I do not own Ranma or Robotech.

Thanks again to TJG and Jannissa for the great reviews. I hope you all like this chapter, now, on with the show!

Chapter 21 Death of an Asshole

"I'm sorry sir, I must not have heard you correctly, could you like to run that by me again?" asked Claudia into her headset from where she was manning her long-range communications station. Her voice was a little louder than normal in the efficiently running bridge and her querulous, startled tone was very odd coming from the normally cool and collected lt. commander.

Vanessa looked up at Claudia from where she and Lisa were looking at the civilian relocation plans grateful for any distraction. The civilians had responded quickly to the survey, and the two of them were going over who was leaving, where they wanted to go and everything else, plus what it would mean to the hydroponics section the repair section, what was being left behind, etc. This was also furthering Vanessa's education in the world of paperwork and logistics. At the moment it looked as if the civilians leaving weren't actually go to have an impact on the running of the ship or its internal components, as nearly a third of them, the group that was determined to help the military as much as possible, were determined to stay. Shopkeepers, small business owners, and other groups from the city however would practically disappear. The only restaurant owners that were staying were the Lynn's there were only two of three shop owners that were staying and they were all losing most of their workers, not to mention the recreation distirct. The hospital too was going to lose most of its nurses and doctors, and even the police force was going to be decimated. It looks like Kasumi isn't going to get as many interior design jobs as she wanted, Lisa thought as she finished reading the percentage of the shopping district that going to close down, then cocked her head and looked up as her friends tone finally registered.

Gloval too looked up from his work, where he had been going over Dr. Lang's notes on how long it would take Earth to start making the new weapons systems he and his team had developed, as well as signing off on a recommendation for Ranma to get another medal for his work with the team. Without his work on the energy strengthening technique the destroid and Valkyries would have been utterly wiped out rather than badly denuded as they had been and the Gargoyles would probably have taken the ship. "What seems to be the problem lieutenant commander?"

Claudia put down her headset for a moment looking over at him, her face showing the surprise and confusion that had been evident in her voice even more clearly. "Well, sir, I have someone on the line here who wants to, to emigrate to us, a civilian who wants to board the ship."

Gloval looked at her in surprise. Why in the world would someone want to immigrate to what is ground zero for the alien attacks? In fact he had been surprised that so many of the civilians had wanted to stay. More the ship had so far not been having any trouble receiving resupply. Certainly they hadn't received any actual reinforcements just yet, but he had already gotten a guaranteed that they would once they reached Hawaii, which was their next destination. Japan had refused to take any of the civilians save their own nationals, of which there were very few and Gloval refused to break from the plan to put them ashore first as it would show favoritism. Despite its inclusion in the United Nations, and despite the fact that they supplied quite a lot of the tech base the UNSF used, Japan remained an extremely insular nation, and they wanted nothing to do with that many foreigners coming in all at once, even if only for a short time.

Hawaii on the other hand had agreed to be the relay point for all the civilians coming off the ship. This was excellent news as even today it was home to a massive American military base. It was one of five places that served the 5th fleet of the United Nations, and the forces on the base itself consisted of two full wings of Valkyries, four companies of destroids, not counting interior defenses and base personnel.

They would be receiving a lot of reinforcements there, and Gloval was looking forward to the day when the maintenance crews were brought up to full strength. He was getting sick and tired of wandering hallways with missing plates, poor visibility because of the lights overhead not working and peeled paint everywhere. It might be a little petty of him, considering that the maintenance crew they had shipped with, barely half of what they should have had, had kept all the main weapons working and the majority of their forces fighting. Yet they were slowly falling behind even in that, and eventually they would be swamped by more serious issues. Water for example. Water distribution to the city was an issue that the civilians had taken on almost immediately after it was built, simply because it kept on breaking down. More, keeping the Valkyries in particular in fighting shape was a man intensive undertaking. Each Valkyrie squadron was supposed to have its own maintenance team of twenty, but with all the work the crew needed to put into other jobs they hadn't been able to assign that large a group, and more and more of them had to be returned to the factory, taking up more time there rather than creating new parts and pushing that back etc. etc. And none of this even considered the exemplary job the construction teams of both the military and the civilians had done repairing combat damage.

Claudia shook her head, having gotten over her own surprise and considering the future. "Maybe you should talk to him sir, because considering what Lisa told us, he might have a point."

Gloval nodded and simply said "Send the signal over to my station." He pushed a button which should have made a small screen pop out of the armrest of his chair, but instead the panel popped open and the screen came out barely an inch before the arm holding it sparked, fizzled and fell back into its slot. Gloval shook his head, knowing that such things were happening all around the ship, and hoping that the reinforcements the maintenance squads would be getting would help them make some headway on the little uses that were cropping up more and more. At least until they took more combat related damage.

He reached out and pulled the screen up to where he could see it and then pushed it on, thankful that it actually works despite its aborted effort of coming out automatically from its little cubicle. "This is Captain Gloval," he said looking at the man whose image appeared on the small screen, "I understand you wish to board my ship? Might I ask why? And how in the world are you talking to me in the first place sir?" He knew that the UN high command had been trying to cut off communication from the civilian sector, not wanting news of the space fortress's survival to spread. Obviously despite their control of the planes enabling continued worldwide communication this was yet another example of locking the barn after the animals had escaped, and not lawful or bright but still, a private citizen being able to contact him like this was still surprising.

The man facing him was tall and extremely well built, almost as much as Mannstein, and of the same age going by the slight wrinkles around his eyes and his gray hair. He was an Asian man, either Chinese or Vietnamese Gloval couldn't tell. The man's Standard English when he spoke was clipped, not like a person who had been in the military clipped, simply as if he was unused to using the language. "Good morning Captain Gloval" the man replied, "my name is Lon- Cao. I assume you have heard of me?"

This line was not said with any sense of ego at all, it was a simple fact as Gloval had indeed heard of him. Lon-Cao was one of the big names in over-technology construction. He owned several dozen factories scattered across Asia, all of which produced destroid or Valkyrie parts. The man was simply a genius at bringing out the best of his workers and machinery. It also told Gloval why the man was able to speak to him, as he was a man that the UN would not cross given how much they relied on his business and certainly the local authorities that should have been enforcing the blackout knew it. It did not answer the question as to why he was calling them though. "What can I do for you, sir?"

