressionable girl was rather disturbing.
Lisa suddenly looked over at Ranma, her eyes sparkling and Ranma again had to fight an irrational moment of fear as he saw the desire there, as well as the imp of mischief present in her curved lips. "You know" she mused "that gives me a great idea." She took hold of the bottle of wine and drank three long pulls from the bottle before putting it down. Grabbing Ranma's hand Lisa dragged him over to where the three had placed futons on the ground in the main living room. She pushed him down onto the bed and then turned around looking for their music player. "I know it's around here somewhere." She said, muttering to herself as she picked her way carefully around the room. For some reason she was having trouble walking.
Kasumi despite being half drunk realized what her friend was about, and decided to join her. It looked like fun after all. She picked up the bottle of wine and took two gulps finishing it before placing it back down on the table and joining Lisa in looking around for the music player.
For his part, Ranma was just sort of wondering where all this was going. "Are you certain you want to do this Lisa? This isn't something you're going to regret when you sober up is it?"
Lisa giggled as she placed the sound system on the floor behind her and turned to Ranma. "No this is something I've been meaning to do. I think it's time that we move our relationship along a little. I know you have this policy of you know, wanting to make the act perfect, but there are a lot of things we can do before we go that far, and before you start spouting yes I am going to want to go all the way soon." She glared at him a little, made blunt by drink. "You've been the perfect gentleman so far not taking advantage and not pushing me, but I am tired of being a virgin dammit!"
Ranma breathed a little deeper than usual as he thought about this and then he said "all right. I, we can do that. It's just I ain't so good at this whole going out thing. What I did fer Kasumi was 'cause I knew what she wanted ta do, and... I don't know what's fast or slow, I, I just okay." He stopped stuttering "but I'm not doing anything like that tonight. I mean, not while you're drunk. It wouldn't be right."
Lisa giggled. "No we won't be going that far, but I'm certain we can find a happy middle ground." She smirked as she turned on the music and began to dance. The song was some kind of techno thing that Kasumi had been given by one of her friends at the college who wanted to see if she wanted to be the voice for their band. She had declined the offer but kept the tape.
Kasumi giggled and joined her and the two danced around one another, sometimes bumping (and not always on purpose) into one another or the objects strewn around the room, but generally having fun. Then Lisa started to strip slowly and sensually first her uniform top, which she took off and threw at Ranma. Then she slowly peeled off her socks, stepping between Ranma's outstretched legs as she did so.
Ranma gulped as he looked up at her long perfect legs, licking his lips in unconscious approval. Lisa reveled in that look and moved away to continue her stripping act. Kasumi meanwhile had shucked off her pants, but felt the wine catching up to her. She decided she'd had enough moving around, and moved to sit next to Ranma. But not before pulling him into a heated kiss and then sharply turning his head away to watch Lisa as Kasumi curled up against his side.
Lisa's act continued but now rather than dancing she simply sat on Ranma's lap grinding there for a time moaning throatily as her eyes closed dreamily. Ranma brought up his hands to caress her sides, but she smacked them away, smiling slightly as she moved back to her feet "No touching unless I say so." She twirled around for a few more turn as she slowly peeled off her dress, skirt and tossed to the floor. Then she peeled off her undershirt and threw that away standing there in just her underwear as Ranma looked on somewhere between shock and almost overwhelming desire.
Lisa's body was as perfect as he had always known it would be. Her long legs rose up to magnificent bubble butt incased in white silk, she had an almost six pack stomach and high, perky D-cup breasts that looked as if you could set a table on them they were so firm in her plain bra. Ranma really didn't know where to look first and tried in vain to just sort of sear the image into his brain.
Lisa turned moving as erotically as she could in her inebriated state and watched with approval as Ranma's pants, which had been loose suddenly became very tight in the front, and she could see the may pole rising. Reaching behind her with both hands she thrust her chest forward, as if teasing him as she removed her bra tossing it to the side before she jumped into his lap.
Lisa had been so far along that when Ranma grabbed the back of her head and pulled her into a forceful kiss it didn't take long for her to orgasm. A few grinding motions and the feel of his tongue against hers in her mouth and she came explosively, drenching her panties and his own pant leg as she shuddered and bucked against his still clothed body.
After a few moments she regained a little bit of her self-control and pulled back, sighing softly. Ranma looked deep into her eyes for a moment. "I love you, you know" he murmured. "You're just so fantastic. I don't have the words to.." Lisa smiled happily.
"I love you too Ranma." She snuggled into his neck with her nose murmuring softly as Ranma again to caress her back slowly, not sensually or sexily, just more to comfort than anything else. Soon however the drink and her exertions caught up with her and she fell asleep there. Ranma looked down had her sleeping face nestled into his shoulder and he smiled gently before lifting her up and placing her on the side of the bed that had not previously been occupied. He spent a few moments cleaning up the dishes, and then with a wry smile turned off the lights and joined his two lovers in their bed. Today, he thought, has been one for the record books.
Elsewhere someone else was trying to get lucky. Motoko walked into the clothing store that her current crush Lucretia worked at and she smiled in delight at seeing the short blonde there. "Hey Lucretia, how are you?"
Lucretia looked over as she heard her name, smiling in welcome. While she wouldn't call Motoko a friend, after all she was a spy and knew better than to think that way, the Micronian female was nice and an invaluable source of information about the fighter forces on the ship, no specifics but a lot of generalities and their unit structure. There was also something else about her that intrigued the blonde Meltraedi, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it. "Hello Motoko, how went the operation?" She and the other spies knew that the Micronians were preparing to strike against Kyron's forces, but hadn't really cared enough to find out more. Kyron after all was not Meltraedi, and what happened to him and his fleet matter not at all to them. They hadn't had any luck finding any information about the proto-culture generator though.
"It went great, we took the aliens completely by surprise and no casualties among the Valkyries, and only a few among the destroids." Lucretia nodded, surprised that the land based forces, who could only fight when stationed on the hull of the space fortress, took more casualties than the space worthy variable shape fighters. She briefly wondered about what kind of battle would account for that, but Motoko's voice captured her attention. "Um, anyway I was wondering if you wanted to go out with me tonight?"
Lucretia looked at her for a moment then nodded. "Certainly, I will call my friends and we can all go out and enjoy some of the sights together."
Motoko shook her head quickly. While she had met Sonya and Anya, and they were both gorgeous, neither of them lit her fire anywhere as much as Lucretia. "No, I mean just the two of us." At the other woman's blank look she went on, becoming a lot less hopeful, "You, know as in a date?"
Lucretia looked at her blankly. "I'm afraid I don't follow."
Motoko stared at her, wondering if this was the other girl's way of telling her she wasn't interested, or if she was that innocent. After a moment she thought it might well be the second option, and that meant she could corrupt the other girl a bit, but she would have to go slow lest she scare the shorter girl off. "Um, well if you don't want to then sure you can call your friends. I'll meet you back here in a half hour okay, then we can all go clubbing or something." Lucretia nodded agreeably, missing the other girl's frown of disappoint as she turned to leave the shop. All three of the Meltraedi had learned to enjoy 'music' and the calisthenics exercise called dancing was most enjoyable. Briefly she wondered what this date thing was, then shrugged. If it was important for her mission she would find out later.
