I do not own the pigtailed one or Robotech.
I truly love reading the reviews for this story, more than any of my others they are helpful insightful and well thought out. Thank you all. Thanks especially to TJG, whose reviews are always excellent. I am torn on how to introduce the flower of Life, either seriously or as a joke, but we will see. I will tell you however Lang has found something out, but isn't going to share it with anyone just yet, and never over a com.
Janissa: Shampoo and the other Amazons will start to move into the center stage in the next chapter. The academy will never be the same….
Unfortunately, I have been forced to make an announcement on my profile about my story Lion of Light, and my planned story Making Waves for those of you reading/looking forward to it. I am sorry but real life at this time of the year is simply a bitch.
In other news, does anyone know any good MShepard/multi stories from Mass Effect? Or Dragon Age stories which take a Cousland or male mage and have him not follow the routes allowed? One who is an ambitious womanizer say or someone who makes choices that change the way the story goes, like letting Arl Eamon die, or killing Alistar (I never much liked him for some reason, he was too, well too weak and too much of a follower for my tastes). I can't really write while I'm taking a lunch break at work, but I can read, and would like something new to sink my teeth into.
I know I promised Breetai would make a reappearance, but I decided to enlarge that section and expand it, so it will be in the next chapter. Now on with the show.
Chapter 23 Breaking, Repairing and Coming Together
Claudia looked over at Lisa who smirked a little evilly. "How long did you say it would take them to get here?"
Vanessa looked at her console, calculating distance and speeds. "Um about five hours or so?"
"In that case see if Hawaii base has a shuttle or something that can get out there. I'd like to have them abroad in two hours or so. Prepare the furthest hanger forward, the one we've kept clear for emergencies, for them. If these really are the Amazons Commander Sugita and the others have talked about, they represent a major source of knowledge and fighting ability." Vanessa looked through her signals and found a suborbital shuttle that had just docked with them, disgorging another dozen repair teams all of which were immediately shunted into the work being done on the interior. About five minutes later the suborbital turned around and lifted off on its new heading to pick up a very strange group of passengers.
Gloval nodded, agreeing with what Lisa was doing. "I think you should also inform Nodoka and Commander Sugita that we have incoming visitors they might want to meet. Oh, and tell Dr. Lang that his Christmas gift has come early." The rest of the bridge crew chuckled and went back to work.
Ranma had gotten permission to take his newly repaired Veritech out on a practice flight, and was out putting it through its paces when Lisa called him. "Wild 1, this is command, we have an incoming group that you might want to be on hand to meet, request you return to base."
"Er, okay, roger command, but what does this group have to do with me?"
"They say they're a group of Amazons, and their spokesperson is named Cologne." Lisa's voice, despite being professional, still held more than a trace of laughter. "I believe you've mentioned them a time or two."
Ranma blinked in shock, then smiled and shook his head. "Yeeesh, it's like old home week. Roger that command, returning to base. Recommend that my mother at least is also ready to meet them."
"Roger that, we already informed her."
Cologne and her fellow Amazons stared down at the massive ship that loomed like a sleeping giant, vast, imposing and bristling with weapons. Even with her limited knowledge of modern weaponry, the huge cannons she saw bristling everywhere in various groups and sizes were imposing if only for their size. Then again, she chuckled, I'm living proof that size isn't everything.
She turned back to face her fellow Amazons, two-hundred and ten of her tribe of varying ages and lifestyles, the best and brightest of the young warriors, all of whom, not incidentally at all had been with her in Nerima, nearly a hundred middle aged blooded veterans, and several others that specialized in farming, metal working and hunting as well as several married couples with children, all that she could convince to come with her on this venture. Of course, not all of the married couples were old, and the sight of Mousse and the visibly pregnant Perfume was a sight that brought joy to her old heart. All of them were drinking in the sight of their new home, some talking excitedly in their native tongue, others simply looking and others muttering worriedly to themselves.
She had known since about a month into her stay in Nerima that her people had to change to survive. Globalization, new technology and other exterior elements were putting more and more pressure on the Amazons in their territory, as well as the other two groups, the Musk and Phoenix people they 'shared' it with. The Musk and Phoenix had responded by retreating even further into the mountains, but that was not an option she wanted her people to pursue. She felt that they could retain their sense of identity and self and still embrace modern technology. Alas she had not been able to convince the other elders of this, nor the majority of their people. Those she could were with her now, and hopefully would be enough to continue her tribe into the future, a future among the stars.
A moment later the plane they were on came into a landing, and she looked out of the window to no see a very familiar redhead dressed in her traditional yukata. The young woman next to her however was new. She wore what was obviously a uniform, one Cologne recognized as belonging to the UNSF. She was obviously young, possibly the same age as Shampoo. Yet even form here Cologne saw her stance spoke of experience, of someone who had been tempered in combat many times over. She heard the mutterings of the veteran warriors around her suddenly become far more focused, and she nodded. None of the ones who followed her were idiots, and only an idiot would overlook that young girl regardless of her age.
Shampoo, much to her hidden dismay, didn't really have any eyes for the young woman only for the familiar figure she stood beside. As soon as the ram touched down, she and all the other girls who had been in Nerima ran forward in a jumble. "Auntie Nodoka!"
Nodoka smiled widely in welcome opening her arms and hugging all and sundry as the young girls clamored around her. "Hello dears, welcome to Macross! How have you all been?"
Motoko stood beside her new mother smiling at the warm greetings and surreptitiously checking out the Amazon girls and finding them very nice eye candy. She didn't even try to shake off the thought, after the last few days she felt she deserved to let her naughty thoughts wander a bit. Her eyes however narrowed as she saw several middle aged women come out of the shuttle, followed by a little gnome on a stick that must be the oft-mentioned Cologne. The warriors however were a surprise, each of them carried themselves like veteran soldiers and she exchanged wary nods with them all. She didn't think any were quite up to her level, but they were close, and seeing them said a lot of things about this little group. It obviously wasn't a small group of younglings looking for adventure, but what the group actually represented escaped her.
"Greetings Elder," Nodoka called out, moving through the group of youngsters with a smile. "It is excellent to see you again."
Cologne looked at the woman in front of her and then to the young woman and cackled. "Hello to you Nodoka. I see being away from that fool Genma has been good for you. You look at least ten years younger. And is this young lady yet another one chasing after Ranma?"
Motoko snorted but Nodoka answered before she could. "Not at all, may I present my daughter, Motoko Sugita."
Cologne cackled again as the young warriors turned from Nodoka to stare at the black haired, slightly tanned girl. She gazed back, her whole manner screaming amusement as well as competence. "I note you said daughter, not daughter-in-law. I take it there is a story behind that."
Motoko nodded. "Yep, but that's for later, preferably a story to share over a beer or two." She suddenly smiled as a familiar Valkyrie taxed towards them from where it had just landed, touching down almost delicately.
Ranma stepped out of the hatch and almost immediately the eyes of all the Amazons switched from the two women to Ranma, and Motoko swore she saw the one called Shampoo gulp. She laughed a little, wondering why her new brother had such an effect on girls (and how she could get some for herself).
Cologne almost gaped as she saw Ranma standing next to his Valkyrie. The boy had been good, in fact, he was easily the best of his generation before he left Nerima. Yet while he had beaten Herb and Saffron, she knew that at the time both fights had been won through luck and outside interference more than anything else. In a pinch, she knew she could have still defeated the boy at the time, but now she praised her ancestors that had not been necessary.
Before her stood a young man at least in form, but the energy he was giving off, even with as tightly controlled and bound as it was, was that of a God, that was the only way to put it. He in fact was giving off more power, more ki than that machine behind him and she wondered how the hell he had been able to gain such a level in a little under two years. She was easily the best warrior of the Amazons, and had by far the most ki of any of them, but even she and Happosai combined could never have equaled a fifth of the power that Ranma was giving off, which was more than even Herb or Saffron could hold at a given time. Once again she cursed the fact that she hadn't been able to convince Shampoo and Ranma to get gather. Oh, she knew it had been a close thing at one point, but Ranma was too wild too unrestrained and his dream of going into space would've gotten in the way at the time. But that was not the case now, and maybe, well an old woman could dream, though she wouldn't make the mistake of pushing for anything. Shampoo however took matters into her own hands and ran forward with a loud cry. "Ranma!"
Ranma grinned at Shampoo, grabbing her and twirling her around before placing her back on the deck stepping back before turning to look at the others. "Hey all, what the heck are you all doing here?" He then spotted Mousse and the very pregnant Perfume and he nearly shrieked, pointing at Mousse in shock. "Oh my god, you spawned?!"
Mousse glared back good-naturedly at his old rival while the rest of the Amazons laughed aloud.
Their meeting however was interrupted by an elderly gentleman with messy white hair and wearing a lab coat running out of the hanger, aiming straight towards them. A few of the warriors stiffened until they got a good look at him, then they relaxed, no way in hell was a man built like that a danger. Ranma's grin widened even further as the man ran up to Cologne, only to nearly collapse he was so out of breath. "A-are, y-you, are you Cologne?"