"I want on your ship." The man said bluntly, "For myself and for my immediate family and for as many workers as you are willing to take, as well as their families." he held up a hand as Gloval opened his mouth to ask another question. "I know what you are going to ask. But news of the numbers of the alien ships above us has leaked badly from the very beginning, despite our inability to organize a resistance to the UN high commands stupidity. I do not understand why the high command of the United Nations has deemed it appropriate to ignore the danger at the door, but it behooves us who can see it to do what we must. And we know, myself and several colleagues who are also businessmen of some renown, that if the aliens attack Earth with their full might, there is little to nothing the United Nations could do at this moment in time. Perhaps if we had known of their numbers and been building up to match them since your ship was found we could or at least come as close as we could, that would be something more, but as it is and with nearly all material resources and production capabilities turned to the Grand Cannon scheme, there is little we can do. The Macross captain has survived everything the aliens have been able to throw at it, and if they continue to fight you with kid gloves as it were I have no doubt that you will be able to continue to survive. Yet I cannot say the same for Earth, and more importantly my family and those who look to me for their livelihoods. So as I say I want to board your ship."

Gloval leaned back in his chair gazing at the other man thoughtfully, and wondering how to reply. He began to think of the pros and cons of this. Pros: the man was an admitted administrative and managerial genius. He had started off with a single small factory and worked his way up to being a trillionaire. He was used to working with over-technology, would acclimatize quickly to the ship factories, and would probably be able to boost their output by an order of magnitude. It would also irritate high command. It bothers me that that last notion actually matters far more to me at this moment in time then the other pros. Gloval shook his head, smiling a little inside at the thought.

Cons: he was known to be very aggressive and Lon-Cao was a man used to be in charge or at least to have a major voice in the goings-on around him, which would mean they would be bumping heads at some point. He would almost certainly be one of the civilian voices of the council almost as soon as he arrived, and that would force him and Gloval to work together. That would be a little like having two ringleaders and only one ring. Speaking of rings, he thought looking over at Claudia, I should probably give her the okay to go along with her little plan in the next few days, possibly as early as tomorrow.

Back on topic,getting rid of the civilians would help immensely both in terms of space, and administrative and disciplinary issues and bringing in more would obviously offset that. Yet at the same time, it was a pro, because civilians would work and could handle the duties that they could handle, thus freeing up more people to work on those duties only the Navy could take on.

After a few moments more of silent deliberation Gloval slowly nodded. "We may be able to accommodate you sir, but we would have to hammer out some ground rules first…"

About fifteen minutes into the resulting discussion alarms began to blare and Claudia looked up once again from her station.

Out on the hull, there was no more partying, but many hundreds of civilians and navy workers had come out to work on their tans or just hang out in the sunlight. There was just something to be said about feeling the rays from a real sun on your skin it just felt better than the small artificial sun that had been created for the city.

Motoko had removed herself from the rest of the sunbathers by the simple expedient of jumping up from the areas that regular people could get to up onto the upper hull by one of the tertiary weapons platforms. She lay back in a barely there string bikini, staring fixedly up into the sky with a pair of cheap sunglasses over her eyes, trying to get over her worries as the sun's rays flowed over her body. She had recently learned of the next port they would be going toward, and she knew what honor and basic decency required her to do. She had already sent off a message and received a reply, and there was really no help for it.

Her contemplation was interrupted by a loud splash and an irate female voice crying. "Oh come on, I've only been out here for a few seconds!" She smirked a little recognizing the voice in the distance, but didn't move from her spot to go and look at what happened.

The answer came to her as Ranma hopped up from the lower deck clamoring over the hull and smiled at her a little as she saw Motoko, turning towards her. She carried Kasumi in her arms and the statuesque brunette was giggling a little at the redhead's misfortune. Another girl also followed behind them laughing a little though a part of her was more than a little freaked out by how quickly her friend had been splashed once she came outside. Ukyo had known for a while that all of the people suffering from Jusenkyou curses attracted water to them, but that was a very different thing from seeing a massive yet extremely thin wave suddenly come out of nowhere to splash over the ship that was actually hovering 50 feet above the waves to hit Ranma.

Motoko looked at the new girl with a bit of interest then shook her head. A little too masculine for my tastes if her choice of clothing is any indication, even if her hair is nice.

Kasumi was saying something as they came towards her, and the words came to her as they neared. "All I'm saying Ranma, is that you should probably be a little more at home with receiving affection and your female form. I know you aren't as at home in it as in your male form, but it really doesn't matter to Lisa or I. I don't like it when you try to turn away from our affection in this form."

Ranma paused and looked down at her as they came up to Motoko waving absentmindedly at her Lieutenant before replying. "Kasumi, ya know I'm at home with my emotions more in this form so it ain't that I'm really uncomfortable, it's just that the whole affection thing in this body, it just feels weird to me. I react differently in this form, it's just a little strange, that's all."

"And you're not a little curious about how it could be in that form?" Kasumi asked.

Before Ranma could reply Motoko spoke up, her eyes under her glasses locked on Ranma's breasts, which were barely covered by his muscle t-shirt. "I could make you a lot curious you know." The three newcomers looked at her and she paled a little, ripping her eyes away from the red points that had so grabbed her attention. "Did I just say that out loud?"

Ranma nodded, blushing a little at the heavy come on from the girl she saw as a little sister. Motoko had never been that blunt with showing her attraction to Ranma's female form before.

Kasumi however simply giggled. "I take it that abstinence is getting to you dear?"

Motoko ground her teeth a little angry at the reminder. "That's part of it," she said, "I still can't find Lucretia, the blonde I was hitting on. She just seems to have disappeared. And well, Rachel's been giving me looks and keeping her distance from me lately. As if I would ever try to hit on her when she's under my command," Motoko groused a little, smacking her hand on the deck below angrily. An awesome ass like that and she has to be as straight as an arrow and leery of lesbians damnit! I could use a bit of eye candy at least! She looked up at the new girl and scowled seeing that she had backed away a little. "Oh don't bother, it's not like I'm so desperate I'm just going to jump you or anything, besides you look too butch for me."

Ukyo breathed a sigh of relief then scowled as the words hit her. "Hey did you just call me unfeminine?"

"Well if the shoe fits cross dresser," Motoko replied drawling a little to make the words more condescending. A good argument was just what she needed right now to get some of her irritation out.

Ranma looked at her one eyebrow raised at the confrontational air from the girl and said "that's not the only thing bothering you though. What's up?"

Motoko sighed. "You know we're heading for Hawaii right?" Ranma nodded and Motoko went on. "Well, I called my family when we first got back, and I've basically been ordered home at the earliest opportunity. Let me just say that I'm not looking forward to it and leave it at that."

