Chaotic Space

by Vimesenthusiast

Ranma learned on his 'grandma's' knee to look to the stars, and dreamed of going to space when they watched an alien ship crash land on Earth. Now years later after various plans have come to fruition he gets his chance. But is space and the space navy ready for Ranma? Pairing Ranma/Kasumi/Lisa/Miriya

26. Face to Face

I don't own Ranma 1/2 or Robotech. Minmei would not have been a main character, and Rick would have manned up if I did, the little jackass.

As usual a lot of good reviews but I felt I wanted to get this out tonight, so I will just say thanks, and on with the show.

Chapter 25 Face to Face

As soon as he cut the connection Dolza stood up and without a word left to his private quarters. There he touched a secreted button on the circular table that dominated the room, a button he had only touched once before, when he had to report their failure at capturing the traitor Zor alive, and the escape of his experimental battleship into fold-space. It had been the worst moment of his life up to this point, but this might well eclipse it.

A moment later the images of the three Robotech Masters appeared in the air above the table, which was in fact a very high tech long range holographic communication device. One of them stared down at him coldly and Dolza went to one knee under their gazes. "This had best be important Dolza, this communication is not to be opened from your end except in the most dire of circumstances."

"My Masters, he intoned, "I have news." After he described it all three of the Robotech Masters looked at one another in silent communication.

"What you describe is strange to us as well."One of them finally admitted aloud, an admission that caused Dolza to blink in shock. "We will need to think on this." Without further word the three masters disappeared leaving a very worried Dolza who was wondering what it meant when even his gods did not know what was going on.

OOOOOOOOOOO

On a very distant planet from the one Dolza's fortress currently floated around the three beings known to their creature and their followers as the Robotech Masters turned to one another, their faces displeased. "We do not know anything that could cause that sort of reaction," one muttered.

Another nodded morosely. "Yet our own instruments did detect something of that nature."

The third cursed in their ancient language and the other two nodded grim agreement with the sentiment. Their ability to sense proto-culture emissions from light years away almost instantaneously was a good one, but it didn't tell them anything about the size or the nature of the emission in question. What their instruments had reported was surely a proto-culture driven reaction, which dovetailed with the report passed on to them about the generator possibly being damaged, but how would that have been achieved without destroying the entire ship?

Not for the first time, not even for the thousandth time, all three cursed Zor's name luridly. Zor had been the first scientist to discover the use of the Flower of Life, and had delved deeper and more extensively into the nature of proto-culture than anyone else. Proto-culture was in effect energy manipulation on a scale and level impossible without the Flower of Life, and its uses were almost limitless. Zor was the first to discover how to use it as a power source, how to use even a seed of a Flower to create a far higher energy output from a hydrogen/helium reaction that would eventually power everything in their society and that of the Zentraedi fleet.

He had also been the first one to discover how to use it to offset the natural cloning degradation that allowed the Tirolians to spread their population far faster than they could have done naturally. Of course they never used that technique on the clones of the Zentraedi, what would be the point? They were supposed to be cannon fodder after all and cannon fodder didn't need to last.

Despite all his achievements Zor had never been satisfied. Instead of resting on his laurels he left his people behind to explore the galaxy to discover more life forms and energies. No one knew where he or his followers went, what other races they met or what secrets they discovered.

This allowed the three Masters, who had originally been his aides, to discover ways to use the energy to brainwash their fellows and thus create an empire. Oh, there had been resistance of course, but once the trio had brought the giant Zentraedi, genetically engineered giants designed to work on high gravity worlds, under their control, they simply crushed all resistance to their rule and swiftly consolidated power over their people.

Sixty years later Zor came back and had been horrified at the change from a republican government to that of a triumvirate Council of despots. Well that, and the fact his father had been killed during their war.

Zor himself would soon make a far better revolutionary than his father had even dreamed of. He consolidated his forces slowly in out of the way systems, well beyond the Zentraedi patrols or the reach of the Masters, hiding everything from their eyes until he was ready. Then he struck.

Before the Masters were aware of the threat his forces had launched the first assaults and crippled the Robotech Masters.. It was a very specifically targeted campaign however as he realized that he could not match them in numbers or in quality. Instead he had attacked the Masters where they were their most weakest, the proto-culture incubators. Every planet in their empire had five incubators holding Flowers of Life, and in a mere week, they were all gone, destroyed by infiltrators, spies and saboteurs recruited by Zor among the populace and among a few Zentraedi whose brainwashing hadn't quite taken. To top it off he released a virus into the interconnected data net of the Tirolian planets, wiping out every mention of proto-culture and how to best utilize the Flower of Life. No one knew how Zor did it, but it made creating more proto-culture generators or incubators impossible.

And then further disaster struck. The Invid, who had been building up their numbers and forces, slowly expanding their territory from their known planets in the opposite direction from the Zentraedi and Tirolian systems, attacked without warning. They knew who to blame for the destruction of their home-world's ecosystem, and the once peaceful Invid had taken to war just as easily as they had to manipulating the Flowers of Life.

It was only because the Zentraedi had already been amassed in monstrous numbers that allowed the Robotech Masters to survive that first push, and even then they had lost dozens of planets, all of which were now uninhabitable. The Zentraedi ships did not run on proto-culture, but a highly advanced form of fusion generation. It was the same source of fuel that the Robotech Masters ships road on, but without the proto-culture energy refinement process which allowed for much higher output, on an order of 20 times higher.

And even that wasn't as high as it could be. The readings they had from when Zor's battleship broke through the cordon around the planet it had been built on told them that Zor had figured out how to get even more out of proto-culture than before.

Now the Masters were in dire straits. It had been over three hundred years since they had a new source of proto-culture. Zor's battleship had been badly damaged before escaping into fold and had never come out until twenty years ago, with all abroad long dead. Zor himself had been killed before he could board it, but the objective of the ship had been to escape with the last remaining proto-culture generator, one he himself had created, away from the Master's grasp. Its reemergence had been a blessing, yet now it might turn out to be a curse.

The only Flowers of Life they could acquire were those in the Invid controlled territory, and not only was that a suicide mission but those plants were all mutated somehow by the damn bugs. They were the only ones that could use them in that form, though of course they could not use them as well or for as many things as the Robotech Masters could the original form.

"If this is true," said one of them heavily, coming out of his rage induced stupor. "What are we going to do? Our own reserves are running out. Our geneticists estimate that we have barely 2 more lifetimes to go before the clone bodies start to degrade. And that is only for our own clones, our people have already begun to show signs of degradation."

One of the other Masters frowned thoughtfully. "Should we send one of our own fleets to investigate this phenomenon?"

"No," said the third sharply and the second agreed, nodding his head. "We do not have the the fleets available, our entire fleet barely matches that we have assigned to the Meltraedi, and while we are quantitatively superior we cannot afford to let our home world's that defenseless. The Zentraedi may hold the line against the Invid for now, but we still do not have any news of where the Regis is."

That was another issue that had cropped up after Zor was killed that infuriated the Masters. The Regis had, in conjunction with Zor, figured out how to manipulate the Flower of Life to evolve into a higher state of being. Rumor had it that this was to help facilitate an affair between her and Zor, though most discounted that. Apparently she had not been able to retain that state of being, the energy involved being too much for her and so she devolved back into her original form after a while. Yet it had been enough to give her insight into the Flower of Life beyond anything that anyone else had bar Zor himself. About a century after Zor's battleship disappeared into fold space the Regis and the forces loyal to her, a force they estimated equal to about a fifth of the total Invid forces at the time, disappeared from their territory entirely.

