I don't own the Robots or the martial artists
Lot of good reviews, again love reading the reviews for this story as people really seem to give me a lot of good feedback. This chapter won't answer a lot of your questions, but it will set the stage for what is to come.
Chapter 24 Enemies and friends can be defined by which way you face
The fallout from Ranma's solo clash with the Zentraedi ace reverberated around the world. Gloval had adroitly added a video recording of the battle to his previous PR video, and Ranma had become an instant celebrity, and the idea of fighting the aliens began to gain ground worldwide, something which Gloval and all those like him were very thankful for.
Ranma did not know about any of this as by the time he got back to the fortress his initial ki rush had gone, leaving behind all his injuries and a migraine for the ages. He was barely able to land his Valkyrie, once again almost utterly wrecked, before passing out on the way to the hospital.
His Valkyrie was immediately moved to the side of the hanger with a lot of other junk to be disposed of soon. Yet something happened there that would once more make Ranma question the nature of ki. That and utterly freak out several dozen maintenance people. This would all be discovered in about a week from when Ranma got back, however while he was in the hospital the bigger picture moved on, both aboard ship and elsewhere.
OOOOOOOOOOO
Breetai frowned thoughtfully as he stood looking down at his tactical display, then nodded, his lips lifting in a faint smile, his hands behind him, his entire manner exuding quite confidence and control to the crew around him. The most important thing for any captain or admiral was to always appear as if you were in charge of everything around you, that kind of confidence was infectious and when begun at the top always trickled down. Not that those emotions weren't perfectly true in this case.
This assault on an Invid controlled solar system had been a gamble, but Breetai was a very good gambler. More the payoff would be huge. Without the factory ships in this solar system and the ones in his next target the Invid would no longer be able to replace their losses along the warfront. Indeed with the losses they had thus far sustained and the amount of time had to have been put into building their numbers up for this mass assault, their entire defense would crack, and the way into their core systems would be open. With that, they may be within two, maybe three solar cycles from crushing the Invid threat once and for all, so long as the Invid Regis did not suddenly return from wherever she had gone with her portion of the Invid forces. Yet even if she did, the losses the Invid had taken so far in what had obviously been a long planned assault on the Zentraedi felt would mean the Invid would find it impossible to launch further offensives for decades.
He frowned thoughtfully though this time it wasn't at the tactical display but at the thought of losses. His own fleet's losses had been heavy, thousands of mixed ship types lost, the majority of which came from his fleets divisions of Quiltra Queleual class carrier ships, though the most losses had been sustained in the Regulds as usual. All told he had lost a little under two fifths of his fleet in this campaign, and he had not received any reinforcements.
Yet despite this his fleet was actually in a better situation now than it had been. For one thing he had taken the survivors of the ships destroyed both in terms of Regulds and in terms of crewmen and put them on other ships bringing their strength up in turn. More he had only lost three division flagships and very few of his command Regulds letting him retain a clear chain of command from him to his division commanders and on down. Breaking his command into smaller, more specialized divisions had allowed his fleet to react to his commands even faster than it had before, and he had wielded it from the start like a weapon in his hand, and now it was sharpened to a fine point. More, his losses had been made good with the Meltraedi addition to his forces. The Queadluun Rau and the fact they already had larger, and much as he hated to admit it, better crews had given those fifty thousand ships a punch many times their size.
He glanced over at the markers designating the female's fleet smiling faintly. The Meltraedi and their vice-admiral Delmera (no Meltraedi apparently called her admiral despite their being detached from the rest of their fleet) had been a surprise, and a very welcome one considering the other horrifying surprises he had run into, let alone the even more disturbing concerns he had begun to harbor since the beginning of this campaign.
Breetai had dealt with Kyron for a few weeks before this campaign began and he had been grimly certain that Kyron would have to be destroyed along with his entire fleet regardless of anything else. The cult of personality that had sprung up in the 11th skirmish fleet (though of course Breetai wouldn't use those words is he didn't even know it cult was, that didn't stop him from seeing what was there) was pure anathema to good military order and discipline. It made the entire 11th skirmish fleet little more than a blunt object that would simply charge forward to overwhelm it with numbers or die in the attempt. Yet what he had found since beginning this campaign and interacting with the other main fleets of the Zentraedi forces was that Kyron had not been a single aberration but the new normal.
The main clan fleets were even worse in a way, completely subsumed to their admirals and commanders on a scale that was utterly disturbing, their captains and underlings little more than mindless drones that fought like berserkers without their direction, and that direction itself was even more lacking. Not a one of them was able to even think tactically, let alone strategically. Their normal way of dealing with a battle was to chuck their forces straight at the enemy and just overwhelm them with numbers. The losses sustained among the 3rd third and 4th main fleets before Breetai had taken overall command was appalling, and the 6th fleet had been entirely wiped out.
The aliens could match the Zentraedi numbers, and their fighters came far closer to matching the Queadluun Rau in ability, having far more armor but not as much offensive punch or maneuverability than Regulds. Added to that their ships could take more of a pounding than their Zentraedi counterparts for the most part, his own Nupetiet-Vergnitzs command ship of course could take as much damage as Invid factory ship, yet realistically a Zentraedi force needed of five to one advantage to make victory certain and even then you would lose most of your forces. But the bugs had even less of an understanding of tactics then the Zentraedi, and so it was the Zentraedi who should have the advantage if they could control themselves.
Instead the admirals of the other fleets had simply threw their numbers against the Invid and assumed that they would overwhelm them.
Breetai had moved to correct this immediately upon taking overall command, and the resentment and festering hatred this had begun in his fellow admirals was boht nowhere near as hidden as they may have thought and a sign of the total degeneration of military decorum. Have my people fallen so far?