Ranma cocked his head then nodded. Motoko had told him that her family had not exactly been supportive of her sexual orientation and facing that again would probably be very irritating. "I'd offer ta come with you, but I can't leave the ship right now, with me acting CAG they won't let me."

Motoko shook her hand waving that thought away. "Your mom decided she would come with me to offer moral support, I'm just hoping that's all she does. If my father speaks to me or her as he normally does to 'mere' women, Nodoka might just decide to cut him in half." Motoko knew that the older woman would be very capable of doing so. While Motoko herself was probably a slightly better swordsman by this point, given the fact that the last spar she and Nodoka had Motoko had won by the skin of her teeth, she knew that Nodoka would be able to handle him easily. He might've been the best swordsman in her family before she left, but her skill now was light years away from what it had been, and training with Nodoka and Ranma was the reason for that.

Ranma scratched his pigtail thoughtfully. "Wonder why she's so keen to go? Well, whatever. Anyway, this gal here is a friend of mine from Nerima and before. Her names Ukyo, try not to get into a fight with right now okay?" Motoko pouted a little but nodded and Ukyo rolled her eyes, wondering how good the Hawaiian girl was. "She and another friend just arrived on the ship yesterday. They were looking for a little excitement."

Motoko laughed and shook her head. "Only you would know people who would actually come aboard a flying target like this looking for some excitement!"

Ukyo was about to reply for herself to that when both Motoko and Ranma's phones buzzed. A moment later exterior speakers began to blare out a warning. "Attention, attention all civilians and personnel are to retreat immediately into the space fortress. Alien ships approaching orbit directly above us."

Ranma shrugged and looked over at Motoko who stood up swiftly. "I think you're about to see what kind of action we get around here," she said dryly. Ranma took a moment to kiss Kasumi on the check and ask Ukyo to get her back inside before the two of them shot off as fast as they could, jumping down to the nearest hangar and entering at a breakneck run, moving around clumps of civilians and soldiers as they came in racing over to their Valkyries.

Ranma jumped up on top of hers, pulling from her sleeve a bottle of hot water and swiftly changing and getting into the cockpit before she could be splashed by any mysterious water attack. The extra flight suit she had stored in her Valkyrie was for her male form rather than female, it wouldn't fit his female form and even Ranma didn't want to feel the g-forces that hit the pilot in a dogfight without his suit on.

On the bridge of the space fortress all other work and distractions had been forgotten the moment the UN had reported that their long range radar and telescopes had shown Zentraedi spaceships moving into close orbit over the planet right overhead of the space fortress's current position. From this distance it was impossible to tell for certain but the Reguld class battlepods being reported breaking the upper atmosphere indicated this was probably a portion of Kyron's fleet, or possibly even the entirety of the remainder of it. We did hammer him pretty badly over Jupiter during their break out after all, Gloval thought to himself.

Sammy, who handled the interior repair systems and directed the barrier shields spoke up from where she had been making certain all the civilians and soldiers who had been outside got back in. "The POs report we're all in Sir, civilians are moving towards the shelters even now. Valkyries are ready to launch."

Gloval smirked a little, realizing this was a fortuitous time to become once more a battleship captain rather than a carrier one. "Hold off on that for a moment Lieutenant. He turned to Kim, "Lt. Young disengage gravity drive, let us sink below the surface of the water, then open the exterior cooling sinks for the secondary weapons and use the gravity drive to give us a stable firing platform."

Lisa realized what the captain was going to do and laughed, nodding her head at Kim, who understood a moment later. "Yes, Sir, powering up the secondary guns aye, disengaging gravity drive momentarily aye." A second later the ship shook as it hit the water and then it began to sink. After her instruments told her all the secondary weapons were in the water she went on. "Opening up exterior cooling sinks now, reactivating gravity drive now." As she spoke the massive secondary weapons on the side of the ship and on the top of the hull rotated or elevated as they needed to range on the enemy.

The Macross had two types of secondary guns. First were eight beam cannons, the power of which was equal to the main cannons on any Zentraedi ship they had yet faced. They had lost four of these in Operation Blitzkrieg, replaced three of them since and then lost four more giving them a total now of only three. But those three were all on the bottom-side or keel of the ship, so out of the action. The other secondary weapons systems was based off the rail-gun design, which fired a large slug of metal at astonishing speeds, causing even more damage than a shot from one of the beam cannons. They had lost one of these in operation Blitzkrieg and repaired it later, but they hadn't lost any of them since, and all of them were on the sides of the ship, able to be turned to face nearly any direction.

The one thing both systems had in common was they generated a truly tremendous amount of heat, which in space was very hard to get rid of. That forced a certain set amount of firing rate, which was actually well below what the systems and metal of the guns could handle. Water however, especially saltwater was incredibly good at dispersing heat. With the exterior heat cooling chambers open to let in the water, the entire Pacific Ocean would serve as a monstrous heat sink. This would allow them to fire rail guns as often as the machinery could withstand, and with the barrels and systems being cooled by the water that would be very quick indeed, though they would have to be checked later for corrosion damage, and thoroughly scrubbed to get rid of any salt.

A moment later Lisa spoke up frowning a little as she looked over Vanessa's shoulder at her radar station. "The enemies are in range sir, but radio isn't able to pick out individual targets, they must have a lot of those ECM jamming Regulds out in front of them."

Even this knowledge didn't dampen Gloval spirits. He was a battleship captain, that was what he had been trained for, and this was about to become a battleship fight, as none of the battle pods would be able to close the range before he could destroy them and their motherships. "It matters not commander, fire at will, we're bound to hit something.

"Firing," Kim answered from her station and a moment later the huge secondary guns of the space fortress fired as one, with their distinctive (at least in atmosphere) sound of 'Bzzrk' and 'FZZZ-Fwoosh'. A second later, they fired again and again and again, faster than they ever had been before, as swiftly as their systems could handle. And while they couldn't yet pick out individual targets, that didn't mean the insane rate of fir wasn't hitting anything.

Kyron scowled aboard his flagship, as the first of his seriously depleted fleet died. Despite the fact that they were spread out heavily and further covered by the ECM battle pods of all two hundred of his remaining ships, that first shot had all instantly been a killer, burning through the Regulds in front of that ship and then destroying it utterly, followed swiftly by two more. More to the point the blasts were wiping out the ECM equipped pods and soon his enemies would be able to see him, and their fire would become much more deadly. Worse, his plan would be shot to hell because they would see his assault force break off from his decoy group. Knowing this he turned to Grell and said "break us off now, we'll have to come down further away from the space fortress to avoid their fire."