No one knew where they went (including the Regent though of course he didn't exactly share that with anyone) but they hadn't been seen since, not even a hint of them. Such a force could annihilate the entirety of their planets in a bare month if they were left undefended.

Nor could they assign that duty to the Zentraedi. The conditioning they had put the Zentraedi through made them highly aggressive dangerous warriors, but they were not suited to understand that they had Masters without even more brainwashing, which they couldn't do any longer, having no proto-culture to spare on it. However that was what Dolza was for. It acted as a go between, relaying their orders to the rest of the massive Zentraedi fleet. Only Breetai and his aid Exedore still understood the significance of the space fortress and even those two had been brainwashed to forget everything about the Robotech Masters, only that the ship was important to heir race, not why it was important. Anonymity like that with clearly defined sectors what the Zentraedi were not allowed to go and the Invid on the border as a clear threat helped defend the Robotech Masters from insurrection among their creatures.

"We will have to order Dolza to send Breetai." said the first Master who had spoken, sighing. "Though I am loath to remove him from the battlefront against the Invid until the campaign against them is finished."

"Besides that, barring a miracle of some kind, we may be seeing the end of proto-culture power in its entirety." The second said stoically. "Without any new Flowers of Life not mutated by Invid influence to use during the cloning process, and with the generators on-board or own ships running low we will have to search for alternative methods of power."

The other two grimaced but made no argument. Indeed they had already been thinking along those lines, and most of their ships had secondary generators ready to go online when the proto-culture ran out but the output of them was nothing in comparison. They would be as powerless as the Zentraedi battleships and while due to the size and armament of their ships they were still a match for any 100 Zentraedi or Invid ships, they still didn't have the numbers necessary to fight the Invid.

"Rather than using Breetai immediately," one said thoughtfully, "should we order Dolza to order him to take the fight to the bugs? It's obvious they put a lot of effort into this present push, even if they weren't quite ready and decided to launch it because of that idiot in the 11th skirmish fleet. If he can break their back now, wipe their planets out we won't have to worry about that front, and we can stop the cloning production of the Zentraedi. After all if we have nothing to defend against we won't need them."

"I agree with forcing the Zentraedi on the attack that one of them but I don't think we want Breetai in charge of it." said the third firmly.

His other fellows looked at him in surprise and he elaborated. "Breetai is their best field general, able to get the most out of his forces with the least loss. If we are going to stop production of the Zentraedi we want their numbers decimated as much as possible now. Then we can have Dolza consolidate them all into one fleet under his own personal command. That way we will cut out any chance of their turning on us in the future."

"And fighting the Invid on their own ground in their own star systems, where they have been for generations is a very different thing than fighting them in the dead zone between our sectors of space." One murmured then smiled.

It should be said that while the Masters knew how useful and important the Zentraedi were to them, they also hated them with a passion. Without proto-culture to help, the masters couldn't live more than a hundred years without transferring their minds into a clone, but the Zentraedi, far more durable and genetically designed via the Flower of Life to be long lived, could live to be as old as a thousand if they were not killed in battle. Breetai and Exedore were both over four hundred years old and were basically middle-aged for their people, something that the masters, who had been searching for the keys to immortality ever since they overthrew the Tirolian Republic, could not endure without hate.

It never occurred to them that in their pursuit of immortality they had lost something far more precious, their individuality. None of the three Masters could even remember their own names anymore, and while their thoughts were not quite the same, even in that realm they are all almost identical.

"But what will we tell Dolza to tell Breetai?" Asked the second.

The first reached out and flicked a hand in midair, and a small translucent screen appeared in front of him. After a moment's scrolling through it he found the information he wanted. The screen multiplied at a gesture, the two new screens moving across to the other two who looked at the information about Breetai's mind wiping that had been done so long ago. "We didn't delete any information about Zor's battleship or its interior," he mused. "We can simply have Dolza tell him that that knowledge is why he is being chosen for this, it would be a portion of the truth after all."

"And after we will remove him, succeed or fail" said the one who had said that they wouldn't need him in charge of the war against the Invid. The other two looked at him for a moment then nodded.

There's nothing so dangerous to a slave owner as competence and intelligence in his slaves, and Breetai had both in abundance. Worse, he had a standing among all Zentraedi that despite the other admirals best efforts only Dolza could equal. In times of war that was fine, but if they were going to push the Invid and Zentraedi war to its final conclusion they wouldn't need him afterward. Best to get rid him now before he could turn on them.

"Wait until we receive word that he has destroyed the last two factory ships along the warfront," another said thoughtfully. "Without those two reinforcing the Invid numbers the Zentraedi will have a much easier time of it even without Breetai, which will let them build up some confidence before they start to lose troops in increasing numbers."

"And what if even with Breetai we cannot take the space fortress? What if this is the last of the proto-culture?" said the second. "Our ships have backups in place already, but what of us and our race?"

"Then we will have to find new ways of continuance," said the first one, "perhaps uploading our brains into robotic bodies?"

The other two Masters frowned at that idea, but nodded. If that was the price they needed to pay for immortality so be it.

The second looked at the information on Breetai then scrolled down again searching for other survivors of that first generation of Zentraedi. He found none save Exedore but then frowned thoughtfully. "One of the skirmish fleet the 7th is due for another clone resupply after the latest engagement. We can have Dolza order it back for that resupply, and have its admiral mind-wiped and download the information about Zor's battleship into its mind. Send that fleet first and see what happens, then send Breetai after it. Let the Meltraedi continue simply observing, their use as shock troops cannot be understated. I would be inclined to order them to switch to the Invid front after the 7th arrives."

The first frowned, shaking his head. "We can't ignore the chance of mental contamination after this long near these humans. We cannot let that spread. No, best to order their destruction after we are certain what is going on with Zor's battleship."

The other two thought for a moment then nodded and set about putting their plans in place. They should have remembered one of the most ancient of military axioms: No plan survives contact with the enemy. Especially when your enemy is someone like Ranma.

OOOOOOOOOOO

Ranma walked into the hangar bay where he had crashed his Valkyrie after his last fight with Zentraedi ace muttering darkly about doctors who didn't know jack shit about martial artists. They'd kept him off duty for nearly 5 days, three more than he needed to be back in fighting form! Oh, he had enjoyed the time with Kasumi of course, he wasn't ever going to complain about that, nor the amount of time he had been able to spend with Lisa when she was off duty.

No his problems with this enforced downtime came from Roy, who had found out that he had free time and decided to introduce him to the CAG paperwork that Roy had been handling up till that point. Ranma was at heart a simple person; he wanted to be a squadron commander because he felt that was the position best for him. Anything above that, there were just too many administrative duties that took time away from his training himself and his troops to be the best they could be. Thanks to Roy he hadn't even had time to practice with the Amazons since they arrived! So the fact that Ranma very dearly wanted to hit something right now, preferably Roy shaped, went without saying.