It wasn't the first time he had thought that, and it seemed as if they had, since he knew that any reinforcements sent to him had been intercepted by the other main fleets and added to their strength rather than his. He also knew that several times the other main fleets had not come to his own fleet's aid when ordered to do so, with almost disastrous consequences for the campaign. His losses would've been much lighter if they had, but in the end he had preserved his fleet and prevailed in every battle as well as the overall campaign despite this behind the lines stupidity. Hopefully at the end of the current campaign Lord Dolza would let him go forward with his suggestion and he could beat some proper military organization and understanding into them. That warmed Breetai's heart as when thought about beating that knowledge into their brains, he meant it literally. Perhaps after he personally slaughtered each of their admirals in personal combat their fleets would fall in line.
Breetai didn't realize was that he was the only living Zentraedi who really remembered what military decorum was supposed to be. Every other Admiral was a replacement for those that had been in command before, in many cases several dozen times over. Only Breetai and his advisor remained from the initial group of heavy-grav modified Zentraedi that was mustered out as a military force by the Robotech Masters and trained for said, before being mindwiped of their culture and any other connection to their past lives. Indeed no one had been training anyone except in a 'do this because it works' kind of way for a hundred solar cycles.
The Meltraedi by a stark contrast understood tactics, organization and the need to work together and every other military concept that Breetai took for granted. Their leader was a very cheerful (humans would use the word perky) sort who was a very good ship-to-ship tactician. Delmera was not nearly as good using her power suits as Breetai or his commanders were, but using her capital ships was another matter entirely. That was why she had been given command of a third of his fleet for the first half of this trap.
A small notation set into the tactical screen by one of his hands started to beep and he smiled. "Order the 15th and 14 divisions to fall back to provide long range firepower, the 10th through first are to hold position, and the 16th through 20th are to launch fighters upon receipt of this order."
Even as his communications crewmen sent out these orders the Invid fleet that had been coming along like a hammer zipped just a little too close to the asteroid field that had once been a planet, and uncounted Quadlluun Rau began to boil out at them from near knife range. Even as they hit Delmera and her fleet as well as the 21st through 25th divisions of his own, all of whom were based around the Quiltra-Quelamitz class gunboats, began to fire. Even from here he could see the large beams of the gunboats, among the most powerful weapons in the Zentraedi arsenal lance out across space to impact their targets, one target for every three.
Space was vast and three dimensional, and it often amused Breetai on how few sentients were truly able to get their heads around those simply facts. No fleet, not even one the size of Dolza's personal fleet could truly patrol a solar system's outer limits with enough coverage to see everything. Just because you saw a fleet entering your solar system didn't mean that there were others you didn't and taking advantage of that kind of tunnel vision was always worthwhile. His portion of the fleet had folded into the solar system on a path coming directly from the nearest Zentraedi-controlled system, and the Invid had never even looked for dangers coming from other directions. When he entered the systems gravity well, seen their defense fleet at long range and began to move away from them at an oblique angel, the Invid hadn't even considered the idea that he might be leading them into a trap designed by another fleet having come in completely undetected on low power from the outer reaches of the system.
Now the Invid fleet was in disarray, taken unawares from the side when they thought that battle wasn't yet at hand, most of their fighters caught in their carriers and too close to fall back and regroup.
He waited a few more minutes as his task force's fighters roared out to join the battle, waited until he saw the Invid try to back away from this sudden assault. "Set a course on the following heading. The fleet will advance to engage the enemy, now."
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
No one knew when the first shot was fired or by whom. All American and the rest of the world knew was that the cold war between the president incumbent and the ex-president who refused to give up his powers and Admiral Hayes had become a hot war. Worse from a strategic perspective, Hayes had decided to go on the offensive almost immediately, and had taken and ransacked several military bases with a lot of parts and supplies. This meant that in the terms of Valkyrie and robot construction, America had lost quite a bit of its built-up surplus. Work continued apace on the Grand Cannon as well as the bunkers, but that was only because several the states had that had been constructing ships or Valkyries had been convinced to change over to that construction by the new president. What this meant was that 10 ships already laid out in various shipyards across America would not be added to the new United Nations Space Fleet anytime soon, leaving only five others that were nearing completion in other ports. This meant the 1st fleet would only have seven American built and crewed ships. The rest of the fleet would be predominately Chinese, German, Russian, and British with a large amount of Indian influence in their fighter allotment.
Worse from a long term perspective was the new president had been able to secure the loyalty of most of the US military, and many of the units that had been added to the UNSF from America had been called home, causing issues in the Middle East in particular.
Scott Prescott, who was to command the 1st space fleet didn't care much about that. Having taken a break from his growing pile of paperwork to look over this civil disturbance as well as notes about the new weapons and technologies being developed and realized that America once again was going to be putting out only half its effort and yet still be able to nearly equal that of other superpowers. The quixotic thought hit him that getting the Americans to walk in a straight line was like herding cats. "What magnificent things they could do if they all worked together in one direction," he said to himself not for the first time, "yet we needs must work with what we have."
And what we have he thought looking back at the science report is pretty fantastic. He had looked over the initial notes from the first meeting Dr. Lang had with his colleagues worldwide right after the space fortress landed, and that had been revolutionary enough. Yet the concepts being developed by the new think tank still meeting aboard the space fortress was so far beyond that it was astonishing. Stealth frigates, small ships only about the size of four Valkyries stacked end to end but with stealth capabilities beyond anything previously put in space and with a heavy punch of long-range missiles that themselves had stealth capabilities. A ship that size would move incredibly quickly in fold space. A carrier whose fighters would be completely controlled from the carrier itself with the fighters being designed around heavy weapons designed to make out enemy battleships? Real-time communication over any distance in the star system and possibly beyond, though Dr. Lang's theories on that score were derided automatically, the concept going against all approved scientific theories, but the science and numbers were backing him up.