The next day Ranma was up and about early and set about quickly making a small breakfast for Lisa and Kasumi, who were still asleep on the futons the trio had pushed together in the sitting room,. Last night was really fun. Who knew that Lisa would have such good rhythm as a stripper? The fact she was fucking hot at it was something any male with eyes could tell. Still, he needed to get out and do stuff today. He got out two bagels (fresh made by Kasumi, who loved baking from scratch) and set out two plates with a bagel, locks and cream cheese as well as grapes for Lisa and watermelon pieces for Kasumi. Once that was done, he poured a glass of orange juice for Kasumi and put a self heating cup with tea in it for Lisa. Placing the two meals on either side of the sleeping girls, he took a moment to chuckle at their positions. Kasumi was underneath their covers curled around his shirt and cuddling into it and Lisa's side with a smile that was somehow both innocent and dirty. Lisa on the other hand was spread out face down over the bed, he had to lift her arms and one of her legs before he could move. She was also drooling onto the pillow and still naked save for a pair of white panties. The sight of her delectable backside threatened to derail his thoughts but he shook it off. Changing into his silk shirt and army pants he wrote out a note and put it on the kitchen table then left, closing the door gently behind him.
When he got there, he found a message waiting on his data-pad in his office (and damn but he was still getting used to that) where he had left it. When he finished reading the message he smirked, rubbing his hands together gleefully and sent out his own messages to his minions er subordinates. About an hour later he looked up from his desk to see Motoko and Max standing in the doorway. Motoko was glaring at him while Max merely looked half asleep. "You are fucking evil, you know that? You know we were all out last night getting completely blotto and you call us in here in the morning! Give me one good reason why I shouldn't try to slap you fucking silly!"
Motoko's evening had been hot, fun and frustrating all in one. While spending time with Lucretia and her friends at the nightclub they had found (one of only two in the city) was fun, dancing with the short blonde got her all hot and bothered but didn't seem to have any effect on the other girl. She had thought rather despondently that maybe the other girl was just irredeemably straight, but the buxom blonde had turned down every attempt to talk her up by guys as well. Her look of confusion made Motoko wonder why she was so naïve, but she was looking forward to teaching her… Still the night ended with her going home alone again, something that was beginning to wear on her, and she had jilled herself to sleep only to wake up with a major ass hangover from all the drinking she done the night before.
Max's night on the other hand had ended very well despite not being able to find Dr. Lang, he had found an impressionable civilian girl and spent the night successfully wooing her only to be woken up in her bed by the message Ranma sent them both.
"We gotta get organized before the academy graduates its next class which occurs in a week. I wanted to know if either of ya knew anybody in the graduating class that we should scout" Ranma said calmly, after all she couldn't move that fast from the doorway to where he was sitting. "We also need to figure out our handle, cause I don't want us just to be Blue squadron anymore, and we need to design a new unit tag. And we got a meeting over at the science institute in half an hour."
Max frowned, his dislike of Ranma in abeyance for now and feeling very mellow after last night. "Well I don't know anyone in the class, but I thought we would simply be following the normal organization. As for getting a new label and badge I agree with that. We're not really Blue squadron anymore, none of us were among the original squadron back on earth, and we have a new captain too. We should make a clean break from the past, a whole new beginning."
Ranma nodded. "That's what I'm shooting for. We also might not keep the three flight four pilot organization. I've been thinking of the fights where the commander had some of us stay back and offer cover fire. Even in clear space with a 360 degree field of assault we took fewer casualties than normal when we followed that ROE. So I was thinking eventually splitting up the squad by threes."
"Three per flight team you mean?" Ranma nodded and Max rubbed his nose thoughtfully. "Hmm, it could work I guess, especially with the new enlarged magazines, if they work for anyone but you, though we'd have to rotate the positions, and I'm not certain we should switch to it now as we don't have a veteran force to make it work."
"I know two people we might want to headhunt," Makoto interjected, having gotten over her snit as the other two ignored her. "Rachel Devonshire, she's an American, her father's a Destroid pilot for a Defender. Before that he was a Force Recon sniper and I've seen her on the ranges, she's got one hell of a good eye." And a magnificent rear… too bad she's straight as they come, still even gunning for Lucretia I can enjoy the eye candy. "The other one is Jeffrey Arborn. I hear he's one of the best in the simulator, though nowhere near the mark you left Max."
"I was just lucky," Max said humbly as Ranma jotted down the names. Motoko looked at him, thinking not for the first time that not having an ego was possibly the most egotistical thing someone could have. "So what kind of tag are you thinking of?"
"Something like this" Ranma pulled out a drawing and showed it to the other two. The image was a brown something with a large head and four legs stciking out like a spiders, and on the legs that looked like there was something blue, maybe blue blood coming out of it. The head had one eye with the iris pointing down and lanky hair along the back.
"….…." Max and Motoko looked at it blankly for a moment before Max looked up at Ranma "Cartoon squad?"
Motoko said "Or maybe the ugly picture squad. Honestly Ranma, you're a good martial artist but you can't draw at all. This is just wrong, I mean, gah, what's it supposed to be exactly?"
Ranma pouted and began to poke the table depressingly. The air around him actually began to darken with his depression. Max looked on amused as Motoko walked around the desk and put a companionable arm around Ranma's arm. "Come on Ranma, not everyone can be good at everything." Max smirked inwardly at that. "Now why don't you just tell us what it's supposed to be?"
Ranma sighed. "You're right I guess, it's supposed to be a horse on a starry background with blue flames coming out of its hooves."
Motoko and Max looked at one another then nodded before Max spoke. "I suppose that's good for a tag, what about our label? I'll find someone who can draw it up for us."
"Oh that's easy Wild Fire, or just Wild."
Motoko and Max thought for a moment then Motoko grinned. "Yeah that works for all of us, we're all a little wild one way or another I suppose."
"Yep, and it's not like the creature or background can't be changed either, I mean I'm gonna stick it the front of my Valkyrie and replacing the horse that's part of my yin-yang symbol and you two can change yer creatures too, just keep the blue flame somewhere on it."
"Excellent" Max enthused, already planning to use a different creature, maybe a blue phoenix? "That'll work. Lt.'s can change the background and creature, veterans can change the background, newbies can't change anything, they just get the blue flame stripes."
"Great idea, and you two can paint the rest of yer mechs too. Just put some blue in it somewhere, to connect what we are ta what we were under Eric." Ranma commanded. His two lt.'s nodded and he stood up. "See if ya can find someone who can draw and I'll see if I can get Kasumi to make up the patches. Any changes to 'em will have ta be made from the person doing em. Right now though we got a meeting down at the institute." Motoko and Max both looked at him quizzically, but he just smirked and led the way out of the room.
About twenty minutes of travel by various devices later, they arrived at the science institute to find the command teams of Skull squadron already there. Standing behind the squads first Lt. Rick waved at his friends while Roy grinned and beckoned them over. "Guess ya got the message huh? This is going to be so sweet!"
Ranma nodded and, still ignoring Max and Motoko's questioning looks, followed the other trio into the building and from there into the same lab Ranma had visited when he helped Dr. Lang figure out how to create the weapons space for the larger rifle magazines. Once again it was crowded and disorganized, though the makeup of its disorganization had changed slightly. Gone was the Valkyrie rifle magazine, in its place was a sample of the forearms of a Veritech and Spartan, as well as a huge diagram of a Valkyrie covering the entirety of one wall. A huge simulator device was against the other wall, and the furthest wall was just gone replaced with glass that looked out into the area behind the institute.