He stopped muttering however as he finally registered the maintenance teams around him staring at him whispering to one another. He looked down at himself wondering if he had something on his face or something, then shrugged and walked over to the nearest maintenance guy. "Yo, I think I crashed my Valkyrie here a few days ago, you got any idea where it is? Did you guys try to move it or something?"

The maintenance man gulped and shook his head. "Uh, no sir we, we didn't get a chance to."

That had actually pissed off his superior no end. The man was a by the books sort of the old school and regs stated that if a Valkyrie was damaged beyond a certain point it was to be taken apart for parts. When it came in the Valkyrie was a wreck and should've been taken apart immediately. But he had been stopped by the protests of the other team leaders and experienced workmen from the Macross. They all knew that Ranma wanted his machine repaired regardless of the damage, and had made so many modifications to it that if he tried to fly a regular Valkyrie it would probably come apart at the seams.

Instead something else had happened before they could even start moving it.

The maintenance man wordlessly gestured Ranma to follow him, and led the way into one of the corners of the hangar. There stood Ranma's Valkyrie, in the Guardian mode it had been when he crashed.

It looked completely repaired and he smiled. "Now you guys didn't have to do that you know. I mean I do my own maintenance and everything. It's part of my ongoing work of getting the Valkyrie used to letting my ki through it."

Ranma wanted to handle every piece of the Valkyrie and put a bit of his own ki into every piece. This last battle against the alien had shown that it worked, its performance had been greater by far than before and he felt that if he continued he'd eventually be able to get his Valkyrie to react as quickly as he himself could. Despite his best efforts there was still a lag between his reaction time and the Valkyrie's even with the inhibitor in the helmet long gone.

The problem was that he kept on getting better and the Valkyrie was limited to the limits of its mechanical parts. But those limits could be overcome (or outright ignored) if he poured enough energy into them.

"N-no sir," the maintenance man stuttered, "It um, it healed itself."

Ranma paused in his walk towards his Valkyrie, turning to stare at the man. "What did you just say?"

"It, it healed itself. We pushed it over here because well this is where we store a lot of damaged and broken parts when we're servicing the Valkyries before they get carted off. There were a few batteries over here, some bits and pieces from Valkyries damaged in the latest training session, and, and when we came back it had somehow absorbed them, and, and repaired itself."

"Did anyone see this as it was happening?" asked Ranma intently.

"A few of the others said they saw movement over here sir, but none of us were actually working in the area. It just somehow absorbed them sir! By the time one of us that noticed something was happening it was down to the final scrap piece and it simply absorbed into itself and then it's forearm armor plate somehow grew out of the skeleton of the rest of the arm and it w-was fully repaired.

Ranma gaped at him for a minute then shook his head. "All right I'm going to get to the bottom of this."

He walked forwards again and hopped onto his Valkyrie's wing and from there into the cockpit. The difference in the cockpit was even more surprising, as the helmet, which usually only had one connector from the helmet into the cockpit seat now had seven. More the joystick in the center was gone, and the buttons for the weapons, which were normally under his hands along the armrest, were gone, replaced by flat metal and some kind of indentation for his hands.

To these incredible changes Ranma's reply was a bland "Interesting," though inside he was ready to bolt the moment he heard someone say 'assimilate' or anything like that. Lisa had introduced her lovers to Star Trek a few weeks back, and the Borg had freaked Ranma out quite a bit.

He sat down and after a moment's hesitation pulled the helmet down over his head. After a moment he sent out a tendril of his energy into the device, searching around for differences and changes. He nearly stopped at the ease with which this happened, startled and amazed by how fast it was. It was almost like feeling the ki moving through his own body just on a far larger scale. With a flick of a finger he turned the engine on, and felt the power flow into the system. At that point a bit of the metal around his hands came up covering his fingers, and he felt that a twitch of one finger or another would arm and fire his missiles, and if he used his trigger finger on either hand he'd fire his gun.

He kept on pouring more of his ki into it, looking around trying to think of what could've caused the change. He didn't find any other consciousness or anything like that, but the whole thing sort of felt like, like some kind of tree or plant to him. It was alive now, but it was alive in a way that didn't lend itself to an actual consciousness, something that you could communicate with. He wondered how this would work in a combat situation, but figured he'd learn that soon enough.

Ranma began to laugh quietly and with a thought flicked the robot over into soldier mode. The change went even quicker than normal, slicing off at least half again from the amount of time it normally took, which had originally been faster than a normal transformation anyway. When it was over he stood in soldier mode and then began to go into a very complicated kata where he stood that he would never have been able to do before, it was simply too fluid. This time however it went off without a hitch and his laugh became even louder.

With another thought he changed the Valkyrie into flight mode and began to coast out of the hangar bay into the wide blue beyond, igrnoign the gaping faces of the maintenance teams. "Command 1, this is Wild one, requesting permission to exit the ship for a training flight."

OOOOOOOOOO

"You are an utter bastard," Motoko said yet again, it had seemed the only thing she could say for a bit after Ranma showed her all the changes his Valkyrie had gone through. Now the two of them moved from the hangar bay to Wildfire squadron's office she seemed finally able to say something else. "Come on, tell me how you did that, pretty please?"

"I wish I knew," Ranma replied shaking his head. "My Valkyrie now reacts faster than I ever expected it to. I just think it was the fact that it's been damaged so often, repaired so often and that I'm the one that's been doing the repairs at times, forcing my ki into it for so long both the total and the parts. I think the last few times just sort of pushed it over the edge."

Motoko of pouted a little. "That's all you can tell me?"

"Yep, sorry." At that point they had arrived at his damned office and he pushed in the door to the briefing room and found Max Ben and Rachel waiting for them. Luckily all of them knew how Ranma felt about salutes and stuff like that so simply came to attention briefly and then going back to at ease.

"You wanted to see us skipper? asked Ben.

Ranma nodded and moved around his desk, a hated object that he longed to destroy but alas was a necessity as a squadron commander, and reached into one of the desk drawers. He looked over at Ben then threw the small box at him. The large artillery specialist caught it after fumbling for a moment. Another box flew toward Rachel, who caught it easily and opened it gasping in surprise. "S-sir," she said stammering, "I think there's some kind of mistake here, I haven't been in grade nearly long enough…"

Ranma cut her off with a wave of his hand then said dryly, "Time in grade really doesn't matter aboard this ship Lieutenant. If it did I'd still be only a j.g. lieutenant at best. Put 'em on." Ben and Rachel looked at one another shrugged and put the new rank tabs for a lieutenant third class on their shoulders while Motoko and Max looked on interestedly.

"As you can probably guess, this leaves us a little top heavy and that means some of ya being transferred." Ranma said leaning back and looking at them all thoughtfully. He reached into another drawer and pulled out another box opening it to show them that inside was a commanders tabs and laying it down on the desk facing them.

"This is kind of a tough choice here." He said, then looked over at Motoko. "Motoko, while you've got time in grade over Max but I just finished saying it really don't matter. You're both equally excellent pilots, but that also doesn't matter in a commander, not really. What matters is personality, the ability to get along with others and get the most out of your troops. Tell me honestly, do ya think you can do that Motoko?"

Motoko looked down at the commander the desk then slowly shook her head. "Not right now," she said. Maybe in a few years but I'm quite happy as a lieutenant." She smirked suddenly, "After all, I don't want to deal with the paperwork."