Cologne looked at the man head cocked to one side. "Indeed I am, young man. May I ask why you're looking for me?"
"Oh my god, I have so many questions for you! I'm Dr. Lang and…"
The discussion was interrupted once again by a large and very narrow wave coming out of nowhere to splash over the side of the Macross and drench Ranma where he/she stood. The now redhead shook her head, crying aloud "Oh come on!" She wiped seawater out of her eyes only to see to her horror that she hadn't been the only one struck. "CccaaaaaaaaaaaaatTtttttttt!" And with that the redhead bolted off in terror into the space fortress, knocking down several naval personnel who had come forward to try and hurry the group inside to free the landing area for more traffic.
Cologne cackled again as Nodoka sighed and Motoko gaped, never having actually believed the whole fear of cat's thing. "I see some things don't change at least."
While Ranma was meeting with Cologne, other groups were coming into the space fortress from every hanger and opening on the ship. Maintenance personnel, gun crews, and civilians led by Lon-Cao who wanted to board the ship, as well as just regular crewman, all of them were streaming in, being pressed into service where they could, and shown to the city when not. Lon-Cao had come aboard that morning and had already taken over the repair efforts of the one severely damaged factory with a group of his workers, while the others found housing for them all in the city.
About two hours after the Amazon's arrived Lisa met with a group of chief petty officers as well as the new COB.
Chief of boat was the chief petty officer aboard a ship and he was in charge of most of the discipline aboard a normal naval vessel, though obviously on a ship the size of the Macross that was a little different. The original COB of the Macross had died during Operation Blitzkrieg, and the non-coms had been taking a pounding since the voyage began, meaning they barely had any really experienced ones left by the time they returned to Earth. Without an experienced COB, Claudia and Lisa had been forced to handle between them most of the disciplinary incidents aboard the ship among the navy personnel. On a ship the size of the Macross however, that was not only a full-time job, it was one that needed a full bloody staff. The MPs were a major help, but they had their hands full most the time dealing with issues that cropped up between the sailors and civilians.
So, while Claudia was hatching her own Operation Clean Sweep to get rid of one of the largest issues aboard, Lisa was welcoming the new chief of boat with open arms, or at least the equivalent that she would show to any new officer or noncom coming into the Macross. While the Macross did not run anything like a navy vessel was supposed to run, it worked, and everything aboard and everyone who remained aboard had proven themselves in combat harder than anything seen since World War II.
The new COB was a grizzled man, medium height but with heavy muscles visible under his regular Navy uniform, and he and his fellows, all petty officers from different sections who had he had brought along from his former command, the carrier flagship Nimitz of the 5th Fleet. The carrier was going to be decommissioned soon, replaced by a submarine carrier class of all things, and he looked at the young woman sitting at the table steadily.
Something about her made him stand at perfect parade attention, something he didn't really normally do for young officers. The UNSF had expanded so rapidly that most of the young officers were really not what he would call real officers, and he generally looked down at them for this reason. This woman who was staring at him however made him realize that doing so in this case would be a very bad move indeed.
"COB Walters?" She asked looking up from her papers.
"Yes sir," he replied still standing at attention and saluting. Behind him his fellows did the same, all being experienced enough to sense the same thing he had.
"Good," she said leaned back a little and looking at them all. "I won't lie to you, when I heard we were getting a COB again I was ecstatic. I'm the tactical officer for this boat, and I've had to deal with disciplinary issues myself along with our communications officer, and frankly it's been a bitch." All four of them chuckled a little at her blunt tone and she went on. "However, this boat is not a normal naval ship. For one thing as you probably already know from your trip through it, it is far larger than any vessel made by humanity. The crew is supposed to be an even 20,000, but that's without the Prometheus and Daedalus and the interior factories which adds another nine thousand and that is actually a minimal amount that captain Gloval is looking to expand by an addition four thousand. This is far more personnel than a Hercules class missile ship has, far more than any wet Navy ship. For another, we have a city built inside the ship. You should've been looking at the news so you should know that, and if you don't well you can go down there on your off-duty hours. The provosts are pretty good, and the head of the MP is in charge of working with the civilian police, but they have their hands full with issues springing up between the civilians and military. Most of the civilian police, however, are leaving the ship along with most of the civilians we had on board so I don't know how well he'll get along with it the new police force coming in with the new batch of civilians." Lon-Cao had brought in his own security force, but whether they were useful or simply bullies in a spiffy uniform remained to be seen.
The petty officers all looked at one another, but for any of them could voice the question Lisa answered it for them. "We are taking on new civilians because they can run the factories, the farms and other things better and more efficiently than we can, plus it opens up more personnel for what the Navy alone can do. Then too, certain civilian groups are thinking ahead, and wondering what the hell is going to happen to Earth if the Zentraedi eventually attack all out," She knew it wouldn't be pretty, but she wasn't about to point that out to these guys just yet. "They'll keep the city running with all of its services, a major morale boost on a long space journey, let me tell you." Then too, they were a source of new recruits, an important point as most naval personnel couldn't be retrained for Valkyrie or Destroid work unless they already had the talent for it. She wouldn't point that fact out just yet, the idea of preparing for losses to that extent without returning to port would not sit well with any of them.
"Chief petty officer, Hopkins?" One of the other petty officers stepped forward. "I understand you came off the carrier Nimitz as well, and you're in charge of the Valkyrie maintenance squads?"
"Yes ma'am," he responded.
"Good, we don't have our full maintenance teams aboard just yet, but we have several new ones that are working through the Valkyries we have. Have you read the packet about our new Valkyrie classifications, the FAST Pack and all the modifications we allow veterans to do?"
"I skimmed it Sir." he said stiffly, disapproval plain in his voice. "It seems to me all the modification are needlessly adding to the workload of the maintenance crew without noticeably improving the fighter."
Lias's affable nature disappeared as if it had never been and she leaned forward, glaring at him. "You will read it from beginning to end chief petty officer!" she said, her voice cold and commanding, the voice of someone far older than she looked. "The changes we have made to our rules of engagement, our maintenance schedules, and our Valkyries are all based off real combat experience gained from fighting our way from Pluto back to Earth against an alien threat whose size and numerical superiority you cannot even begin to comprehend! I do not need a petty officer in charge of my maintenance section who does not understand the realities of what we are dealing with and what we have gained from that hard won experience is that clear?"
Her eyes swept over the mall and they all responded by rote, a little cowed at the sudden change, "Yes Sir."
She leaned back again her smiled back in place. Good in that case get out of here Hopkins you have some reading to do." The chastened CPO left at that point and she looked at the others. "Chief petty officer Thomas, chief petty officer Francisco, you two report down to the main engine room, a boatswain should be outside the door waiting for the two of you. CPO's Louganis, McLean, 0-3 Porter is waiting for you in the meeting room next to this one on the right. Be aware that she will probably be pushed up to 0-4, a lieutenant commander, once our full personnel compliment is aboard. She has been in charge of most of our damage crews during and after combat, a job that she has done in an exemplary fashion since our fold drive disaster. If I hear of you or any of the men assigned to her section giving her grief because of her age, gender, or lack of time in grade I will come down on you like the wrath of God, do I make myself clear?"
"Yes, Sir," was the reply and she nodded in those two left as well. Indeed all three of the bridge bunnies were going to be bumped up a grade, as were all the other officers. Claudia was going to be made a full commander, and Lisa herself was going to have the rank of captain, while Gloval would be a rear admiral. It wouldn't have much impact on their duties, but it would be a sign of the size of the crew and their workload. Drake would be made a captain as well, though while her specialty was in tactics his would be in intelligence.
Lisa leaned back tenting her fingers as she looked at the COB who was the only one still in the room. She had taken time off working with now- General Mannstein (the land forces were able to push that through far faster than the navies side of things) on the refit and redesign of the interior of the ship, because she felt that she needed to make certain that the new noncommissioned officers coming in understood the idiosyncrasies of the Macross. Hopefully the petty officers would take her orders to heart and take a day or two to read up on the changes and the new rules in place aboard the ship (some looser some far harsher), but if they didn't she would replace them swiftly. The COB though, was the only one that had been willing to transfer to the Macross, despite three of the 5th fleet's surviving ships being decommissioned as soon as they put into port. The reality of the battle against Kyron's fleet had penetrated swiftly where nothing else had, and America and Russia were both going back into the shipbuilding business openly now but they were concentrating on new designs and scrapping all the old ones for their crews.
"So," she said "disciplinary problems. "Most of the time the disciplinary issues have been rather small, but morale aboard the ship has been known to tank after we take severe losses, and of course that entails a much larger amount of issues, especially since the city has several dozen bars. I don't mind about the alcohol intake, but I want any stills outside of the city shut down, there are actual breweries in the city anyway. You can work with the other warrant officers and petty officers of the different sections to hunt them down, but I expect you to be the one to handle doling out discipline. However any drugs found aboard are to be destroyed immediately, and anyone, and I mean anyone, civilian, rating or officer who is found creating or distributing drugs aboard this ship is to be incarcerated immediately and if the charges proven to be accurate executed swiftly."