A woman, tall, middle aged but still fit, with a decent bust and sharp piercing eyes stood up from a desk to welcome them as two other men, both of whom wore the rank tabs of Lt.s and the tags of the quartermasters department looked up at them, coming forward. Max took one look at the woman then glanced at her hands then away when he saw the wedding band. The first Lt. of Skull did the same thing, but the others merely nodded as she welcomed them. "Hello you all, I'm glad to see you were prompt. We've got a lot to do so let's get right to it shall we? My name is Yui Sheppard, and I'm in charge of refitting and rearming the Veritech forces to make them more durable and deadly. These two gentlemen behind me are from the logistics department and are here to rein me in when I get too creative."
Motoko and Max looked at Ranma who grinned at them, giving them a thumbs up as the scientist went on. "It's been decided to outfit the Valkyrie of every veteran in the Elite squadrons over the next few weeks, and your two squadrons are two of those. We don't quite have enough resources just yet, but we will soon, since the ship we capture will give us a lot of metals and other usable materials. So suggestions, ideas, anything you want to see included? Realize it will be a slow process, and in fact is only really happening because of the success of the battery enlarged magazine and the fact that we've finally gotten enough of the factory automated to free up the work teams." That had been a side effect of designing and building the two factory ships Macross had let loose into Jupiter's atmosphere; as they both had to be fully automated the designers had to create new robots to do jobs that humans normally would be doing, and they had to be durable as well.
Roy and and his officers looked at one another before he spoke. "Well, is an emergency shield around the cockpit doable? Can the shields be shrunk that much without adding to much weight to the Valkyrie?"
Yui nodded thoughtfully. "We've been looking at cutting down on the power necessary for the shields for a while without any luck I'm afraid. Though we have devised a way to use Ranma's" here she nodded at the martial artist who grinned back "strengthening technique, but the wiring to let it be used without the pilots directing the energy interferes with the Valkyries original mechanics. Still we could possibly do it for just the cockpit, I'll personally look into that, it may cut down on casualties immensely."
Roy nodded, and Max spoke up. "For me, I'd like to see something like a bayonet added to the rifle, or a shorter knife than the one Commander Sugita used in the boarding action in this last battle. I'd want to see how useful it is in a space battle before recommending it as a normal part of the Valkyrie though."
Rick spoke up then. "I'd also like to see some way of adding to our range. Keeping the range open against those new types of mechs that attacked us before we hit atmosphere is a must."
"Both of those are doable, we've already got a prototype for a bayonet, and we can take a cannon arm of a Defender and change it into a rifle form, keep the Valkyrie's targeting suite and boom." One of the other scientists said excitedly. Yui nodded and the man walked over to a computer with Rick following him.
"I was wonderin' about different armor and weapon load outs. I've been thinking that having a few Valkyries per squadron designed to lay down cover fire might be a good idea," said Ranma. Roy looked at him in surprise, but nodded. Even in a 3-dimensional battlefield, having support like that would be an excellent idea. It seemed as if Ranma was stepping into his new rank well.
Yui nodded thoughtfully. "We actually have a system already designed for something like that." She walked over to a computer and after a moment a schematic appeared and the remaining pilots whistled appreciatively at the size and power of it. "Will something like this work?"
Ranma nodded but Motoko frowned. "What about going the other way, agility mobility and speed, some way to get in close first and a way to make the Valkyrie more mobile?"
One of the quartermaster lieutenants spoke up at that point. "We actually have an advanced Valkyrie design that would meet those requirements that was being developed back on Earth, though it might have been halted because it is very expensive, and some of the design is just beyond our capabilities, but…" He tapped a few keys on his own computer and soon a second schematic popped up. Motoko looked at it, nodding thoughtfully.
This discussion would continue for the rest of the day, breaking off only for meals and to see examples of what they were talking about. By the end of the day everyone was satisfied, and eager to get to work on making their thoughts reality.
Lisa woke up to a pounding headache and she groaned. This whimper was answered by someone else groaning in her ear and she looked over to see Kasumi uncurling from a fetal position, one hand still grasping a shirt that looked like one of Ranma's, the other clutching her head. Two pairs of narrowed, pain filled eyes met and Kasumi muttered, "How about we promise never to drink alcohol again, once was more than enough for me. How my father could wake up like this willingly so often is beyond me."
Lisa licked dry lips, mouth tasting as if something had crawled in and died. "Yeah, I can, I can get behind that, definitely. Once was enough of an experiment. Why do I feel cold?"
Kasumi reached out a gentle finger tweaking one of Lisa's bare nipples, and the other brunette gasped in shock then gasped again as the memory came back to her. One hand shot down to touch her private area and she sighed as she found her panties and shorts intact, drenched from her own juices she supposed. She brought the hand up to her face and sniffed, yes, it was hers. So at least nothing happened after I collapsed. Ranma, such a gentlemen. Still she smiled sexily at least I was able to get a little preview of what it will be like to be with my stallion, and he got a preview of me too. And from his reaction he definitely enjoyed it…. Oh no.
She groaned, this time from irritation rather than pain and Kasumi opened her eyes a little wider to look at her. "What is it?"
Lisa blushed. "I, you know, I finished but Ranma didn't."
Kasumi smiled gently. "Don't worry, that's happened a few times to me as well. Ranma often doesn't cum from foreplay like that. I usually make it up to him the next time." She pointed at her own breasts, still dressed in the simple shirt she was wearing the night before and winked at Lisa. Lisa blushed again, but the thought definitely had some appeal.
Kasumi sat up in bed, the blanket falling from her own semi-nude form as she reached over to the side of the bed. "I really don't think it matters to Ranma, he simply cares, see?" Kasumi reached out and took several anti-hangover pills from the bedside table and drank them slowly with the orange juice. As much as she liked tea, she loved to start her day off with a fresh squeezed glass of orange juice. And breakfast in bed, even though my morning workout partner isn't here to join me. Pity, she smirked sexily to herself I'll just have to get him later, after my dangerous time passes.
Lisa looked beside her own side of the futon and noticed a similar plate there, sighing happily at the sight of the self-heating cup with the softly steaming tea. "A thoughtful man, our Ranma," and Kasumi giggled in agreement. Unlike Claudia, Lisa was a morning person, yet she still needed some caffeine to get her body working as fast as her mind. But she detested the taste of coffee. Tea on the other hand was one of her favorite drinks.
"So are you free to help here today?" Kasumi asked "or are you on duty?"
"Hmm" Lisa hummed appreciatively as she bit into a bagel. "I have to go over with Vanessa tonight about operation Undertow and continue her education but thanks to captain Gloval and captain Connor taking over some of the day to day running of the ship I have the day free until around four. When does Sonya show up, and what's on the agenda for today?"
Once Sonya arrived, the three ladies got to work and the day passed quickly but uneventfully.
The next day Sonya was on her way to work as usual, though this time her two fellow spies had joined her to get another autograph of Ranma/Ranko. On the way to the Sugita apartments they had spotted three female Micronians skulking around a corner. Realizing this was decidedly odd behavior for Micronians Sonya stopped, motioning her fellow spies to follow her. The three Meltraedi followed the three female Micronians around a corner but were discovered when the tallest one, who wore those odd vision enhancing devices the Micronians called glasses (and why those with such defects weren't simply killed Sonya didn't understand), turned and looked at her. "What are you three up to?"
Lucretia was always more forward and arrogant than the other two and she shrugged haughtily answering back sharply. "We were wondering the same thing about you actually, we were on our way to help a friend in the next section over, what are you doing?"
Vanessa, Kim and Sammy looked at one another. "You know we could use some help, it's not like we can always be the ones following after him," Sammy said.