Ranma breathed a sigh of relief. He had hoped that would be the case, but a part of him had also thought that she might want to fight about it. The fact of the matter was that Motoko was not ready for a commander slot. She didn't have the ability to get along with people that she disliked, (something which Ranma had learned despite himself from Scott Prescott) she had a rather part abrasive personality towards people she didn't know well, and hadn't quite built up that necessary shield that all women in the military must have against male condescension. Ranma hadn't actually spotted that, but Lisa had, and when he talked to her about who to promote she had given him some insight.

It wasn't a problem that Ranma ever had to deal with, he simply ignored it, something that was easy to do after all when you knew even in your female body you were the toughest mother-fucker on the ship. Motoko was getting over it, but wasn't quite there yet.

He grinned at her. "Good I'd ah hated ta lose ya." She smiled at his diplomatic answer and Ranma turned to Max. "I'll be sad to see ya go Max, but Vermillion needs a new commander and I was tasked to promote someone. I think ya'll do a great job. I'm also transferring Rachel with ya."

Max smiled a little and nodded. "Do I have any other personnel assigned yet sir?"

Ranma shook his head. "You'll be able to all your roster spots from the rookies, though unfortunately ya won't be able ta pick and choose all that much. That'll also include a lieutenant j.g., but he'll be a rookie so whether or not you keep him in that slot is up to you if ya think that Rachel can fill the slot I'll back her for another promotion immediately."

The derogatory name rookie was given to any pilot that had been transferred onto the ship from the rest of the UNSF. To the veterans aboard ship that was just what they were. You weren't a vet until you survived your first dogfight in space against the Zentraedi. "I don't suppose I have to tell you what to emphasize in your training regimen right?"

"Endurance, speed, 3-D thinking?" said Max by wrote, "Endurance most of all."

That had been the mantra since Ranma took over from Roy as CAG, and the new pilots had benefited greatly from it. Instead of flying they did endurance runs and spent time in the simulator going through moves to acclimate their bodies to the g-forces. There were a lot of grumbling about this but they had disappeared since Ranma's duel with the Gargoyle ace.

They still did not understand, they wouldn't until they were thrown into a real battle against the Zentraedi and realized the battle didn't end until every single Zentraedi was killed. The shortest battles in space had been those during the trip to Saturn and those had been part of a long-term campaign to wear down and exhaust the defenders over time. Other than that the shortest fight had been the one on Mars, and that it gone for two hours before they had finally been able to break off. The fight near the moon had lasted a full ten, and it was only because endurance had long since become a watchword among the Valkyrie pilots that more of them hadn't died and even with that their losses were horrific.

"You got it," Ranma said. "Now get out of here and go do some work." He stood up and held out his hand to Max who shook it gravely then nodded to Rachel and the two of them left.

As soon as Rachel was out of the door some of the tension in the room dissipated and Motoko breathed a sigh of relief while Ranma looked over to Motoko and Ben. "The three of us will stay alone for a bit. Wildfire, Skull and eventually Vermillion are going to be made into assault squadrons, so we'll be sifting through the new rookies for anyone good, but don't get your hopes up. Good means that they can survive against one of us for upwards of an hour." Ben winced a little at that as even against him that was going to be a tall order.

Motoko shrugged. "With the way the acceleration training for the Amazons and Konatsu, we may see them finished at the Academy in a few weeks. If we can hold up filling in any slots until then we're golden."

Ranma nodded. He had looked over the notes given to him from the Academy about the Amazons, and knew that as soon as they were able to get up to speed on the Valkyries the Amazons would swiftly become the type of fighter pilots that any good commander wanted. Endurance wouldn't be a problem for them it would simply be a case of getting used to the weapon systems and being in space. But after that, their survivability would skyrocket. It would make them perfect for the tip of the spear, like Wildfire. Point defense and point assault were among the most brutal and devastating sort of combats, and it was the kind that martial artists like them and like Ranma and Motoko were best suited for.

"I've told the new commandant to expedite it as much as possible, so yeah a few weeks among the ones that can get through it anyway."

Motoko nodded, "So what do we do until then?"

"Training, training, training," said Ranma in a singsong voice. "I want these rookies to know point blank how bad it can get before we threw them out there. We've had to rebuild our Valkyrie wing too often already, I don't want it to happen again. Not on my watch, understand?"

Motoko and Ben both nodded grimly and Ranma hit a key on his small data-pad and popped up a training schedule he had created. "Here's the roster for training flights, training runs and gravity simulations, each squadron will have three-hour training times on each every day, with overlaps of four..."

OOOOOOOOOOOO

Azonia leaned back from her admiral's platform with a sigh. Sonya had done an excellent job as her deputy while she was busy planning that lie to sell to Dolza, but there were just some things that Azonia had to handle herself. One of which was the authorization for the micronization process, something that only her flagship had access to.

The problem with the human foods was that they could not steal it in Meltraedi sized portions save for chocolate by raiding the factories. The other delicacies were far too small for them; just enough to taste but that was all. Well, except for another thing they could take from factories called Ice Cream which was spreading as fast as chocolate through the fleet. Thus she had been inundated by literally millions of requests for miniaturization, though of course most of them didn't come right out and say it was because they wanted to try the food. Unfortunately she was the only person in the fleet who could authorize that energy expense, and thus she had to be the ones to handle all the requests one by one.

Despite this irritation however, she was pleased (or as pleased as someone could be with a sword hanging over their head) at what had been happening lately. Thanks to Sonya the fleet had moved further away from the planet, spreading out in small, hundred ship strong packs at various intervals. They all randomly changed position, thus negating any attempt from the space fortress to use its siege cannon. The two packs nearest the earth were rotated out at intervals, and they themselves were so spread out that any shot from the siege cannon would have to traverse to get more than one. This allowed her troops the ability to continue to send raids down to Earth yet keep the main fleet far enough away to react to anything but also be safe from sudden assaults themselves.

This also allowed more and more of her people (and that was the way she thought of them) to come in contact with the human culture and Azonia had heard through several different sources that questions were being asked at all levels. Questions about why they didn't have certain items, why they didn't seem to have any equivalent of music or art or writing, or why they hadn't seen any innovations in weapons or tactics for as long as any could remember. Her decision to keep the connection to the humans Internet alive had proven to be a godsend, even if several thousand of her people were being disturbed daily by images of pornography.

Azonia herself wasn't quite prepared to come to grips with that aspect of human society just yet, although she had found a video during her own downtime last night (local night) that showed two girls doing something together which made her feel very strange. For some reason the idea of watching it with Sonya had occurred to her, and Azonia wondered why that was, and why the idea was so… appealing.

Her thoughts were interrupted as someone coughed in front of her. She looked up startled, not having realized she had been that out of it. She was even more surprised to see Miriya standing there. Azonia had heard Miriya was assigned to one of the ships closest to the planet. Her flagship was not close to the planet, indeed it was the furthest out. She well understood the need to keep a clear chain of command active at all times, especially in the current crisis. She couldn't trust any of the younger females to understand what was going on and how best to move forward. Well, Azonia had an idea at least, which was better than anyone else had.

"Lady Admiral," Miriya said formally, "I've come to you with a request."