The COB reared back in surprise and Lisa chuckled mirthlessly. "Out in space it is just us COB, and this ship has no need for parasites like that. We have marijuana being grown in a few hydroponics plots for medicinal use, but it is strictly regulated, and anything found in anyone personal possession, well as I said, we don't need that shit." She and Gloval had both presided over trials about that very thing and the precedent was clear. "The same goes with murder and rape. Lt. Commander Grant is handling one of the larger issues we've had onboard, but I expect going forward for you to live up to your reputation and keep all these small issues from ever rearing their heads. But that is enough of the ship-side issues at them moment. Now, in terms of us being a base, the ship has it's own internal economy and currency, which…"
Claudia Grant was in fact handling the major issue of discipline and good order on the Navy side of things by at long last bringing a hammer down. Thanks to her skills with a computer (she had been in counter-intelligence before transferring to the communications department), she had been able to track and hunt down nearly every single piece of stolen hardware that one of the two black markets aboard ship had been moving around. She didn't much care about the drugs or the liquor (or the porn, now that they were back in contact with the internet), none of the current crop of crew or officers had the training to hunt those down and those were dangerous but not seditious. What she cared about was the military grade weapons, the parts for destroids and Valkyries and the fact that it seemed as if someone was trying to arm his own separate force. It was tough to see the pattern at first, but it was there.
Once she realized what was going on and had an idea of who was behind it she began to surreptitiously watch his movements and pulled back all the provosts from trying to shut down his operation, thinking that if she gave him a free hand she would be able to round up all his men all at once later on. This had worked very well, almost as if the man thought that no one was looking for him, and just that morning she had led a raid on one of the warehouses in the forward port side of the ship. This raid rounded up over fifty soldiers, and the provosts confiscated enough handheld weaponry for a further seventy-five. They also found four Spartan class destroids, and three Valkyries, all of them having a cobbled together look but still dangerous for all of that. It wouldn't have been enough to take over the ship, but it would have been enough to take over the bridge and keep it for a time, say until they were relieved by outside forces?
Some of the men were simply regular Navy personnel, who the ringleader had suborned to his cause in various ways. Others were soldiers who had left the service coming from the Valkyrie squadrons who had turned in their wings as well as their commissions. Space combat was a stone cold bitch, and two out of every ten Valkyrie pilots that made it through the Academy to join the fighting forces eventually decided after one or two battles that they couldn't handle it. Most of them simply went back to their civilian lives retrospectively easily, but at least fifteen, fifteen of the group that resigned after the battle in Saturn's asteroid ring had simply disappeared off the radar, and apparently this was why. Claudia wondered briefly why they had agreed to help the ringleader. Disgust with Gloval's orders and a desire to strike back maybe or was it something else? But in the end it didn't matter. Everyone involved in this little ring would be immediately taken off the ship to the nearest UNSF base to stand trial for insubordination and gross misconduct. They would all be hopefully drummed out of the service for those who weren't already, and the others would be turned over to the civilian authorities and no longer the concern of anyone aboard the Macross.
The ringleader however was going to be handled just a bit more forcefully. He would be arraigned solely for the offense of attempted mutiny in a time of war. If proven, and given all the evidence she had accumulated over the past six months it should be, carried a life sentence at a minimum, the maximum being death by firing squad. She wasn't certain if it would stick, but if it didn't it would be because someone higher up pulled some strings. Regardless he would be off the ship which was all she wanted right now. Now she stood outside her target's room with four MPs, all large men armed with shock sticks. A fifth stood next to her with a special card key that would open the door of any room aboard the ship regardless of any security the person inside had installed. The only one who could authorize its use was the captain in conjunction with his second-in-command as well as the head provost. Most of the time it was locked away in Gloval's stateroom, but he had okayed its use for this.
She nodded at the security man and he swiped the card through the door's lock. As soon as the door opened the four other MPs charged through. A brief exclamation of shock sounded out, and the sounds of a scuffle reached her where she waited outside, but it stopped almost as soon as it began, though the shouting continued. She walked through sedately to stare at the man who was still shouting at the MPs who had grabbed him, forced his hands behind his back and handcuffed him. "Captain Conner formerly of the Prometheus, you are under arrest for sedition against your superior officer in a time of war, drug dealing, weapon racketeering, and hell anything else I can think of to stick on!"
The man glared at him her, "how the hell did you know!"
"That," she purred "was an admission of guilt." The man tried to break free, but was held firmly by the four MPs. "And I've known about your little group for months now. Hell I knew about it almost from the moment you started it up. Did you really think no one saw how dissatisfied you were with Captain Gloval in command? Or did you just look down on us all because most of us are women? Never mind" she said, "it really doesn't matter now." She waved a hand and the MPs saluted. "Get him out of my sight and off this damn ship."
Thus one canker sore was removed before it could grow to truly dangerous size, and with the COB, new petty officers and maintenance crews and regular crew members coming in, she hoped to see the other canker sore, the drug creation and distribution, shutdown swiftly. It hadn't grown to be that much of an issue yet, but the thing about little things was that they won't stay that way for long if ignored. Still, she thought to herself as she whistled a little bit it sitting down and clicking through the man's files, a good day. I'll have to see if Roy it has recovered enough for a bit of fun. I think I deserve a little bit of a present for myself.
Dr. Lang looked around the meeting room in the sprawling and now rather large complex in the city at the dozens of scientists from around the world that had gathered here. Several of them were from Russia, China and America, others were from Italy and India and the UK, all of them had hopped on the fastest mode of transportation they could and come straight here as fast as they could for this real-time in person conference. Most of them were men he had talked to in his first conference over the Internet, but their appetites for what he had been discovering had merely been whetted to a fine point by what he had shared then. More, most of them wanted to see firsthand some examples of the work he had described.
The jewel (and even he found that a rather ugly thought when discussing this pair) of the collection however had to be the presence of Cologne and Mousse of the Joutekoutsu, both of whom were leaning against the wall at the back of the room. For the first part of what he was going to talk about they wouldn't have much to say, but in the second, and when they moved on to hand's on demonstrations, well, they would prove to be worth their weight in platinum.
"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, starting his presentation, "I'm glad to see you all here today. We have a lot to cover, and I'm assuming all of you wish to get to the nitty-gritty immediately, so here we go. First, I have two new discoveries based off of the reflux engine," and he pressed a button and behind him the large screen that dominated a full wall of the conference room lit up showing an engine. It was large and bulky, but the specs shown alongside the image showed that it would put out a lot of power, enough to take even the Macross into fold on its own, though the speed of the fold would be very slow, but that could be solved but simply having more units of the same type. "This," he said softly, pride and awe in his voice, "was developed by myself and chief engineer Hibiki. It is the first human made fold-space engine. We have not in fact made it yet since we lacked the room to do so until this last boarding action forced us to clear out so much of the cityscape freeing up a portion of the main hangar." Everyone nodded as the design said the thing would be at least four stories to a side. "Yet every test we have run on our computer simulations tells us this design will work. It's a cross between the style found on this battle fortress and on the Zentraedi ships our troops boarded during the Jupiter campaign. The Zentraedi design is robust, can run for far longer, but has far less output. The Macross' space fold drive," he coughed a little, "the only one of five to survive found aboard the space fortress are far more powerful, far more streamlined and rather more high-tech. If we want to talk about the technology aboard the spaceship being over-technology, Zentraedi technology is about 20 to 30 years behind it, simple to build and robust but not the best or most efficient. The only difference is that these alien designs have been built to not break down until they run out of fuel. Our design may require more maintenance, but the output will be better, and the fuel consumption is actually as good as on the drive found aboard the Macross. Questions, comments?"
the questions and answer section for that announcement went on for a few hours, basically about estimated build time and shortcuts as well as any possible problems that could arise, then Dr. Lang went on to his next development, a real-time communication device that bounced a communication signal into fold space. "With this," he said "we could keep in communication between different parts of the system, maybe even entirely different star systems in real time." He had actually reverse engineered this from one of the alien devices, but his was much smaller. Much less robust to be sure, but it would work on far less power.
One of the Brits looked at the communication gear avariciously. "Tell me," He said thoughtfully "how good is this real-time communication, I mean could you oh just as an example use it to control an automated drone of some kind?"
Dr. Lang paused for a moment then nodded. "I think you could yes if you weren't asking the drone to do lots of fancy maneuvering. I don't think it would work on controlling a Valkyrie for example through a dogfight." The Brit nodded, but decided to look into the possibility anyway.
"But you could control say a long-range missile? One that has extensive ECM suites?" A Russian asked, seeing where this would help his own people's ideas of space warfare.
"I would have to see if this signal would interfere with an ECM suites," said Dr. Lang thoughtfully but it's something to work on certainly.
The Russian nodded and the eggheads went back to putting their heads together.