"True. Okay you three you can follow along, but stay quiet okay?" Anya, Sonya, and Lucretia nodded, wondering what this was all about.
The group moved down the corridor until they came to a doorway. Sammy and Kim went to one side and opened it slightly to peer inside then nodded. Vanessa and the others followed, the bespectacled girl pulling out a camcorder with a directional nozzle and zoom on the end.
Kim pushed the door open a little more, enough for them able to peer inside and for Vanessa to put the camera on the ground. She brought her eye down and looked through the camera, zooming in on what was going on inside the room that had so entranced the others.
Ranma went through a kata that aided speed and precision, movements smooth and powerful as he moved from one stance to another, one blow to another. His uniform jacket hung on a nearby barbell, leaving him in only a muscle T. He had just finished training Max, who had left only twenty minutes ago, and he wanted to get in a light exercise before going to help Kasumi and Lisa on building their home, so there was no point in going to his own special workout area. Besides it was practically on the other side of the ship from where he was now. Unfortunately Motoko was still over at the science institute working on modifying and personalizing her Valkyrie, so they couldn't continue her lessons today.
Finishing the kata he paused, breathing deeply for a moment before going over to a mu ren zhuang, a kind of martial arts dummy that would strike back if hit correctly. He began to smack its pole like arms and main body in such a way so that the opposite hand would come back at him, causing him to smack that in turn. Faster and faster he went, his arms a blur, then his feet joined in, smacking the lower poles around in turn. Fifteen minutes later the metal of the arms snapped under the repeated blows. Ranma stopped, scratching his pigtail sheepishly for a moment then went back to the middle of the sparring ring, grabbing several cold and hot water bottles and setting them next to where he stood.
He paused there, muttering a mantra to himself that he had made to help Motoko with meditation. "Ki is the power of will made manifest, let it guide you, let it flow, grow, let only pure will and thought touch you, become a weapon in your hand." Then he began to move through the ten most advanced kata in his repertoire, first slow, then building speed, faster and faster. For over an hour he worked like this, but after each round was done he would splash himself and work through them again in his alternate form. Each time he started the katas over he would also go faster until in the end his entire body was moving twice as fast as even the Katchu Tenshin Amaguriken, so fast it was almost invisible to the girls watching him.
"Watching this is making me strangely uncomfortable." Sonya said bluntly, face flushed as she looked away.
Anya nodded, but she didn't look away, and Lucretia found her body reacting in odd ways, though it reacted only when Ranma was in his female form. She didn't know why this was, but it was. She also strangely found herself thinking of Motoko for few minutes, imagining her moving like that wearing the same amount of clothing, which caused her body to react even more.
"Heh, now you see what we're doing. We find Ranma when he's exercising like this and video tape it. Then we cut it up to separate the male/female portions and sell the videos for a lot. We sell the female stuff too, if it's decent enough, no soft-core or anything." Sammy said smugly, and her fellow gossipers nodded agreement. The videos had gotten them enough money to buy several pairs of shoes and a lot of clothing and various electronic items too. That and they always kept their own copies. They all knew the 'Wild Horse' was out of their league and really despite his looks he wasn't their type at all, but there was no reason they couldn't use the tapes as visual aids for their fantasies, much like the women they sold the tapes to.
"And you would want us to take these videos for you while you are otherwise occupied?" Anya asked, tearing her eyes away to look at the gossip trio.
"Yep." Kim said, not looking away herself. In her opinion it was always better in real life.
Anya agreed to help but Sonya continued to feel uncomfortable about the feelings this sight evoked, much different from Ranma's or Ms. Minmei's singing, more, primal somehow, involving her whole body rather than just her mind or heart, so she refused. Lucretia refused as well, though she didn't really understand her own reasons for doing so, she simply felt it would be wrong. The six girls left then as they saw Ranma getting ready to leave.
That night Lisa smiled, leaning back from her computer screen, and sent a plan for the next Operation, called Suckerpunch, to the captain and she stretched, going down the new stairs in their home to join Kasumi and Ranma in bed, having just moved in with them that evening. She sighed happily as Kasumi smiled at her and let her into the bed, thankful beyond words to finally say goodbye to her empty, lonely room for that of her lovers.
The next day, the command crew of the space fortress was called in for the first time ever to an intelligence briefing on their enemy. Commander Drake had taken to his new job with a will, determined to give them as much information as he could on their enemy, which in terms of military power and technology was quite a bit, and after only three days he was prepared to deliver his first briefing on the aliens. He waited patiently as Gloval and the other officers and surprisingly three of the civilian leaders sat around the conference room table, and then with a nod from Gloval he began. "Ladies and gentlemen as you know I have been given the task of putting together an intelligence dossier on the aliens, who I have discovered call themselves the Zentraedi."
With a touch of a button, an image of one of the giant aliens appeared on the screen to the side of him, causing several surprised gasps from those who hadn't heard for whatever reason how human they looked. "I don't want to get too deeply into the medical side of things as it is not, in my opinion important at this point. But as you can see the Zentraedi look pretty much like humanity save for their coloring and sheer size. From corpses the doctors examined they tell us that they are basically much like ourselves inside as well, but appearance is all we have in common."
The screen went back to showing a schematic of the battleship, much of whose interior had already been ripped out. The engine room and the bridge and a few sections near them were all that was left after three days of constant work by every destroid operator and most of the engineers aboard the space fortress, naval and civilian. "We've been able to get a lot of information from their computers, mainly because they had a copy of their translation program that commander Hayes mentioned them using when she and her group were captured. From it we were able to translate their written language, and from then on it was simply a matter of finding the information. I would say that their computers are not nearly as easy to use as ours, robust, but not user friendly and very job specific. The navigation computer can do navigating, the radar can only do radar, there is no overlap and no redundancy in their systems, throughout the ship really."
"The battleship incidentally is of the Thruvel Salan class and doesn't have a specific designation. Given the information we have taken out of its tactical computers this is the main battleship class of the Zentraedi. It has forty-eight self guided beam cannons in groups of four along its sides top and bottom" and he pointed out where they were placed, "and 12 missile ports for anti-ship missiles. It depends on its in-ship battlepod complement for anti-fighter protection. Dr. Lang and I estimate that the beam cannons could break through our armor if it could hit the same point with more than fifteen beams at a time, which it can via these collators at the front where the beams can be concentrated before being shot out at a single target. It has a small ship complement given its size, the majority of the living quarters given over to battlepod pilots and the three hundred Regulds it can put in the field; that is what the computer called their battlepods. All in all it is a very dangerous battleship, but nowhere near as dangerous as the space fortress, even ten or fifteen to one. It is also…." He paused for a moment, searching for the right words, before going on "Clunky, not very quick to react, its weapons worked far worse than they could have, the maintenance of the entire vessel was so poor I would have put the entire maintenance division into the brig for dereliction of duty." He smirked, "I might assume they were the equivalent of my predecessor Griftel" which caused a harsh bark of laughter to go around the room, "if not for Commander Hayes's observations from her time as a prisoner, as well as the fact that in the tactical computer we found no mention of any time in dry dock."
This caused quite a stir on the naval side of the table but Nodoka, mayor Luan and the head of the civilian hospital all looked blank. Gloval took it upon himself to explain. "Ships of all kinds will have eventual breakdowns of significant systems, maintenance is an ongoing issue of any ship military or civilian and any naval ship should expect to stand at least two months out of every twelve in dock at best to be refitted, upgraded and repaired by a full dock crew as ships can only do so much with their own resources. We're actually facing a different problem, as we do have the onboard resources to keep going almost indefinitely, but we don't have the personnel." He turned back to Drake. "How old was the ship, could you tell?"