Azonia nodded, then listened, startled. After Miriya finished speaking she shook her head. "Miriya, you're my best pilot I can't afford to lose you like this. I realize that putting another spy aboard ship may help us further but…"

Miriya shook her head. "Do not play games with me lady," she said softly, looking around at the other females on the bridge, none of whom were close enough to hear. "You and I both know we have no plans to attack the space fortress again."

Azonia's eyes narrowed, but she probably shouldn't have been surprised. Miriya wasn't just one of her best pilots, she was also one of her best wing commanders, able to see patterns and strategies that others would miss, when she bothered anyway. "You're right," she said slowly "we don't. There have been too many questions too many mysteries that have come out lately when I compare us to these humans."

Miriya nodded calmly. "In which case" she said not directly mentioning the fact that they both knew that they might soon be going go up against Dolza which was a losing proposition, "having a voice already there to talk to the humans might be a good idea."

Azonia frowned thoughtfully nibbling on one finger. It was a gesture much like Sonya's touching her facial tattoo, and was a sign of great concern or deep thinking. "That is true," she said thoughtfully. "Though I don't think our people would be willing to accept that just yet."

Not just yet but soon Azonia thought, The questions are piling up, the desires are piling up. The contamination was spreading, and she was gleefully helping it along. Azonia didn't know why this was done to her people or who did it, but she would make them pay for manipulating her people.

She knew she probably wouldn't survive, despite their qualitative superiority there was no way her fleet of barely 75,000 could match Dolza's force of over 800,000. No tactics, no strategy, no plan could ever get over that large a numerical disparity. That didn't mean she was going to go down without a fight and if that meant allying herself with humans she would do it gladly.

"Very well," she said looking back up at the younger Meltraedi. "I'll authorize it. There's another operation going down hitting near the space fortress, you'll be taken down and put on one of those islands nearby, how you'll get onto the ship after that is up to you."

Miriya nodded gratefully. "Thank you lady, I actually already have a plan in mind for that." Azonia nodded deciding she didn't want to know the details and simply waved the younger girl off.

As the green haired female walked away Azonia reached down and very delicately picked out a small piece of chocolate and popped it into her mouth. She waited for the sugar rush, shuddering in place for a moment then turned back to her work re-energized. A few hours later orders went out, and several thousand ships scattered throughout the fleet began to mobilize, many reluctant to leave behind the third planet, but obeying Azonia without question. While no one on Earth would realize it, Azonia and the Meltraedi prepared for war.

OOOOOOOOOO

Ranma looked out over the faces of the three new captains and their squad members This is the first time entire squadrons of Valkyrie pilot had transferred, and he was happy to see it in a way since it meant that they had a clear line of command and wouldn't need any time to get to know and train other pilots. Yet on the other hand it also meant that they had no slots for any of Macross's admittedly dwindling supply of veteran pilots to be added and give them a leavening of experience.

Ranma hoped he had hit the lecture he just finished right, and by the thoughtful looks on all their faces he had. Still only time would tell. There was literally no way of really understanding how frenetic chaotic and deadly a dogfight in space against the Zentraedi was until you lived through it and that was against the regular battle pods, pods that they hadn't seen since Kyron died. Against the Gargoyles it was a whole other story. A good Valkyrie pilot was worth about 20 normal Regulds, that same pilot was equal to about one Gargoyle if the gargoyle pilot wasn't very good. If the gargoyle pilot was good and most of them were most Valkyrie pilots would be hard-pressed to survive more than five minutes and if it was an ace they wouldn't. The one enemy ace that he had been fighting on and off could probably wipe out 60 or 70 Valkyries and come back for more.

"Any questions?" he asked and then fielded a few about specialized weapon types in the loadout, including the veteran modification option which was not going to be open for anyone until they survived one clash with the gargoyles or three with a regular battle pods. The ability to modify their Valkyries was seen as a sign of veteran status, but until you actually fought the aliens you were not a veteran to the original Macross pilots.

There was some grumbling about that but soon enough the meeting broke up, the captains and their men heading off to their quarters or into the city for some down time. The lecture had after all been going on all morning.

He raised a hand however as one in particular passed by "Commander Prescott hold up a second."

The middle Prescott brother looked up and nodded moving over to stand in front of the podium as the others left. His pilots looked at him and he just simply waved them on.

Ranma waited until the room cleared and then looked over at Prescott. "You were CAG for that base in India right?"

Mark Prescott nodded. "I was, but what with all the turmoil I felt that my position was needed here. I didn't want to be put in the position of choosing what orders or factions to follow and my men followed me." he said by rote, not mentioning the fact he had taken a downgrade in rank to be here.

"And you wanted some vengeance for Eric," Ranma said looking at him. "I served with your brother you now. He was my first commander, hell he was my only commander, I was his lieutenant before being given command of the squadron, we were using the call sign blue then. He taught me a lot. If you want to meet up sometime and just share stories I can tell you some really interesting ones." He grinned a little, though sadness was apparent on his face too. "Including a bit of a prank war if ye'r interested?"

Mark Prescott smiled a little thinly. He had lost people in battle before, he'd lead attacks on a few anti-Un bases, a few Islamic terrorist fortresses in his day, and even when faced with massively superior firepower and tech they sometimes had some surprise in store for attackers. Despite this, despite knowing people died in war, the loss of Eric was a wound that just would not heal. Though hearing the respect in Ranma's voice made him feel proud of his younger brother at least. "Sure, I'd like that I guess."

Ranma nodded and went on. "Since you have experience with this kind of thing, I want ya to meet up with Roy as soon as possible. The moment someone else can be in charge of this whole CAG crap and I can get back to just being in charge of Wildfire the better."

"You mean you don't want to be CAG?" Mark asked, a little surprised. It was the final stop a pilot had to make before trying for flag rank after all.

"Fuck it," said Ranma. "It takes way too much time away from my training and being with my own squadron. Way too much paperwork, way too much organizational crap, not nearly enough combat. I may have gotten used to the need for paperwork but that doesn't mean I have to like it."

Mark laughed a little. "That's true at any level mate. All right I'll meet with Roy as soon as I can. I'll call you if I can get free for a bit to talk."

Ranma nodded and then the two walked off in different directions.

OOOOOOOOOOOO

Vice Admiral Gloval leaned back in his admiral's chair, a new addition to the bridge, though a temporary one as the flag bridge was being refitted, the entirety of it having been scrounged for parts months ago. He sighed happily as the leather moved under him. With a light tap on a small control station under his hand a small screen popped up and out of the armrest to assume precisely the correct angle for him to look at without him having to hold it.

Some of the lights still didn't work, the painting everywhere was still crap, and the lower sections of the engineering rooms, storage rooms and living quarters were still abysmal, but maintenance was finally, finally catching up on the curve of electrical and mechanical failures.

One more influx of potential civilians and crew then another few days to get them settled or find out that they are a liability, then we'll be leaving Earth for the second time. While he wasn't exactly happy about the necessity of doing so, the mission was an important one, and he could not begrudge it. More he was interested to see how the ship with all of its new refitted weapons andwith a full crew, half again the size of the crew estimated before the Zentraedi invasion, would do in combat. He knew what he would get from the destroids and the Valkyries, but the ship itself with a full crew, far more barrier shields and everything? No he wasn't certain about that all. But he was very anxious to show it off, even against the aliens who probably wouldn't understand what they were seeing.

