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

30. Fortune Favors the Bold

I don't own Ranma or Robotech. I would however love to own a Valkyrie. I'd probably crash it, but still, that has to be every boy's dreams, owning a transforming jet. You can keep the whole changing into a girl when wet thing though. ha

Everyone should check out the poll on my profile and vote for the next story I start, though I'll warn you it might not have as regular updates as this story. I have to say i have been pleased with the number of people who have tried to convince me, but that being said I have had many more convince me to write a Ranma/Mass Effect story than the others, so if that isn't your choice, remember your best chance to have your choice win is to try and convince me. Why should i write it, what is cool about it, why you think it would be interesting. I have only had two people try to convince me about Making Waves, so it might be ahead in the poll right now but it is actually losing overall.

Some reviews I'd like to note:

Rogue15: but where would they go? There is a limit to what the barriers would cover, and the choice to cover one place or another would be incredibly hard fought.

N0mster: You put your finger on the crux of the matter, they have to both attack and defend, and both operations have a chance of failure. But I for one would like to go out swinging if I have to. The Flower of Life and the analysis of it will happen in the future, just too many things happening all at once right now. But by that time, they will have figured out a major source of knowledge… Thanks as always for the great review.

Janissa: If you missed the hi-jinks the first half of this chapter is for you.

Okay, I know I said this might hopefully be the last chapter, but I underestimated the battles involved and what else I wanted to cover. Many of you might note that I enlarged the dimensions of Dolza's fortress more than a bit. This is because in my universe there is only one of these things. So here you are, the second to last chapter of Chaotic Space.

---

Chapter 28 Fortune Favors the Bold

After Ranma's surprising suggestion the feel of the conversation turned around, the almost crushing hopelessness gone replaced by thoughtful focus as everyone there realized that what his suggestion made a lot of sense. There were of course problems with actually launching an attack from both races.

The humans were wary of sending away any of their fighting strength when the Zentraedi felt that they probably could not get to Dolza before his forces were sent out, so sending off a portion of their forces might just result in them simply being killed swiftly. Humanity also didn't have nearly as many ships to spare on what might be a forlorn hope. So they had to send a force that could do a lot of damage, but couldn't send enough to strip their own defenses.

To add to this problem from the Zentraedi perspective, was that they had no fuel available to send their fleet on such a journey. Folding took far more fuel than actually fighting, the longer the jump the more fuel. Even a full campaign with someone like Breetai in charge, with all the small jumps and in system folds that he routinely used to get the better of his opponent, didn't take as much fuel as the one jump his fleet had made from the outer edges of Invid space.

After discussing it however the group agreed to send a small but incredibly powerful force to attack and hopefully divert enough of the assault they expected to come. This assault would done is be composed of both of the SDF class, ten of the Saber-based carriers, which would immediately launch Sabers and then fold out as quickly as possible, and all sixteen battleships.

On the Zentraedi side they decided to strip out enough fuel for 12,000 ships by draining utterly 5,000 Quiltra Queleual carriers from Breetai's fleet. Even as the meeting continued the ships chosen had been stationed between the moon and Earth, and then drained of their fuel in a process his troops had devised several decades below when facing a remarkably effective alien commander, who kept on trying to use maneuvers and speed against them. The respect in Breetai's face was clear when he spoke of that campaign and his adversary, but the grim anger and guilt in his voice told them how it had ended.

The placement of these ships had made the human leaders nervous when they heard of it, but they had eventually agreed to it when Breetai had agreed to let human observer teams on them. Of course there weren't that many observer teams to go around, but it made the politicians happier.

This force of twelve thousand strong was chosen by what Breetai called a combined arms unit, with the majority of them coming from a single unit of his fleet under Senior Division Leader Garaccus. Breetai personally chose him, a sign of faith that made the other man, who looked like the Zentraedi equivalent of Mannstein, swell up with pride.

His forces consisted of 4,000 Thurvel-Salan class battleships, the multipurpose battleship that made up the majority of the Zentraedi fleet and 4,000 Quiltra-Quelamitz gunboats. Added to this they swapped out the 2,000 Quiltra-Quelamitz carriers his division would normally boast with 4,000 carriers taken from Azonia's fleet. The Queadluun Rau would be under the control of Wing commanders Miriya and Athena, Azonia's most dangerous and capable flight leaders.

It would be a small but extremely dangerous fighting force. Their main objective however would be to protect the two SDF fortresses as they did most of the killing. As Breetai put it they would be appearing inside the monstrous orbital station and it was the practically knife range for space combat. Their siege guns would create monstrous casualties in such an enclosed area and protecting the bottom and top of the two space fortresses would be the objective of the rest of the fleet. Of course this begged the question of if the SDF class would either have enough time to transform into siege mode or could in point of fact transit fold in siege mode. A single experiment to this end showed that they could, and this the plan was approved.

It was decided to give Admiral Prescott overall command, since the Argo as and SDF was much tougher to put down than Garaccus' Queadol-Magdomilla command class battleship even with the mobile barrier shields it would be given for the trip. Plans to create control rooms on his ship were already begun, though actually doing it on so many ships would take everything the humans could do.

After that the plan was sent down to Earth for ratification. It elicited a tremendous argument, as humanity and its leaders were worried and of course they should be. Eventually however the groups continued statement that it was the only way to cut down or even stop an assault by an overwhelming force got through. The plan was given the green light, and work began, millions of humans sent up to help with the work on the barrier shields, and hundreds of thousands sent to observe and help the Zentraedi drain their ships of fuel while showing them what maintenance was and other things. The crews of those ships would be broken up and added to other ships of the Zentraedi fleet, carrying that lesson with them.

It was also determined that the SDF types and the other human ships could move far faster in fold then the Zentraedi or Meltraedi ships, whose ships could move quite a bit faster once they took on energy that had gone through the proto-culture process. Dr. Lang and his team spent an entire day siphoning off all of the power that they could from the engines on the Macross, then the space fortress went into Jupiter's atmosphere and resupplied itself with the fuel from the station there. This would allow the Zentraedi and Meltraedi ships to keep up with the human ships during the trip to Dolza's space station. On the back trip they would be much slower having burned through that fuel and most of their own, but at that point it wouldn't matter.

The rest of the human fleet, which was still growing even now, Sabers joining new carriers that had the minimum required crews, missiles ships that were only partially finished and with the bare-bones interior would remain with Rear admiral Oromov, who had been promoted after his exemplary work against Kyron's ships in the Pacific, in command. He would answer to Breetai and Azonia, who were in command of the mobile forces in the solar system (since most of said mobile forces were his fleet). It would take some time for the disparate groups to begin to figure out how to work together, but in the end they would do it.

Three days of almost manic work later 12,000 Zentraedi ships, four human carriers, sixteen general purpose battleships and the two space fortresses left Sol system on a mission of destruction. Of course even with the proto-culture fuel the trip would still take 2 and a half days.

OOOOOOO

Samantha Traynor was a Saber operator on the Saber-carrier Washington. Saber operation wasn't actually what she had been trained to do at first, but had been a drone operator spying on anti-UN forces. But when the news came down that there really were aliens out there and that most of them were in fact hostile, and that there was now a new discipline of combat effective drones she jumped at the chance to do her bit. Alas she had not been able to finish up training on them before the battle against the skirmish fleet. She had finished training just a few days after that battle.

Well such as it was, training like everything else was being rushed hugely these days. There was a sense of urgency to everything, as if the entire human race had a sword of Damocles hovering above them. Which, she had come to learn since they had been told their mission objectives, was in fact the case.

So here she was talking to one of the operators who had been there, on the Washington. She was thankful that her ship wasn't named after some stupid ass Senator that had alas become the norm of the American fleet. Ugh, naming a ship after a senator just because he was on the Senate oversight committee? Fuck that. Her ship was simply named Washington because it was the first carrier of the new class that America had been able to put into space, followed by two more, though they hadn't had crews or Sabers before they had to leave on this mission. Even the Washington wasn't really finished per se.

She could see that whenever she walked around the ship, missing deck plates, unpainted corridors, lots and lots of wires showing everywhere. The signs were numerous and extensive that this entire ship had been rushed into battle well before it should have been. Despite this Samantha and the rest of the operators were confident that their sabers and their fold-space control gear would work. Every operator system had been tested by the operators, and all of them worked before they had gone on this trip.

"Don't even try to fight any of the space fighters," said her friend, the senior Lieutenant Spencer. The two of them had known each other since they were children but he had gone into the air forces and become a pilot, while she had gone into the Marines and then into her drone specialty. He had been assigned to the Hood during the battle against the Retsuc and his fleet, and then reassigned to the Washington along with several dozen others to give the newbies some veteran insight, and the two of them were talking as they waited for two of their fellows to join them for cards. "Even the battlepods, those stupid walker things are faster and more responsive in space then our Sabers. Even with fold space transmission, the lag time is just enough to make any kind of dogfight a death sentence. And our birds don't have any anti-air weapons yet. I hear from the grape vine that the next design will, but this one doesn't."

She nodded thoughtfully. "I getcha, is there any kind of lag time when we fold out to when we reestablish contact?"

"Minimal, he replied. "The noise I guess you could call it of our folding in will whiteout our controls for about three to fifteen seconds, but I wouldn't worry about that. I noticed in the battle against the skirmish fleet that the Zentraedi don't really seem to react to surprises well. Even when we were in among them they didn't really respond until a few of their battleships exploded."

Samantha nodded thoughtfully. "How bad do you think this is going to get?" she asked quietly. She had seen action against a group of terrorists a few times as a Marine. The Middle East was still a hotbed of dissent and warring factions, and America had long since made a permanent base there for armed forces protecting the oil fields. Even with the onset of proto-culture energy and alternate fuel sources oil was still important on the domestic side. So she was no stranger to combat, but the importance of this battle and the scale of it was damn scary.

Spencer shrugged scratching his short cropped beard a little before he replied. "I don't know, it might be merely bad, or it might be horrible. The numbers the Zentraedi use normally are just…" he shook his head. "Out of this world. And this is supposed to be a fleet much, much larger than even one of their battle fleets. But we'll be well out of it. Remember we'll just be launching our Sabers and getting the shit out of dodge!" he finished, grinning a little.

Samantha nodded wordlessly, not mentioning the fact that he obviously didn't believe what he was saying. The carriers were made to stand off at range and send in flights of Sabers to destroy their enemies, and as such they were much more fragile than a regular battleship of equivalent tonnage. The barely space worthy nature of the Washington and two of the other carriers with them made that even worse.

At that point their friends arrived, and the four pilots did their best to forget about the battle to come for now.

OOOOOOO

A song of the variety called pop rock was blaring out the speakers on the flagship of Senior Division Leader Garaccus and even as his head bobbed to the Micronian music he thought about his orders. He had served under Breetai for over 100 solar cycles, and while that didn't make him the most senior Leader, it meant he was extremely experienced, and he thought that he had a handle on how his Lord Admiral thought.

The fact they were so desperate as to send him and his forces out on what amounted to a suicide run in the hopes of doing enough damage to halt Dolza's attack on the humans and the first fleet (as well as the Meltraedi of course, couldn't forget them, not with the contributions they had put in against the Invid) showed a lot of trust in his abilities and a disturbing amount of concern. It bothered him more than he wanted to admit that Breetai had agreed to this plan. Unless the human's siege cannons proved far more effective than he thought they would be his ships were going to die for very little return.