Prescott had never been more proud of his countrymen then when he learned that Britain had laid out four carrier hulls already, all that was required was to rearrange the interior and pair them with a mobile factory ship to create more fighters, and you would have one hell of a long-range punch. That would take weeks even with technology the way it was but it was still a outstanding achievement. Of course the fighters themselves would be susceptible to the battle pods of the Zentraedi and even more susceptible to Gargoyles, but if you could keep those forces busy with Valkyries, then the Wolves, the name given at present to the new fighter type, would devastate any fleet. They were fast enough to dodge defensive lasers and missiles, and even had onboard of shielding to protect them. The barrier shields that Dr. Lang had come up with were going to be worth their weight in pure platinum. Even now hundreds mobile barrier shields were being created in practically every nation, and they would be added to every ship of the fleet. There was one little remark from a Russian scientist about what could happen if a shield was on the wrong frequency or something and then overloaded, but it was almost pure math and Prescott couldn't follow a word of it. It would take longer for the new fighter design to go into production, but when it did….
His good humor vanished however as he looked at a personal note that Marcus and sent him, and he shook his head sadly. I've lost one brother to that ship and this war already, must I lose another? Marcus and his entire squadron, call-sign Knight Squadron had requested and been approved for transfer to the space fortress.
Despite this however he knew it would be a few more days before Macross had its full complement of troops and civilians and everything else aboard and then another week or so to get organized and finish upgrading before it was ready to depart. He desperately, desperately wanted to do something to get his brother off that ship, which after all was going to be on a long decoy mission, a target to everything the aliens could throw at it, but realized Marcus would never forgive him if he did. Scott wasn't the only one that wanted to strike out at the Zentraedi who had stolen their younger brother from them.
With a sigh he put the message down and turned to the rest of the paperwork, working out tactics and strategies for his new fleet based around their new weapons systems as well as requisition forms for crews for the ships that had already been finished. A fleet didn't build itself after all.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Mousse shook hands with the man who had just sold him this building, which was right next to Dr. Lang's sprawling research lab. It had been halfway demolished during the internal battle that had occurred a few weeks ago and Mousse had gotten in it for a song. He gripped the bill of sale and nodded at the Amazons behind him, two family groups, both of whom specialized in blacksmithing and weapon work, his own wife Perfume, and one of the younger warriors named Jasmine who wanted to go into sales. She had been the daughter of one of the tribe's best merchants, but her mother hadn't wanted to come with them, afraid of the world beyond the borders of China. Jasmine on the other hand had a very inquisitive nature paired with a powerful wanderlust.
The idea for this building had come from an offhand from Ranma and Motoko about how important a hand-to-hand weapon was for the Valkyries when boarding a ship and when facing the Gargoyles in open space. Mousse thought that pilots would like to have their own, personally crafted weapons for such an occurrence, and when he mentioned this to Motoko she had answered with a firm affirmative.
The blade for her own Valkyrie had been an experiment mainly, and had survived quite a few fights, but it finally broke, shattering during the battle against Kyron and his forces in the interior of the ship. More, it had always felt a little too light, a little too flimsy for the full strength of her Valkyrie. She didn't want something too heavy she was a swordswoman not some knight with a claymore, but something a little heavier and personally made to her specifications by someone who knew what they were doing would be magnificent. The first blade had been all right, but she knew where she had gone wrong in her attempts to guide the team that made it. She also knew several surviving Spartan pilots she would love to have their own personal weapons. Word got around about that idea, and in commemoration of their fallen comrades every surviving Spartan operator would receive their personal weapon gratis on the captain's bill. The new Spartan companies that had boarded since would of course not be extended the same credit.
This plus Mousse's work at the research lab would mean that his family would be extremely well-off regardless of anything else. In fact they had already picked out several cabins on this ship side and commissioned Kasumi to design the interior. Perfume would also take part of that project with her as soon as Kasumi finished work on the arcade that she had been working on in the center of the city. Kasumi's assumption that someone else would wish to buy into that idea had proven correct the day before, and work had begun to add in the game consoles and other electronic devices already. The grand opening was scheduled for a week from now, which Mousse thought rather slow, but then he remembered that not everyone had the endurance, strength or speed of the martial artist aboard.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Lisa fell back onto the bed gasping a little but with a grin on her face that you would've had to use surgery to remove. Ranma was healing faster than ever after these fights with the Zentraedi ace, and it had only taken a day for him to be up to, shall we say, strenuous activities once more, though he still wasn't cleared for duty just yet, as the doctors refused to officially check him off as fit for duty. Said strenuous activities had been sorely missed in her case for the past few weeks, what with all the work going on around and in the Macross, and she had been ecstatic to get a night off where she wasn't too exhausted to join her lovers in bed.
She rolled onto her side looking over at Kasumi who answered her smile with a bright if exhausted grin of her own. Above her Ranma pulled out gently, causing Lisa to feel a little empty before pulling off his condom and leaving the bed to go and grab a moist towel to wipe them off with.
Kasumi looked away from Lisa looking down at her belly and gently tracing a circle in the sweat and other fluids gathered there, and Lisa's eyebrows rose at the far-away gaze on the other woman's face. "Something on your mind?" Lisa asked.
"Oh it's just a passing fancy," said Kasumi, not looking away from her stomach. "I, I just saw Perfume again today and I just think she looks magnificent."
Lisa had to pause for a minute as she tried to place the name. She hadn't had much to do with the Amazons as they had boarded, after all they were only at the Academy at the moment not part of the military, and she had been so damn busy lately. She had met Shampoo during dinner once, a very hasty dinner taking one of her very brief breaks, and she thought the purple haired woman was pleasant enough, but a little ignorant of technology and the world beyond China. She had given a brief account of how she had come to be with Ranma as well as Kasumi, and been told about how Shampoo had come close to landing him before they left Nerima, but there hadn't been any malice or jealousy there. The name Perfume didn't mean much to her.