That thought brought a little frown to his face and he reached automatically for a pipe that hadn't been there for months, ever since Nodoka had found his holdout tobacco pack. The news that the Zentraedi were a created race had spread, and the shock reverberated at every level of the United Nations Space Forces.

It gave the peaceniks more fodder, after all you didn't want to fight the slaves you wanted to fight the masters, yet at the same time it had hardened thoughts against them. The idea that they were created for war meant that peace was very unlikely. To get to the masters you often had to go through the Mamluks after all.

Regardless, Gloval felt that all out war was inevitable and he was eager to show the aliens that it would not be easy.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Two days after the last influx of personnel Ranma walked through the streets of the city, not roof-hopping this time because he wanted to take in the new sights and sounds of the city. For a few weeks there after Kyron invaded the ship the city had been a bit of a ghost town, but it slowly livened up as more and more civilians, not to mention the Amazons came in. Now it was almost at full capacity, all the shops and restaurants were open again, most of them under new management, there were new shops, new places to go, a new theater and other entertainment places.

Today was the grand opening of the arcade whose interior Kasumi had designed, and he was anxious to see how it would look. Both she and Ukyo and Shampoo would be there, Shampoo having gotten some time off from the Academy. He grinned at that thought, looking forward to the day when he would be able to have a few of the Amazons in Wildfire. Mokoto was looking forward to it as well of course, for very different reasons.

Ranma knew the Amazons would be among those that could survive combat in space against the Zentraedi, and he figured if he could just fill up his squadron with them then he wouldn't have to write more letters to grieving family members. That kind of thing gets old really quickly. he thought grimly.

He was unsurprised to see a line forming outside the arcades, what did surprise him was seeing Max near the end of it. Ranma walked up and slapped the other commander on the shoulder. "Hey Vermillion one," he said jokingly, "you sure you got time to waste here?"

Max turned around and grinned at him. Being in charge of Vermillion had meant redesigning his Valkyries decoration a bit, but otherwise had been great. Without Ranma around to measure himself against Max's equilibrium had righted itself. He was also eager to show what his squad could do.

"I could say the same for you, boss." he said jokingly. "What with you being the high and mighty CAG and all."

"Are you kidding me," Ranma said, "if I miss this Kasumi would have my hide."

Max frowned a little remembering his complete failure at trying to flirt with Kasumi while he thought that Ranma had been killed. The fact that Ranma was in a three-way relationship with Kasumi and now-captain Hayes had spread around the ship in incredibly quick order, and had given Max yet another reason to be jealous of him. Worse, the only time he saw the female Ranma she was hanging around Kasumi or Lisa, which neatly blocked him from flirting with her, and he had been forced to move on. "I can see that, and of course you wouldn't want to do anything to anger her or else someone else might just come in and sweep her off her feet."

Ranma laughed a little low, but still amused. "Not going to happen." It wasn't said arrogantly, it was just a simple statement of fact like the sky is blue. He knew Kasumi, and there was no chance of her suddenly switching her affection to someone else. Not after all the time they had been together, not with a heart as big and as certain as hers.

Max looked at his far away smiling face and frowned further then shook it off.

Ranma too came back quickly and smirked at his fellow pilot. "Shampoo should be here too you know."

the other young man blanched a little at that. While he had flirted with the Amazon princess the idea of a permanent relationship with her, and when the Amazons said permanent that was precisely what they meant, did not appeal to him at all. He'd stopped flirting with her when he learned that two other pilots had done the same thing to other Amazons but gotten further than he had and then woke up to find themselves married..

One of them was actually quite happy about the arrangement, and Rinse, the Amazon in question, was ecstatic. In fact both of them were now a highly talked about couple, and almost giddy around each other. It was almost enough to make someone believe in love at first sight, but the other relationship wasn't exactly going as well.

There had been some friction between the disparate groups of civilians, especially between the groups from Western countries and the Amazons, but not a lot. That would not have been the case if any of them came from traditionally male dominated nations/societies like the Middle East or South America, but that wasn't the case. And as more and more people trained as policemen came forward to replace the Amazons (thus freeing them up to go to the academy in the next session) the resentment toward them would fade.

The two commanders made small talk for a bit, waiting to enter the arcade. Once in however they stopped talking and looked around in amazement. The place was packed! Everywhere they could see there were consoles of various types of games platforms and combat simulators. All of them had at least 10 people around them, either waiting for a turn or cheering the players on. The group games, the ones that had five or more players at a time, had 15 people clustered around the little indented cubicles in the floor, and the lounges that were part of the computer cubicles had several people sitting in them sipping drinks while eating 'Asian fusion' cuisine as they watched the players and waited for their own turns. There was even a line in front of Ukyo's food stand, and Ranma grinned as he saw Kasumi moving in and out of the crowd with a tall well-dressed Chinese man following her greeting the crowd.

"Wow," said Max looking around.

Ranma nodded while waving at Kasumi who waved back, almost giddy at how much everyone was complimenting her work. She ran up and kissed Ranma on the cheek, almost babbling in her excitement. "Oh this is so wonderful! I've gotten so many compliments about my design, I've even had three people offer me jobs to design the interior of their houses and stores!"

"This on top of the work that Cologne was asking for?" asked Ranma putting his hands on her waist and holding her in place. She seemed ready to almost jump up and down in excitement. It always amused him how much Kasumi loved being praised for her interior design work, it tied into the center of what she was, a gentle kind soul who loved to help others. Creating a place where people loved to live or play was something she greatly enjoyed, and being praised for this was just icing on the cake for her and therefore the best part.

"Yes," she exclaimed happily and kissed him on the cheek again. "Can you believe it, oh I'm going to be so busy!" She broke into happy giggles and Ranma grinned, lifting her off the air and twirling her around for a bit.

Behind them the Chinese man frowned and sighed, mentally snapping his fingers. He had hoped the rumors about the hot Japanese woman being in a relationship had been wrong, but it didn't seem as if it was. Pity, but there were other fish in the sea. Besides which while Kasumi was his type, she was a little young for him.

He waved at her indicating that he was going to move on, and she nodded and stayed with Ranma for a few minutes before seeing Shampoo and Perfume heading their way. The pregnant Perfume was due in another month or so, and this would probably be the last time she would be out in as large a crowd as this. Ranma turned away and followed Max who was making straight for the Valkyrie simulators on the second floor.

As they walked up the glass and metal stairs Max stopped and gaped for a moment. Playing one of the simulators was one of the most incredibly beautiful women he had ever seen. She was of medium height, about the same height as Max (a little taller than Ranma in other words) had green hair cascading loosely down her back to mid back a decent and very perky bust and was wearing off duty casuals. "Who," he breathed, "is that?"

Ranma looked at the girl and shrugged. While she was gorgeous he wasn't one to really care much about physical appearances alone. No, what interested him was that she was putting off nearly as much ki as Cologne, and that was only what he could see, that meant if she had any kind of control there was more underneath. "An Amazon I guess," he said. "I would watch yourself with her if I were you."

Max of course wasn't listening. He was already moving in, taking the place of her opponent as he went down in a ball of flames. "You seem to be good at this game," he said suavely. "Would you mind having a match with me then?"

The green haired girl looked up at him appraising then looked down at his rank tabs then over at his unit badge before shrugging. "If you wish," she said waving a hand. "This is an interesting game, a simulation of combat. Not at all like the real thing of course."