Yet even as he thought this the notes of the song went on, and he smiled a little thinking about what his race had lost, dreaming of what they could do to regain it and the fact that humans would be helping them do it.

Garaccus had no more of an idea about the real history of the Zentraedi than most, and Breetai had decided that on the eve of battle is not the time to share it. Despite that they had all been told that they had been betrayed, used and manipulated by another race to be their meat shields. A human who had come aboard with a team of a hundred to help set up the control center for their mobile barriers had used that term, and Garaccus had looked it up on the human internet. When he found the meaning he saw it was accurate.

That didn't sit well with him or any other Zentraedi, and Garaccus and all of his captains were prepared to pay for going along with this scheme in return for personal power. Indeed, he was now anxious to start, and his hands twitched eagerly thinking of the battle to come.

To take his mind off the battle to come he decided to follow one of the human suggestions, walking around the ship and seeing what was wrong, what could be fixed and what could be made better. The effect on morale of this was so much that he decided to do it every day, and had found several problems with his flagship that he hadn't seen before, some from combat damage, others from simply the wear of time. He spent the next day and a half in fold working with the humans and his crew to understand what they could do to help the ship get back to its original condition.

OOOOOOO

With all his other projects it had taken a few days for Lang and Cologne to get enough time to analyze the advanced data-chip they had found in the proto-culture generator room. And it had taken several hours work to figure out how to read the data-chip, since it was so advanced none of the systems save the main compute on the Macross could interact with it. But no one even thought of just plugging it in, not after the programming trap that had resulted in the ship firing at the Zentraedi two and a half years ago.

To that end Lang and his scientists had developed a independent system, isolated from the rest of the ship both physically and electronically that could do the job. While they were doing this Cologne had taken over studying the Flowers of Life, where her knowledge of ki had come in handy understanding what the plant was doing and how.

Now however they both stood in front of the isolated system, watching as one of the interns, who had begun to insist they be called red-shirts for some reason Emil and Cologne didn't understand, approached the computer and swiftly plugged the data-chip in the specially created port, a rough upraised pyramid of electronics and metal with a hollow point at the top.

After a moment the system began to read the data off the chip, but the redshirt frowned. "Sir, this is going a little fast I…" he paused and began to type at the keyboard connected to the isolated computer for a second, but his frown merely deepened. "Sir, whatever is on this thing, it's interacting with the system, actively helping it find and build a translation program to breach the gap, but it's also blocking me out, I can't tell you anything about the information inside, not yet. Maybe if we wait for it to finish but…" A moment later the system shut down for a second and then booted back up, and seemed to be running some kind of update. "This is, um, I think we were right to isolate this thing, its taken over the computer, at least I think so…" the last words ended on a querulous note but then he spoke softly. "Its finished taking in our language sir, its um…"

"I can see it Earnest, thank you," Emil said dryly. On the computer screen was the statement: 'upload sample DNA of species within ten minutes or this unit will automatically erase'. "Well, that shouldn't take long, but the mystery deepens."

Cologne cackled agreement and left to have her DNA sample taken. Seven minutes later she was back with a human memory stick and Earnest took it and popped it into a ne reader they had grabbed from another computer.

Another moment passed as the system on the data-chip searched through the memory stick and then scanned the DNA. A moment later the words: 'analysis complete, species identified as unknown. Non-Tirolian, Invid influenced, or Zentraedi confirmed, primary security program disengaging.'

Seconds later, the screen lit up again with the aged face of a very tired looking being. It was obviously an alien, no human had a cranium that large or built up in the back, nor such a thin skeletal structure or eyes that didn't have an iris. The fact it was tired was obvious too as he slumped in his chair, blue skin sallow and gaunt, yet it's odd black eyes seemed to blaze with intelligence and resolve.

This matched the voice that began to come out of the speaker that was part computer, its words translated automatically into human by the program that had taken over the computer. "Whoever thou art, I welcome thee to mine ship. If thou wert allied with mine enemies this message wouldst not be seen, and so I welcome you with open mind but with caution. For know now that since thou didst find my ship that mine enemies art thine, for they wilt stop at nothing to own that which is aboard it. I speaketh of the Zentraedi, monstrous giants that thou may have met before this, and the Masters, those fools who tooketh mine teachings and perverted them for their own mad ambitions and desire for immortality."

At the second half of that sentence both Emil and Lang gasped and leaned forward, trepidation and wonder in their faces. "Here me strangers, for I am Zor…."

OOOOOOO

Besides their looks and pension for enjoying talking about clothing and styles and dressing up, the Meltraedi had one more thing in common with their human counterparts, they liked to gossip. The latest topic of conversation was why Miriya and Athena, had both decided to remain aboard the space fortress. Even knowing that one of the Micronization machines had been placed on the ship (taken from Breetai's flagship) the idea of spending time as human and then changing back and heading into battle was odd to them. Why not simply stay in your proper body until later? What was so important to have them stay on the Macross?

"I wonder what Athena is thinking?" gossiped one of her seconds, looking over at another as they made final checks on their Queadluun Rau. "This was a human idea that all the Meltraedi had grabbed with both hands, since most of them were very familiar with the fact that sometimes their powersuits developed problems even before you took them into combat. One human technician had likened them to something called a supercar, lots of maintenance needed, but the performance was incredible.

"I don't know said Silonia, as she removed a piece of rock from one of her power suits arm joints. It might not seem like much, but in a pitched battle it might've slowed her response in that arm enough to be the difference between life and death. "Maybe the humans on the Macross have been holding out on us and have a source of chocolate?"

This brought laughter from every 'girl' (a term they had taken from the humans, and one that every Meltraedi below 160 had embraced) around, and one even went so far as to say "good one!"

The human's reaction to the fact that they had been attacking Europe to steal chocolate had been amusing to say the least. A lot of people thought it was ridiculous, some kind of lie or misinformation. The creators of chocolate on the other hand had already noticed that the chocolate factories near their assault points had been completely emptied, and simply took it in stride. One of them in fact was already advertising their chocolate in a new way. 'So good even an alien would have to be crazy not to like it' was the slogan, though the Meltraedi ahdn't particularly like the odd caricature that went with it.

"I doubt it's that," said another girl, still chortling a little. "Athena said she was meeting with that commander Fokker correct, perhaps she's trying to upgrade our tactics?"

One of the veterans from Athena's own unit nodded sharply. "Lady Lisa and her use of tactics and rotation saved a lot of our lives when we were facing off against the skirmish fleet, and if Athena can figure out how to teach us the same tactics, it'll make us even more dangerous." Respect for Lisa among the Meltraedi who had fought alongside the Macross was almost as high as it was for their own wing commanders.

"How do you think the Nousjadeul-Ger powersuits are going to stand up to us? I read some other specs, and they might have more straight-line speed than us, though their punch is much less." Asked one of the younger pilots.

It had come as something of a shock to most of the Meltraedi that the Zentraedi had their own version of their signature powersuits. Indeed, only Breetai and Exedore had known of their existence, because they were only assigned to Dolza's fleet, and almost never saw combat. Still Exedore had warned them that their pilots were elite and the powersuits themselves much more dangerous than a Reguld.

"No missiles said Silonia, the most senior pilot there by rote. "Swivel laser on one shoulder, handheld weapon with unknown ammunition and another single energy cannon in the center of the torso. It should be a much closer contest than against a Reguld of course, but that's not saying much is it?"

This started another round of laughter through the hanger, but this was much more like the sound a shark or lion would make right before the kill if they could, and the smiles all around her matched that feeling. "But yes it should be interesting to say the least."

"Hear, hear," said one of the women working with one of the techs assigned to heir ship to replace a piece of her thruster that had been damaged. Before the humans had come aboard of course she would've had to replace the entire suit if she didn't just want to suck it up as a human phrase went, but the maintenance manuals the humans had so quickly made for them all made this a relatively minor problem. "It wouldn't be right to pull Dolza down without a fight after all." Another laugh went through the room and this time there was no humor in it, just cold, dark fury, waiting to be unleashed.

OOOOOOO

Claudia Grant was annoyed, aggravated, irritated and quite frankly, pissed off. She had hoped to spend all her free time over the past few days with her fiancé doing everything they could to burn the fact that they were alive into their brains before this battle but this had run into a wall named Athena.

Athena's stated interest in Roy was based off of his experience as Wing Commander and the fact that he had developed tactics that made the Valkyrie, which despite all the upgrades to it was still not quite equal to a Queadluun Rau, able to fight the Meltraedi on an almost even footing. On the surface that looked the case, but after their first meeting Claudia knew Athena was not just interested in picking Roy's brain whatever she herself thought.

Despite the fact that she didn't know anything about intercourse or social interaction the alien woman was definitely interested in Roy and Claudia didn't like it, or the fact that she just showed up out of the blue every time she turned around. Sharing might be all right with Lisa and Kasumi (and she had heard rumors that Miriya had joined the trio it as well) but Claudia wasn't the sharing type.

At the moment there was nothing she could do about it without coming across like some jealous bitch, which made her even angrier. Roy, being the dense male that he was, hadn't noticed anything and simply enjoyed talking shop with Athena and coming up with a battle plan with her and Lisa that would utilize the Valkyrie and power suits different abilities to the maximum effect. This made it even worse of course.

She had finally gotten him to go out with her tonight, the last night before they were scheduled to come out of fold, and the two had made reservations at the White Dragon. No sooner had they sat down however that Athena appeared, striding through the door like she owned the place. "Ah, there you are Wing Leader Fokker. I had an idea I wanted to share with you."

That just about does it, Claudia thought. Super space Amazon or not this bitch is going down! No one interrupts my dates with my man and gets away with it! She was about to get up and, well get her ass kicked really when someone else interrupted them.

"Sorry," Minmei said buzzing past with her upraised arms full of lunch plates and heading for a party of ten in the corner. "We're by reservation only tonight!"

"What is this reservation thing?" Athena asked, pausing in midstride toward her target, er fellow wing leader. Then she blinked as the voice registered. "Are, are you the singer Minmei?"

"Yep, that's me, are you one of the Meltraedi? It's always nice to meet my fans." Athena nodded, but didn't have to introduce herself as Anya, coming out of the kitchen with several orders of good in her arms, did that for her. Minmei finished dealing with her table, smiling at the attempts to flirt with her but making no other reaction. She was happy to get the day off to work at the restaurant; it helped her think and was actually restful for some reason, but getting hit on became irritating quickly.

She was about to wave the tall, somewhat imposing Meltraedi into a chair at the Fokker's table when she caught Claudia's pleading expression and suddenly realized that maybe Athena wasn't actually welcome here. "Well, I'm sorry but we don't have any extra chairs tonight, but to make it up why don't you come back after we close tonight and I'll let you listen to a recording of my newest song with Anya. I've been using her as a sounding board for my songs, but a second opinion is always nice."

Athena nodded eagerly, not understanding what a sounding board was but getting the gist of it, and she left seconds later with a smile on her face. Claudia nodded gratefully at the younger girl who grinned back with a discrete thumbs-up before turning away and moving to another table.

The rest of the evening passed far better than it had began, and Claudia stayed back for a few minutes as they were leaving to fill Minmei in on what was going on. Minmei was sympathetic and told her she'd try and fill Athena in on human culture and why what she was doing was rude, but didn't promise it would do anything.

Knowing this was the best she was going to get Claudia thanked her and left with Fokker, and they swiftly made their way back to their flat, where Claudia very carefully disabled the door buzzer, put out a 'Do Not Disturb' sign, and very firmly locked it behind her.