Before she could ask what Kasumi was talking about Ranma came back and began to clean them up gently, and she smiled under his ministrations. She shuddered a little as the wet cloth passed over her nether regions, and Kasumi asked Ranma, "do you think I would look good pregnant Ranma?"
Ranma answered the question with 'typical male response number five™' before he could engage his brain. "I think you'd look lovely whatever you're wearing." Then he looked up at her in astonishment as her words actually registered. "Wait, what?"
Kasumi giggled and Lisa joined in looking down at their lover and his deer caught in the headlights expression. "Oh not right away," she said waving off his initial panic. "I just think that I will want to have children a little sooner than I had expected that's all. Possibly even in two or three years."
Lisa frowned a little. She would like to have children at some point soon too, but in the present circumstances and with the sheer amount of work she was doing and her career she wasn't certain when she would have the time. She was not going to simply have a child and then not have any time to spend with the baby regardless of anything else.
Ranma frowned too but his worry was more about the world around them than a personal one, though of course he had those too. "I don't know if I'd want to have children that soon Kasumi. Nothing to do with you or even with me really," he then shook his head, smirking a little, "though I'm not sure I could be a good father, I know you'd make a magnificent mom so that sort of evens out. But like it or not the Macross is a big moving target. Eventually the Zentraedi are going to get so irritated that they'll forget their mission to take it intact and just come on in and pound us with everything they've got, and in that kind of environment even someone like me ain't good enough to make certain the ship survives."
"I can see that Ranma-koi," Kasumi said gently reaching out to kiss him on the lips gently. "But I don't think we should let our fears make cowards of us in this case. I think we should wait until we are ready to have one, regardless of the danger outside these walls."
Ranma looked at her and then shook his head smiling a little. "As long as you are ready for it then I don't have a problem with the idea of having kids in the future Kasumi, so long as you don't ask me to bear one of them at least." The two girls looked at him in shock and then burst out into loud laughter and Ranma simply gave them a V sign with the fingers of one hand before Lisa reached forward and pulled up to lay between them. Soon enough the outside world would intrude again, but until that happened she was by damn going to get in a few hours of cuddling.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Athena looked up in surprise as the door to the ships gym opened to admit Miriya and she shook her head in awe at the other female's ability to heal.
Miriya had been almost on deaths door when she had been brought back, but within three days of the battle against the human Ranma she was now up at about. Not only that the green-haired woman was almost back to 100% with only her arm still looking moving limply at her side. She had a few more scars, one of them directly on her chin, and another one shown on her stomach, which was bare because she had decided to follow the current trend where the new exercise shorts and upper body 'bras' (and wasn't that a weird name, but the simple holders the fleet's personnel had been using before this had been the first thing to disappear when the scope of the clothing available to humans was seen) that some of the younger girls had developed going over human clothing designs, but that was all.
Regardless of the choice of clothing, Athena asked solicitously "Are you sure you should be up and about?"
Miriya moved over to the weight machine, and Athena gaped as she put more weight on it then even Sonya, who was renowned among the Meltraedi for her strength, could handle. Her jaw actually dropped as Miriya then used the weight on only her one good arm slowly counting out cadences as she answered Athena. "I'm almost back to full health, but thanks' for asking Athena."
"Is there some rush to get you back into combat?" Athena asked. "You know that you won't be authorized to try that one-on-one nonsense again. Not after the humans tried to interfere as they did."
"Yes, but no humans from the space fortress did, I found that telling after I questioned the other pilots after I woke up. And I doubt my opponent had anything to do with that either, but you're right I not going to be trying that anymore."
Rather I am looking for another way of challenging my opponent. She frowned a little as she moved over to the leg machine. One of her legs was still giving her twinges occasionally as were several of her ribs, but she ignored them. She had heard a phrase somewhere, it must've come from the human Internet originally because it certainly hadn't come from the Meltraedi, that 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger'. Despite its alien origin it was a phrase that every Meltraedi could take to heart. Miriya in particular knew this, and was determined to come back stronger than ever after her defeat. She would challenge Ranma yet again, only this time it would be personal. She already had an appointment to talk to Admiral Azonia about going through the Micronization process, and after that she would find her way aboard the space fortress. She would then learn who the better fighter was, without the abilities of their respective machines getting in the way.
To Miriya and all Meltraedi defeat meant death, plain and simple. Being defeated like this and living only because her opponent hadn't killed her when he could have left her feeling somehow unfinished, incomplete. Yet as long as she was alive she would strive to better her opponent, and she knew that in this last battle his robot had taken more damage than it had ever taken before and yet kept on coming. Because of this she thought that maybe it was because of his machine that Ranma had beaten her, and was determined to face him one on one and win.
Something shivered through her at the idea of meeting Ranma face-to-face, and she remembered watching some of his exercise videos the spies had given her. Some kind of heat started to build in her body as she thought of Ranma moving around, jumping and flashing through martial art maneuvers that she could tell were designed to add speed and flexibility. She had copied many of them for her own repertoire and found them excellent, but the heat building within her had nothing to do with that rather simply the sight of Ranma's muscles bunching and moving under his glistening skin brought whatever it was out of her. She shook off the odd mood, though she could not completely dispel the memory of Ranma's bright shining blue eyes flashing with martial fervor.
OOOOOOOOOOOO
Motoko ducked under a stab from the spear being wielded by her opponent grabbed the haft right behind the forward-most hand and pulled big the younger woman off-balance slamming the pummel of her sword into the girls head sending her down and out. She spun and her sword blocked the blow from of the mace wielded by an older woman, and her leg shot out catching her right behind her leg and flipping her. The older woman went with the flip doing a full turn in midair to land on her feet and lash out again but Motoko simply slid around the blow her sword flashed out gently nicking the other girl right below her neck in what would have been a kill shot if she had so chosen. She jumped up again dodging a heavy blow from Shampoo who charged in with both bonbori whirling but Motoko blocked them adroitly with her own blade, then after a few moments of this sent one wide and the other up leaving Shampoo open to a slash through the center.A quick twirl followed by another series of exchanged blows and soon another middle-aged warrior fell to the earth, ending the match.