"Well of course," Max said calmly, familiarizing himself with the controls. "how else could civilians handle it? You have a color preference?"

The woman shook her head, and Max chose blue, while she chose red. What followed was, well it was brutal to be honest. Max fought as he usually did, calmly, confidently, keeping his distance and using all his weapons effectively. While he was a decent marital artist he wasn't nearly good enough to enjoy hand to hand combat in a Valkyrie.

The woman however fought with a flare and verve and a nerve that Ranma found strangely familiar. She had far better reflexes then Max, something that surprised Ranma as Max had some of the best reflexes on board outside of the dedicated martial artists. This was further proof that the girl was an Amazon if he needed any other than the massive amount of ki she had.

The red Valkyrie on the screen made as if to punch the other and then the game paused and nothing happened. The green haired girl scowled angrily then flipped her Valkyrie up as if to do a circle kick but her opponent zoomed away and she scowled angrily shooting missiles at him. Max killed most of them, but one of them clipped his ring when and before he could recover the other Valkyrie was in his face firing with its head lasers and rifle. He dodged wildly but was now on the defensive.

A few minutes later the match ended in the girl's favor Ranma spoke up. "Nice moves, it's a pity that the game wasn't programmed with martial arts in mind or you would've had him 5 minutes ago."

The girl turned and stared at him, her eyes first widening as she looked at him then the narrowed as if locking on a target. Internally Ranma ground wondering what Shampoo had told her fellow Amazons about him.

Max frowned heavily, unused to losing but realized the game wasn't really what he was after here anyway. He stood up and bowed to the girl. "That was an excellent match, do you want to have another? I'd rather like a chance to regain some of my dignity after all and may I know the name of my beautiful adversary?"

"Miriya," said the green haired girl shortly, not taking her eyes off Ranma. "And no," she said standing up, "I am not in the mood any longer for these 'games'."

Max nodded hopefully. "Well if you're new on board would you like me to show you around? I'm sure we could find something else fun to do."

"No, I'm not interested in anything like that. Unless there is some other kind of combat trainer like this?" she said nodding her head towards the simulator, still not taking her eyes off Ranma.

Ranma scratched his pigtail thoughtfully staring back at the girl. There's something about this gal that's bothering me. She's the same age as Shampoo, but by the level of ki she's putting off she's worlds better than her. Shampoo was supposed to be the champion of her age group among the Amazons, so that didn't actually match up. And all the Amazons came aboard as one lump group a while ago, so there shouldn't be any new ones coming aboard, and I sure as hell would recognize her. More unlike the maidens of Shampoo's age, this girl was giving off the vibe of a combat veteran. And those move she pulled in that simulator...

He decided to test the waters a bit. "Well if you're interested in some sparring one-on-one I've got a place we can go?"

"Indeed," the green haired girl said cocking her head thoughtfully, her eyes locked on him like a turret, as they had been since first sight. "That sounds fascinating, I wouldn't miss it for the universe."

"But surely," Max said," you, um, you don't have to do that right now? It's nearly lunchtime let's go out and eat something."

Miriya shook her head. "I am uninterested in that. Let us go now" she said to Ranma.

Ranma shrugged. "Lead the way," he said bowing her out. After a moment's hesitation at the gesture Miriya nodded and walked down the stairs.

Max frowned and Ranma. "First your sister, now this girl. Why the hell do you have to try and cock block me?"

"I think you need to figure out when someone's not interested in you Max, you're not God's gift to women. Such a thing does not exist, trust me on this. Besides, that girl, she's giving off some dangerous vibes."

Max frowned angrily then moved back and began to trawl the rest of the crowd for girls.

Ranma followed Miriya out of the arcade and then began to lead the way out of the city. He decided to test her again, and said "follow me," before jumping up and taking to the roofs.

After a brief gasp of surprise or something Miriya frowned then followed him a little unsure early at first, but quickly enough. This further cemented in his head the idea that she really wasn't an Amazon, which begged the question where the hell she had come from to have a level of ki like that.

After a while they came to the edge of the city and then passed it, entering the ship proper and moving down corridors. Soon enough they came to an area where even now the maintenance crews and the rest of the crew didn't often come. It was actually very close to where Rick and Minmei had found the waterfall. That had been repaired a while ago, but this section of the space fortress was still not used very often. The fact of the matter was even with the massive influx of troops and maintenance people, the ship was still just too big. Roving maintenance bands were all that ever came down here, and that not very often.

"Where exactly are you taking us?" asked Miriya, of course she wasn't exactly unhappy with this. The further away from anyone else they went the more likely they could have a one-on-one match without anyone interfere.

Ranma led her into a large room. Of course most rooms on board this ship were large, but what was inside caused Miriya to pause to stare around her. Everywhere she looked there were bars of various length and width sticking out at odd angles as well as strange small things that looked like guns but instead of grips they had strange cylinders. Along the floor of the room as spread a large exercise mat.

"This is a training area I created fer me a while back," he said. "Kind of advanced for most people on board ship, I've only just got a a few of 'em up to snuff on it, but it builds 3-D awareness as well as danger senses."

"I see," Miriya said thoughtfully looking around, "The guns shoot what exactly?"

"paintballs, but very quickly and it will cause some pain if it hits ya."

"I see," Miriya said again. So this was one of the clues as to how he had gotten so good. This kind of training was something well beyond anything she had ever thought of and she knew that none of the other Zentraedi or Meltraedi had ever thought of it either. Still it would be an excellent way of teaching both acrobatics and 3-D spatial relationships along with combat skills. "And will the guns be on for our little match?"

"It would make it more realistic," Ranma said thoughtfully, "but I don't think we need it."

He unbuttoned his uniform top, and dropped it to the ground leaving him standing in a muscle T-shirt that he wore underneath, then leaped up grabbed onto one bar and swung himself further up onto another. He stood there balanced easily on his toes on bar about as thin as his thumb staring down at her. "Well," he said a little challengingly, his blue eyes snapping. "Are you up to it?"

Miriya scowled at him then shrugged off her own upper shirt, leaving her standing in an exercise top. Ranma blushed a little, realizing the green-haired girl was as good looking in that area as Lisa was, but he swiftly shook it off.

She leaped up and while she wasn't nearly as graceful about it as Ranma she took her position easily enough. The two of them stood on their respective bars staring at one another, and Ranma suddenly had a feeling of déjà-vu, but he shook it off, but knew now that this was going to be a lot tougher than he had thought.

At some unspoken signal they charged, Miriya leaping forward to grasp a bar above Ranma's position and swing her leg around to kick him. Ranma charged forward too, diving down to grab another bar then bringing his own legs up to meet her kick and smacking it aside making her nearly lose her grip. She retained it however and used momentum he imparted on her to flip herself around, grab another and come back with a punch that nearly hit his shoulder.

Ranma dodged that easily, staying in position then jumping up into the air hovering there for a moment and kicking out hard. Miriya blocked it with her hands but the impact threw her off her perch and she scrambled for a moment in midair, grabbing another bar and then flipping herself over into a kick that caught Ranma as he came down towards her. Ranma blocked the kick and returned it with punch and the two grappled in midair then broke apart to grab onto different bars before coming together again.