OOOOOOO

The White Dragon was a restaurant plain and simple, they didn't have a bar and if you didn't like rice wine they were BYOB as well so the restaurant closed down at eleven, leaving the rest of the night free for Rick and Minmei to go out on a date. The two of them hadn't seen much of one another lately, and Rick had hoped to spend some time with his girlfriend together. So here he sat at one of the tables in the rapidly emptying restaurant, not knowing that Minmei had forgotten about their plans and made her own. She had switched to helping her mother in the kitchen while her father and Kyle, more intimidating figures, helped Anya chivvy the last of the stragglers out.

Shao smiled at the young man waiting for his niece. "Hey Rick, you planning on taking Minmei out tonight?"

"Yes sir, we're planning to go dancing at one of the night clubs downtown. Don't worry, I'll have her back by two or so." Rick had lost his nervousness about being grilled by the male authority figure in Minmei's life at about the time Nodoka had threatened to cut off his manhood should he harm her or press her too fast. Compared to that Shao wasn't about to intimidate him, and the man grinned at him and began to bus the tables around them.

Kyle had just chivvied the last of the diners out and he sneered when he heard Rick. Kyle had not been having an easy time of it onboard the Macross. His first attempt at rabble rousing had been followed by nearly burning his bridges with his parents with his anti-soldier attitude. Then his ego took a pounding when he found that in terms of the martial artists aboard the ship he was very small potatoes. In fact most of them wouldn't even call him a dabbler in the arts.

Kyle was like Max in a way, he wasn't used to not being the center of attention, of not succeeding at whatever he set himself to, but lately everything he tried seemed to turn to dust. His attempts to ingratiate himself with the anti-war/army faction had failed as most of that faction had jumped ship as he was coming aboard. He couldn't seem to fit in with the new population of the city, and Kyle's good looks weren't enough to get him a job at the one move studio aboard like he thought, and his anti-war stance had closed any other doors his looks might have opened. He had been forced to lean heavily on his parent's good graces, and to make matters worse his play for his cousin's affections had been firmly rebuffed time and time again.

Now he saw a way to get back at the main obstacle to that last objective, and he walked over, still sneering a little. "Sorry to hear that Hunter, but Minmei must not have known about your plans tonight, she made plans with one of those Meltraedi to listen of some of her new songs tonight. Guess you're out of luck, huh?"

Rick stared back at the older, angry sounding man and simply shrugged. "I'll wait and let here until she can come out and tell me that if that's okay with you." In another world Rick would have simply gone into a funk at the idea of his girlfriend forgetting a date. In this one he had a much better grasp of his self worth, even if he did still have a bit of a temper and quite a bit of possessiveness.

Kyle growled a little, angry at not getting a rise out of his target. "Well, it's not okay with me! Why don't you take a damn hint and leave! We don't want your kind here, and Minmei can do a hell of a lot better than some empty-headed soldier."

"What the hell is your problem with me anyway?!" Rick barked back. "Yes I'm a soldier, yes I kill, you think I enjoy it? Its jut my job, to keep your sorry ass safe." He smirked suddenly. "And besides, I think Minmei's' shown her own preferences don't you?"

That line seemed to act like a whip on Kyle and he leaped forward his hands lashing out in chops at Rick's head. Rick kicked out, falling back in his chair and away from Kyle's charge, the clatter of the chair alerting Shao and the girls in the kitchen that there was something going on.

Kyle pressed his advantage, but took a kick in the gut for his troubles that caused him to back away, rubbing his stomach, which let Rick get to his feet. Kyle moved in again, but his chops and punches were blocked until Rick grabbed his hand and twisted, throwing Kyle over one shoulder.

Kyle landed with a crash onto one of the tables, shattering it, but he got up quickly, whipping out a piece of wood that caught Rick in the shoulder before he wrenched it out of the other man's hand. Kyle pressed in again, a snap kick catching Rick in the thigh, but he grimaced and took it, his own fist lancing in to catch Kyle on the chin, throwing his head back, and setting him up for another punch that slammed into the side of his jaw.

Kyle staggered back but was still game and tried to move forward again, but was stopped by Shao, who grabbed his son under the arms and locked him into a hold, keeping him still. "What the hell are you doing Kyle!"

Minmei and the others had come out too, and now stood between the two combatants, their expressions demanding explanations. Rick shrugged. "I was waiting to talk to you Minmei, if you remember we had plans to go out tonight. Kyle came over and basically tried to get me to leave, and when I shot back a bit he attacked me."

Kyle tried to defend himself but his mother's glare shut him up, and he suddenly realized how badly he had screwed up here.

Minmei shot him a look of contempt and then nodded at Rick. "I believe you Rick, but did you two have to fight it out like two Neanderthals!" She scowled at both boys. "I'm sick of this stupid one-upmanship thing that's been going on between you two! Kyle, I'm not interested in you, I never have been, and your attitude since you came aboard has ruined what family affection I had for you. And Rick," she whirled on the smirking pilot, "You think too much with your fists! I don't doubt Kyle threw the first punch, but I know you egged him into it! You can't let your own jealousy of who I spend time with get to you like that! I've seen how you glare whenever any other boy is nearby, even Ranma sometimes, and even girls like Anya too! I don't think I want to go out with you tonight, not after this. I'll see you tomorrow, after we've all cooled down."

Rick winced, hut nodded, knowing a lost fight when he saw it. It was true after all, he did get jealous when someone got close to Minmei, and he had egged Kyle into a fight. He left, his head down, and one hand in a pocket fingering a small box there.

Athena passed him, looking around in confusion at the odd tableau. "Did I come at a bad time?"

OOOOOOO

Claudia and Rick were not the only ones having and with their romantic prospects, Shampoo was encountering trouble too.

Shampoo was both a traditional Amazon in her tastes in men and impulsive in the extreme. She had decided upon first meeting him that the man named Rana Sanga was perfect husband material. He was strong, respected among his peers, apparently some kind of royalty back in India, experienced in all martial matters as well as incredibly skilled with one of the Indian blades.

He was so good in fact that he could hold his own against the Amazons, something that had earned him their respect. That fact had been proven when he joined the martial artists with his man, all of whom had earned the respect of the Amazons as well as their interest. Indeed it looked as if the two groups would merge somewhat and the new culture coming from that union would be fascinating to see.

Unfortunately for her pursuit of her new interest Rana Sanga saw Shampoo only as a little girl. Well, not a little girl, but a teenager nonetheless. He was pushing 35 and the idea of being with someone that much younger than him did not interest him. No, he was more interested in the experienced Amazon warrior named Tiger. Her looks were incredibly exotic, with her short cropped red hair, pointed ears and tiger markings, and the idea of having a wife that could fight as well as he could was attractive to say the least.

Max too was still having trouble finding a partner that was more than a roll in the hay and less then marriage. His reputation however proceeded him, and made his search more difficult.

Not that it was all bad for relationships on the Macross. Motoko and her Lucretia had become an official couple. In fact Lucretia had put in an application for citizenship with the Macross, not wanting to go back to the fleet and leave Motoko again. It had taken her sometimes to realize that what she was feeling for the other girl wasn't affection or friendship but when she had, and after feeling what Motoko could do with her she hadn't looked back. She still was a bag of nerves at times, and it got worse when they were out in public, but her affection towards Motoko was clear.

OOOOOOO

Miriya too was spending the time before the battle with Ranma, Lisa and Kasumi, in point of fact they were playing a game called Guardians. The others had described as a team based RPG, which of course had to be explained in turn, but it was a lot of fun despite the number of words and ideas she didn't understand.

Kasumi of course was a healer. Despite the fact that she didn't want to be a nurse any longer she couldn't bring herself to actually harm other people, not even if they were little pixels on a screen. She was however excellent at healing them up and had stepped into the role of team leader.

"Oh my, look at all the little goblins. Ranma if you can block that far door and Miriya that close one for a moment, I think that Lisa can take care of all of the enemies in this room. The spawn points seem to be coming from down those two doors. And once it's clear then we can shut one of the doors and clear out the first room and then move onto the next."

"Sound tactics," said Lisa, commanding her thief forward and slicing a few goblin throats before the enemies in the room even knew she was there. Miriya and Ranma also answered in the affirmative and rushed toward the far hallways.

Even as Miriya used one hand to punch buttons on the controller, another hand reached out for some munchies that Kasumi had made, and she laughed as Ranma used one of his monk skills called the 'humiliating death', which was like a final attack or a special blow but killed the enemy in a humiliating in random fashion.

In this case Ranma had gotten in close enough to shatter his opponents armor then smash him over the head so hard it made him curl up and then kicked him in the balls as if he was a ball sending him into several others that it bowled over. For a moment the screen flashed and an animation of a bowling ball hitting several pins appeared before changing back to the battle.

"Nice one," Lisa laughed, nudging him in the arm. All of them had the day off, everything that could be done before the battle had been done and both of them would have to report for duty about an hour before fold out, but until then they could relax and enjoy their time together.

It was strange Lisa thought idly even as she knifed another goblin that had tried to ignore her and attack Kasumi. Was it just her or had it stopped in place rather than going forward with it? A lot of the civilians and military personnel are anxious, as they should be going into a battle that was going to be this huge. But the martial artists aboard the ship aren't anxious but eager, and Ranma doesn't seem worried at all.

Nor did Kasumi, and the confidence in them was infectious. It was like they couldn't even think of failing, of not coming back and seeing one another again, and that confidence grabbed you and made you believe the same thing. Miriya of course had much the same attitude, and it was enhanced or magnified by Ranma's, but Lisa had taken some more time to join the optimistic side of the Force.

This little party/family gathering was just what the doctor ordered however, and she used her off hand to slam down the special attack mode, using her minor aspect as a sorcerer to shock and stun the remaining enemies in the room whereupon she went quickly from one to the next beheading them while Kasumi shut Miriya's door, allowing her to fall back and join Ranma at his. "I want to do a humiliation kill too," Lisa whined childishly.

"Then ya should have chosen to be a kick ass monk like me!" Ranma laughed.

"Careful koi, your ego seems due for a popping." She replied dryly, causing the other women to laugh. And so the night continued.

Later that night the four of them spent their time in bed together, spending time showing one another they cared in the oldest way imaginable and it was four very exhausted people that eventually fell asleep.

OOOOOOO

The next day found Lisa on the bridge, wearing not her normal uniform but a space suit. Every naval officer aboard the ship was wearing one, and every civilian had been accounted for in the shelters deep within the ship. The entire ship would have to be literally cored straight through the middle for the bunkers to be in danger, and even then they were airtight. It had been the norm of the officers on the bridge and in deeper areas of the ship to go without spacesuits but this would not be the case now. They would lose enough people in battle even if everything went as well as they could hope, they were not about to lose more to decompression.

She looked at the screen in front of her, which was split into three showing Athena, Roy and Ranma. Ranma would be leading an assault force, which would target the forces directly in front of and between them and the command spire which was situated in a central spire in the center of Dolza's incredibly huge space station. His job would be to take out Dolza, and the computers intact. This would be incredibly dangerous, but Prescott and the others had decided that taking the computers in Dolza's fortress would allow them to figure out where Tirolian space was and hopefully much more. This assault force would be composed of Wildfire, Max's Phoenix Squadron (formerly Vermillion), Knight Squadron, Archer Squadron (formerly Green) led by Rick, its roster halfway filled with Amazons, and two wings of Queadluun Rau.