Dr. Lang wasn't the only one that had ideas to share, the Russian brought along the design for a long-range missile platform that could launch missiles, have them go into ECM mode immediately and then was designed to use a fold-space drive. With Dr. Lang's new communication system to control the missiles through to their targets this system would be monstrously more effective. Dr. Lang wasn't certain how well that would work against the Zentraedi and felt it would depend on how big the payload was, as well as standard doctrine for the Zentraedi when they weren't in combat. Most certainly it wouldn't work on the fleet in orbit, which maintained a large force of Gargoyles between its positions and the third planet at all times, switching them out randomly.
The American admiral however had come up with something much more interesting. He brought a carrier design for space combat. This carrier would not carry Valkyries or any manned planes, it would carry thousands of drones armed with heavy lasers based on the Apocalypse class destroid's main weapons. The new class of fighter was a scimitar shape, with a heavy laser directly in the center of it, small engines at the back and the barest minimal wings. Dr. Lang thought they could however house one of the small barrier shields, which would give them a far higher survival time and the meeting about that took another hour. By the end of that however, humanity had a very new and very dangerous weapons platform and system to work with.
Dr. Lang then took command of the meeting nodded over to his two guests, both of whom, to his hidden surprise had actually followed most of the talk so far. "And now we are going to talk about the two areas where my guests can hopefully help us. The name of the game is survival, making sure as many of our men survive and kill as many of them as possible. For that we have developed the armor strengthening system and the enlarged magazine procedure. To discuss how to make them even better I wish to turn this offer to Cologne of the Jouketotsu."
Cologne hopped forward cackling at the looks of incredulity sent her way, save from the one Chinese man there, who simply gaped at the legend in front of him. But she was not the greatest teacher of her tribe for nothing, and she had brought along some props. With one ki-enhanced hand she lifted one such, a piece of armor off a Tomahawk, and set it into clamps that would hold it still. Then she hopped onto a table tossing her walking stick at the most incredulous face, the American admiral. "You, sonny boy, what do you think that's made out of?"
The admiral caught it deftly then shrugged, wondering what the hell this old ghoul was. Hell she barely looked alive, let alone someone who should be so spry, and what was up with that monstrous strength. "It's some kind of wood, oak maybe?"
She cackled again, sending a shiver through all their spines. "Good boy, now try to break it." The admiral did so, then winced visibly as the stick failed to break when he brought it down over his knee. Next he tried to smash it on the worktable in front of him. Instead of breaking the stick slammed into it and bounced out of his grip to be caught by Cologne, who hopped into the air to grab it. She came down cackling again. Next she thrust it into the armor she had set into clamps on the point first. Instead of simply hitting she was able to punch straight through the metal. "That is what you call the armor enhancing technique can do." Everyone stared at the short ghoul in shock and she cackled again. "Next, Mu-tse, I want you to empty your pockets."
Mousse looked at her askance. "You know how long it'd take to gather that all up again old ghoul, no way." A moment later he obeyed, muttering and rubbing at the new apple lump on his head. The admirals all chuckled a little at his discomfort, but they stopped laughing after he pulled several dozen large halberds out of his sleeves, and kept going pulling more and more things out of his sleeve, including a refrigerator, a motorcycle, a set of guns of all things, dozens of weapons, a kitchen sink and other things. One admiral later reckoned the long haired boy had pulled out at least five tons of various shit from his sleeves, neither of which had even bulged before.
Cologne cackled as he began to slow down. "And that gentlemen, is the hidden weapons technique, which you call the magazine enlargement system, performed by a master. Now, let's see what you have been working with so far, Ranma is incredibly good at what he does, but the boy's never been the best when it comes to explanations." Everyone even Dr. Lang who had thought he knew what to expect simply dumbly. The egghead conference as Ranma called it would last another week and by the end of it warfare and industry would never be the same again.
While Cologne and Mousse had gone off with Dr. Lang, the other Amazons followed Ranma through the ship section of the space fortress and into the cityscape. Well, after Shampoo changed back from a cat to her normal body, which caused quite a stir among the maintenance crew who saw it.
The group of Amazons stared around in awe, astonished that such a huge space was actually inside a spaceship, gasping aloud in shock at the huge hydroponics terraces, the fact that the city was built into the floor and sides of the massive hangar, and the artificial sky painted overhead.
The group first stopped in at the White Dragon where they were greeted by an awed Fei and Shao, who were surprised to see honest to goodness Amazons aboard. Two of the family groups broke off here to see if they could start working there, while the rest separated into different groups. Many of the older warriors and the family groups followed Nodoka around to see the hydroponics section and then the academy, while the younger set followed Ranma, who took them to see Kasumi at her new workplace.
Kasumi had been commissioned to design the interior of a brand new entertainment center built around food, computer simulations/games and other gaming systems. The backers had pulled out after finding out they could get off the ship, but that was only after they had bought the building it was supposed to be in, and paid for the interior to be demolished. Kasumi had decided to continue, assuming that someone else would come in and buy the space after she had finished renovating it.
Her plan was to make the entire interior into a single large space, with heightened terraces along three of the four walls, using metal and glass as the main building materials. There the terraces would have metal banisters all around, and each one would be devoted to a different game system, while the main floor would have the computer games spread around, with each one in its own indented section set into the floor. That way onlookers could see as much of the battles between players as possible, and food would be kept away from the devices which would save on cleaning and wear and tear. Along the front there would be a food stand.
Ukyo, who was working with her at the moment on the project, had already decided that she wanted to own that stand because she could tell the place would be making money hand over fist. For one thing, the location of the building itself was prime, right in the center of the city's shopping/merchant district. More importantly, the only thing the city offered that was as high-tech and as interesting as this place was the 3-d mini golf center, which had been making a shit ton of money as soon as the economy onboard settled down. The owners of that attraction were staying aboard, they had a son who was a Defender operator, and were forward thinking enough to see what was coming in the near future if the Zentraedi decided they wanted Earth to die.
Shampoo stared at her old frenemy being here, and stared even more at the transformation Kasumi had gone through. Gone was the rather mousy if good looking young girl she had been, replaced by a vibrant, beautiful and energetic woman.
Kasumi looked up from working on placing one of the banisters in place with Konatsu's aid and smiled in welcome as Ranma bounded over to her, kissing her neck which caused her to giggle than gasp aloud as the Amazons followed him in. "Shampoo? Everyone? What in the world are you doing here?"
Shampoo frowned a little at seeing Ranma, who had never been really been comfortable with showing or receiving affection, put his arm around Kasumi's waist. Then she sighed. She should have known that Ranma would be out of reach by this point. She had her chance before, but now it was obvious the two of them were together, and Shampoo was not willing to share. "We're here to join the forces here. Some of us will sign up to join the UNSF, others will make a home here in the city."
"Oh that's wonderful!" Kasumi moved forward, hugging a few of the Amazon girls who she had gotten close to during their stay in Nerima. "Maybe a few of you would like to work here with Ukyo, I think this place will be a major money-maker." She then paused as she noticed Perfume, and her swollen belly. She giggled again, and she began to wonder how she would look if she were pregnant with Ranma's child. She still didn't want to become so for a while yet, but in the future, oh yes, she definitely wanted children of her own.
Ukyo nodded. "I'm not willing to join the UNSF, the idea of fighting in space kind of freaks me out, even in one of the destroids that would be far too weird. You all might want to think about that before you sign up." The Amazon maidens looked at one another then shrugged. They would still sign up, if only to see what things were like.
Shampoo looked at her rival then shrugged. She had never really thought of the other girl as a real warrior, she was more a chef than a warrior even with her family's style. "I'll still try it out. I want to see how good these aliens are anyway." A few pieces of the fact based editorial covering the Macross' battle from around Pluto back to Earth had already been released, and the Amazons had watched it before boarding the ship they commandeered to catch up to the space fortress.
The group stayed there catching up and a few of the Amazons stayed behind to help out Kasumi while Ranma led the others to sign up at the academy. They would join the next class, which was going to start as soon as the academy had enough students to make a full class of 250. The Amazons would make up half of that class, and like Ranma they would be exempt from much of the physical training.
Their day was interrupted when the speakers set around the city began to blare the message "Commander Sugita, report to office of the CAG, commander Sugita report to the office of the CAG."
"Huh, I wonder what that's about?" Ranma shrugged, then waved goodbye to his friends and ran off.
"What do you mean I have to give a presentation?" Ranma asked a little dangerously. Acting CAG or not, he felt his place was in battle, leading the troops in exercises and not stuck inside giving lectures no matter the reason.
Roy looked at him from where he was behind his desk in his wheelchair. It would be another two weeks before he was cleared to remove the body cast, and another month and a half before he was cleared for duty. His lungs had been punctured by debris from his cockpit, even if the canopy hadn't shattered entirely, and while the surgery to repair them had gone well, he was still convalescing and would be for a while. His leg had also taken at hit, a piece of shrapnel from inside his cockpit pierced his leg, almost cutting his femoral artery but not quite. That injury at least was on the mend much faster, and he could start exercising it soon.