"Good match," she said judiciously looking around at the groaning group of Amazons just now getting to their feet. Most of them admittedly were not groaning in pain, rather it was their pride that had taken a shot today. The very idea that a foreign female could be as good or better than Amazon warriors stuck in their craws, but the proof lay all around them. 15 mixed blooded and maiden warriors had taken on Motoko in groups of four, and had been soundly defeated without even touching her once.
Sitting along the sidelines Cologne and Nodoka, the younger woman having finally gotten a bit of free time (alas without Henri) from her projects in the hydroponics section, laughed a little at the display. "I trust my daughter has proven her prowess enough for you Cologne?" She asked archly.
Cologne cackled looking at her fellow tribesmen. "A very excellent lesson of humility for them all I'm sure."
The Amazons had fit in well aboard ship. They did any physical job they were given with a will that had to be seen to be believed and represented a massive addition to the ships fighting capacity. More they got along well with the civilians that had stayed aboard all of whom understood sacrifice, hard work and dedication. Indeed several Amazon maidens had already chosen their targets shall we say, and Cologne was looking forward to a few marriages in the future. Of course the men in question might believe that the Amazons were only in it for a few brief days of pleasure, but Amazons did not do flings (at least with men).
She cackled again at a very specific memory along those lines as she watched her granddaughter get to her feet looking down at her ruined vest with a rueful expression. She had seen one young blue haired boy with spectacles, a lieutenant from Ranma's own Squadron going by the tabs and squad badge, flirt with Shampoo a time or two and he seemed a decent enough sort but if he thought that he could just have his fun and runaway then shampoo would set him straight quite quickly.
To her dismay the Amazons hadn't fit in so well at the Academy. A new and rather tough minded commandant had been brought aboard specifically to run the academy replacing the late and not lamented Captain Connor. The Amazons were well able to match or even exceed the training regimen physically but not so much mentally. Of the seventy warriors who had entered the academy Shampoo was one of only twenty who had been able to get past the 3-d environ testing to be accepted in the Valkyrie pilot program. The rest would thus be relegated to the destroid forces. It was still honorable of course, but the girls had all been disappointed. Alas it was taking far longer than she had assumed to get them up to speed even with the academy focusing solely on getting the Amazons acclimatized to the technology and military terminology. Then again it wasn't as if she understood most of the technology of the Valkyries or the destroids anyway. Still overall she was well pleased with her people's progress aboard ship, and she knew Captain Gloval and the other officers agreed.
OOOOOOOOO
Not quite yet Rear Admiral Gloval did indeed approve of the Amazons, their fighting nature, stern refusal to yield and work ethic appealed to him greatly, if only the same could be said of every group of civilians that had come aboard or tried to at any rate. One group of civilians had boarded the ship a few days ago and had promptly begun to preach a message of peace with the aliens by demonstrating outside the factories, paste slogan bearing posters everywhere and generally run amok. The police were still rounding them up and evicting them from the ship. Another group in particular was giving him conniptions. A family of very wealthy hotel owners had demanded the opportunity to board their ship, and kept on calling him despite his refusal to allow them on board unless they had something to offer those aboard the ship. None of them did, though he was afraid that they would soon try to buy out the two hotels that were in the city and use that as an excuse to get aboard. I do not want the Trumps aboard God damnit! He shook off the anger he held at that thought and looked along the conference table at his senior officers.
Captain Hayes, whose promotion had gone through already and if there was another person in recent history who had done more to earn a promotion than her he didn't know them, commander Grant, general Mannstein and the new civilian representatives all looked back at him.
He waited a few minutes then coughed gently, to get their attention. "This meeting of the rejuvenated council of the Macross is called to order. For those of you who are new aboard ship or in this council, this ruling body was designed to give the civilians a way to have a voice in the running of the ship in those areas where their authority extends, a place to air any grievances. I hope that everyone here understands that we are here together to share problems as well as solutions and new data between us for the betterment of the ship and the people aboard her. I have an announcement to make, but that will wait until the end of the meeting, so Mr. Lon-Cao, why don't you start us off."
The Chinese industrialist was a squat plug of a man looking almost like a sumo wrestler on a little bit of a diet with a face that seemed carved out of granite except around his children, where it could convey a surprising amount of warmth, though obviously that was not the case at the moment. "The factories that are still intact are now running at full capacity to create the SAM Packs as well as working upgrading the Valkyries and destroids being brought aboard to replace losses with the armor strengthening technique. My workers have already become accustomed to the new factories. They are happy with both the work and the living conditions, as are their dependents."
He smiled just a little at that thought as it extended to his own family. His daughter was all of nine years old, and she positively loved the mini golf course aboard ship. His son, just out of college had decided to go into the arcade business, and had bought out a magnificently designed place in the center of town that he was certain would be a very big moneymaker. His wife was also busy creating a spouse support group for the soldiers as well as his workers, something that she had done previously. He had no doubt that it would be up and running soon.
"The two factories that were damaged or destroyed in the assault that actually got into the ship have been repaired, but we have turned their output to the creation of defensive installations, metal plates and automated guns for the most part. The other specialized factories are also running at full capacity. We will soon have a surplus of batteries, missiles and other munitions."
He stopped speaking and Commander Grant spoke up as she acting logistics specialist now while Lisa worked to integrate the new personnel coming aboard. "Overall supplies are rising slowly but surely. We have over eighty mobile barrier shields ready for combat, and are building more every day at a rate of four a day now. Food wise we are almost to the point where we can be self-sufficient indefinitely. We're just waiting for a few more shipments of cows and other food animals to come aboard, pens and farms are ready and waiting to receive them thanks to Nodoka-san." Nodoka wasn't a part of this meeting having bowed out until her new workers could get to know her, leaving Claudia to report on her the hydroponics section. "We're still waiting for more pilots for the Valkyries, but that's really the only shortfall in our manpower at the moment. We're getting organized slowly, but we have a full crew complement and then some."