His second in command nodded but asked, "And the ships on the decoy mission? When do you want them to break off?"

Kyron scowled as his Queadol-Magdomilla command ship began to turn ponderously away, followed by thirty Quiltra Queleual class ships, the best ship in the fleet for in atmosphere or water maneuvers, although he had been forced to reduce their interior Reguld forces by a third to add to the rest of the fleets forces. His flagship shuddered as the front portion detached, the assault portion, more aerodynamic entered the atmosphere leaving the orbital portion behind. The assault ship was the only one of its kind in his fleet as his original flagship had been destroyed seconds after he had exited it in the first battle over the gas giant.

"They're already dead. Tell them to remain on station and rain fire down on the space fortress, keep its attention fully on them." Kyron knew without a shadow of a doubt that this was his last chance to take the space fortress. The losses his fleet had taken in this campaign had been ruinous and none of them had been replaced by new ships coming from Dolza. He knew that if they took more without any return Dolza may order the rest of his clan-fleet either destroyed utterly or ordered to return and be absorbed by his own fleet. His entire clan-fleet would die. It would die for nothing, and they would die because Dolza had commanded them to.

But if they won through, if he, Kyron, won where Breetai and Azonia had failed, then he might be transferred to command one of the main fleet's in honor of his achievement. A last chance to grab glory, Kyron thought with a mad, manic smile. What more could I ask for?

At the same time that Kyron's fleet descended into the planet's atmosphere, spreading out and using its ECM equipped Regulds to cover the action of his flagship and thirty Quiltra Queleual as they broke off and descended to the ocean well away from their target, their engines cut off to appear damaged another, much smaller attack began.

Over 300 battle pods descended from the Meltraedi fleet swiftly, organized and purposeful, totally unlike the massive cloud of Regulds from Kyron's fleet. Their target was the area of the planet called 'Belgium', which while having only the second best chocolate in the world, would be much easier to invade.

The geography was much flatter than in the one called Switzerland, and while there were two military bases in the country that might cause them trouble, Switzerland had several dedicated land force bases, which given the terrain would cause the Queadluun Rau more issues than the air forces. Athena was leading this force, and been involved in the planning stage, so she knew once they broke the back of the 'UN' forces, (though she had only the vaguest idea of what that meant, some kind of inter-clan fleet that got better weapons? How bizarre was that?) they would have little other opposition to their assault.

They were barely 10 minutes out before a response arrived from the nearest UNSF bases over three full wings of 200 Valkyries each tried to intercept them. Unfortunately, these Valkyries were of the old type without the SAM Pack or anything else the crew of the Macross had developed like the armor strengthening method to protect the cockpit, and none of their officers had read the reports that Lisa Hayes had submitted or even worse, read a few reports Roy had put on out on the pilot's net on the sly.

Therefore they were completely unprepared for the reality of facing the Meltraedi powersuits in battle. Not only were the powersuits faster, more mobile, more durable and better armed, they were on the main piloted equally or better.

Thus, the Meltraedi broke upon them like piranha among minnows, and with just as bloody an effect, despite more forces coming from elsewhere to replace their losses. Athena merely smiled as she wiped two Valkyries out. Simply more targets to destroy.

About forty minutes into the attack on Belgium, the news had finally reached Prescott where he had secluded himself in his quarters in Fort winter. While he was saddened about the loss of life entailed, he could only laugh at the way this would shake everything up, and would finally force the high command to admit to the Zentraedi threat. And maybe given the operations he had already agreed to lead, they might just be forced to give him some help.

Onboard the space fortress Gloval nodded with approval as the twentieth enemy battleship disintegrated under their fire in the upper atmosphere. However by this time the power suits and battle pods had breached the atmosphere and were coming down towards them. "Raise the ship. To take on that number we'll need all of our available defenses on the upper Hall." Gloval ordered.

Lisa nodded and as soon as the first hangar bay breached the water she shouted "launch Valkyries! Objective is to strafe the enemy with missiles than return. Do not, repeat do not engage in close range combat, no dogfighting people, I want you all back here alive. We've reached Earth, none of us are going to die now!"

Ranma laughed a little at her message, though he knew it was very heartfelt. Of the remaining Valkyries, all of whom were now veterans having lived through the battles against the Gargoyles before they hit atmosphere, had been fitted with SAM Packs, and one out of every three towed a string of missile pods after them on his orders to give them a heavier initial offensive punch. More he had ordered at least one out of every six to use the GBP-1S armor system, giving the force an even heavier punch, and since they weren't going far or too fast so the normal problems with bringing these heavily armored but slow types to the party wasn't there. Roy had written off on this idea, thinking it a good way to see if it was a viable option in future space actions.

They set up around ten kilometers above the space fortress, half again the range of the ships tertiary weapons of the space fortress, and as soon as the battlepods entered their range began to hammer them with missile fire. The Regulds, even more disorganized by their need to spread out to cover the ships above them with their ECM, died in their scores, and soon nearly a thousand had died under their missile fire without the Valkyries taking any shots in turn.

However, after their missiles were expanded they had to retreat, and the Zentraedi battlepods followed them in. The tertiary weapons of the space fortress began to fire as alarms began to finally blare in bases near enough to provide them some aid.

The maintenance crew worked quickly and efficiently and especially since only the missiles had to be replaced within two minutes of touching down the three squadrons of Valkyries were back in the air, and joined the battle above the space fortress. After fighting the Gargoyles every one of the surviving fighter pilots was finding this battle relatively easy, but none more so than the subdividing elite forces. Rick led Skull squadron, consisting of only four survivors from the previous conflicts above Jupiter and with the Gargoyles around Earth, but battle hardened beyond anything they had ever been before. The stayed together, guarded each other's backs and tore apart the Regulds around them like a well oiled machine.

Ranma and Blue squadron too moved through the swarm of Regulds smashing aside anything that got in their way with contemptuous ease as below them the secondary weapons continued to fire.

The beam weapons, fully in the air, were firing much slower now, cooled only by the air around them, but the rail guns, still in the water as only the top deck had been raised out of the water, continued to fire at their previous insane rate. More all of them were more accurate now, as the Regulds had descended en-masse on the space fortress, leaving the fleet above, which was now beginning to fire down at them, inaccurate but powerful, clear to the ships sensors. Barrier shields began to roll out in reaction, and with only having to cover the command spire and the top of the ship the twenty they had made since they hit atmosphere was well up to the challenge.