"I mean," he said sternly "that you need to talk to the new commanders coming in. We're not getting full flights or squads abroad, we're getting bits and pieces from UNSF bases around the world, people and individuals who can get away or we and our partisans can pry free. At the moment we're getting more lieutenants and squadron leaders than anything else, but none of them know anything about fighting the Zentraedi except what the high command has passed along, which unfortunately isn't a lot just yet. The next round will hopefully include more pilots who come in knowing what to expect, but this group doesn't. I've talked to a few of them and they just don't have a clue! You need to point out the reality of fighting the Zentraedi to them, and get them to believe you."
Ranma frowned and nodded, realizing that was a good idea. Especially since without Kyron's forces they would be only facing Gargoyles from now on, and they had already shown over the skies of Belgium what they would do to pilots not prepared to face them.
Roy frowned in turn, hear came the harder sell. "And," he said slowly, "You'll soon need to transfer two of your personnel over to Vermillion. Vermillion needs a new commander, and you can choose Max or Motoko for it, and they need a fourth pilot as well, that way we can have eight new pilots going to every squadron to be paired with four vets. We won't need that to happen for another week or so, but you should start thinking about it now."
Ranma scowled a bit at that. The pilots Wildfire had now, Rachel, Max, Ben, himself and Motoko had come together into one hell of a unit, and losing any of them would be a wrench. Still this would leave more room for Shampoo, Konatsu and the Amazons, and besides it was an order. So he just nodded and asked, "So how much time do I got before this meeting?"
"Well," Roy said, smirking a little, "as I've already told them to all meet you, or as I put it, 'a representative veteran', in meeting room 3, I would say now."
Ranma growled a little irritated at all this. He frankly hated being CAG. He felt that being an elite leader of a small elite force like he was as Wildfire Lead was the best place for him. He left the big strategic decisions to Lisa and, well, The Captain too, though he trusted Lisa more, Gloval tended to ignore the losses the Valkyries took these days, as if he really didn't know how address them, or connect with the pilots. "All right fine," he muttered, "but you know I will get back at you for this."
"I tremble with anticipation," Roy answered dryly, "Now get." Ranma got.
About a five minute leisurely walk Ranma brought to briefing room 3, one of the four designed for large crowds. When he walked in he was almost completely ignored by the pilots gathered there, an odd feeling.
Looking around he noticed that all of them were way older than he was, all of them had some kind of decoration on their uniform, and he realized that they were all vets or at least thought of themselves that way. Well, there're vets, and then there are space vets, he thought grimly. I wonder how many of these guys are going to survive long enough ta make that jump.
He walked up to the podium at the front of the room and calmly waited for everyone to quiet down but even the ones who saw him didn't take any real notice of him, thinking him far too young to be the one that they were here to listen to. Those that thought more of it simply thought that he was a lieutenant (missing his rank tabs entirely) there to help give the presentation they were here to listen to from Roy Fokker. Several of them knew Roy of old and they would listen to him, but a young man like Ranma couldn't possibly have anything to teach them.
After a few minutes Ranma had about enough of being ignored and he summoned a small ball of ki and shot it into the air to impact the ceiling with a loud bang. Fist still covered in blue gold ki he smirked at the now wide-eyed pilots who had all turned to him with gaping mouths and startled faces. "I trust I got your attention now? Good morning gentlemen my name's Ranma Sugita and I'm the acting Commander Air Group aboard Macross. I'm that because outside of Roy, who is currently bedridden with injuries taken in our last dogfight before hitting atmosphere, the most experienced and easily the most deadly pilot aboard this ship." The pilots began to mutter in surprise and he let them for a minute before continuing. "This is not me bullshitting you, my record is open source on the Macross' internal net if you want to check."
"The fact there is no one senior to me but Roy should tell you all that every other pilot that the Macross sailed with before we were forced to leave Earth is dead. We have in fact suffered something like 500% casualties. Some of this was from attrition taken over time, but after three specific battles the entire command air group had to be rebuilt almost from scratch."
Seeing by their now pale face he had their full attention he began his speech. "Yer all used to facing fighters that pretty much want to live ta fight another day rather than die. The kind that'll retreat if/when they realize a battle's going against 'em. Yer also used to being close to equal in numbers to yer enemies most of the time. Those two facts are not applicable to fighting the Zentraedi. To the Zentraedi a small sorties is around 300 battlepods minimum, exceeding the number of Valkyrie fighters the Macross could field at any one time. A serious assault normally came in at around 2000 and counting. Recently the Intel officer said we faced 20,000 pods in various sized waves when breaking away from Jupiter and we faced half of that earlier in the asteroid belt around Saturn. Forget about keeping score" he said seriously, his blue eyes dark with memory, "just forget about counting kills or becoming an ace. Facing the Zentraedi it's about survival and killing as many of the damn bastards as you can."
There was a lot of muttering at this point as most of the pilots there couldn't believe that the aliens could put that much forces into the field so often and not feel it. "Don't believe me," he asked rhetorically, looking around, "ask me about Silver squadron or Gold or any of the dozen others that we lost entirely in battles from here all the way back ta Pluto."
One of the pilots, a commander by his rank tab said "that's probably because there is only so much training that can be done in a simulator. Even if your numbers aren't inflated green pilots thrown into such a maelstrom wouldn't fare well."
Ranma shrugged. "We normally don't throw green pilots into the fight without a veteran swingman or at least a veteran Lieutenant leading the flight. Though yer right we do need more veterans, what we don't need is people trained in the old school coming in and telling us how to do things. I personally have been in over thirty dogfights since graduating from the Academy. Can any of ya say the same?" None of the pilots in the audience met his eyes after that. "Now are you all going to listen while I tell ya about things that can save yer lives or are ya going to sit up on your so-called veteran high-horse and not listen ta me?"
There were some more mutterings but eventually the crowd quieted down. He continued pressing a button to go through a slide show Roy had created for this presentation. The first slide popped up showing a triangular fighter plane. "This is a triangle fighter. We saw a lot of these early on in a few of our first battles but they seem to have stopped using 'em since we broke away from Saturn. While they had a lot of firepower, they didn't have the engines, the range or the maneuverability to really fight Valkyries. They also seem to have trouble locking on ta us if we were in Guardian mode, so weren't ever a big threat ta us or the destroids."
The next slide showed a battlepod. "These things we've found out are called Regulds and they form the bulk of the enemy force we've faced most of the time. They come in three different flavors," he said jokingly, "normal," he pointed to the slide that had a normal battle pod then he punched a button and the slide changed, showing an artillery pod. "Artillery and radar." The next slide showed one of the ECM equipped pod. "The radar things are bastards, enough of them can blank out the sensors of the Macross and Valkyries, allowing large groups of Regulds ta get into visual range before getting spotted. They got the drop on us quite a few times using these assholes."
The picture changed again, this time showing a heavier battlepod with two arms attached to it and slightly heavier lasers. "This is a command pod and these bastards are tough. We're working under the assumption that these guys are their equivalent of lieutenants or commanders, because they seem to be able to direct the other pods that're around 'em, so taking them out is a priority. We actually haven't seen any of these guys since getting away from Saturn, pretty much because this guy didn't believe in delegation." The picture changed again to show Kyron's Glaug. "For some reason this pod was controlled by one of their aces who doubled as a fleet admiral, and I say was with feeling." He snorted. "He was in charge of most of the forces we faced since first appearin' on Mars. His forces were way wilder and far more uncoordinated but just as deadly in large numbers, and the Zentraedi never come in anything but. He's dead now, and his fleet is too, which unfortunately leads us to the Gargoyles." His voice had been almost upbeat, but it became deadly serious at the last word, and he glared around at them all as the picture changed to show one of the powersuits.
"The Gargoyles, the most dangerous fighter class the Zentraedi have. These bad boys have armor far in excess of anything we have bar the Monster class destroid. They take a lot of killing, about ten shots from a Valkyrie rifle at about the same point or three missiles hitting all at once. They have four missile launchers that fire mini-missiles that have a range of about half of our own missiles but these bad boys carry something like a hundred of them. They're also armed with two bundles of three pulse lasers under each arm." He pointed these out on the display," and as ya can see two main cannons" he pointed to them in turn, "which are heavier than any of the other fighter weapons the aliens have except for the Kyron's personal unit. What's worse, they are maneuverable, fast and deadly. The pilots seem to be trained to a far higher level than any other alien force. When they first appeared right before we retreated into Jupiter's atmosphere they literally wiped us out. We had 270 pilots going into that fight, a little over forty of us left." There were some exclamations of shock at that, but everyone was too engrossed in his presentation to voice any disbelief they may have harbored. "We ran into a larger force of 'em nearer the moon at almost full strength, and now we're down to thirty pilots. The destroids had it a little better than us in both battles, but not by much."
He let that sink in a bit before going on. "We won't be putting any of you against these guys yet if we have a choice, which I'm sorry ta say we might not have now that Kyron's fleet is gone."