"Yes sir, given some experiments on the interior metal of the ship we determined its age as somewhere between fifteen to twenty years of age." Gloval nodded thoughtfully and Drake went on, "In terms of wet navy ships any ship that old would probably be obsolete, but the Zentraedi don't seem to think that way."
Drake sighed, and said almost whimsically, but with no humor in his eyes, "And now we come to the part of the report that I call 'we know now', large generalities based on snippets of information from the computer, solid information but not quite certain. We have found out some of the organization of the Zentraedi from the information on this ship's tactical computer. It didn't have much, though if that is because of their understanding of information control or something else, I don't know. The name of this fleet is the 11th skirmish fleet, assigned on what their computer called the 'Zor battleship retrieval mission' and it was deployed until recently on the front against another alien species called the Invid, but we weren't able to find any information about them except some things we assume to be propaganda and references to them as 'overgrown bugs'." Nodoka shuddered, remembering seeing the Alien trilogy when she was a young girl and picturing them as an intelligent space faring race. Brrr…
The skirmish fleet consists of 650 of these ships and 400 of other types, whose name we found is Quiltra Queleual, but that was the only information about them we were able to find. That," he swallowed. "And the information that skirmish fleets would match barely five percent of a full fleet's numbers, and that there are at least ten battle fleets and nineteen other skirmish fleets, though we only found that by finding their designations. There was also mention of the Dolza fleet, which I suppose would be the fleet that Commander Hayes and company saw. Again I will say this information is only from a single source and so is questionable but combined with what Commander Hayes reported it gives us an idea of the size of our enemies forces."
The room fell silent at the numbers he had calmly put forth, the sheer overwhelming amount of them mind boggling. The hospital director actually began to whimper and Mayor Luan stammered, "P-peace, we have to sue for peace, we can't possibly fight against numbers like that! Wh-whatever they need on this ship we need to find it and give it to them!"
Many on the naval side also looked close to panic and began to mutter agreement with this suggestion but before even captain Gloval could do anything Lisa slammed her fist on the table jerking everyone's attention to her. "Not with Dolza! There is no way we can make peace with Dolza, he doesn't see us as equals, or as anything but an obstacle to be destroyed, he thinks in terms of power, his own and no one else's! He killed a garden world, a world like Earth life bearing and perfect for their colonization if they are as much like us as it seems."
"And I shouldn't have to remind you but garden worlds like that are about as rare as, as chocolate is onboard the space fortress right now! They are incredibly rare and he killed one just to prove his own strength in comparison to then Lt. Sugita's skills. So I do not want anyone to think of peace any time soon, only about surviving and evening the odds."
She glared around the room, silencing all objections and Nodoka beamed at her with pride. Gloval smiled at her as well then turned to Drake. "Continue commander, I hope you have some good news for us."
Drake shrugged. "Their armor has coating which somehow merges with the metal of the shop's outer hull to make it self-repairing, but the coating itself is not very durable to pressures and winds, hence why they are so leery about entering even the exosphere, let alone the thermosphere where we are now. If it's gone it's gone, but we were able to take samples of it before we pulled it further into Jupiter's atmosphere. They could survive here, but could not survive in the deeper stratosphere, whereas we can. I would estimate it would take at least two hundred ships of this class to fight the space fortress on an even footing in normal mode. In siege mode that number would increase by a factor of ten, especially given our barrier shields."
He smiled slightly. "We are now in the realms of 'we don't knows', things we should have found hints of but didn't which bother me and my men a lot. We don't know anything about their logistics, they simply don't make any mention of refueling, and the ships fuel was at around fifty percent of maximum, or any repair stations or anything of that nature. The fleet was receiving regular shipments of Reguld and Glaug, that's the large command mech that commander Sugita regularly defeats, from the Dolza fleet, but they have no repair capability! If anything fails in a Reguld, it's discarded. We found a place onboard where dozens of damaged Regulds had been simply piled haphazardly."
"If anything fails in a ship it seems to be ignored, or if it is important enough the ship itself is scrapped and destroyed. This ship had three of its cannons offline due to lack of maintenance, nothing else. There was no mention of replacements since they arrived in Sol system for some reason, nor was there ever any mention of new troops coming into the fleet, but that just could be something done gradually or just not included in this ship's computers. There was nothing about their culture, their worlds or their society. The only thing close was the computer called them the 11th skirmish clan fleet, but that is all. There were no women in their crew, just as Commander Hayes had reported, and nothing on their computers about family types, reproduction or anything from their actual civilization, just their military."
Gloval nodded thoughtfully, wondering what to make of that strange lack. But for now it didn't matter, and he had things to think about. "An excellent initial presentation Commander, keep up the good work. Dr. Lang I'd like a report about their technology by the time the academy graduates its current class. And with that, gentlemen I think we all have things to do, so dismissed."
The command group filed out, some looking worried others thoughtful and some, including mayor Luan and the hospital director, afraid. Outside in the corridor Nodoka took a moment to give Lisa a brief hug. "Well done my dear, you put some steel in them."
Lisa smiled weakly. "For now aunty, but when they're alone, the odds will come back to haunt them. I really hope that the people back on Earth have been using this time wisely. If they haven't we are so screwed." Nodoka nodded somberly and the two went off to a family lunch.
Captain Gloval leaned back, sighing heavily. The reaction of the civilians and several of his officers to the numbers facing them was understandable, but it showed a growing problem. Before their losses against the new types of mechs, there had been four main groups of civilians. One group had been incredibly supportive, happy to be in space, have unending jobs and work with the military. Another group had been resigned, but not happy, yet still supported the military. And then there had been the two smaller groups, one unhappy about being in space and stuck aboard the space fortress but not vocal about it, while the other even smaller group composed mainly of powerless politicians, actors and peaceniks who were very vocal about their unhappiness, blaming the military for everything wrong and making constant demands to be returned to Earth and ignoring any reality that conflicted with this image.
Now there were three groups. One was still happy with being in space and supporting the military but grimmer about it, willing to put everything they had into the war but knowing it would cost them and their families, yet this had served to only stiffen their resolve to survive. Ranma and Minmei's rally had brought this group to the fore, and they had gone back to their various jobs with a will that as a vast relief to see. They had even cut down sharply on civilian jobs and work to help the military and its rebuilding.
The second group was now desperate to get back to Earth and off the ship, making constant demands and starting to become worryingly organized in creating public disorder and pushing their peace now agenda, reminding Gloval a bit of the 70's hippy movement in America. And the third was the largest, desperately unhappy but keeping their heads down and not making waves, but anxious and fearful, wanting to get off what they now saw as a target for an unstoppable foe. Gloval just hoped the civilian reps had the good sense to keep the Zentraedi numbers to themselves.
We have to get the civilians back to Earth and get a full crew onboard damn it! But we also need to keep industrializing Jupiter and find a way to cut down on their numbers. The best and easiest way to do that would be to use our siege cannon, but how to get a lot of their ships into position to where we can destroy them without taking loses ourselves. He thought for a moment, then powered up his computer and began to look at the plans he had made for the future industrialization of Jupiter and Commander Hayes' Operation Suckerpunch. After thirty minutes perusal he began to type up his own plan for the future, Operation Feint.
Ranma leaned against his desk, while Motoko sat in a chair next to him and Max and Ben leaned against the walls. Before them stood the two recruits Motoko had mentioned from the academy, the only two Ranma had allowed into their squadron. He wanted them to be an elite corps, and if he had to keep their numbers down to do that, so be it.