In her powersuit Miriya was slowly going insane due to the need to wait. She well knew that the main objective of the attack had to be achieved over anything else, even her personal rivalry with the human Ranma. She paused, rolling the name on her tongue, "Ranma. We will meet again to settle everything my foe, my rival, today one of us will emerge totally victorious at last." Yet still she waited, waited until the main thrust of Kyron's attack hit, the better to let her troops get in close and search for any weaknesses, knowing the Azonia would have no choice but to ground her if she disobeyed and moved too soon.

Kyron's forces had breached the water successfully, not having gotten any more interest from the space fortress, but they had garnered some interest from the UN 5th Fleet, which was stationed nearby and had already been moving to support the space fortress despite standing orders to stay clear. This fleet was a mixed unit, comprised mostly of Americans a few British units and two packs of submarines from the Russians in communications range. The admiral in command, an American, was well aware he was disobeying high command's orders, but he didn't care, the SDF-1 was a friendly unit and it was under attack, that was what he cared about. Now as his radar analyst informed him of the number of alien ships that had hit the water (which he couldn't quite see in the distance from their present position, pity it probably was an amazing sight), he scratched his chin, then nodded. "Launch Valkyries as planned, then move us forward on an oblique course around this enemy fleet to join up with the SDF-1. But first send word to commodores Livansko, and Oromov that they are free to hunt, repeat free to hunt." Moments later the submarines that had been taking on supplies from the fleet closed hatched and dove. While the rest of the fleet launched their Varitek forces to assist the space fortress, the submarines moved forward, ready to do their deadly work.

There are two lines of thought about submarine warfare. One is that speed and depth are the most important, while the other is that silence is the most important. The American submarines, most of which were at least these days situated close to home or in the Pacific, followed the silence model. Most of them, especially the Virginia class and on were simply ghosts, and they moved through the water with deadly grace, almost entirely invisible to radar or any other type of location technology. If you didn't already know where they were supposed to be, they were incredibly hard to find, right up until you took a torpedo to the bows, then you knew precisely where they were for all the good it did you.

The school of submarines thought followed by Russia however was speed and depth. There submarines could go deeper, faster than any other submarine in the world, even the Americans (these days anyway, that had not always been the case). Everyone could see them coming, but they were usually too deep for anything on the surface else to do anything about them. The 5th had six Russian submarines, all of them SSN rather than SSBN, attached to it organized into packs of three. All of them went hunting the moment their orders arrived, and were soon in position to show these invaders that there was terror in the depths.

So Kyron's fleet had descended barely a kilometer into the water when they began to come under attack from directly below them. Torpedoes exploded against them, and while it took four such torpedoes to destroy every battleship, the submarines attacking them had enough ordinance to do so.

Kyron growled aloud in fury, having not even realized that there could be enemy ships that would attack him like that. "By the stars, these Micronians are mad! Get the ships pointed downward and use the main guns and missiles on these foolish dresh!" Ponderously his fleet obeyed him while four more of his precious Quiltra Queleual died under torpedo and missile fire. Unfortunately the Quiltra Queleual class was made to deliver the maximum number of Regulds to any battle, and thus didn't have the interior capacity for ship-to-ship weapons as other Zentraedi warships. Worse, the 17 beam cannons each ship had wasn't powerful enough to hit their target through the water. In this battle they found themselves in the odd position of having to rely on their ships to ship missiles, and they only had ten ports each devoted to said weapons. To make matters worse their radar was not meant for this environment and was barely working. The missiles themselves however were working perfectly, and his own flagship had more powerful weapons on it, which could work through the water.

Alien technology was simply tougher than human technology, and the missiles were able to take the pressure to reach their targets. Kyron still lost twenty-five ships to this attack over the next hour which the surviving commodore, Oromov, thought was an excellent exchange. Exchange 25 alien battleships for four submarines that were rapidly proving to be obsolete, he'd take that any day. Especially since all of them had skeleton crews aboard, having been stripped to the bare minimum needed to crew them because Russia had decided to go back into the shipbuilding business and they needed the crews on new builds, something Oromov had not seen the point of until now, having not put any stock in the rumors floating around and simply stolidly following orders. Yet now he saw the reason, and wondered how submarine warfare in space would work. For now though he ordered his surviving two subs to break off and return to the 5th fleet for rearming. They had run through all of their onboard missiles and torpedoes in this attack, which was the only reason the remaining five alien ships survived.

The remaining five battleships reoriented themselves and dived deeper in an effort to avoid further conflict. Given their speed even going slowly to avoid detection it only took them an hour to reach position directly below the space fortress. Kyron smiled sadistically. This was going to be even sweeter now, returning the favor the Micronians just did him by attacking from below, on top of finally succeeding where he had failed so often. Launch all battle pods! Once that is done you may turn and engage that enemy fleet that is coming to the space fortresses aid. Keep it away from the space fortress until we have captured it."

Kyron left the bridge, leaving Grell in command of this part of the operation as he raced to get in his Glaug. He smiled a little sadistically. Taking the space fortress while he is busy elsewhere will be a fantastic way of paying back the Micronian ace for all the times he humiliated me!

The battle pods launched from so close and with no one paying attention to the sonar (and with 5th fleet too far out to com directly with them just yet) directly and the com plane assigned to the SDF-1 having been shot down earlier) it came as a complete shock to everyone aboard the space fortress when suddenly clangs and bangs began to be heard from the lower decks and reports of intruders began. Even as the final Zentraedi ship in orbit died under their fire Kyron's forces had forced their way inside, and as the emergency blast doors closed blocking out the water they stormed in the first wave 650 strong with three more waves of equal strength coming in behind.

Unfortunately, nearly all of the destroids had been moved on to the upper hull to defend against the attacking battle pods. All that was left to face the invaders was a single company of Spartans, and while individually they were easily a match for any two or even three battlepods they were incredibly outnumbered. They responded quickly however and knew the interior of the space fortress, especially its guts where the attack began like the back of their hands. Using this knowledge they were able to bottle up the attackers in many sections of the lower portions of the space fortress, but the numbers were overwhelming. Lisa helped as best she could, but this was really not her kind of battle, she had trained for space and aerial warfare, not boarding actions, and Mannstein was out on the hull. She ordered him to return, but just as the word left her lips the Reguld swarm pressed in harder than ever. She grimaced then shook her head. They would have to hold the boarders back for now on their own, and she began to issue orders with brisk efficiency, not letting any of her concern show.