She glanced over at Lisa who nodded confirmation of that point and followed up on this point with her own report. "We have a full complement of Spartans defenders and Tomahawks aboard, though we are still waiting operators for them. In terms of operators we have one company of Spartans four companies of Defenders and two companies of Tomahawks, but the majority of the operators are green troops. I'm trying to pair the new troops with veterans, but its taking a bit or work."
"The crackdown on the criminal element among the troops goes very well, COB Walters has lived up to his reputation for efficiency, I would definitely recommend him and his ratings for a commendation of some sort. They've cleared out several stills and two drug labs we never even knew existed. The new police force on the civilian side is shaping up well too." She smirked a little as she knew that half that police force was comprised of Amazon warriors who didn't want to join the space forces under the command of a old blond warrior named Panther. She would love to see the first group of rowdies who tried to get fresh with them.
"In terms of re-arming the exterior weapons systems, all of our tertiary weapons systems have been replaced with the kinetic shotguns defense platform. We decided to go with a magnetic ball bearing type of mount rather than a traditional swivel, and all of these weapons will use a computer to target, with a team of operators for every cluster. Those should theoretically make us at least fifteen times harder to attack with Regulds, less so the Gargoyles. All the exterior work has been accomplished, and work continues apace on the interior redesign. Maintenance work is catching up to the curve, but it will be weeks yet before all of that work is caught up to where it should be."
Henri frowned a little, but nodded, knowing that the refit and interior redesign took priority. He could do without the lights all working or the corridors looking pretty for a little while longer.
Dr. Lang next spoke up looking a little smug. "My work with Elder Cologne and the rest of my think tank goes apace, but I'm certain that most of you here have already read the papers we've forwarded?" Everyone but the silent Spaniard who had taken over as temporary mayor nodded including the Captain who realized about half a page into the work that he was looking at something that would revolutionize both space and land warfare. "We've turned our minds and thoughts to other matters now, specifically trying to figure out the composition of the Zentraedi outer covering that they had on board their ships that acted so much like a self-healing skin." He frowned a little and shook his head. "Up to this point we haven't had much luck with it however, so don't get your hopes up."
The announcements continued at this pace, everyone sharing what their groups had accomplished and what was still left to be done sharing ideas views and exchanging work groups and resources.
After about an hour however Gloval decided that everyone had neared the end of what could be accomplished in one meeting, and decided to make his announcement. "All this is excellent," he said drawing everyone's attention to him. "I am proud of the work everyone here has done to make the space fortress as deadly and self-sufficient and efficient as possible. However I must inform you of command's long term plans for us."
At that phrase every one of the officers stiffened, a premonition going through them while the civilians merely looked attentive. "We have been given a deadline, and within a week and a half of this date the ship will leave Earth orbit to draw away the Zentraedi fleet in orbit. We will be doing this to allow the 1st fleet of the UN space forces to retake the moon and then continue space born operations. I'm not at liberty to say what they will be retaking there, but this is but the first step in what is being called Operation Ark. Our job during this operation will be to keep the aliens attention on us and away from Earth and its environs."
"And what will be happening back here?" asked the acting mayor.
"Operation ark is built around several large fully enclosed habitats that will be placed in Jupiter and Saturn's outer atmospheres, each of which will carry a startup group of a forty thousand, foodstuffs, animals, both frozen embryos and living, with room to expand many times over. Just in case" he said grimly, looking around the table at them all, "Earth is attacked by these aliens humanity will still survive."
That sobered everyone up and what objections they had been about to raise went away like the morning mist, and the meeting broke up soon after.
OOOOOOOOOOO
Dr. Lang walked back to his research lab in a somber frame of mind. He wasn't looking forward to leaving behind blue skies and real wind, but he understood the importance of their mission and if anything could survive being a decoy for a thousand's strong Zentraedi fleet it was the space fortress, not only because of the resources aboard in the people aboard who had all shown they were survivors, but because the aliens were routinely very leery of using their full force against it.
To his surprise he found a visitor waiting for him outside his lap. "Pierre," he said, "What are you doing back on board, I thought you had scampered back to home to your labs with your samples." One of the French born American's quirks was that he refused to work in anyone else's lab, saying he hated having to think where everything was rather than knowing by rote. Having seen his lab and its eclectic organization in the past Emil knew that was actually true rather than simple ego.
Pierre grinned at him. "I'm here to share something with you and your little think tank. I've found something about the Zentraedi that I think you and everyone else need to know."
Dr. Lang stared at him then nodded "I'll call a meeting if you wish, when would you like it to happen?"
His friend shrugged. "I think that would be an excellent idea, and as soon as possible because honestly it baffles the hell out of me, and I'm wondering what to make of it. and what it means for our war effort."
"That sounds ominous," Emil responded, looking at his friend more closely. It was only now that he noticed the bags underneath the man's eyes and the rather fevered look in his eyes. The jittering of his hands was also noticeable, as if he had been living off coffee and adrenaline for a few days. This was even more startling as he knew Pierre was a man who liked his creature comforts and would never willingly give up sleep. "I'll call for it for an hour from now alright?"
OOOOOOOOOOOO
Cologne and the other scientists, though there were many that refused to use the word scientist when talking about Cologne she took to it easily enough, were rousted out of bed and joined Dr. Lang in one of his conference rooms, wondering what the hell was going on.
Pierre started the briefing almost as soon as everyone had taken their seats. "Gentleman for those of you who do not know me, I'm one of the world's foremost biologists and geneticist. I have studied humanity and all of the animals of EWarth save a few that are still undiscovered in the Amazon jungle. And maybe a few in the depths of the sea." he paused for a moment "I can't swim and the water terrifies me. However despite this" he said, after allowing a few chuckles to go around the room before continuing "I am a geneticist of the first order. And it is wearing both those hats that I come before you now."