Another picture this time of another Gargoyle appeared, this one with a shoulder plate painted purple, and the other one painted gold. "A Gargoyle with this color scheme is piloted by the enemy ace and is alone responsible for at least sixty plus Valkyries shot down all by herself. If you see this mech do not engage it, regardless of your numbers! This ace is a pure killer, and none of ya are up ta facing it." Honestly with the way the Zentraedi ace was getting better after each fight, a learning curve that made even Ranma's look slow, he didn't think even the trio of Roy, Max and Rick working together could face it now. And since it had slaughtered two full squadrons and then some off the 5th fleet before their last inconclusive meeting, it was obvious any normal pilot or even a full squadron would be over matched.
"Now, I'm going ta go over the changes we've made in tactics and weapons, then common problems of fighting in space, and the different weak points we've noticed in the Reguld pods. The Gargoyles don't have any weak points except for having less range ta their weapons than us, so don't even ask. First, the FAST Pack and what it gives ya…"
Azonia woke up and knew immediately that she had slept for quite a long time, disturbed by all the things she had discovered about her race, disturbed, by the strange concepts and physical things she had discovered, the reproduction aspect especially. Though what woke her was a strange physical feeling shooting through her body, a pleasurable sensation that she hadn't ever felt before.
She felt Sonya stirring beside her, and looked down to find that her friend's leg had somehow gotten between her own as they slept and was touching Azonia's junction between her legs when she moved a little in her sleep, which sent a ripple of something through her. She found it pleasant and also very disturbing and she reached out to shake Sonya awake.
Sonya woke up slowly, and then looked at her friend before looking away and moving back, her face slightly flushed. It was only then that Azonia realized her own leg had forced its way between Sonya's, and must have been rubbing at the same place on her that Sonya's leg had been touching on Azonia. Neither of them, however were going to comment on it, it wasn't the first time such a thing had happened, though, it was the first time that both of them had been naked (Sonya having changed when Azonia didn't put on her uniform before joining her in bed) and the first time Azonia had felt such a sensation.
"So," Sonya asked looking away and reaching for her uniform, "have you though up a plan for getting our people out of this?"
Azonia nodded also looking away. For some reason she was feeling very strange, and seeing her friend bend over like that did not help matters. In fact it made her feel even stranger, a sudden urge to pull her friend back to bed and find out if they could consciously cause those pleasurable sensations going through her, but the utter strangeness of that thought let her fight off the urge easily.
It was with relief that she addressed her friend's question. "I have thought of one, whether or not it works depends on how gullible Dolza proves to be. I think we can pull it off, but it may merely be delaying the inevitable, I need to think of a long term solution after I assure our destruction is not going to come looking for us just yet."
Sonya turned to her friend, her face serious and now fully dressed, removing some of the distraction. "What would you have me do lady Admiral?"
Azonia smiled at the utter belief in her that Sonya's voice conveyed the devotion and respect she felt for her admiral plain in her friend's face. She always felt stronger, better and more confident when she had Sonya watching her back, like another pair of hands. A rush of affection for her friend shot through her, as well as something else, but again she ignored it. "Take control of the fleet for now, I will be busy with my plan to fool Dolza. Have the intelligence division send me all the data and videos we took of Kyron's assault on the space fortress, as well as a few of their specialists. Pull the fleet back until we're beyond the moon's orbit and spread us out as much as you can. Keep one division in orbit above the third planet and rotate them out every day or so. I have no idea how long this is going to take us to work on, but regardless, there'll be no more organized offensive operations against the humans. However, if small groups of our pilots wish to go down and reconnoiter, gather more chocolate or anything else, like clothing styles say, so long as they okay their assault with you I am fine with that." The two shared a grin, knowing the younger Meltraedi would pounce on that permission eagerly. The lure of chocolate, the idea of trying other food, and of course more clothing to study would be irresistible. "If anyone asks, I will be researching where on the space fortress the proto-culture generator could be for our eventual assault, as well as whether or not Kyron could've damaged the space fortress or the proto-culture generator in some way."
Sonya's eyebrow rose in surprise, and she suddenly seemed to grasp where her admiral was going with that idea, and then she bowed deeply. "I will see to it lady."
While everyone aboard the space fortress was busy, things around the globe were not exactly staid or uninteresting either. The UNSF had splintered almost entirely, the groups stationed in their home nations going over entirely to those nations save for groups like the American nationals who returned home. America had impeached its president, but he had refused to step down in a time of crisis and forces loyal to him and to Admiral Hayes had taken control of the capital and refused to be ousted. That left the states to their own devices, and they were a mixed bag in production ability, personality and desire to do anything to deal with the present crisis. Indeed, many states were split in two among their constituents on what should be done. Yet America was so large, it's industrial capacity so huge, that it was still able to churn out new Valkyries, destroids and even start building new warships. Britain was producing more parts and FAST Packs than any other country, India more destroid upgrades and parts, Russia and China had more keels laid down for capital sized spaceships, but America was doing all of the above at a high level, not very organized or efficiently but in quantity.
It made one really wonder what America could do if it got its head out of its ass, Prescott thought as he put down a force analysis of the UN and decided to go back to study the reports on the attack of Belgium. He wanted to get to know these Gargoyles and how different they were from the run-of-the-mill 'Reguld' pods. He was impressed with their general skill level, good force control, they acted like the elite force that Henri had called them. The way the reacted to the use of missile pods, the initial ambush that had been so very bloody, it all pointed to a group that knew what tactics were and how to use them to best advantage.
Yet with all that, their assault on Belgium was simply the most bizarre military action he had ever seen. For one thing he thought they didn't target anything important, nothing industrial, no population center. They slaughtered the Valkyrie wings that were able to get there to a man for little loss, and that is just scary. Yet at the same time the population of the city they attacked is still largely intact, a few deaths caused by the aliens stepping on them and a few more among the police but it's not as if the aliens went out of their way to kill anyone. But why did they attack and steal chocolate in the first place for the love of God? "What did they want with 220 tons of chocolate?" He muttered to himself.
Scott was now at home, working off a base in Britain and thankfully his wife and kids at been able to join them there in the officer's housing area. The oldest of his kids was thinking of joining up soon, and Prescott was of two minds about it. The death of his brother had affected Scott greatly, and he was really wondering if he wanted his family to continue their history of service, especially with one of his own sons. After all Marcus hadn't had any children yet, and while Eric might have a few illegitimate ones out there with the older ladies he favored, no one knew for certain if he had or not, so it would fall on his kids to continue the tradition, and though he knew it was selfish of him he didn't want them to.
"220 tons of chocolate," he muttered to himself as he got up to go down and join the family for dinner. "Soon you'll tell me they'll attack Italy for their clothing designs or New York for its pizza. It makes no sense." In the following days, he would remember this thought and curse himself violently.
Sonya looked down at her screen, her face slightly amused at the sheer number of missions that Athena and all the other captains and wing commanders had submitted. With a bit of work however she was able to tell that they all had two, possibly three objectives, they simply differed in who came up with them and the size of the force assigned. The three targets were chocolate, clothing and, in a much smaller category, other types of food.
Over the next two hours she read through them and decided that rather than use any one, she would use a mix of three. Athena had put forth one that would use half of her wing to take a human city called Naples in a clan-country called Italy. While this country was relatively large, their information told them it didn't produce much other than food and clothing designs. So Athena and her wing would lead the assault while another wing would follow down and split into two groups, attacking Naples and the other would attack the city of Milan, which was apparently known for what it could 'sell', including clothing. After that she would okay another mission to assault a city called Paris in a clan-country called France for its chocolate and clothing, allowing them to take two targets with one attack.
She frowned slightly, then nodded. Both assaults would let them take advantage of the already rattled nature of the defense forces in the Europe thing, which was all to the good. She didn't think that spreading themselves thin against other targets would be a good thing. Attacking an enemy where he was strongest, like in this America place, or worse India (the numbers of humans living in that country was very worrying, if they had a military proportionate to that size) would be foolish in the extreme. After looking over the plans again and writing up the total into one plan she let herself stretch and set the operation to start in ten local hours. That would let her get some sleep (in her own room, which made her uncomfortable and rather… lonely for some reason) before she needed to be on the bridge to see it.
The next day Athena and her wing led the assault straight down into the skies above Italy followed swiftly by smaller groups from several other wings. Valkyries scrambled quickly, but most of them were the same old style without the added firepower or armor of the ones on the space fortress. Athena wondered idly why that was, but really she didn't care. It just made them so many targets, and however strong her liking of chocolate or respect for the race that could produce it or fight as hard as the ones on the space fortress, none of her troops would hesitate.
The bases in the north of Italy had been among those who sent their air forces to aid in the defense of Belgium, and none of them had been able to replace their horrendous losses. The bases in the south sent up their forces, but they were no match for the Queadluun Rau. After the initial clash the base commanders seemed to realize this and refused to send in more sacrifices. They did send north their destroid companies as fast as they could, but only the closest forces arrived in Milan or Naples before the Meltraedi achieved their objectives.
Once Queadluun Rau had secured air superiority the destroids found the aliens cut through them just as fast as through the Valkyries. With the losses thus sustained, the northern military bases in Italy almost ceased to exist, and the sacking of Milan went off without a hitch. The bases in the south put up more of a fight than that for Naples but the outcome was never in doubt when the other countries around Italy refused to send in reinforcements this time. Yet despite the horrendous and one-sided slaughter of the defenders the Meltraedi once again went out of their way to not butcher the inhabitants of the cities they targeted. Indeed that fact caused almost as much confusion among those trying to figure out what made the aliens tick than anything else.