"At Last!" breathed Miriya as ship she was on relayed the tactical information that half of the land forces on the space fortress were making their way back inside, almost certainly to help defend against Kyron's attack. Then she leaned forward like a bird of prey hands gripping her controls like talons. "All pilots, launch now, destination is a space roughly half a korg from the space fortress. Remember our ROE, we are not to engage the enemy except in self defense but get in close and get visual recordings of the space fortresses outer hull. Also remember that if you see a enemy mech with a strange four footed animal on it, it is mine!"

All of her pilots responded in the affirmative, none of them saying what they thought: that none of them wanted anything to do with the human ace after what had happened in orbit. They weren't suicidal after all.

The Meltraedi pilots had one more advantage, they were trained in a far harsher school, where battles lasted until one force was utterly destroyed, no matter how long it took. The battle had been going on for over two hours and yet none of the aliens died though over a dozen fell back damaged and ordered to return to their motherships in orbit, while more and more Valkyries went down.

The major commanding a responding wing from a base in Germany dodged a few mini-missiles and almost screamed in frustration. Not only had he lost practically 60% of his fighters since joining this battle, but now exhaustion was taking its toll, and his losses were climbing. "Why don't these guys back off? How can they keep fighting this long? How are they able to pull off those maneuvers!?" Maybe, a little thought in his mind said, you should've listened to Commander Fokker about his experiences fighting these bastards in space rather than blowing them off as coming from a young upstart, no matter how decorated. Another mini missile impacted his wing, and suddenly one of the alien things was directly in front of his Valkyrie and lashed out, crushing the center of his plane and destroying the cockpit, killing him instantly.

Within an hour of his death resistance had been completely crushed, and half of the attacking Queadluun Rau took up position in the air, providing over-watch against further reinforcements from any of the bases in nearby countries. The other half descended, and began to move towards a specific area of the country, a city named Brugge which their intelligence had pinpointed as a major chocolate provider. This meant that some of them attacked factories, absconding with giant tubs full of the chocolaty substance, while others attack slightly smaller shops in the city itself, where the chocolate was sold in little packages. So little were these packages that they barely could be seen in one of the Queadluun Rau's hands. Despite this, the pilots devoted to this aspect of the operation went about their task with a will, determined to get as much of this substance as possible and figure out how the male humans used it to control the females. If a few dozen of them moved off and stuck their hands through buildings advertising clothing to take away some more samples, none of their fellows mentioned it.

The odd little humans in the street screamed and ran from them as the Queadluun Rau moved around not really caring if they crashed into things, but also not doing so on purpose. They tended to avoid stepping on the humans, more because they squished rather alarmingly under their powersuits feet than anything else.

The one in charge of this part of the operation as Athena commanded the over-watch was named Silonnia, second in command of the 15th battalion, and she found the strange sight of the humans running around to be strange yet interesting. There were so many outlandish differences between them, not just in hair or coloring as was normal but in size. Why were there so many short ones around? What was their function, their role?

As Silonnia was thinking this she passed one house and something spanged of one of her powersuit's arms. She turned to see what had hit her and saw a human male sticking some kind of weapon out of a window. Behind him she was surprised to see a human female cowering, holding onto another smaller version of the male with one arm and holding a bundle of something in the other, which seemed to be emitting some kind of loud noise. She used her sensors to zoom in on their faces and saw fear, which she had expected under the circumstances, yet determination and fierce protectiveness in the face of the male. Then she was surprised to see an even smaller human in the bundle of clothing held by the female, so small it must have been a genetic defect of some kind. She thought of blasting them all away for the effrontery of attacking her, but something about that idea disturbed her. The male had no chance of injuring her and even less chance of protecting the two humans behind him, yet he had stood up to her in their defense, even though one of them was female and the others so small as to be useless in battle. The sight was oddly compelling and she turned away, leaving them alone, her emotions strangely effected by the sight in ways she could not understand.

Captain McCairn was a Spartan operator of Scottish descent and had been such for his entire career, all of a year now. He had entered the academy at the same time that Ranma had, but unlike the most famous pilot aboard he had flunked the 3-d combat test, simply unable to think in terms of 360° warfare. He excelled at Spartan operations though, which was how he had attained his current rank with so little time in grade, well that and attrition, much like in Ranma's case. No he desperately wished that someone, anyone was around to take the burden of command off him, because he saw his company, the last of the Spartans aboard the Macross, dying to hold the line against the horde that had invaded the ship. It was a reinforced company of 120 to start with, but this battle had already whittled that number down to 45. Even the armor enhancing technique, which all the Spartans had been put through along with the other destroids in the past few days (since they were supposed to get reinforcements the factories had concentrated on upgrading the existing destroid forces rather than build a stockpile of Valkyries and destroids) couldn't help them against the numbers coming at them.

Still he let none of his despair color his voice as he continued to issue orders, allowing his pilot to handle movement and gunnery. "First platoon fall back to the left in two corridors." As his Spartan began to turn he continued to issue orders. "Second platoon, fall directly back, remnants of third and fourth link up and move towards the central hub deck by fire and movement." He let none of his grief show, but he knew he had just consigned the remainder of second platoon to their deaths, all too hopefully lead a large force of the aliens away from the hanger that housed the city and into a death trap. But he had done the same with himself and his squad, so it evened out in the end.

His platoon came under fire from one of the corridors they passed but returned it swiftly, destroying the four pods clustered there. But behind them dozens more, all bunched together came forward, firing as they came, making small leaps over their dead companions. Soon hundreds more were pouring in, all of them eager to come to grips with the elusive enemies that had been hitting and slowing their advance for the past hour. His platoon fell back into one of the factories, one that ironically enough had been designed to build Spartan parts. They swiftly took up position all around, finding what cover they could and hammering the doorway as battlepods began to pour in. The numbers were simply overwhelming, and soon they began to die. McCairn saw one of his troopers grab up the heavy knife of one its fallen fellows and charge forward with a blade in both hands. He held the door for a few moments letting the others clear out the pods that had gotten into the room, but then fell, his Spartan destroid literally coming apart under the weight of fire.

McCairn's own Spartan took a hit, then another and another as more and more Regulds charged into the factory. He grimaced and looked at his gunner. "Hit the charges." The pilot replied instantly, and his aim shifted from an approaching battlepod to directly above the massive entrance to the factory room. The navy had also come out to play, and sappers in this environment had helped immeasurably. Now they helped again, shattering the deck above the entrance and bringing hundreds of tons of metal down in a planned cascade, trapping dozens of battlepods and destroying dozens more. As the trapped pods tore into him and his men McCairn smiled as he died, knowing they had done the best they could. Hopefully it would prove to be enough. Little did he know that his attacks and strategies had cost the enemy nearly half their attacking force. Still, that left them with more than enough to do the job.