Prescott had wanted to augment this with some quadroons from the Argo, but Lisa had convinced him not to. She had convinced him that veteran though his pilots were they weren't up to the level of the experienced squadrons from the Macross.

Athena would be in charge of antiair offense. She had been placed in charge of half the Queadluun Rau wing that had come with them, as well as the Regulds from the gunboats and all-purpose battleships of Garaccus' forces. Her troops would also be protecting the Sabers as they went in against enemy capital ships. As soon as Athena, once more enlarged to her normal size, exited the space fortress she would take command, and hopefully would be as seamless as they had envisioned it before leaving Seoul.

Roy was in command of the antiair defense and had been given command of the other half of the Queadluun Rau wings and his own wing and the Argo's. Lisa was in overall command, and would be doing her best to be integrating the different commands.

The fleet would be coming out in a formation that looked like some kind of odd sandwich. Above and below the human fleet in space were the two forces of the Zentraedi, 5000 strong each, forming the buns of the sandwich. The Thurvel-Salan battleship packs were arrayed around the Quiltra-Quelamitz gunboats which would work in concert to destroy any Nupetiet-Vergnitzs battleship they before turning on the other kinds of battleships. Breetai had passed on the fact that Dolza's force used these for their division leaders, just another sign of the strange selective nature of the Zentraedi. The other battleships would be targeting the enemy gunboats, and then the Thurvel-Salan battleships, leaving the Quiltra Queleual carriers to be destroyed later. This targeting prioritizing was because they assumed that the Meltraedi powersuit would be superior to the Nousjadeul-Ger used by Dolza's fleet. They also knew that at least as far as Breetai knew that power suits made up only about five percent of Dolza's forces. That was still a hell of a lot, but not insurmountable. After all, they would just need to last long enough for the siege cannons to do their work.

Between these two 'buns' in space were the human forces, book ended by the two super dimensional space fortresses on either side of the human formation. Both of these space fortress were already in siege mode, and would began to fire their siege guns as soon as they left fold. Between the two space fortresses were the four Saber carriers and the sixteen human battleships.

The carriers, not having any of the armor or mobile barriers of the battleships, would fold out immediately. It was hoped that the second fold would enable them to move elsewhere in the star system away from any of the Zentraedi forces, but the more and more they thought of it the more Gloval and Lisa felt that that was going to be a tall order. Indeed if it had occurred to them at the time they would probably have argued against sending any of the carriers and instead bringing the long range missile ships which were much more heavily defended. But it was too late for that now, and they would have to hope for the best.

Besides the carriers, every ship in the human fleet had a hundred mobile barriers, and as many of the Zentraedi ships had them as could have been loaded onto them in the time allowed. Indeed the two space fortresses had turned over their reserves, and the space colonies had been forced to turn over their mobile barrier shields as well. The space fortresses had been able to make do their losses by switching all their factories to barrier/battery creation, and they both had over two hundred, though only enough control runs to use fifty at a time. The other battleships could only use thirty at a time.

Only Garaccus's flagship had an equal number of barriers, and they could only run ten at a time, but the human team of ten that had volunteered to stay aboard and run them were competent, and had been trained by Sammy, who was in charge of that unit aboard the Macross.

They would also be blaring out as much music as possible from every ship in the combined fleet, and all of the Meltraedi commanders and Valkyrie commanders had leave to activate their own 'audio attack' at any time. Despite the odds against them that humans had a very good chance of at the minimum causing enough damage to the enemy forces that they would not be able to attack Earth with sufficient number to overcome Breetai and the Meltraedi with him. It may cost us all our lives, Lisa thought grimly, but Dolza is going down this day one way or the other.

"Are you three ready to go?" She asked, looking down at the three faces on her communication screen.

"Athena here, QR1, ready." Athena responded formerly, using her new communication designation. The humans had organized even their communication, and it was hoped that it would cut down on the amount of disorganization inherent in any battle.

Lisa could see Ranma take a deep breath, his eyes already flickering with ki-light as his hands flexed. "Wildfire 1, all units assigned to the assault team report ready. We're good to go."

Roy cracked his neck from side to side, bringing his visor down and checking his targeting software for a moment. "All Valkyrie squadrons ready."

"Excellent, ten minutes and counting before fold out. Good luck, and lets all make it through this." the three pilots nodded and signed off, Ranma taking a moment to kiss two of his fingers and raise it to touch the com screen.

Lisa gulped a little at that, but refused to do the same with Gloval and the rest of the bridge crew around them. After a moment spent composing herself she turned to Gloval and nodded firmly. "Sir, all parasite forces are ready for combat. General Mannstein reports his forces are in position." The Spartans had in fact exited the ship and moved to their defensive positions already ,regardless of fold. Some of them were reporting odd effects, but nothing major.

Gloval nodded formally at her and turned to Claudia. "Sound general quarters, bring the ship to battle readiness. Double check and make sure that all of the civilians are in their shelters, we don't want any of them out about."

"Already done sir," said Claudia crisply, her worries about Athena and whether or not Athena was trying to force her way into Claudia and Roy's relationship forgotten for now. "Siege cannon online and charging, secondary and tertiary were weapons report all green, barrier systems are good to go and awaiting order for rollout."

Gloval nodded and leaned back, his face calm, but the tension rising within him. Part of him was sad that Nodoka was not on the bridge at the moment, but she had not passed the spacesuit course, and he was not willing to let his lady put herself in danger by being on the bridge without one. Still it made waiting even harder than normal.

OOOOOOO

Gloval was not the only one dealing with tension. Admiral Prescott was dealing with some tension too, not least because his own family was aboard his ship. This battle and its stakes were on a scale he had never imagined before, and he sent a few prayers out to whatever deity that was listening that they pulled this off. Still his ship and its parasite force were as ready as they could get, and he knew that the ships would keep formation as much as possible before then. He sat on his flag bridge, looking at the readouts, which for the moment showed nothing, but would soon light up with tactical information, and at his command team.

One of them looked back at him. "Two minutes to fold out sir."

Scott nodded and looked around at his men. Sometimes an admiral would make at a moment like this, but that had never been Scott's style, he was always more of a disciplinarian than a morale booster. So he just grinned. "You heard the man, prepare to kick some ass." Regardless of his brevity this did elicited a cheer, and everyone around him was ready and waiting as the clock ticked down.

OOOOOOO

Rick sat in his Valkyrie at the head of his squadron in hanger five, double-checking his Valkyries systems in preparation for launch. This task was interrupted when his personal data-pad beeped at him, and he looked down at it in surprise. When he brought it up he saw a message there from Minmei and he opened it eagerly.

'Rick, sorry about last night, it was just a long day and you know I hate all that macho stuff. We're about to enter the shelters, but I want to tell you I'm sorry about blowing up like that. We'll talk after this is all over, Minmei.'

Rick scowled a little at the brief almost detached message, fingering the box in his pocket again, but he shook his head, getting all thoughts of Minmei and where or even if their relationship was going somewhere out of his head. He had a battle to survive first.

OOOOOOO

Reality shuddered and juddered for a moment, more than any other fold save the first aborted one that they had tried in Earth's gravity well, and then the alliance fleet came out of fold. Even before their systems had come back online Lisa was barking orders. "All Valkyries get out there and give them hell, main gun fire! All carriers launch Sabers and get the hell out of here!" That order should have come from the flag, but she barked it out anyway, not waiting for Prescott to recover from that strange fold out.

Global shook his head slightly getting rid of the odd distorted sensation that had plagued him for a second there even as the main siege cannon of the space fortress fired. This close that first shot was able to take out over 50,000 enemy battleships before the space fortress began to traverse. Across from them in the formation the Argo also began to fire, it's beam of light more orange than the gold/red color of the original space fortress, but the color didn't seem to matter in terms of power and another 50,000 ships died..

Between them the Sabers began to eject from their carriers in droves, while above and below them the Zentraedi also began to launch fighters and hammer away at the enemy. Already Lisa could see that one of the Nupetiet-Vergnitzs nearest them but below the two space fortresses plane of fire had been hit by beams from a 100 gunboats, destroying it utterly.

Gloval took a moment and hit his intercom for a moment, connecting him directly to Dr. Lang, who despite the best efforts of his superiors had declined to remain back on Earth. He felt that the safest place for him was where it had always been, right here on the space fortress. "Dr., was that a normal fold out after so long? Get back to me when you know the answer." With that he turned to Lisa and nodded. Fight your flights commander, I'll handle the ship."

Lisa nodded and swiftly did so, organizing the chaos as much as she could and pointing the Valkyries and Sabers towards where the Meltraedi had already sent their fighters and thus weekend the defensive envelope of those ships.

OOOOOOO

As she did this Prescott commands snapped out, and the two space fortresses began to move their siege cannon having gone to continuous fire, threatening to burn up systems but in the end that wouldn't matter if they didn't win. The human battleships too began to fire at the closet Zentraedi ships, their more powerful (though far less numerous) weapons systems slamming out, rail guns and grazers alike tearing into their larger enemies.

He took a moment to analyze the tactical screen. As planned the attacking fleet had folded into the center of Dolza's massive space station. Their position was with their 'backs' to the command spire in the center. Strangely enough the screen showed that there were no ships on the other side of the command spire. Prescott couldn't believe it, his ratings were actually telling him there were over 800,000 ships in this monstrously large dock, though they weren't reacting as a group yet. That number had been whittled down by 102,000 already, and that number was rising as the siege cannons did their work.

On his orders the human battleships began to move up, providing close cover fire for the space fortresses. As he watched the command spire launched its fighters, and he was tempted to order one of the space fortresses to take it out, but that wasn't the plan, and he needed to keep the long term in mind. "All units proceed with operation Able; assault teams head out now!"

Now however the enemy fleets began to respond, and he watched with shock as the tactical system actually shut down for a moment unable to comprehend the number of enemy threat signals. It came back up almost immediately of course, by then billions upon billions of Regulds and millions of elite power suits of launched. The main capital ships had also begun to fire, and the allied Zentraedi and Meltraedi forces began to die.

The carriers quickly finished rolling out their Sabers, and folded out, but not quickly enough for all of them. One of them, the new built Montréal wasn't fast enough. Prescott could only watch in shock as over a dozen gunboats targeted it from a distance. Their beams sliced through it like a hot knife through butter, and soon enough the entire ship was just gone, more dust and pieces than actual wreckage. There wasn't even any distress signals coming from emergency life pods, and he shook his head sadly. That was all he could allow himself however and he began to order his remaining ships around, using his human battleships to defend the space fortresses, and destroy any ships that were under the siege cannon's radius but not being targeted by the Zentraedi above and below them. "All ships start the audio attack!"

The command structure of the Zentraedi was at best disorganized and the sound assault made that even worse. The Zentraedi were unable to bring their monstrous advantage in numbers to truly bear, not without going through the Allied Zentraedi forces or facing the spinning whirling death of the two space fortresses which were now moving in tandem around a central point between them their siege cannons still on continuous fire. Prescott wasn't certain, but his system was reporting actually stars in the distance now from where one of his shots had gone through space that wasn't occupied by any Zentraedi forces and had actually blown out the side of the monstrous space station.

"Argus, Carlisle, come to about 72 degrees down and to the right, that division of Zentraedi battleships need some help take some fire off them from the gunboats trying to overwhelm them. "Capt., turn your position up ten degrees, inform Rear admiral Gloval what we're doing."

"Sir!" Shouted his communication officer. "We're getting a signal from the Queen Elizabeth, there are no Zentraedi ships outside this base! Theres another smaller asteroid base or something in system, but it isn't moving in support and there isn't anything coming out toward us."