The clothing and pre-packaged foodstuffs were excellent, but the pizza, despite how much it was advertised on the 'internet' proved to be rather disgusting by the time they got portions of it back to the fleet. Though the pilots that tried some on the ground, Silonia for one and another few who exited their powersuits once resistance was crushed, found it most delectable. Other pilots however had gone a more cerebral route, and gathered the ingredients and tools necessary to create some on their own. Their eventual products were not very successful, but they persevered.
All around the main UNSF base in Britain looked up quizzically as a loud anguished cry rent the air. "OH come on, are you kidding me?!" This cry would be repeated several times over the next few days, nor would Scott's frustration and puzzlement be alone. Indeed these smaller, far more aimed assaults would be a constant source of confusion for everyone in the military as they went on, and something of a joke for the civilians of the countries not attacked. And once the reports of what was taken during this attacks began to circulate, that amusement redoubled.
Konatsu looked over at Ranma, who had just gotten back from leading the new Valkyries pilots through their paces and immediately joined the group of Amazons and him to exercise. By the scowl on his face the group of pilots didn't stack up to his standards, which Konatsu knew were very high. The kunoichi trained man searched for a safe topic to take his friends mind off his unwanted duties as CAG. "So, what do you think about all the attacks the aliens have been launching lately?"
Ranma looked over at him, grinning a little. "I think they're trying to divert attention from us, or that other attack over Belgium got them hooked on chocolate. Wouldn't that be cool, aliens addicted to chocolate? Maybe they'll expand, start to steal other sugar resources, or maybe even caffeine. Heh, what if they stole all the worlds coffee?" As long as the aliens weren't attacking the Macross, Ranma would leave analyzing why to other people. He wasn't a big picture sort really, he preferred to concentrate on what was in front of him.
"That would be horrifying," Konatsu said in a deadpan voice. He drank coffee by the mug every morning to wake up or whenever he needed energy so that was a threat he took very seriously. "Though it would certainly unite humanity against them like nothing else, after all money may make the world go round but it sails on coffee."
Ranma laughed and the two went back to their katas.
Three days into these little private missions, Miriya had decided that she had given her adversary Ranma enough time to heal himself, and since the rest of the fleet seemed intent on launching their own attacks on different parts of Earth, she launched alone on her own personal mission. She did not however submit a plan, she simply left.
Sonya got into touch with her almost immediately. "Flight leader Miriya, what do you think you're doing? You haven't submitted any plans, and no matter how good you are, launching alone is pure folly."
"I am finishing this, we, Ranma and I, will finally see who's the best," Miriya said proudly, her voice iron hard with conviction. "One way or another, I will know the answer after today."
Sonya stared into her screen at the other woman for a moment, but in the end she nodded. "Very well. Good luck and remember the honor of this fleet goes with you." Miriya nodded and cut the connection.
Ranma was working the new fighter pilots that had boarded over the past few days once again through their paces over the space fortress when his ki sense tingled and he turned to face up into the atmosphere. "It's coming," he said, and a wide shark like grin appeared on his face. "Command, this is Wild 1, be advised we're about to have company."
"Can you verify that Wild one, we have nothing on our radar," Lisa's voice answered promptly, then slowed as new data came in. "Wait, we have one repeat one incoming Gargoyle directly above us, seems to be going at max acceleration too."
"It's the ace," Ranma said happily. "It's back. I'm actually surprised it gave me so much time to heal after our last little aborted fight. He does have honor, I really owe Kasumi a couple kisses for calling that."
The new leader of Green squadron, one of the transplanted officers, asked "so we just go up there and kill it right? I mean it must be an idiot, or some kind of suicide bomber to come down alone like this."
Ranma laughed harshly. "Please, that pilot could kill you all, I could kill you all, just be glad I'm on your side. No, this one is mine. No one else interfere."
Lisa sighed theatrically then said "very well wild one, go get it. Just remember you're acting CAG and we don't have anyone to replace you so you come back alive, that's an order you hear?
The other commanders were shocked at this odd action being okayed, but Ranma laughed a little before saying "Roger that," and then shot up into the stratosphere. As he did so he began to play the same song Lisa had blasted on the Macross' radio, 'Die With Honor.' Hearing Ranma play that song shook Lisa, but she stood at her position on the bridge, eyes glued to the readouts, knowing this was something Ranma simply had to do alone.
All the Valkyrie pilots, even the transplanted ones realized this was something they had never seen before, and remained where they were, all their sensors trained on the air where the battle was going to take place. Gloval however was more pragmatic, and ordered the sensors to begin recording, wanting to add this video to the video Defiance, once he and Claudia were finished with it.
As soon as he came within visual range of the Zentraedi Gargoyle he transformed into soldier mode and stood there in the air using his thrusters stay in place, his rifle in one hand, his short sword in the other. The Gargoyle shot down to a place across from him at the same altitude and they stared across the intervening mile at one another. For some reason Ranma thought this was a formal challenge, and so it should be treated as such. With a flick of his controls his soldier mode Valkyrie bowed at the waist towards his enemy, his weapons crossed over his Valkyrie's chest.
Miriya had at first been dismayed that Ranma would try his music attack on her after all this time, but as soon as the song registered she simply smiled grimly, realizing he felt the same thing she did, that this might be the only time they would meet this, this cleanly, with nothing else hindering their quest to see who was the best, no other people getting in the way, no other objectives. Their previous engagements had after all been part of larger engagements, and while important to them personally hadn't really decided the outcome of anything larger. When she saw Ranma's machine bow, she bowed in turn.
After a moment the two straightened up, staring at one another, communicating in some fashion that neither would ever be able to convey to anyone else, two kindred souls staring into the mirror image of themselves, the enemies who despite that had somehow come to understand one another. They stayed like that, their gazes locked on one another then at some unseen signal they immediately shot off, the Gargoyle pressing in with its canyons and lasers as Ranma changed forms into his flight mode, shooting away and releasing several of his missiles from his FAST Pack behind him.
Miriya shot them out of the air with her pulse lasers and closed, only this turned out to be a mistake as Ranma swiftly changed into Guardian mode and came back right at her.
His rifle barked a dozen times, and though she dodged most of the rounds one of her canyons was hit and she gritted her teeth in sympathetic pain as one of her ribs gave way. Miriya returned fire as she dodged, taking out one of the FAST Pack units on one of his arms. Ranma however swiftly ejected the rest of the pack before mini-missiles held therein before they could explode as he changed into his soldier mode. That hand swiftly stabbed forward as he closed to hand to hand range, but Miriya caught the blade and ripped from his grip, tossing it aside to sail away through the air. The two came together in a flash of hand-to-hand combat, then away, moving faster and faster, trying to overwhelm one another with speed and skill. Miriya began to laugh exultantly, her entire being filled with the joy of combat, and Ranma began to chuckle aloud, his eyes sparking with battle lust.
Aboard the fleet in orbit, Athena watched in awe mingled with no small amount of fear. Miriya had been deadly before, and she had faced the younger ace at times in joint exercises, but this, this battle showed that she had become even better! I never knew that a Queadluun Rau could move that fast! Exactly how good has she become, and how good is the human Ranma to be able to face her at speeds like that?! This thought was shared throughout the entire pilot community of the Meltraedi as nearly every single Queadluun Rau operator was watching the battle closely on any sensor screen they could find.
So were a lot of other people around the globe, and on the space fortress. The Valkyrie pilots that Ranma had been leading through various exercises, who had still harbored a bit of contempt for the younger man having only been in the Navy for little over a year, and thinking him an idiot to agree to this one on one combat, were looking on now with mixed feelings of fear and respect.
An hour into the battle Ranma had gained the upper hand slightly through extensive use of his Amiguriken speed, hammering Miriya back but Miriya could take more damage than he had thought, and seemed to shrug off most of what he could do, and her own blows were beginning to get through his armor strengthening technique, despite the fact he had taken so much time over the past few days to infuse his Valkyrie with his ki like Cologne had done to her walking stick. She's got even better, he thought to himself, grinning wildly. Not even Ryoga, hell not even Herb was able to keep up with me like this, not for long, anyway.
Miriya lashed out, catching the Valkyrie's leg as Ranma tried to kick her, her claws catching on the armor and ripping off one of the thrusters but Ranma flipped in midair, lashing out with his head lasers and rifle, stitching up her side. With a snarl Miriya shot out half of her payload of missiles, forcing Ranma away to give him time to take them out. He kept on shooting them out of the sky as the battle moved from over the ocean to over a Hawaiian island.
Luckily there was no one around, though there were now a lot of helicopters in the distance, most of which were news helicopters trying to get a recording of the battle.
Ranma shot out his own remaining missiles, half targeting Miriya's, and the other half targeting her to keep her busy while he destroyed the missiles.