Rachel Devonshire was a statuesque brunette with dark quick eyes, a fit, athletic body much like a gymnasts only stretched out. Ranma glanced at Motoko and saw her looking at the other woman appreciatively but not as lustfully as he had expected. He shrugged at that and turned to look at the other recruit. Jeffrey Arborn looked around at the others with interest, but Ranma wasn't impressed. Unlike Rachel who obviously took care of her body Jeffrey was almost obese despite the physical training at the academy. And while his skills in the simulator said otherwise, Ranma just wasn't getting a soldier vibe from him, he slouched in place rather than standing at attention, and despite his interest in Ranma and the others he seemed a little too slow reaction wise to be a good pilot.
Ranma waited until Max had closed the door before beginning. "Alright you two, welcome to Wildfire, formerly Blue squadron. The designation's new, but we're not, we used to be Blue but after Commander Prescott died" he refused to use terms like 'bought it' or anything like that to limit the impact of his friends death, "we needed a new start. You might be wondering why there are only two of you, it's because the rest of the squadrons and the Destroid companies needed all the recruits they could get, and we're an elite team, and you two were the only ones among the graduates who one of us could vouch for."
Rachel shot Motoko a look and nodded thankfully which the swordswoman returned as Ranma went on. "I want people who can survive the fire, who can keep coming back from all the shit we get thrown into and say 'please sir can I have some more!'" This phrase elicited a startled laugh from Rachel and Ben and drew grins from the others, even Jeffrey, though he also gulped a little.
"To that end I am going to train ya both until you drop, I'm going to make you the fittest, toughest group to ever strap into a Valkyrie, and make damn certain you have all the skills needed to survive a furball in space. You'll be flying with Ben and Max for the most part, switching off and changing organization as the need arises or as I deem best. Questions, comments?" neither FNG had any questions and Ranma nodded sharply. "In that case, we'll start the training right now. Sprints down to the simulator rooms, last one buys dinner for the squad, you two will have a one minute head start starting… now!"
Rachel's eyes widened at the threat and she turned and ran out of the room as fast as her feet could carry her. Jeffrey stood gaping for a few seconds before he too turned and ran out of the room. Ben soon followed, leaving only max and Motoko who looked at Ranma, smirking a little. "You do know they're going to hate you by the end of the day right?"
"They can hate me and my trainin' all they want, as long as they're alive to do it." Ranma said grimly then tapped his watch meaningfully. Max and Motoko grimaced but sprinted out of the room after the others. Ranma sighed, cracking his neck explosively. This leadership stuff might mean I can do my job better, but it ain't as easy as Eric made it out to be. He sighed, then shook it off and ran off after the others. Needless to say both recruits were appalled when he zoomed past them, followed swiftly by the others. It was a start of a learning experience that would continue for the next two weeks.
Over the next two weeks there were several clashes between the two most different civilian groups, one supporting the military and willing to go cut all out to survive the war, and the other group which wanted peace at all costs. They clashed when the second group held rallies and demonstrations, or tried to disrupt the former's work places, and appealed to the neutral third group via commercials, public speaking from various individuals and other methods, but the neutral group of civilians simply hunkered down further.
However, after a few clashes this tension abruptly faded away. It wasn't anything the captain had done or any speeches by mayor Luan or anyone else. Ranma and Motoko decided one day to use the city's main park for their exercise, and watching the two jump around and attack one another with intent to kill, digging up the ground, nearly cutting down several trees and their ki attacks blasting back and forth (Motoko could now use them far more easily, but hadn't quite enough power yet to use them in her Veritech) had put all the civilians who watched it in a very thoughtful frame of mind. The observers who were part of the peace movement reported back to everyone else. And word-of-mouth and the videos made of that fight spread the knowledge that there were two super-humans among the Navy to all and sundry. None of the peace movement leaders wanted Motoko or Ranma coming to look for them, and so all disruptive public rallies and demonstrations stopped overnight.
Work continued apace, and soon enemy battleship had been gutted. This gave the space fortress enough materials to build nearly as many Valkyries and Destroids as they had before the new enemy power suits got had attacked. The space fortress stopped by both of the factories it had previously led out into the atmosphere, though the moving of the ship was very slow given the fact they were still connected to the enemy battleship. This got worse when they grabbed first on and then the other of the previous two factories and welded them together to the captured battleship.
Once Dr. Lang had removed the enemy battleship's reflux engine the logistics crews had gone to work making the enemy battleship's interior into a new factory, well actually two factories, which was only possibly due to the size of the vessel. Both factories would be fully automated much like the other two. The first would be creating Valkyries and storing them. It was decided to only program this factory to build Valkyries as all of the Destroids types were of limited utility in space. The factory portion only took up about a fourth of the ship, leaving another fourth of the ship free to be used to store the Valkyries in, which the designers estimated would allow the factory to store about a hundred Valkyries.
The second built in factory would be a material converter factory, with several dozen heavily armored tugs designed to head up atmosphere and collect material from Jupiter's surrounding planetary bodies, or debris from battle. The programming for this was dubious at best, and Gloval once again wished for some way to station troops here without it being hardship duty, as humans at the controls of those tugs would make every one of these factories much more effective.
Refitting the battleship this way hit the newly filled stores of the space fortress hard, and after rebuilding their fighter and robot forces they were back down to next to nothing in terms of long-term supplies. However, when they initially met up with the battery factory they were able to pick up a full load of batteries in return for dropping off more supplies. This allowed them to build more barrier systems, bringing the total number of mobile barriers the space fortress had up to thirty.
The pro-military, pro-war faction had thrown themselves into this rebuilding, and the tertiary weapons of the space fortress had been completely rebuilt, as well as the ICBMs of the Prometheus. Instead of firing missiles the ports on the Prometheus were now automated to roll out missile pods, which had been taken from the phalanx Destroids, these could be programmed to fire under the command of the space fortress a nearby weapon set site, a Valkyrie or automatically. However, all of these projects had hit the materials of the spaceship badly, and Gloval had finally been convinced to okay operation sucker punch.
It was not just the need for new supplies that convinced him however as they could break the cordon around the planet and get away from the planet's gravity well to enter fold space safely they could get back to Earth and get supplies there. But his own plans needed at least one more warship, and he couldn't sacrifice a strategic addition to their forces by not using the battleship they had already captured. And information they been able to get from the two spying missions the ship had done by sacrificing a heavily armored spy probe had shown that the alien's positions hadn't changed, except for bunching up in areas. It was as if there was no overall control of the fleet anymore, which further pointed to the fact that Kyron was the commander of the fleet and did not believe in having subordinates who were able to act of their own accord. So with him injured and unable to command each flotilla had simply gone on following his orders from before, save for a few which had decided to bunch up. Thus operation Suckerpunch was given the green light.
Once more Lisa looked out across a room full of pilots and Destroid operators. Silence spread as she walked to the podium and she smiled and pressed a button on the console built into it. A picture appeared on the large screen behind her. "Gentlemen and ladies. I am pleased to announce that as you could probably tell our foray into piracy was a complete success. We were able to rebuild our Valkyrie and Destroid forces," here she paused letting the cheers and shouts echo around the room before going along "and rebuild the tertiary weapons and repair the battleship. However, this took nearly all the supplies we were able to get in Operation Undertow, and captain Gloval has decided to launch one more piratical mission. Thus we come to Operation Suckerpunch."