"I came aboard the ship right and after its assault by the supposed mad alien Kyron to study the alien bodies before they could decompose. While I found astonished me and I delved deeper."
Several images of Zentraedi soldiers popped up, and caused a moment of shock as the scientists who haven't realized how closely the aliens resembled humans looked at their enemies for the first time. Even Cologne's rheumy eyes narrowed in speculation at that and Pierre went on. "Moving past how closely these aliens look like humans for the moment as you can see these gentlemen don't look alike at all, in fact their appearance varies even wider than humans. After all we don't have blue or green skin among our normal colorations, and their hair colors are all over the place. Yet despite this on a genetic level there is very little genetic drift."
He spotted a few confused faces and elaborated, knowing the plebs rarely could follow the nomenclature of the true sciences. "Let me explain. Among a normal human fleet you would be very hard-pressed to find two people who are related on a genetic level. Oh, there might be a few cases of cousins or uncles or brothers or sisters all serving in the same fleet, but those are wildly scattered cases, not the rule. Genetic drift implies that from a certain sample size would constitute a vast difference in familial lines. Yet every sample I took from the alien bodies and I took over a thousand samples from various body parts and bodies had the same genetic structure. There was barely any difference! It was almost as if all of them came from fraternal twins.
"More, I found a disturbing amount of what is called genetic decay. This decay I hasten to add is not the kind of good decay you see in any kind of high-tech society, where brains and intelligence are valued over brute strength or survivability. Indeed it's the exact opposite, most of the genetic decay I see is in the realm of the brain. This shows a sign that the Zentraedi might be practicing some kind of eugenics program, with the warrior class being genetically modified or altered to become stronger yet more stupid over time. However I also took a sample from Kyron himself, and found that he is genetically almost identical to his troops. In point of fact he had a little more genetic decay than most, and this led into my most startling discovery."
"The Zentraedi reproduce via cloning," he said firmly looking around at their intent gazes. "Not just individual cloning but groups thousands, perhaps millions strong. And they've been doing it over time. Does anyone here know about humanity's own experiments in cloning?
No hand was raised and he sighed theatrically peons before going on. "Humans have been able to clone for a few years, and the concept is very well known in the medical field. However scientists wondered at one point what would happen if you kept on cloning. What I mean is taking a clone of something then cloning that something etc., etc. What happens is the genetic decay I've noticed. The sample becomes weaker, more susceptible to disease more susceptible to breakdowns both in terms of thinking ability and the body as a whole. To get this level of genetic decay the aliens would have to have been cloning themselves for thousands of years." Actually Pierre would later find it was only hundreds of years, but at the time he didn't know how awful the Zentraedi losses normally were.
There were some mutterings about this, but only Cologne seemed to be taking it as seriously as the geneticist thought it should be taken.
"Which leads into my biggest discovery, I believe the Zentraedi to be a created warrior race and I don't think they did it to themselves. I've gone over everything," he said raising his voice over the surprised mutterings from his audience, "everything that the space fortress was able to find aboard the ships they boarded, everything that they took off the ship's computers. There is not a single sign of any kind of society outside the fleet itself. There is no individual items, pictures from home, lucky charms, nothing! More, there is not a single sign of anything about reproduction or cloning or anything! Not even the Spartans were that cut off from their society! There is no Zentraedi society. They are simply a fleet, a vast, billions strong fleet with nothing that they are supposed to protect but themselves. I have a full write up if you want to read it, it includes all the data I've looked over, as well as some from those captured individuals that escaped, and their impressions, it all points to the Zentraedi not even understanding the word 'culture'!"
"So what happened to them to make them that way? Answer, nothing interior to a society could ever create that kind of a warrior culture, wipe out their sense of individuality of self-expression, of technology. It would self-destruct within a few generations even if you use cloning. But if it was started by an exterior source, say one that controlled the means of production and could cut out those individuals prone to questions immediately then it could work for a time."
"What do you mean for a time?" Asked Dr. Lang looking very disturbed. If there is some other race pulling the Zentraedi's strings, how much more dangerous are they from their creations? Was that the origin of the space fortress, was it a ship from this master race? Is that why they want it intact so badly?
"Ah," Pierre said, smiling a little. "Here we come to the issue of martial methodology versus crude individuality, or organized soldiers versus barbarians. The Zentraedi are 98% human. In fact we could reproduce with them though that is a very disturbing thought, so they must have individualistic views personalities and desires buried under the lack of society and culture. How well would a military survive if the military was all you knew all yet there were no rules or laws or anything like that, just the military. As I said I've studied what we found extensively, and there were no regulations or any kind of overarching organization above obey the officers. There were no rules of laws or regulations found on their computers save those related to safety and the running of the ship, and even that was a bare minimum. How long would something like that survive among humans before cracks started to appear?"
He gestured to a picture of Kyron's dead body. "This fellow was probably one of the best examples. Judging by what a few people have said about his fighting style and that of his clan fleet he didn't allow a single person to disagree with him, and every decision he made was followed immediately on pain of death, a tyrant in the truest form. How long before someone like him would no longer obey the central authority and strike off on his own and of course once you have one you have to silence that one but then another one might decide to follow the same route. How long before the cracks in their military form began to appear, especially when they are shown something like humanity. Our society may prove to be our greatest weapon against them, in fact I think we've already seen signs of it!"
"The attacks over the last few days," Cologne muttered having kept abreast of international news. Everyone else nodded. understanding dawning. "Chocolate, clothing, foodstuffs, these are things that a military society would not be able to create on their own so they're stealing it from us correct?"
Pierre bowed respectfully to her. "Exactly, just like the old Spartans didn't grow their own food and had to rely on their slave clase, they also barely made their own clothing having to trade with Athens and city states for most of it, the Zentraedi only know how to make war and possibly how to create the weapons of war, nothing else."