Prescott's eyes widened, but he wasn't about to look a gift horse in the mouth and he looked over his readouts swiftly. Ironsides was reporting heavy damage, its barriers having already failed as it had come under the assault of over a hundred gunboats almost immediately. "Ironsides, fold out and join the carriers, execution immediate! Any battleship is to fold out if it sustain critical damage!" He motioned over to one of the ratings by the door. "You, watch this screen, any ship icon fall into the red, open the communication and order them out!" The rating nodded firmly and sat down next to the com officer, his eyes glued to the tac screen.

As he turned back to direct his fleet Prescott idly wondered what the hell that other station was and why all of the ships here had been inside the space fortress rather than both inside and out, but figured those questions really didn't matter right now. A part of him was also wondering, in a sort of bemused, half shocked way, why the numbers they were facing was so much lower than the numbers Breetai and Azonia thought they would be facing.

OOOOOOO

Lieutenant Spencer grinned evilly as he led three of his fellow Sabers in behind a capital ship. This was known as the sweet spot in fighter parlance. The Zentraedi had thought of practically every kind of battle when they had made their ships, and even a gunboat had a lot of antiair weaponry, and fighting them was pretty tough for normal spacefighters. Unless you get into their sweet spot, he said to himself gleefully in his little capsule aboard the Washington. There were no weapons directly facing back from the engines.

He flipped his Saber over, neatly dodging under a antiair laser from another ship in his targets 'formation'. Despite their inability to actually be used in a dogfight against living opponents the Sabers were easily capable of ignoring most antiair fire. That was because the Zentraedi's weapons had a few seconds between locking on and firing, and even at this distance he was able to take advantage of that to dodge. "You locked on my six, 3, 4?" he asked, receiving two affirmatives immediately. "Fire as you bare!" The three Sabers fired as one, the heavy grazers coring straight through the outer armor of the battleship's engines and soon enough the entire ship exploded.

"Next!" Spencer shouted, then shuddered as he suddenly lost all feed. "Damnit! I'm out, shot down already!" He exclaimed banging one hand down on the desk and pulling off his VR goggles angrily with his other hand.

The Capt.'s voice came through loud and clear from the intercom a moment later. "Don't worry about it, the space fortress has already blown a hole in that giant, giant thing, were going to wait and see if that other giant thing deeper in the system can send anything out after us, but if it can't, we're going to send in another flight soon."

"Yes sir," Spencer said grinning a little evilly. Payback for the loss of the Montréal hadn't even begun yet.

OOOOOOO

Athena brought one fist up slamming into the chest of one of the elite powersuits ripping out the cannon that was about to take her head off and firing both of her own cannons another one directly below her. There were very few of these things in comparison to the number of battle pods around, but they were much tougher, and she estimated about five of them could match a Queadluun Rau, if the pilots were equal in skill. "Especially since," she muttered, firing her mini missiles at seven more that were about to attack an allied battleship, "very few of billions is still a lot."

She smirked evilly however as a squadron of Valkyries zoomed past her wing's position, their heavier missile fire splashing, a human euphemism she had learned that meant killing in dramatic fashion, over 100 Regulds that were boiling out of the carrier before their accompanying Sabers sneaked through destroying it swiftly.

The melee was becoming more and more disorganized very quickly, the wings and squadrons assigned to defense and offense becoming more muddied as time went on. But she could still hear Lisa's voice, calm, controlled and leached of everything but professionalism as she directed the combat as much as she could, taking over even the parasite forces from the Argo.

From what Athena was seeing the human Prescott and Garaccus were in firm control of the battle, their ships moving in tandem working together and around one another easily so far. It looked as if Dolza's fleet had never even trained together properly, and it was like watching that human phrase 'so many wolves among sheep'.

"But there are so many of them!" she groused to herself, even as the siege cannons began to tilt slightly, having destroyed the majority of the battleships in the plane they had been firing on and now continuing.

OOOOOOO

While the idea of exact directions in space usually depended on where in relation to the star you were, in the monstrous space dock this was not the case. There was definitely a center to it demarked by the huge command spire looking more like a connected stalactite and stalagmite than anything else, winking with lights to the 'back' of the main battle.

The entire's thing was just to fucking huge to believe, almost like a Dyson Sphere in size if such a thing could be believed. While the main capital ship defense came from the ships sequestered in this giant dock, that didn't mean the spire was without its own defense. This came in the form of Nousjadeul-Ger in their millions and it was that elite force that Miriya's wing and the elite squadrons (minus Skull) slammed into like a giant spear.

At their front was Ranma, no jokes this time, no song in his heart or playing over the radio despite the fact that every other elite force had one going. This moment was something he had secretly been dreaming about for months, ever since he had seen Dolza order a planet's destruction just to prove his own power to Ranma. It was with blue/gold fire he came, blazing like a star had awoken inside the massive space dock, a sight that filled every Zentraedi who saw it with fear and uplifted his own side.

And, incidentally startling and worrying the hell out of the Masters in their distant fortress.

Miriya flew behind him, her Queadluun Rau coated with blue green energy, confidence and bloodlust in one. Eventually she would learn how to access the pure ki that Ranma and Elder Cologne could, but that was to come. For now this would do. Her power suit had also been upgraded by Dr. Lang himself, more as an experiment admittedly but she wasn't going to complain. It now had more energy available, and its magazines as well so when her missiles fired 24 at once she wasn't out, she hadn't even scratched the surface of the amount of missiles she had now thanks to her magazine having been enlarged. Behind Miriya her wing came, and though they lacked her enhancements they tore into the elite forces like the true elites they were.

Later the Amazons would liken this to stories of the Imperial Guard in China, a pampered 'elite' force who had never actually been on the battlefield. When compared to real shock troops, which the Meltraedi were one and all, there was no contest, they proved utterly unable to face the Meltraedi and combat.

Not one-on-one at least, but then again the Zentraedi never faced anyone one-on-one, and this was no exception. Instead space literally boiled with millions of them before the assault force coming out of this command spire as quickly as they could. Against them only 2000 Queadluun Rau and 36 Valkyries came.

Numbers didn't matter, the Meltraedi and humans proved this by slicing straight through that massive swarm of Nousjadeul-Ger, and within a bare 40 minutes had come close enough to the command spire to come under fire from its antiair guns.

These guns proved worthless against the Valkyries and Meltraedi, and Wildfire followed Ranma in dodging this way and that. Ranma opened up hailing frequencies to Shampoo, Motoko and the others, absentmindedly killing one of the Zentraedi powersuits with a kick to the face as he transformed into soldier mode. "I'm sending you targeting data, everybody hit it with everything you've got, blow our way in and let's move in!"

Miriya was ordering the same thing, and the two aces merged their system for a moment. Not everyone they signaled could join them, being too busy protecting themselves. Still, ten powersuits and four Valkyries opened up on one specific point with everything they had. Missiles, rifles, cannons everything. Even as tough as it was the outer armor of the command spire couldn't take that pounding and it soon ruptured and blew apart leaving then not a entry point but an avenue into the spire.

"Everybody in!" Ranma shouted, then patched himself into Lisa. "Command 1, this is Wild 1, we are in! Recommend you turn some of your attention this way, you've got incoming Nousjadeul-Ger. I would say at least one million plus!"

Lisa came back her voice crisp and authoritative. "Roger that, the battleships have already loosed a few surprises for them, don't worry about us, just get in there and do your thing."

Ranma grinned evilly. "Roger command 1, Wild 1 out."

OOOOOOO

The surprise had actually been a new design by a man back on Earth who had followed chief engineer Hibiki's idea of a kinetic weapon and changed it into an antiair deathtrap. It was basically the size of four Sabers put together on a side, so big in fact that it couldn't actually enter any other ship, it had to be kept on the exterior. It consisted six shotgun ballistic kinetic weapons interspersed to cover 360° around a central area that was filled with ammunition for the guns and a single system which was set up to receive one signal. It was completely unmanned, as much of the new human weaponry was becoming given the numbers they had learned they were facing. It was however as deadly against friendly's is it was against enemies, and thus of limited utility in most battles. But the humans and Zentraedi that were allied with them had made a point of keeping their backs to the spire because it didn't have any weapons that could damage capital ships and they were far enough away that its antiair weapons couldn't range on them. There was actually space between the spire and the widening battle going on around the space-fortresses.

Prescott waited a moment waited until the traps were in place, centralized in the oncoming wave of Nousjadeul-Ger, which didn't even realize the strange things were dangerous, then simply said "activate."

The things exploded with kinetic fire and the entire oncoming elite wave of power suits dissolved into chaos as more than half of it died within those first few seconds. While a near miss couldn't destroy something in space, since there was no bow wave, the kinetic rounds that were being fired were fired at such speed that they still had enough impetus to destroy the power suit even at the outer edge of its range. So if they missed one target they were certain to hit another especially since the enemy powersuits had crowded together so much.

Now scattered remnants of the remaining powersuits turned and began to fire at these strange devices that had suddenly opened fire on them from nowhere, but died just as quickly. The outer edges of the attacking force had been able to escape the total distraction of the rest of their forces, but they were also out of position to bring the battle to the human ships and were swiftly taken under fire from the Zentraedi forces.

Prescott grimaced as another fifty allied Zentraedi ships died in a minute, cut off and destroyed by thousands of enemy battleships, and he shook his head. The space fortresses were doing their grisly work, and he estimated they had already destroyed upwards of 300,000 enemy ships, and the enemy ships weren't exactly working in concert or in fact working very well at all.

But there were just so damn many of them! Even after seeing Breetai's fleet he had never really understood how many ships were in a battle fleet, after all he could only look at one section of space and see so many of them at a time. Here the fleet was in close so much it was obvious that their numbers were gigantic, disorganized and chaotic, but still gigantic, enough to swat the 10,000+ ships allied with them and the humans with them.

If they were used properly of course, which they weren't at the moment. The chaos that was still expanding around them had forced the Zentraedi to come at them in a disorganized fashion, and both he and Garaccus were making them pay a monstrous price for every ship that went down, especially by taking out their command ships every way they could. "If we can just hold out enough," he said even as Gloval ordered another angle change, and the Argo followed suit. "If we just hold out our siege cannons can do this for us."

With that thought he went back to work, moving his ships around in such a way that they defended one another. Moments later he smirked evilly as Sabers began to boil in from the rents the siege cannons had sliced out of the outer edge of the space station, taking the surprised Zentraedi from behind.

Over 100 ships died in those first few seconds of the surprise assault since every ship had turned to face their bow towards the enemy among them, and the Sabers gleefully ripped into them from behind.

OOOOOOO

Ranma crushed the head of one Nousjadeul-Ger with a punch to the face ignoring the fact that actual blood had spurted out for a moment and hung in the air in tiny droplets as he turned and blew two more away with his head lasers and rifle. Suddenly gravity came back, but as most of them were already standing on the ground it didn't matter to them.

"All right," he said looking around at the others "Sit rep. None of us really know where we're going, so we're all going to break up and cause some chaos." The other officers around him laughed, shark grins on their faces. He looked over to where Max stood rearming his rifle. "Phoenix 1, you take your squadron and 2000 Meltraedi and force your way downwards from here, Knight 1, you and your squadron go with him. If the battle outside start to go south, you know what to do. Miriya," he looked over at her, you take 4000 of your troops, spread them around here and order them to just cause as much carnage as they can, then take the remainder and follow me. Wildfire on me, we're heading up."