Ranma and blue squadron returned to rearm their missile loads but instead of returning to the aerial battle they were ordered to head into the ship to repel boarders, while behind them the Tomahawk companies turned and moved swiftly to do the same. They all turned and marched straight into the fortress and down into the lower decks to help the defense.

By this time the defenders had been pushed into falling back, but thanks to McCairn and Lisa's planning they had been funneled away from any of the critical sections of the ship. Yet this had allowed them only one avenue of attack and that took them into the massive hold where the city resided. Luckily all the civilians had been evacuated into their special bunkers, and the defenders had the entire city to play with.

Ranma immediately took command of the few Spartans that had retreated into the hanger. "Fall back and start to provide cover fire for us. Max, Rachel get high, stick yourselves on the ceiling and fire down at their positions, keep the damn jumping bastards on the ground! Ben, set up on one of the top farming terraces and do the same, hammer the hell out of them. Motoko take one side, I'll take the other get in close and slaughter the fuckers!"

Under his direction the Spartans, now numbering only nine fell back and formed a makeshift barrier at the outskirts of the city proper that the battle pods couldn't pass. More their longer-range weapons finally come into play in the massive hangar. The Zentraedi tried to force their way forward, but fire from above, especially fire from the Ben's GPB-1S frame threw them back in disarray. Then Motoko and Ranma hammered them from the sides, throwing them further into disarray. At this point a Tomahawk company arrived and raced into help. The Tomahawks extended range and far heavier weapons began to turn the tide, their far heavier weaponry able to incinerate five battle pods with a single blow of their particle projection cannons. And whenever the battle pods tried to take to the air in the hangar Ben, the two snipers and the Tomahawk's shoulder mounted missile systems came into play smashing them out of the sky. The attack ground to a halt for a moment.

At this point Kyron came forward, having killed the last of the enemy mechs that had diverted his main thrust. With him he brought the rest of his forces, now only about seven-hundred strong after battling his way up from the lower decks yet still enough to take the space fortress, he knew it, he could taste it. He was close to pushing through and achieving the glory he sought.

However, his thoughts were soon subsumed as he saw his forces being pushed back into the corridor ahead of him by the superior range of their enemies. He jumped forward, dodging a flashing PPC round and firing back in the same movement. Yet before he could order his troops to charge forward again a familiar Valkyrie burst through the line of his first groups to reach the place where the corridor fed out into the hangar and positioned itself in the entryway. His rifle was blazing in one hand and his other held a knife that he used to gut a nearby pod as Ranma yelled out aloud in his speaker. "I've always wanted to say this: You Shall Not Pass!"

Motoko joined him, slaughtering seven battle pods in as many seconds with her blade before taking up position behind him, groaning aloud. "You're making jokes now, are you serious!?"

Ranma continued to laugh, pushing forward, forcing the battle pods to retreat or face him in close combat, and with his speed most of their shots were missing. A few hit, and a few out of thousands was still a lot, but his armoring technique let him take it. He only grimaced a little as he felt his ribs go in sympathetic reaction. A moment later he took a blow to one of his solider mode's shoulders, but by this point he was in among them and hammering out with hard blows with kick and fist, his rifle now simply a bludgeon in one hand as he coulnt take the time to reload, his knife long since buried in pod behind him. Motoko followed for a time but soon enough they were separated and she had to retreat having taken too much damage and not having enough ki skill to maintain the armor strengthening technique. Ranma stood alone in the large hallway holding the line against over 500 battle pods for several minutes, the few that broke through him were demoralized and broken, easy pickings for the rest of the forces behind him.

By this time the fight in the hangar around the city had died down, with the Spartans and Max and Ben and Rachel hunting down the small groups of survivors that were trying to hold up in various places. The Tomahawks however stayed together and raced towards the entrance way, taking position behind Ranma and filling the entire hallway around him with their PPC blasts, firing as fast as they could. Though unaimed for the most part it didn't have to be to be effective against the packed ranks of battlepods who had fallen back away from Ranma, clumping up even further as more and more came into the corridor pushing forward at the same time they were trying to get away.

Kyron scowled angrily as he saw his forces retreating from a single enemy, one stinking Micronian! He started to fire at them himself, but instead of putting some spine into them this made them retreat even faster. "Don't run you cowards! If we break through here, the fortress is ours!"

One of them, a little more wiseass than wise shouted back "then you do it oh mighty one!" A blast from Kyron's arm cannon silenced him forever, and he charged forward with a few of his followers behind him, yet the rout had begun and it could not be stopped. As they broke out of the press of bodies they suddenly found themselves far too close for comfort to the single Valkyrie that had held the corridor.

Ranma was a sight, his armor was dented, one of his arms was missing, and his head was missing two of its lasers. But the rifle that came up had been reloaded, and rounds banged out slamming into the nose of Kyron's battle pod. He staggered a little under the shots, and before he could move again Ranma was on him. His hand glowed with ki and it lanced out straight into and through the battle pods center, spearing Kyron straight through. "Just fucking die already you bastard!" Kyron didn't even have the chance to respond, his opponents ki enhanced fist had already smashed through his ribs and heart, killing him instantly.

In one of the larger factories surrounding the city of Brugge, Athena touched down after leading a defense against another assault on their position while landing craft designed to carry extra ammo touched down all around an inside the city. Once she made certain that there were no humans nearby, the workers of the factory having run away, she exited her power suit and moved over to one of the large tubs in the center of the factory. While on a human it would be approximately two stories tall, on her it only came up to her chest. She reached out a finger to touch the substance and found it had cooled, and with that she picked up some of it on her finger and licked it and her mind exploded.

Over an hour later, as Silonia got in touch with her. She came out of her trance feeling better, happier and more energetic than she ever had before, though the tub strangely seemed a bit emptier than it had been before her mind shot down. "Oh yes," she muttered to herself, "this is definitely the stuff the males use to control the females." A moment later the group retreated leaving a bewildered, demoralized and freaked out populace behind them.

Miriya scowled. Her flight had been on station for nearly fifty minutes and while reinforcements from the human fleet that was even now battling it out with five of Kyron's ships, her enemy had yet to break off from the dogfight to face her, though several squadrons had tried to close and engage her forces, rather foolishly in her opinion. She idly wondered what had happened to the other twenty-five ships Kyron had broken off for his attack, but the thought was unimportant to her own concerns. Very well if he won't come out, I'll just have to go in. "Remain on task all of you, I'm going to search for my adversary." She barely heard her fellow pilots responding as she charged forward.