"Which are presumably all controlled," Dr. Lang mused "by their supreme leader. That would keep innovation down, which keeps people from questioning too much, which locks them into their structure and rewards those who go along with things blindly, who are thus cloned later and perpetuate the cycle." This could actually be the case, he thought to himself, and it isn't a pleasant thought either. Because if we have to fight through the Zentraedi to get to their masters, what will we find at the end?
OOOOOOOOOOOO
It had taken Azonia a week of working with her best electronics and video experts, which really wasn't saying much she had learned, but they were well enough able to do the job of figuring out the videos and splicing them together for what would be, in human terms, her star performance. It wasn't the first time her people had changed or tampered with video recordings of course it happened all the time after joint exercises among the Meltraedi, as well as after contests and mock battles. Everyone wanted to look their best after all, and her captains were ambitious enough to use any means to do so. Of course she saw right through such things, but they knew that too.
She had changed her orders to them a few days ago, after Miriya had that awe-inspiring battle with the human ace Ranma and his Valkyrie gave off those utterly terrifying energy readings. Something like that could only help her case, and she was almost thankful that Miriya had lost. Almost. Now she was ready prepared to do one thing that no Meltraedi had ever been called upon to do, act. Not only act, but fool Lord Dolza, the contemplation of which was terrifying.
She stood in the communications pit on her bridge, the minimal number of crewwomen around her, resplendent in her uniform, not a stitch out of place, her face set in grave lines. She breathed deeply for a moment then nodded to the communications officer, who connected her through hyperspace to Dolza in his fortress.
After a moment the bald giant, larger, thicker and wider than even Breetai, who himself was considered large among her people, stared down at her. Despite her own height, which was close to Breetai as she too was of the leader class, she felt dwarfed by the large giant, and normally that would add to the fear his mere name let alone his actual image imposed on any of her people. However, her deep and well hidden anger at the male and what he had probably been a party to helped offset that.
"Report," he growled out. "Have you successfully taken the battleship, or was it too much for the 'mighty' Meltraedi?"
The contempt in his voice for her and her people came through in that epithet, but she kept her composure. "Lord," she said calmly, professionally, "I have grave news. As you know Kyron in his fleet stayed here and was supposed to be under my command, but from the very beginning I had issues with him. Several times I forced him to not use his battleships to destroy the space fortress rather than take it, and I had hoped it that warning him I would destroy his entire fleet if he persisted would be enough. Unfortunately it was not, and for that I blame myself."
"During the last engagement Kyron led a boarding action that actually succeeded, due to a feint using the rest of his surviving fleet. I thought the operation had merit thinking that he knew well enough not to damage the interior as he took the ship, unfortunately since then our readings indicate that something has gone wrong inside the fortress."
She nodded again to her communications officer, and a brief video played on a screen behind her. The same information was also sent via the hyperspace signal to a screen in the fortress were Dolza was and he watched as a miniscule force of only around 200 battleships took up position right above the space fortress, which had for some reason returned to the third planet. Zor's battleship immediately took them under fire, and he watched as a few died, but many others somehow slid out to the side using ECM to cover their movements. He then watched the assault on the space fortress by the battle pods of the 11th skirmish fleet, as well as their total destruction.
"At this point," Azonia said, pausing the image, "Kyron seems to have been killed, and his remaining forces went mad. The battleships in orbit now began to target the space fortress rather than the area around it, and when they did I ordered their destruction. Unfortunately it seems to have been too little too late as some odd readings from the space fortress have begun.
"Odd how?" Dolza growled out wondering how the hell this had happened. Certainly Kyron had always been a misfit, a problem for matters of discipline, but he hadn't thought the fool an utter idiot to disobey him like this. Yet apparently that was precisely what he had done. The fact that female couldn't control him, was something that he should have thought of. Even Breetai had issues with him and Azonia didn't have nearly the force of personality Breetai could call on. Then too she was a female, and despite the fact that her forces were elite units they were still far weaker than the main fleets of his command.
Azonia pushed another bottom, and another video came out of some kind of energy wave flowing out from the battleship. The readings and the wave had actually been taken from the human ace's Valkyrie after the clash between the aces and then superimposed on the space fortress. Yet even so it was frightening. "This wave has been appearing periodically and neither I nor any of my people have any idea what it is. It doesn't seem to be dangerous, and yet it has had some very odd effects on any force that comes into contact with it, such that Micronian forces seem to veer off and crashed, and our own forces report issues as well despite being well away in orbit form the space fortress's current position."
Dolza scowled wondering what in the universe this meant. The readings, if he was reading it right were powerful and very strange. Dolza had never served on any of the Master's ships so had never seen anything like this, indeed only Breetai had served among them, and he knew that the Admiral had his mind wiped afterwards, much like all the other first-generation survivors. Of course Breetai was also now one of only two of the survivors still alive, the other being Exedore. Yet he was leery of pulling him back from the front with the Invid, which despite his victories was still highly contested. To be certain what the readings from the odd energy spikes meant he would have to consult his Masters, but that thought did not please him.
"Do not perform any more aggressive actions against the Micronians until I order you to," he declared angrily. "I will look into this matter, as well as a fitting punishment for you losing control of Kyron." Azonia nodded and without a word Dolza image blinked off.
Azonia leaned back into her seat, collapsing a little as tension left her body. "I hope that worked," she muttered to herself, "or we are, what was that human phrase I saw in that 'movie a few days ago, ah yes, 'up shit creek without a paddle.'"
End chapter
A bit of a cliffhanger there, but while I had about three-thousand more words written they weren't proofread, and since they were written with Dragon Naturally Speaking, it really needs it. That alas includes the parts about Mark arriving and Ranam finding out about what has been happening to his Valkyrie, so you'll have to wait.
As always read and review.