As far as he could remember Dolza and his command center was located in the center of the spire, and they had broken below that. Not far below that thankfully, but still he had the impression they needed to go up at least fifteen levels, maybe more.

Max nodded and with one robotic hand signaled his squadron, down two from the battle so far, to follow him one way toward a lift they had found. Behind him came the Knights, moving far slower because of their burden. Mark and the other Earth trained pilots had gone through a few days of training hell, but they were along with the assault team not because they were the best pilots but because they had training in demolitions. Every one of their Valkyries had a demolition pack on it.

Miriya nodded but handed that task off to one of her felloes and waved a dozen Meltraedi towards her by name. These were the most experienced pilots, the ones she had gone into battle with before coming to Sol system and who she trusted implicitly. "I think we'll just go with you now. You'll need more than just Wildfire at your back."

Ranma grinned his eyes still blazing with power. "Fine by me. Let's go kill us an asshole."

OOOOOOO

Dolza cursed slamming one of his message head down onto his command console. In the back of his mind he felt that tingle that signified that his Masters wished to talk to him, and he could well understand why since they had responded to that human fighter's use of that odd attack when Breetai had brought him, and he had seen what looked like a human spacefighter covered in a similar power shooting towards his command spire.

If Dolza had been able to feel fear he would've felt it at that moment, watching the spacefighters of the humans and the Meltraedi slice right through his elites, but all he felt was anger and fury at the very idea that these humans and these traitors thought they could get away with attacking him in his place of power like this.

"They will all burn!" he shouted and around him his command group twitched in terror at the anger in his voice. "Use all guns to destroy the second space fortress, but the first space fortress, the one with the more golden beam must be taken intact!" It was not the first time since the fight began that he had said that, and he was furious that his troops seemed to be unable to follow his orders.

The noise attack hadn't reached his command spire, so Dolza's orders were going out and should've reached its targets instantly, but the fleet docked all around him in the massive Dyson sphere that was his command station wasn't responding. It was almost as if the humans had figured it out a way to block their communications, but that was impossible! Still it hardly mattered, they were slowly being ground under by his forces, and soon the ones that had invaded his command spire would find they no longer had a way home.

OOOOOOO

Rick gasped as a superheated plasma round slammed into his Valkyries shoulder, throwing him to the side. The two Amazons right behind him, Dowel and Comb both tried to crouch down, presenting a lower profile, but they had walked right into a pincer attack, and he grimaced as they both went down, their one Valkyrie fell apart under the assault, the other simply collapsing on its face, riddled with holes and its pilot dead, but thankfully neither Valkyrie's battery had been hit.

Rick lay his Valkyrie down using Comb's as a makeshift shield, firing over it at the enemies down the corridor, killing two of them while barking out orders. "Blow us some holes along the floor and ceiling here, 11, 12 guard our back but watch out for friendlys! Find some cover!" He winced as his Veritech's head was clipped by another round and one more squadron icon went dark. Luckily the others had fallen back to some doorways along the corridor, and they began to lay down their own fire, taking out six more powersuits and five or six unarmored Zentraedi. But they were still pinned down, unable to turn from the firefight to blow a way out. Things looked grim as more and more Nousjadeul-Ger were coming at them from both ends of the corridor now.

Rick grimaced, and grabbed Comb's Valkyrie, hauling it up and pushing it in front of him with both hands, then as it took a hit to the armor right above its batteries he threw it forward changing into guardian mode and zooming backward to join a few of his squad mates in a doorway. The explosion took out large chunks of the corridor and he zoomed forward, the remainder of his Squadron following him grimly, with the rear guard still exchanging fire with the few powersuits that had gotten behind them somehow.

Just as they were about to pass an intersection however, they came under fire from several doorways along one flank. Wash went down, her Valkyries legs blown off under her. two more Amazons took more hits, and Rick lost one of his Valkyrie's hands to a cannon round.

He was about to order they fall back when the Nousjadeul-Ger were themselves taken under fire, and a second later several Queadluun Rau moved around their broken corpses. "Are you alright?" One radioed.

Rick raised an eyebrow, that voice sounded almost absurdly young, especially here in on a battlefield. The face that popped up on his com screen matched the voice, young, a few years younger than him, with light blue hair in a ragged cut, and a bright smile on a lean, attractive face. "We're fine, thanks, what's your rank and designation?"

"Pack lead Aisha, part of Lady Miriya's own wing the 181st."

Rick smiled bleakly at the pride he heard in the girl's voice, despite knowing that Miriya hadn't been a real, traditional wing commander, instead transferring out to other commands wherever the battles were most fierce. "Well, I'm Rick Hunter, CO of Archer squadron. Join up with us and let's get going."

Aisha nodded, one of her powersuit's arms rising in a wave to urge her pack. a group of nine at the moment, to join up with Archer. After Rick had his three GPB-1S Valkyries move up to the center where they could better provide cover fire they moved off. He had stupidly left them at the back of the formation, and they had proven next to useless there.

As the reinforced group moved on, heading who knew where just to cause some carnage Aisha spoke up a little diffidently. "Um, so you're Rick Hunter, the same one who is known as a friend of the singer Minmei?" Rick answered in the affirmative, figuring he knew what was coming, and he was proven correct a second later. "Um, I don't suppose you could introduce me to her? I'm her biggest fan!"

OOOOOOO

About 10 levels below Dolza's command center Ranma and his team too had gotten bogged down in a firefight with a force of Nousjadeul-Ger that had taken up position in a open area by a large lift. The open space allowed the powersuits to consolidate their forces, and the humans couldn't quite get past them without taking losses.

Even as Ranma reached around the edge to fire back at the enemy down the corridor he thinking of how to overcome it. "Miriya, Motoko, take four others with you and circle around these assholes, different directions, clear them out for the others coming up behind!" He turned to the other Meltraedi. "Fire at the ceiling, make us a hole!"

They looked at him then looked up at the ceiling and he could almost see the power suits cocked their heads to one side. "They won't have thought of setting up a defense directly above us, and while it's tough we can get through the armor here right? If we can't fight these guys were they are we'll just go around them and take them from behind.

The Meltraedi behind him nodded and tilted backwards bringing their main cannons to bear up. It took them several minutes to break through, since neither he nor they were wasting missiles on this, but afterwards they all jumped up to the next level where they bypassed that chokepoint entirely.

After surprising a patrol of Zentraedi that hadn't been in suits they came to a lift that could take them either up or down and he split his forces again, sending half down to help take the chokepoint from behind and continuing up with the others, using his thrusters to send himself up the large lift hold.

Behind them the other Meltraedi spread out swiftly in teams of fifty, moving through the levels and killing anything they found

OOOOOOO

Motoko moved swiftly down the corridor, not staying on the floor but using her thrusters to bounce off walls and ceiling, dodging incoming fire while returning her own. Resistance here was minimal and mostly in the form of unarmored Zentraedi, so she was having an easy time of it for now while moving around the hard point to try and take it from the side to clear the way for the squads following them.

She jumped into an open area suddenly, and found herself in the center of ten Nousjadeul-Ger pouring into the intersection. "Shit! Shampoo, Tiger, fall back and give me cover! Traderis, Mohka rush the other side!" Motoko dodged to one side, skating forward to slam bodily into one powersuit, her sword under her arm and enough protruding to slice deeply into it, her rifle banging out three shots which took the head off another one before she dodged behind a third, whipping her sword down to take it's leg off at the thigh.

Shampoo and Tiger fell back and gave cover fire while the two Meltraedi with them rocketed forward, their armor protecting them just enough for them to get close and kill the Nousjadeul-Ger in the hallway in front of them. Motoko had seen what looked like a large factory kind of area beyond it and she was proven correct. The hall ended in an overlooking balcony, and the two could look down into a large hanger area which was full of powersuits and Zentraedi. But unlike their fellows they hadn't been prepared to combat the incursion, instead moving toward a doorway down on the hanger floor. The two Queadluun Rau glanced at one another and then just began to launch missiles after missile and cannon blast after cannon blast down into the factory. Soon they hit something in the rack for the powersuits, which exploded, but they kept firing into the resultant mass of flame and smoke until their sensors told them there were no more targets.

Behind them the fight went equally well. Miriya had come toward them with her team not having run into any defense in the direction they had gone and simply coming to a dead end. She and the others with her took the Nousjadeul-Ger trying to fight Motoko and her team from behind, slaughtering them. by the time they were done Traderis and Mohka were done and the teams went on.

Motoko once more looked askance at the blade Miriya held in one of her powersuits hands. "I just can't understand it Miriya, why in the world a broadsword?"

"Because it looked powerful, easy to use and learn, and because it's the only blade Mousse and Perfume had made of a size for me to use in my powersuit," Miriya replied for the tenth time at least. It actually wasn't her first choice, but the human phrase 'beggars can't be choosers' seemed to fit here. "If you think it's so horrible, teach me how to use a sword like you do when we get back."

Motoko absently gunned down a fleeing Zentraedi, then shot another in the face as he tried to stick his gun out a doorway down the hall, her mind more on the idea of walking Miriya threw the sword forms, the bodies pressed together, her arms around Miriya's lithe form… She shook her head savagely. Remember you're in a relationship now girl, can't go and flirt with someone else's girl, even if he/she has three of them the bastard/bitch. Lucretia would not like it you flirted with everything that walked and had tits. Save all that pent up horniness for her.

She licked her lips unconsciously, her body watching as Shampoo and Lynx killed three Nousjadeul-Ger between them down one corridor of a intersection while Miriya slaughtered four down another. Her mind however was back on the Macross with her girlfriend, thinking of all the perverted things she would be doing to her blond bombshell after this was all over. "Ask Nodoka-kaasan when we get back, I think that will be safer all around."

Miriya looked back at her from where she had just killed another enemy powersuit. "What do you mean by that?"

Motoko chuckled dryly. "Just trust me okay, get kaasan to train you okay?" the group continued their way through the command spire, destroying as they went.

OOOOOOO

About twenty minutes later Motoko and Miriya rejoined Ranma just as he and his team ran into another choke point.

Ranma ducked back, wincing a little as his Valkyrie's shoulder took a hit and his own stung in sympathetic pain. He pushed himself flush against the wall, firing around it offhand and looking around. He recognized this place. "All right, we're getting close. This area leads directly to the command room, and I don't know how long it would take us to blow our way a different route around these assholes. I do not want Dolza to get away, or decide to flush his system or whatever the word is, so we're going to have to do this the hard way."

Miriya scoffed, and reached forward towards a wall her suit's hands sinking into it, but when she pulled them away, only a small chunk of the wall came away in her powersuit's hands. She tried again this time with both hands and again only chunks were torn away. "So much for that idea," she cursed

Ranma shrugged inside his cockpit. "Good idea, but I tried it earlier and it didn't work. Know you're just going to have to follow me in."

Before they could ask questions he summoned up his ki, sending it into his Valkyrie and enhancing the armor strengthening technique is much as he could. As soon as he was certain it was at the maximum he could get it he turned around the corner and charged.

Fire began to slam into him the moment he came around the corner, and all of a Nousjadeul-Ger powersuit's weapons were of a higher caliber and strength then on a Reguld. He could feel his body rattling around in his Valkyries cockpit but he ignored it, all his attention was on keeping the strengthening technique at the maximum level, just absorbing the fire they came at him. He winced as he felt one of his Valkyrie's head lasers get shorn off by a lucky blow, and a cut appeared on the side of his head in sympathetic reaction, but he kept moving forward like an unstoppable juggernaut. Behind him Motoko and Miriya led the charge, and as soon as he broke out into the wider area, the two of them and the rest of their group boiled out around him, their own blades swinging, lasers and blasters firing.