Lisa groaned aloud as the enemy ace attacked alone. Of course Vanessa had reported the Gargoyle's arrival, but as they weren't attacking Lisa had pushed their presence to the side of her mind, only directing the ongoing dogfight now that Mannstein had taken command of the battle inside the ship. The boarding assault seemed to be broken now, which was a good thing. The new reinforcements that had arrived barley thirty minutes ago hadn't been blooded against the aliens before this and had been having a rough time of it already, with over twenty of them having already been shot down. It really pointed out the difference in ability between the Macross created and upgraded Valkyries and the ones being used by the UN, as well as the difference in skill of the pilots. So the return of the destroids would be a help, hell she had only left a single company of Defenders outside, the rest had been ordered inside to help clear out the boarding force it was so desperate for a time.

Yet the alien ace was bad news all by itself. It was attacking alone (!) the forces still fighting in the sky outside and around the space fortress. The Pacific Fleet forces that had come to help were no match for her, and as she watched her HUD twelve icons disappeared under its fire in less than a minute. The Gargoyles were deadly, but that enemy ace was just on a whole other level. The gargoyles were ripping through any of the forces that came out to fight them, but they weren't actually attacking the space fortress, and Lisa wondered why that was. Still it isn't as if they're necessary. She thought bitterly as another five Valkyries died in as many seconds. That alien ace alone will destroy our entire defensive formation. Maybe on land without the ability to fly one of the destroids would have a better shot at destroying it, but in the air with maneuverability and durability on its side, that thing was just deadly.

She knew what she should be doing, yet for the first time ever her personal worries overrode her professional instincts. She had gotten a report of how badly battered Ranma was, but he was literally the only one aboard that could face the ace in battle. She knew if she sent Ranma out there as battered as he already was he was going to die. Yet it was the only thing she could do, and she cursed her sense of duty even as she made the call, the others on the bridge save Gloval looking at her with pity and sadness in their eyes.

"Ranma" she said softly, ignoring military titles, and Gloval's look of surprise. "I, we, we need you outside. That enemy ace is here and she's cutting through our forces like they're not even there."

Ranma groaned aloud. His Valkyrie was a mess and so was he, but he knew that all their pilots only he Roy and maybe Max could face the ace and live. Max was down, having taken a few shots in the final closing moments of the battle in the hangar, Motoko was incredibly battered so even if she could close into hand to hand she would lose, and Roy was still in the hospital. That left only Ranma to face the ace regardless of his current injuries. Besides, even if I was even more battered I'd want to be out there. There's no excuses, if you want to be the best, you have to fight to prove it, and you can't always fight as you choose. "Roger," he said softly, "I'm on my way." He turned from Kyron's corpse and moved off as quickly as his soldier mode could take him.

Miriya growled allowed as she killed yet another irritating human. These new humans weren't even as skilled as the normal ones on the space fortress, and they lacked the endurance as well. The fighter only been going on for barely an hour and already their reaction times were all down. "Pitiful." She muttered.

At that moment however a familiar Valkyrie zoomed out of the space fortress and she turned and laughed happily. "At last my foe at last…." she trailed off as her systems reported the damage that Ranma had already taken, and she frowned realizing that he must have been involved in the battle against Kyron's forces on board the space fortress. And in that kind of environment he would lose most of his skills and abilities. It was evident that had cost him. As battered as he looked, Miriya knew he was no match for her.

Yet he still came on and Miriya nodded grimly. "No excuses. You have to fight to be the best, and sometimes you don't fight as you could wish." Without another word she sped toward him, ignoring the dogfight around her.

From the start it was what she had known it would be, brutal vicious, and all out. Ranma immediately attempted to close the range, and Miriya let him, hammering away with her cannons and pulse lasers, her mini-missiles having been expended on the irritating gnats earlier. She lost one of her hands and she winced in sympathetic reaction as her own wend dead from synaptic feedback. Yet her return rounds slammed into Ranma, who lacked his normal speed and grace, blowing off chunk of his armor despite his ki strengthening it as much as he could, yet he still lost a leg from the knee joint down.

Then they were in hand to hand range and Ranma found Miriya had yet again gotten better. She was nowhere near fast enough to perform the Katchu Tenshin Amiguriken maneuver, but she was fast enough to deflect it when he used it, and she did so, still tkaign wounds yet Ranma took still more in turn.

Miriya slammed a knee up into her opponent throwing her head around to get rid of the odd moisture that had built up in her eyes for some reason. The fight was indeed brutal and her opponent was doing all he could, but in the end with the damage to his mech and to himself (she could see splatters of blood in his cockpit now) the outcome was never in doubt.

Ranma fell back as his Valkyrie at last ran out of power, yet he kicked the shattered remnants of his Veritech's canopy out of the way, raising two hands, together ignoring the broken bones in his right arm and shouting "Moko Ha Reiku!" the beam was weak, but it stabbed out slamming into and burning away one of his enemies cannons.

Miriya winced as one of her ribs gave way under that golden beam of power, yet that was the last Gasp and Ranma's Veritech splashed backwards into the water, kept afloat only because he had transformed it to its fighter mode, which allowed it to float, if barely. Ranma forced his way out of the cockpit, his hands flickering with ki, but his face clenched and determined, despite his ribs, his leg and other wounds.

Miriya soared above him, that strange water back and blurring her vision. She had won, she could end his life right now, and one of her hands rose to do just that, bringing her pulse lasers to bear. Yet she couldn't bring herself to push the trigger. "No." the word echoed around her cockpit, and she pulled her helmet off, wiping angrily at the strange water in her eyes. "Not like this, this is not the victory I wanted. Not this cheap farce, this, no." She lowered her hand and hovered there staring down at her enemy. "We will meet again, when both of us are at peak condition and that settle everything." Ranma continued to stare up at her still game, still fighting even as his body failed around him and she smiled, a smile tinged with regret and respect. "Until then my foe." And with that Miriya turned away, rocketing skyward to join the rest of her wing as they ascended the atmosphere. She never even saw Ranma finally collapse backward, overcome at by his wounds at last.

End chapter

I wanted this chapter to portray all the different parts of the battle going on, and I hope I did that well. On the other hand i had a lot trouble naming this chapter in such a way that didn't warn people about the outcome of the third battle between Miriya and Ranma. I also could have fleshed out that battle but i wanted to show how limited it really was, and how much more had gone on before it. I hope you all enjoyed how I played things, and as always read and review.