On the screen the space fortress was shown once again ascending into the upper atmosphere, its 'fist' raised above it. "This operation will start off almost exactly as operation Undertow did, with the Daedalus breaking atmosphere and letting out the Valkyrie squadrons to hammer the enemy's combat air patrol. Vermillion, Green and Wildfire squadrons will be the point of this assault. However, once that is done we will not be using the Apocalypse to destroy one of the ships, as they might be ready for that and have some way to nullify that tactic." The screen changed again, showing a picture of the Daedalus again. "Rather, we will cover the Daedalus entirely in mobile barriers and come up again punching like this." On the screen the punch of the Daedalus came out of the upper atmosphere and across slamming into first one ship, then through it into the other. "These two ships for some reason are barely separated by 200 meters. As such, we will be able to use the Daedalus to punch through one causing it to explode and into the other before opening up to allow a boarding operation. The boarding action will, as was the case in the previous operation, be commanded by colonel Mannstein." She nodded to the giant German where he was standing at parade rest behind her before going on.
"At the same time the Valkyries will eliminate the combat air patrol and the third ship over here." She said pointing to the last ship of the enemy flotilla, which was situated off to the side, at a fair distance from the two who were so oddly crowded together. "Skull squadron will be kept back until the combat air patrol has been depleted enough to allow a successful bombing run on this battleship, and once that ship has been destroyed and the second battleship has been boarded the Valkyries will take up position around the battlefield and provide a defense. We don't anticipate any of the other flotillas coming to aid this group as we believe that the Zentraedi," there were mutters about the aliens finally having a name, something that no one was quite used to just yet, "seem to believe in following orders to the letter and ignoring anything that could affect operational parameters. Without Kyron, who was almost certainly severely injured from the beating commander Sugita gave him in the last operation they lack the will to change their standing orders. That is why we are so anxious to get this off immediately. I would have preferred to let you guys work your recruits some more, but we need to take advantage of this opening that Kyron being out of service gives us."
There were nods all around as everyone understood the need to take the initiative, something that for the most part had been on the alien's side of the scale in this war. Ranma wasn't the only one who thought wistfully about going on the attack, but against the numbers the aliens could field in even a skirmish fleet that was impossible, for now it at least.
"Questions, comments?" There were none and she nodded firmly. "In that case ladies and gentlemen this operation will occur in two hours. Get ready and let's kick some ass." There was a huge cheer and she smiled as everyone filed out talking to one another excitedly. Ranma took a moment to wink at her, which she answered with a neutral nod, that was all the two would allow themselves on duty.
As Vermillion, Green and Wildfire squadrons were going to be the tip of the spear. this time they went straight to their machines, wanting to move them into position at the front of the line. As they were getting ready to do so all of the new recruits stared longingly at the modifications on all of the veteran's Valkyries.
Most of the veterans, including Max, had opted for a FAST Pack augmented space weapon system installed. This consisted of boosters and fuel tanks situated on the top of the fighter's fuselage, allowing them greater fuel and 6 micro-missile launchers in two micro-missile launcher pods, mounted rearward under the center ventral section in starfighter mode which translated to the lower arm sections in walker/soldier mode. Normally these would hold 24 missiles, but with the weapons technique they could now house 64 each. This gave the veteran's Valkyries significantly greater firepower than a normal Valkyrie, but the system was so expensive and time consuming to build (just as much as building a whole new Valkyrie) it had been decided to only allow veterans to use it. Some veterans however had customized their Valkyries further, though Max had merely added a bayonet prototype to his rifle. He was to report back to Yui about how useful it was in this battle. If it was useful it would be added to every Valkyries load out in future engagements.
Rick for instance had removed one of the thrusters of the FAST Pack in favor of a strange new weapon. Connected onto his starfighter where that thruster would have been was a 966 PFG Contraves autocannon, the same type that the Defenders used, only this type had been modified heavily in the rear of the cannon, allowing for more ammunition and had also been painted to match the rest of the Veritech. Rick's plane had also been modified to have a larger lock on range, much like a Defenders, though the system was still that of the Valkyrie. This had cut into his onboard space in his cockpit more than a little, but he was fine with that. The cannon could of course be fired in jet mode, and when in robot mode it would stick over one shoulder like an old fashioned bazooka and be fired that way.
Rachel sighed longingly as she looked at Rick's Valkyrie as they passed Skulls position in the line for launching, moving toward their own. "I have got's to get me one of those" she muttered.
Motoko answered from her own Valkyrie saying simply "survive, that's all you need to do to get your own Valkyrie and modify it." Rachel nodded, looking at the other woman's Valkyrie in wonder, for it was one of the most heavily modified she could see. Instead of more weapons being added to it, it had been somehow slimmed down, made to look sleeker. Its arms had been heavily modified, made longer, slimmer, and more dexterous than the normal Valkyrie. For some reason it just looked more mobile, more agile, and Rachel wondered why for a moment then remembered the Hawaiian girl was a close range specialist, where movement and reaction time mattered far more than available firepower.
She glanced over at Ranma's mech. He had opted for the Micro missile system but not the thruster packs, believing that he could channel his own ki into boosting his thrusters. Instead his legs had been further modified to add two of the mini batteries used to enlarge the Veritechs rifle's ammo cartridges, which in this case enlarged the fuel tanks. He also carried the electron cannon he had once more taken from Kyron along the top of his starfighter's fuselage.
It was his unit designation however that drew the snipers eye, and she glanced from it to her own unit patch. The unit patch was much like the original design Ranma had come up with, a horse rearing on a starry background with blue fire surrounding its hooves. Ranma's design however was entirely different. The yin-yang symbol in the background hadn't changed but the horse was different. Its body was gold fire, its mane blue plasma, around its hooves was more blue fire, and the drawing of its eye almost crackled with more blue flame. She almost shuddered, it was a beautiful and terrible figure.
Motoko and Max had also changed their paint scheme and tag. Motoko kept the starry background, but her central figure was that of an onna bugeisha, a female samurai in full armor wilding a sword lined with blue flame, her eyes alight with the same power. Max had designed a blue flame phoenix, its claws grabbing a Veritechs rifle beneath it, while behind it was a picture of Earth. Some of the other veterans had protested this amount of personalized design but as Ranma didn't have a problem with it they couldn't complain overmuch.
The two new recruits of however were not happy about the modifications Ben had made to his Veritech, because it impacted what their job in the coming battle would be. Ben had opted for the full GPS-1S armored Valkyrie mod to his Veritech. This enhanced armor modification had originally been designed to provide the Valkyrie with heavier armor and weapons in a pure land battle, and boy did it deliver. In its Spartan type shoulders were mounted 2 fixed Mauler laser cannons, able to spit out 6,000 rounds a minute. In its chest, after its magazines were extended via the weapons space system (patent pending) it housed 156 grenade style micro-missiles, much like with the Fast Pack. In its arms it housed two cannons that could fire 36 high speed armor piercing rounds. It also had an advanced targeting system, enabling it to look on to fifteen enemies at once.
Unfortunately all this added weaponry came at a price, which was that the modifications were so extensive the Valkyrie couldn't transform out of soldier mode into either of its other forms. In a space battle this meant it would be swiftly left behind, but that was where the rookies came in. Their job would be to follow Max, Ranma and Motoko out into battle while tugging Ben's Veritech, and their Valkyries had already been hooked up to it via cables. Those cables would disengage once they were in position, but even then they were going to stay nearby to provide short range support and maneuvering aid (and not incidentally be covered in turn by Ben's weapons).