In front of them was a large group of about a hundred Nousjadeul-Ger powersuits and unsuited Zentraedi armed with laser rifles. They stood and fought at first, but Miriya's Meltraedi and Wildfire bounced around dodging their fire now they had room laying down a withering hail of fire that swiftly slew a little under half of the defenders. They tried to fall back but Ranma, Motoko and Miriya, were in among them their blades lashing out, his fists crushing and shattering armor plate.

Soon enough the last enemy powersuit went down, and Ranma nodded. "Down that hall," he said his Valkyries hand lifting and pointing, "That's where the control room is." He looked at the others, ignoring the damage his Valkyrie had taken which was surprisingly miniscule considering the amount of firepower that had hit it. He felt his ki reservoir down to about a third of what it was at full strength, but the armor strengthening technique and worked incredibly well to keep the damage to a minimum. He'd need a new paint job, and the area covered by dents easily dwarfed the area that didn't have them, and one arm sort of stung at the elbow but other than that he was still good to go.

Miriya cocked her head, looking down sadly at the broadsword that had shattered when she accidentally over swung and slashed into the wall. It had stuck there and when she tried to pull it back out one of the Nousjadeul-Ger had the smart idea of targeting it before she could pull back. She still killed it of course, slamming the hilt and the half of the blade that was still connected to it into the Zentraedi's head, but it was rather irritating to lose the weapon so soon after she had bought it, which was still an odd concept to her.

She shook it off however and turned to the rest of their forces. "I think we Meltraedi should stay here, I don't know what will happen if we try to fight Dolza honestly, the fear factor he puts out…. you can't really understand it. Even I feel it even thinking of attacking him."

Ranma looked over at Motoko who was inspecting her own blade, but the katana was made of sterner stuff than Miriya's broadsword, and she hadn't been so foolish as to stick it into a wall. "What about it imouto, you ready to rumble?"

Motoko grinned inside her cockpit and nodded. "Let's do this nii-chan."

The two martial artists turned to the others and nodded at them. "Wildfire with me," said Ranma grimly and the remainder of his squadron fell in behind him leaving Miriya and his her forces to guard their back. Five of them had gone down since they had broken into the command spire. Ben was back where they had broken in, his GPB 1-S badly damaged, so much so his own Valkyries legs weren't working. Lynx had died in a counter ambush before they hit that first chokepoint, gunned down from behind, and three of the Amazon maidens had fallen, though they might still be alive thanks to the armored technique used on their cockpits. They had also lost all contact with Kotatsu, though no one had seen him go down.

Miriya shook her head sadly. It really should be them doing this, but she knew that Dolza's aura of terror would've made her and her forces at best unable to fight. At worst it might've made them turn on their human comrades. But that didn't mean her mind wasn't working. "When you do Ranma, I have an idea…"

OOOOOOO

Outside the command spire the battle had begun to seesaw. The defending Zentraedi had lost more than half their number, and were only now moving around to try and avoid the angle of the massive space fortresses siege cannon, but they weren't doing a very good job of it. On the other side of the scale losses among the Allied Zentraedi and Meltraedi had been heavy, over half the Zentraedi ships having already died, while still more had been forced to retreat.

The human forces had lost nine more ships but seven had followed Prescott's orders, and had been able to fold out to join the carriers outside. Outside continued to be safe, the other huge construction deeper into this nameless star system not doing anything to help Dolza's space station.

The other two human battleships had died in spectacular fashion. The Harpoon had interposed its shattered hull between seventy gunboats that had ranged on the Macross, taking their blows long enough for them to be destroyed by the allied Zentraedi before simply coming apart at the seams. The Agincourt had left formation when it's fold drive had been destroyed and rammed one of the command class battleships when it tried to range on the Argo.

That had taken the heart out of a pincer movement that would've come up from above through a hole in the Zentraedi defense. The secondary weapons of the space fortresses had done the rest, helped along by the fact that Apocalypse was not the only Monster class in the fight. Prescott had brought along three of the things, and had station them all on the feet of the Argo's siege mode where they could aim downward. They were having a field day destroying ships left and right, but their contribution and the contribution of the Zentraedi with them was almost beside the point in comparison to the siege cannons.

It was simple really and Lisa shook her head at the stupidity of these indoctrinated Zentraedi even as shots began to rain down on the Marcoss's main body, the few remaining mobile barriers now ordered to protect the main gun nacelles and leave the rest of the ship unprotected. In an enclosed space, which this small Dyson sphere thing still was, there just wasn't enough room for all of those ships to dodge the siege cannons as they traversed. Thousands of ships died every time the siege cannon twitched, and they had cut the heart out of the defense forces. It was still touch and go of course, the enemy still had over 200,000 ships remaining but Lisa could almost feel their desperation increasing, and they began to fire even when they didn't have locking solutions on one of their enemies, further confusing the battle and felling their own comrades.

The Zentraedi under Garaccus had no such problems. Even now he was keeping firm control of his forces, its units moving as one. His own gunbaots were wreaking holy havoc on the enemy's gunboats which were now so low in number that they couldn't even field a force equal to Breetai's fleet, and his Thurvel-Salan battleships and Quiltra Queleual carriers were working closely together, their discipline making them deadly beyond their numbers

Kim and Sammy both winced in unison, as ten beams from as many gunboats slammed into the Daedalus. "Daedalus is gone! It's just, it just sheared off at the hatch and its in pieces now!" with it had gone something around the order of two thousand crew members. "The secondaries on that side are still online!"

It got worse a moment later as one of the 'legs' of the Argo was scored by another group of gunboats. The surface of that section was gone, and a hole in it's defenses. Fifty Thurvel-Salan battleships rose up to try and take advantage, but the remaining human battleships moved in, destroying them all for the loss of another one of their number folding out, its weapons all gone, and one real-space engine destroyed.

Another ten Thurvel-Salan somehow got through the Zentraedi defense above the Macross and descended, weapons blazing. The secondary weapons of the space fortress turned and began to slam home into them, but Lisa gasped as the 'head' of the siege mode took a dozen shots, taking out its long range communication gear and opening much of the rest to space while one of the secondary gun turrets on one of the 'shoulders' above Prometheus blew apart under their fire. She slammed her helmet down and the others all around her followed suit, but the bridge was still intact for now. The majority of that first salvo was caught by the mobile barriers along the gun nacelles, though it cost them three more.

Before the enemy battleships could continue they came under fire from behind as Garraccus' flagship followed them down and destroyed the foru remaining with a single broadside.

OOOOOOO

Rana Sanga grimaced as he watched a full company of Defenders immolated by fire from one of the enemy gunboats, cursing as several hundred enemy powersuits dropped down through the breach in the anti-air defense. "General we have a major breach in topside quadrants 1-15 aft!" With a wave of one mechanical arm he sent his reinforced company of Spartan forward, and they clashed with the Nousjadeul-Ger close in, the Spartan's greater range and missile lock on ability carrying the day, but not without losses.

By the time they had temporarily cleared the surface of enemies in this sector a half company of defenders had come up with two more Spartans, dragging one of the shotgun kinetic delivery systems.

Rana and his men couldn't stay and watch what it did to the next wave of spacefighters alas. They had been called to another potential breach near the feet of the Macross. Losses were piling up, and the battle was nearing the tipping point.

OOOOOOO

Elsewhere thirty of the Meltraedi carriers died under the close in raking fire of four thousand Thurvel-Salan battleships. However their sacrifice had saved seventy others, who folded out, their power suits all launched and their own defenses hammered under so badly that it was a wonder they were still space worthy.
Their attackers in turn died under the siege blast of the Argo, unable to move back below its beam fast enough.

That idea of the humans had been grabbed with alacrity, and Garracus was thankful for it. He laughed wildly as the song changed to something called a Western, something about fiddles and the devil, whatever they were. But that wasn't what he was laughing about. On the heel of the song came under another wave Sabers from outside, once again slamming into the enemy's forces from behind.

"Note to self destroy the human carriers first if ever I have to fight them those little things are deadly and if they can get where you don't expect them to be the effect is magnified." He shook his head as fifty battleships died under the Saber's fire, including one Nupetiet-Vergnitzs battleship at the back of the enemy's formation, leaving, according to his sensors, only two in the rest of the enemy fleet. The more holes blown in the outer shell of the space station the more ways those Sabers had to attack them from behind and they were using that ruthlessly.

The battle was far from over, and he estimated that they still had less than a 50% chance of any of them getting out of here alive especially since the Zentraedi were now forcing their way through his ships to get at the space fortresses from above and below and both of them were taking heavy damage despite their remaining mobile barrier shields. Those shields were why he still had a flotilla. His forces would already have been destroyed utterly without them, but the still didn't have enough of them, not really.

"One more push," he muttered even as over 60 of his ships were bracketed inside one of the enemy's divisions and wiped out to a ship, not one of them able to fold out in time to save themselves. He looked at the enemy however and he felt their growing frustration, their growing fear. "One more push, they won't break yet, not yet, one more push!"

OOOOOOO

Little did he know, that the last push he was waiting for would soon occur. At that very moment Motoko and Ranma broke through the outer reinforced door of the control room and into the interior of the command center.

Dolza turned with a roar, enraged beyond all reasoning that these puny things dared challenge him in his center of power and had gotten this far inside besides. After this fight is over I will order the death of every one of my powersuit operators, all of my captains, all of them have failed us, failed me and my Masters! He thought.

His thoughts were derailed however when the one enemy fighter that was glowing blue laughed hollowly at him. "Long time no see Dickface."

Dolza recognized that voice and that attitude and roared again, charging at the puny mite that had for the second time challenged his power, all thoughts of being a commander of his people all thoughts of the future gone, replaced by the desire to destroy this puny insignificant creature.

Ranma grinned even as his Valkyrie crouched down to receive the giants charge. A Valkyrie came up to Breetai's chest, though it was wider in the shoulders. But Dolza was bigger than even that, and he towered over the Valkyrie both in height and width. But even with that Ranma felt no fear, only a burning desire for justice, and his eyes grew colder, his body and Valkyrie shining with gold not tinged with blue this time, just the coldness of space at the energy of the universe filling him.

"Time to face justice you son-of-a-bitch!" Just as Dolza was about to reach him he charged forward impacting the larger being with an elbow shot to the sternum which made him fly back roaring in agony.

Motoko swiftly turned and spun around, slicing a Zentraedi guard who had stood up from the floor where he had been smashed by their entrance. She then spun backwards, slicing into another one while firing her rifle at two more on that side before jumping over a stanchion to land in among the communication officers her sword and rifle smashing out. She was very careful to not damage the communications gear. The idea Miriya had come up with a few minutes ago was still very much in her mind, and she was interested to see what effect it would have. Besides, they needed star charts and everything else they could take from this place.

Dolza got to his feet with a grunt, lashing out with a fist that would've crushed Ranma's leg had it hit but he jumped up over it, kicking out and sending Dolza backward, his nose and jaw broken. He rolled again, coming up and tearing a computer station out from the floor tossing it his enemy.

Ranma grunted as he swatted it aside dropping his rifle and using his bunched Valkyrie's fists to slam it aside then Dolza was on him before he could resettle. Ranma grunted again as he was slammed back onto the floor.