Miriya, however kill them too quickly and closed the distance as Ranma finished destroying her missiles. Another cannon blast smashed into him, and even as he moved with the blow trying to keep his rifle on target she got right above him her hands clenched together in an overhand hammer blow. Her bunched hands came down smashing into his Valkyries head crushing most of the sensors there as well as the lasers and sending Ranma spiraling down toward the ground.
He got control about an inch above the ground, and rocketed upward as fast as he could, coming back with an uppercut that slammed into Miriya's midriff as she followed him down, taking out her remaining cannon before she could fire at him. Another blow to her head came in from the side as fast as his Amiguriken speed could allow, smashing her Queadluun Rau's head completely off.
Miriya growled angrily and reached forward grasping the canopy of her powersuit with her own hands, pushing it to one side so she could see out, then reached forward with her Quadaluun Rau's arms grabbing one of Ranma's fist with both of her own when he tried to press the attack, ripping it off in a welter of electronic sparks, causing Ranma to cry out in agony as his arm went dead from the elbow down. A kick sent him flying backwards to hit the ground, but he flipped over back onto his feet and brought his one remaining arm forward, shouting "Moko Ha Reiku!" The ki attack impacted, slamming Miriya back and slagging one of her legs. She screamed aloud with sympathetic agony, and before she could respond Ranma was back in the air, grabbing her one remaining leg and flinging her to the ground below.
Miriya's back hit the ground, taking out one of her thrusters but she used the remainder to flip herself over onto her one remaining leg and she reached out and grabbed Ranma as he charged in to finish her, flipping him down onto the ground and slamming her fist into his mech's chest a dozen times her pulse lasers blasting at the same time before he could kick out and escape her grip. The two once more engaged in close combat, jumping around one another and up into the air. Miriya may have lost one of her legs, but she still had most of her back thrusters, and she used them adroitly. Here the battle stalemated for another hour, neither able to regain the upper hand.
Unbeknownst to either combatant squadrons from the UNSF's Hawaiian base had streaked out to try and interfere in the battle, ordered to capture the single Gargoyle to see what they could learn from it and maybe even interrogate the pilot if it could be taken alive. In response Sonya loosed two full wings of Gargoyles, one to hammer the base in question, and the other to slaughter the Valkyries. Even with most of the Valkyries sent having gotten Fast Packs form the Macross, the fight was a massacre, barely lasting fifteen minutes once the Queadluun Rau got into range. After an hour the battle ended with the remaining base personnel having retreated into deep bunkers. The Queadluun Rau remained on station just in case of further interference, though almost all of them turned the attention to the battle still going on.
Luckily Lisa and Gloval kept their own heavily depleted wing out of the action, but just watching it was enough to impress on the newbies that just maybe Ranma and company knew what they were talking about.
After an hour the reinforcement Ranma had put his Valkyrie through over the past few days began to tell, as despite his Soldier mode losing its head he could still stare out his canopy and see and even with one arm he was still at in the fight, his machine still responding as well as it ever had. His opponent's pulse lasers weren't doing much but damaging his paint job, though her punches did a lot more. His Valkyrie would be in need of another week's worth of TLC, and so would he. He was bleeding from several cuts from his shattered canopy and badly mangled cockpit, his arm was dead from the elbow down, and his ribs were broken, and he knew he had a concussion in sympathetic reaction to that head shot.
Opposite him Miriya's Queadluun Rau was being trashed. One leg was slagged as mentioned before, both cannons gone, and the rest of her powersuit was covered in dents and gouges. Miriya too was dealing with injuries, her ribs were yet agin broken, the flesh under her cannons was badly burned despite her shock suit, blood caked her hair to her head, and the rest of her body felt black and blue.
Realizing though she was slowly losing this slugging match, she fought through her pain and launched her remaining mini-missiles at point blank range.
Ranma jumped into the air to give himself distance then zoomed over to grab his rifle from where it lay on the ground. As Miriya once more took to the air his rifle rang out, taking out missile after missile. One impacted, blowing off one of his shoulder pieces, but as that was in the arm that had already been ripped off at the elbow, it didn't matter. Indeed it gave Ranma the idea to turn and take more of the damage on the stump of that arm, and given his armor strengthening technique that was enough to save the rest of his Valkyrie from destruction. His arm now felt broken and dead from the shoulder down in sympathetic reaction.
Three more missiles impacted and threw him down to crash into the ground creating a huge cloud of dust, but out of it he charged forward his rifle's last few shots having lost his reload pockets to earlier damage, slammed out en-masse. But Miriya responded with her pulse lasers and now she was back in the air so that her being only on one leg didn't matter much. A few blasts of her pulse lasers caught his rifle and it exploded, taking some of his fingers with it and he grimaced in pain as his own fingers died joining the litany of other injuries he had so far sustained. Still he charged forward, using his legs and arm as his only weapons, and Miriya was unable to back away again.
Realizing this almost immediately she'd didn't even bother, and began to pound back with all her might. This stage of the combat went on for nearly as long as the rest of it combined, and as the world watched on in awe these two gladiators slammed away at one another hammer and tongs.
Here Ranma's greater skills came into play, and he only took one shot for every four he delivered. Soon, Miriya's Queadluun Rau began to fail around her, and even as she was still willing and (barely) able to fight her pulse lasers failed, her claws started to bend and shatter under the repeated impacts and her hands and legs finally stopped moving as the battery pack on her machine, unused to being used this long at this level of activity, gave out. She nearly screamed with frustration through her broken mouth, her face a mask of pain, blood dripping from her forehead, her body on fire and she knew she was bleeding somewhere inside, yet her soul was still desiring, demanding to continue and finish the fight.
One final punch from each of them threw them back, and neither of them had the energy to spare to power their thrusters so they fell to the earth. After a moment laying there however Ranma was able to get his Valkyrie to stand up again, while Miriya despite Her best efforts just wasn't able to move her Queadluun Rau. She stared up through her broken canopy as Ranma came into view above her.
Ranma, his body twitching in agony, his ribs cracked, his arm dead, blood covering him from hundreds of injuries, stood above his opponent, and felt no desire to finish his enemy off.
He knew he should, the ace was a danger on par with nearly an entire wing of regular Gargoyle pilots, yet he couldn't. Unlike Kyron, this Zentraedi had proven it had honor, and more, he just felt they were kindred spirits, their desire to be the best, to strive ever onwards and gain strength and skill, he just couldn't do it. He even teared up a little at the idea, and he shook it away then forced his Valkyrie into a deep bow, where he overbalanced and crashed onto the earth next his opponent.
Miriya saw this and began to laugh. It was cracked, it was painful, but it was an open and genuine laugh. "You won," she muttered "you won, but I don't think you won because of skill alone." She glared out at him though her matted and bloody hair. "You won because of your machine. Your machine, with all you've done to it, outlasted mine. I have no idea how you did it how you changed it, but it's obvious that you and your machine won this round. I…"
Suddenly thirty Queadluun Rau appeared in the air, coming from the battle over Hawaii. Ranma looked up at them and then backed away warily. He had no radar and no com gear online, so had no idea what was going on, but preparing even now to sell his life dearly, he closed his eyes and began to reach out with his heavily depleted ki, trying to consciously touch that void of power that had so changed him when he connected his ki sense to his Valkyries sensors.
Three of the powersuits thumped down to land alongside Miriya and she recognized them as coming from the force she had led in the battles around the gas giant. "Lady Miriya, are you all right!?" One of them asked over the radio.
She winced in repressed agony as she reached down with one of her hands, despite it being broken in several places and her fingers feeling as if someone had tried to rip them off and pressed the button. "I'm alive," She said, "b-being alright, th-that is a different matter."
Their done the three pilots turned to her savaged opponent and began to power up their weapons.
Suddenly Ranma was able to forge a connection, and he felt the cold power of the infinite fill him, yet unlike last time he didn't lose himself in it, instead he used it. He used memories of Kasumi and Lisa, of warm touches and love to keep the cold at bay, and just let the power fill him. His Valkyrie, stood up, glowing with a cold blue light as power crackled in his one remaining hand. Surprisingly his exterior speaker had somehow survived and he keyed it on, screaming "I am Defiant! I am still standing you bastards, so bring it on if you think you're tough enough!"
The sight was the most terrifying thing any of the Meltraedi had ever seen and none of them were willing to take him up on his challenge. Miriya though thought it looked glorious. Swiftly the three Queadluun Rau grabbed their fellow turned and bolted towards space.
As they disappeared into the distance Ranma let go of the power he had grabbed, and sagged back into his pilot's seat, more exhausted than anything he had ever felt before. Despite this Ranma laughed. "Why do I think we're going to meet again somehow? Oh well, with enemies like that life is worth living."
End chapter
And on that note, another chapter done and dusted. While Ranma will be healing for a bit in the next chapter we see what Azonia has been up to, the Master manipulators worry, and Breetai makes his long awaited reappearance. And here is a question, what will a Valkyrie, that has been infused with Ranma's ki, piloted and modified by him for so long, react to being filled with that much ki all at once?