Ranma looked around at his under strength squadron and nodded a shark like grin on his face at the thought of what their new weapons and modifications would mean against the unprepared aliens. They were ready. He flicked his intercom to call the bridge. "Command, Wildfire 1 here, requesting permission to use sound attack to give our surprise that added edge."
Lisa voice answered him, crisp with her normal command tone, but also a little playful. "Negative Wildfire, sound attack will commence, but this time we get to choose the music." Ranma's eyebrows rose as he noticed a small expendable spy drone alongside his flight, then nodded.
About twenty minutes after they were in position the Daedalus broke out of the atmosphere and opened swiftly. All of the Valkyries shot out into space directly underneath the combat air patrol of the enemy. The music of Anastasia by Slash accompanied them, and the heavily modified and refitted Valkyries hit the aliens CAP like a hammer hitting glass. The battle pods were completely unprepared for this assault, and died in bunches under the fire of the veteran led elite squadrons.
Jeffrey and Rachel pulled Ben along, but Ben was already firing, killing ten Reguld pods in as many seconds, but it was the others who caused all the newbies to gape in awe.
Max, Motoko and Ranma were the tip of the spear, but Green and Vermillion were almost as deadly and they cut a swathe though the aliens heavy CAP, taking no casualties but slaughtering over a hundred pods in the first twenty seconds of the engagement. With Ben supplying long range support the elite squadrons lived up to their billing. Rachel and Jeffrey were barely able to fire their own weapons before the rest of the Valkyrie squadrons followed up into the breach.
Lisa looked over at Vanessa, nodding her head to indicate the younger woman was in charge of organizing the Valkyries, while she took command of the Daedalus maneuver. Lt. Laird gulped but nodded and began to bark out crisp orders to the various squadrons, sending them here and there, dodging what little fire there was from the enemy ships, as Lisa turned to Sammy. "Alright get us upright and ready the mobile barriers." Sammy nodded and the ship began to turn, coming further out of the atmosphere as it did, and 'standing up'. At the same time the Cap had been reduced, and Vanessa barked. "Skull squadron you are cleared for bombing run, get that last battleship now!" Roy acknowledged swiftly, and the elite squadron zoomed away from the mopup operations that were wiping out what few remaining Regulds there were. As they did the enemy ship launched a few more Reguld pods, but that was all it had time for before Skull was inside its weapons envelope and hammering it with short range missiles. Within seconds the ships engines, damaged in some bygone battle exploded.
Within two minutes the Daedalus came around in a wild punch, its exterior covered with mobile barriers from end to end. Before the two targets could maneuver away, the punch slammed into the first one, barely pausing before ramming completely through the first ship, causing it to explode and slightly damage the next one before it too was pierced by the prow of the Daedalus. As the explosion expanded further down its length, the assault transport ships front opened and the Spartan and Tomahawk destroid companies, newly resorted to full strength, hammered out, accompanied, led by colonel Mannstein in Apocalypse and accompanied by the music of Awake and Alive by Skillet, chosen, surprisingly enough, by the colonel. Even aboard one of their own ships the music did its deadly work to disorganize their resistance, and despite the strangely large numbers of personnel and Reguld pods in the defense the boarders pounded on.
Outside in the void Ranma nodded happily. "Command, this is Wildfire 1, we have no more enemies on our scope, moving to defensive position." Around them half the Veritech squadrons were moving around collecting debris, while the other half moved to form a defensive globe around the area where the battle had occurred. Ranma situated his squad to face where, far too distant for him to actually see, were two alien battleships who for some reason were not part of the main cordon. Somehow he just knew that the enemy ace he had tangled with was aboard one of them.
Miriya looked up from her exercise regimen as the intercom across from her beeped insistently. She stood up and punched the button and the image of the Captain appeared. "Combat leader, she said formally "the Micronians seem to be attacking again."
"Smart of them," Miriya muttered scowling irritably. The fact that the 11th skirmish fleet hadn't even tried to move into new positions or reposition itself after the debacle last time without Kyron around to order it had disgusted every Meltraedi under her command. "I'll be up in a moment I want to grab something to eat while I watch this."
"We're not going to move to intercept?"
Miriya shook her head, "no. The humans are too canny to allow us to hit them when they can simply retreat into the atmosphere of the gas giant. They learned to fear our Queadluun Rau last time they surely won't want to fight us again unless they have to." The Captain nodded, then cut the connection.
A moment later, Miriya was on the bridge munching on an energy ration as she watched the action on the main screen. All around her other women had done the same and were sharing cutting remarks about the Zentraedi's fighting ability. Miriya however, didn't bother doing this, concentrating instead on all the strange new weapons and devices the Micronians were using. For some reason the fighters she saw had new weapons on them, weapons that she had not seen in their last engagement. Why in the world they would keep such weapons back, and only use them now, on what amounts to spoiling and information gathering raid? Maybe they had simply been housed in a cache in the gas giant's atmosphere somewhere? That could be the reason why they made for this planet, they just weren't available before this. The idea that the humans had created the weapons on board the space fortress and had even designed most of them there was completely outside the realm of her understanding.
Suddenly, she sat up abruptly "zoom in on this position!" She said pointing at the corner of the screen and the Captain hurriedly complied. The Meltraedi watched as a group of Micronians polished off the last of the combat air patrol, leaving them to watch the action on one battle pod that had lost its pilot, but amazingly enough not its ability to record or transmit video. These Valkyries were painted in various colors but blue was most prominent, and Miriya recognized that color as belonging to the group that included the enemy ace. Her eyes widened as she saw some kind of object for close combat of some kind in the Valkyries hand of one of them and she recognized the paint scheme as belonging to the enemy ace.
Why did that never occurred to anyone? Why don't we have something like that? I'll need to figure out a way to arm myself for close combat, then, as well as building up my speed. She smiled like a shark, their next battle looked to be more and more interesting. She watched and was startled when after the combat air patrol had been decimated some of the enemy space fighters took up position around the area. The blue marked fighters moved to place themselves between the area of combat and where Miriya and her ships were.
Somehow they could tell where the main threat with would come from if it came at all. The enemy ace took the forward position and Miriya could almost feel the glare from it across the massive amount of space between them. Evidently the enemy ace could sense, as she could, that their next clash would be something to experience and Miriya's smile widened in appreciation. Soon Micronian soon she thought to herself. On the screen the enemy once again had secured one of the 11th's battleships, this time a Quiltra Queleual Class, and was pulling it down further into the atmosphere. Miriya shook her head looking around and laughing a little "Oh, no more?" she said smartly and the Meltraedi all around her laughed.
Still this operation didn't mean much in the long run. To get back to their home planet the enemy still had to escape the cordon around the gas giant, and when they tried Miriya and her power suits would be ready for them.
End chapter
As always read and review. For those who don't recognize what FNG stands for its Fucking New Guy, a derogatory term for green troops sent into fill casualty depleted veteran forces.
The crew now knows a bit about the severity of the Zentraedi threat, but haven't let that stop them, and Gloval has begun to make plans for the future. The society onboard has continued to change and split. On one side, the key words are solidarity, utility and sustainability, a society that can sustain the war well into the future. And on the other side the useless assholes who bitch and moan, with the quiet and fearful yet hardworking group in the middle as always. For an idea of what Motoko's mech looks like see the Macross Frontier Messiah Veritech whose arms it most resembles, though the rest of it still looks like a regular VF-J Valkyrie. The other mods are the GBP-1S Armored type and the Super Valkyrie, with a pick and choose sort of feel to each separate addition.