The spar continued for a while, neither able to really gain the upper hand. At first Ranma had the advantage, being as at home in midair like this as he was on the ground. However Miriya was a very fast learner, in fact her learning curve was even better than Ranma's, and she swiftly overcame her disadvantages, learning to draw him into little traps that allowed her to ripost effectively landing hits on him continuously.

After a little while the spar ended and the battle began. Neither of which them were willing to give in. One because she knew this was the adversary she had come to fight, and she would never get another chance like this. The other because of a simple stubborn refusal to lose.

By this point Ranma had recognized his opponent's combat style, but rather than being surprised or shocked he simply took it in stride. After all, while he hadn't seen any Zentraedi females since that one time on Dolza's fortress, he knew they were around. The idea of the ace being one hadn't occurred to him honestly, he was that much his father's son, but it was still within the realm of possibility.

The idea that the alien ace would want to settle things one-on-one like this didn't bother him at all either. His rivals had done stupider things after all, and if their positions were reversed he might be looking for payback the same way. Of course in my case, he thought as he winced, a blow getting through to land on his jaw making his teeth clench and blood start leaking from his mouth, I'd be looking for a way to enlarge myself to her size rather than the other way around.

He pressed forward despite the punch to the face, catching Miriya midair and throwing her back with a series of all Amiguriken speed punches, though she managed to block half of them.

She landed back first on a bar behind her, but used one hand behind her back to flip herself to a second one right below it and charging again catching him by surprise. However it wasn't quite enough and he caught her punches in his hands. But Ranma wasn't expecting the head butt which cracked into his nose, breaking it and sending him backwards enough for a kick to land. Fuck is she strong, as strong as me almost as fast, ruthless and a fast learner, he thought as he shook the cobwebs away, moving back to give himself space jumping from one bar to the other as Miriya pursued him. She's good.

In the end however it wasn't skill that won out but endurance. Even as used to moving her body around in her power suit as Miriya was, she wasn't prepared for this level of physical endurance and despite her insane learning curve this worked against her in the long run. About four hours after they began, a final barrage of punches from Ranma threw her back enough for him to land an overhead kick that threw her down it onto the ground below.

Despite this she still retaliated, three hard blows to his lower body, one catching him on the knee and nearly breaking it, another catching him high up on the thigh and one catching him in the chest with enough force to sent him reeling back. He was so exhausted he was unable to correct himself and he followed her down to the ground thumping heavily onto his side right next to her.

The two lay there not moving for a moment, simply gasping in pain and exhaustion then Ranma stood up weakly and moved over to a small refrigerator he had rigged up in corner. He reached in and pulled out two water bottles, one of which he tossed to Miriya. Even in her exhausted state she was able to muster enough energy to reach out and catch it before it hit her and she leaned back, gasping with relief as she poured some over her face and then down her throat.

Ranma set heavily on the grounds nursing his own wounds then poured some of the water over his head, triggering his transformation. Other than a raised eyebrow this didn't elicit much comment from Miriya and Ranma and looked at her, still having trouble breathing. "That, that was the best exercise I've had since," he paused for a moment then weakly shook his head, "hell since ever really."

Miriya frowned heavily but nodded all the same. She had lost again, and this time could not blame the fact that Ranma's machine was better than hers on her loss, but had been able to learn far more in this one match than watching hours of film. That thought brought a smile to her face. "I still couldn't beat you," she said.

Ranma nodded. "Yeah, but unlike you alien girl," she said, and Miriya lifted her head to stare at her, "I've had my whole life to get this good at martial arts. It was only after that that I learned to be a pilot."

"That does not make me feel better," she replied leaning back again. If Ranma was going to turn her in for this she was too exhausted right now to care. "Is this where you turn me over to your superiors?"

"Do ya want ta be?" Ranma asked, smirking a little.

"No, not really. I have a message to deliver, but not yet, I will be called when it is time." She said this obliquely, knowing that Azonia's plans for their fleet wasn't quite ready yet.

Ranma shrugged. "Honestly I don't care. I ain't going ta turn you in. I understand you all too well ta do that ta ya." The two stared at one another, communing with one another again as they had so often before and after their battles until Ranma shook her head, red hair flying around her face. "But who all did you fight before ya ran into us?"

Miriya spat to the side, face screwed up in contempt. "The Invid," she said coldly. "They're the only race that really has ever been able to match us, the bugs. Or so we used to think."

"and what do you think now?" Ranma asked wondering where that was going.

"I don't know," she said thoughtfully. 'There are questions going around the fleet, questions about why we're not more like you. Questions about who our real enemy is."

"Like how you don't have a society," Ranma said having heard that part. "Or are led by a big bastard who has no ki whatsoever."

Miriya looked up at him startled. "You met Dolza?"

"Yeah I did and he's got this aura of fear thing going on that seemed to intimidate the others there, but he doesn't have any ki, you know, like what you and I can use to move faster than a normal person could."

This segued into a discussion about ki that lasted for several hours, covering all that Miriya had been able to figure out and all that Ranma knew about it, interrupted only when Miriya's stomach began to rumble and she frowned down at it irritated.

Ranma laughed a little and stood up groaning in pain at her sudden movement. "Come on," she said laughing. "I know just the place for us to get some food."

Miriya looked at the outstretched hand before her for a long moment, then smiled and reached up to clasp the shorter girl's hand.

OOOOOOOOO

Dr. Lang crawled along the very small duct in the ceiling of the engine room, wondering how the hell this portion of the ship had been built. After all, if the aliens were the size of the Zentraedi then why the hell would they have maintenance crawlspaces that were small for humans, well most humans anyway. "I cannot thank you enough for helping me Elder Cologne," he said looking over his shoulder, something he was barely able to given the bulky RAD suit he was wearing.

The Amazon elder cackled a little moving along on her own two feet rather easily in this small cramped space. Her suit had to have been made custom for her given her size, and she looked a little like a very short ghost moving around. "Not at all, the time I've spent on board this ship has been the most mentally stimulating I can remember in a long, long time."

"Still I have to thank you. The amount of progress we've made has been astonishing, and as for this little operation…" They at last reached the side of the tremendously large pipe that was leading into the engine. For some reason the fuel in the main generator flowed into this pipe and then came out in a far more refined, energetic matter, but the actual pipe and where it lead was not on any plans of the ship he had been able to find.

"My own curiosity drives me as much as it does you Dr." Cologne said thoughtfully, looking around. Being aboard ship had made her question the nature of ki almost from the beginning, but being here in the bowels of the engine, it was like being close to a sleeping god, the energy pulsing, thrumming around them was the energy of life, yet it was coming from metal structure. It through everything she knew about key out of whack, major question it deeply.

After about ten minutes work with the plasma cutter Emil got the hatch open and the two of them stared into the pipe thus revealed.

"What," Dr. Lang said in a strangled tone of voice, "what is that?"

Cologne peered around him staring thoughtfully at the odd thing in front of them. "It looks almost like a vine of some kind, coming out of a seed and going every which way. But the energy it's giving off, I've never seen the like. I don't know Dr." she said thoughtfully, looking at it and feeling the energy it was giving off, "I don't know."

End chapter

Things are moving forward, and this hopefully will be the last chapter before things really start happening. We are entering the end game for this arc people. As always read and review.