Dolza raised one giant fist and brought it crashing down but Ranma blocked it, and before Dolza could bring another blow down however Ranma had kicked up and out from underneath him slamming his legs straight into the junction between Dolza's legs.

It came as no surprise however that this blow didn't disable Dolza as it would any normal male, merely lifting him off enough to let Ranma use his jets to propel himself along the floor and away.

Ranma flipped to his feet and before Dolza could charge again came back with a punch with all the power of his ki behind it sending Dolza of skidding away gasping as his chest caved in. He still got to his feet however, only to see Ranma with his hands together the gold glow of his Valkyrie concentrated now between him. "Moko Ha Reiku!"

Still the commander of all Zentraedi was able to dodge to one side, but not enough to save him. Under the unrelenting power of that ki attack one entire side, arm and leg disappeared and he screamed even as it cauterized his wounds enough so that he didn't die immediately. Ranma stared at him and shook his head. "What the hell are you made of? he leaned down, absently swatting Dolza's arm aside as it reached for his throat and looked at the wound. Metal and flesh was intermingled there, and he nodded, "A cyborg of some kind, huh?"

He heard a thump behind him and turned to look and smirked as Miriya and the others came in, the last of the defenders dying under Motoko's blade. She walked over to Ranma and stared down at Dolza who was still trying feebly to scrabble and grab Ranma's arm where he was holding Dolza's against his chest. She raised one foot and held it right next to where Ranma's hand was and passed him her katana. "Finish it nii-chan!" she said fiercely and Ranma nodded. He stood up and took a katana it in both hands, and brought it down in a vicious arc, decapitating the commander of all Zentraedi.

Behind them Miriya gasped at the sight and then began to laugh. "It's over," she said, "the puppet is gone!"

"Not quite yet," said Ranma looking around. "Any idea which is the communication console so we can connect with that fleet out there?"

As Miriya and the others looked around them trying to figure that one out, he got in touch with Lisa. "Command one this is Wild one, primary objective accomplished."

Deep in the bowels of the command spire Max breathed a sigh of relief. He and his forces hadn't found anything that looked like a engine yet, so if they had been forced to go with the secondary plan, they wouldn't have been able to do it.

Back with Ranma he looked up as one of the powersuits waved him over to a specific screen before continuing. "We're about to try something, that might have an effect out there," he said "Suggest you cut out all noise attacks, they're about to be hit by something even worse."

He could almost hear the question Lisa's voice as she replied, even with her speaking through her spacesuit's helmet. "I'm going to have to have a better idea of what you have in mind to do that Wild one, that noise attack is one of the only reasons were still alive out here."

Ranma told her and Lisa broke from her normal stern battle mode to laugh wildly. "T-that would work," she gasped and passed it on to Gloval and from there to Prescott. After a moment she had their okay and Ranma nodded at them and moved to the communications gear. "Cutting off the sound attack in 3,2,1, now!"

OOOOOOO

All the embattled Zentraedi captains were astonished when the strange sound attack that had been wreaking so much havoc in their ability to communicate and coordinate stopped. Suddenly the communication systems lit up with an incoming video call, and they all stared in shock at the sight which greeted them. The head of Dolza was being held from above, and they could see the strange human spacefighter's steel fingers digging into its skin.

A voice boomed out in the Zentraedi language, a female voice, but that merely made it more terrifying. "Dolza is dead! Surrender or join him!"

Of course Zentraedi didn't even know what the word surrender meant (it had come through in English), but the rest of the message got through quite clearly. The idea of their supreme ruler being mortal enough to die was in and of itself a shock, seeing his head removed from its body like that was worse, and morale, which had been taking a dive ever since this battle began, disintegrated, taking the remainder of the fleet with them. Captains who would have stood up against anything the Invid could throw against them, captains who had fought through this entire battle unwavering in their belief in their superiority, in their numbers and strength even when that strength was tested broke.

It wasn't a route exactly, but it was close to one. Here of there a thousand ships stayed together, but these pools of resistance drew the space fortresses fire swiftly, and they just as quickly died. The remainder however tried desperately to get away, and many thousands of them remembered they could fold out, but most of them seemed to have lost control and simply were running in real space, trying to get out of the space station. They were badly hindered by the allied Meltraedi and Zentraedi and the human spacefighters and ships moved among them slaughtering as they went. They didn't even try to fight back now, all they tried to do was get away and it took over two more hours to kill them all, since the Zentraedi and Meltraedi were now too interspersed amongst them. This meant that the space fortresses could only use their siege cannons on the edge of the enemies remaining formation, if such a word could be used for the fleeing mob.

Prescott swiftly ordered the carriers and the mauled ships outside to fold back in behind the rest of the forces in the dead zone which had already been cleared of all their enemies, and they did, saving them from being overwhelmed by the ships that were boiling out of every hole in the space stations fortress. This kept the losses, which had been horrible, from becoming worse.

By the time this slaughter ended out of a force of about 800,000 Zentraedi ships only about 53,000 were able to escape, almost all of which were the ones who had remembered they had fold-space engines.

The last Nupetiet-Vergnitzs battleship died trying to escape in real space under the combined secondary fire of the Argo and two gunboats. With it gone the 300 or so other ship surrounding it lost what remained of their hearts but surprisingly gained back their brains and folded out, still losing more than half their number before they could.

There was a moment of stillness on the flag bridge of the Argo as Prescott continued to stare down at his display in shock. There were still millions of battle pods and elite Nousjadeul-Ger out there, the capital ships not even waiting to take them aboard before escaping. But with the threat of the capital ships gone the allied Zentraedi had broken up into 10 ship groups, and while most of their antiair fire was not able to target Sabers they proved well able to stop their own forces.

He leaned back slightly, breathing in slowly, letting his exhaustion show for just a moment. The battle had been incredibly hard fought, and both space fortresses were so badly battered he wondered if they would be able to even enter fold. He winced, feeling the hull plate under his feet shudder and groan as the Argo transformed to its normal mode. This mode was slightly easier to get around in, which would help repair teams. From one screen he could see Macross transforming as well, and could only shake his head at the amount of damage it had taken.

The battle continued for another hour, but that was simply because the number of spacefighters out there took that long to kill. Most of them to were trying to simply get away like their capital ships, but there were so damn many of them killing them took time. After the last enemy designator disappeared on his system he nodded and looked over at his com officer. "All ships battle over, battle over. All available Queadluun Rau head toward the command spire and help clear it out. All Valkyries report in to your parasite commanders for SAR."

The battle was over, and this huge thing was theirs, not they could actually do anything with it. It was just too damn big, but also too under defended on the exterior to be viable, and besides, it was stationary, and they weren't going to stay here very long. "But that begs the question," He murmured to himself, "What that other big thing deeper in-system is?"

OOOOOOO

Clearing out the command spire went almost as easily as the fight outside once Dolza was dead. The Zentraedi troops, which had already lost more than half their number, simply stayed where they were. They would fight of course, but not well, it was as if their minds were broken and they were just going through the motions. Calling on them to drop their weapons and surrender didn't work however, and they all had to be killed where they were.

Ranma and his force didn't bother doing that though, simply clearing a straight path from the point where they had blown an entrance up to the command room, then lining it with defensive points and calling in the tech guys to examine everything.

While this was going on however Lang passed on a very disturbing fact in a conference call with Scott and Henri. "That turbulence we suffered folding in was not the result of our long time in fold. It was caused by the fact we came in on the heels of a major fold-out. We were wondering why the fleet we faced here was bunched up to one side of the command spire, it was because the rest had folded out first."

Dolza had in fact had what he thought was a stroke of genius. He would send in one force, which Breetai and the traitors would attack, then his next force would arrive and pin the defenders between his first force and his second. Needless to say, this had backfired badly.

"How many ships would you say would be required to leave a lingering disturbance like that doctor?" Henri asked quietly.

"I would estimate at minimum a force the same size as the one we faced here. Probably on the order of a million or more ships." Emil replied, rubbing his face worriedly.

Dolza had in fact put together a force of a little over 2 million ships all told by consolidating the factory satellites under smaller fleets and his decision to send the entirety of his own defense fleet with the rest. The assault here had taken a little over 800,000 ships out of that, but that still left the majority that had already left.

"So the forces back with Earth will be facing odds of at least two to one, possibly more. We need to get back there, the space fortresses and the other human ships can get back there in time to join the defense against them."

"And what would that accomplish?" Prescott asked looking at him. "Every ship we have is shot to hell and back. Our medical and repair teams are overworked so badly it isn't funny. Hell I know the Argo needs its hull repaired in dozens of places before we're able to enter fold safely, and I know it's the same for the Macross." Gloval winced, but still glared back at him and Scott smiled thinly. "Besides, Earth has the much vaunted Breetai and his fleet as well as Azonia and her Meltraedi. We can assume they will do their utmost to defend our home."

He was speaking out of his ass of course. Breetai had made the point again and again that tying their defense of the system down by falling back to Earth would be playing to their enemies strength, making it a contest of numbers instead of maneuverability and skill. But he also knew he was speaking the truth, the fleet here was in no shape to move, and wouldn't without days spent repairing ships the best they could. "Doctor thank you for passing this on, now go join your team and get us the information about these Tirolians we need."

Lang nodded and cut the call, leaving the two admirals to stare at one another. At this point Garaccus broke called, interrupting the stare down. "I thought you'd like to know, that other large construction deeper in the system, it's a factory satellite."

Scott broke off his staring contest with Henri to look at the Zentraedi admiral. "What is a factory satellite, Breetai mentioned them but he didn't go into detail."

"They are the factories that build our entire war machine." Garaccus replied, his voice earnest. "They can make anything, from a Reguld to a Nupetiet-Vergnitzs class battleship given enough time and resources, and that time is measured in weeks, not years even for the largest vessel. Some designs have been lost over the years but it will still have the ability to make anything large and small."

"Is it mobile?" Prescott's eyes were blazing with interest and a kind of covetous ardor as he asked that question.

Garaccus nodded. "it can enter fold, but it is slow there, I remember having to move with one through fold once along the Invid border, and they are incredibly slow. It took us weeks to reach the same destination it took us days to do without it along."

"We need to take that then."

Henri shook his head. "You just said we're in no shape to enter fold, we're certainly in no shape to face something like that."

"It doesn't matter!" Prescott exclaimed. "Do you have any idea how much that satellite is worth to our wartime production! That one satellite can probably build a fleet for us to given enough time! It might well dwarf the production capability of the entire Earth!" He drew in a deep breath. "What kind of defenses are we talking about here?"

"Minimal exterior defenses, but a lot of parasite defenders. They usually have a fleet to guard them, but I think this one was stripped away, and we probably destroyed it here. My fleet should be up to the task once our fighter forces have had a rest."

"Good, but we'll stack the deck a little more. Strip the barrier shields from the remaining human ships and the damaged vessels that still have them. The Macross and the Argo will be making more from our resources at the same time. Let your pilots get a good night's sleep, load up with as many mobile barrier shields as we have, then hit it. We want it as intact as we can get it, but I'm not interested in how pretty it is, understand?" Garaccus nodded, his eyes amused by the phrase but otherwise utterly serious. "In that case we all have things to do other than sit here, hop to it gentlemen."

With that Scott closed the connection, and went to find his wife and kids, desperate to have a few hours away from the blood and carnage. Garaccus simply laid back in his command chair and closed his eyes after passing on the order to strip the damaged ships of their few mobile barriers and to rest his parasite forces. Henri too decided to spend a few hours speaking to Nodoka. Luckily the deep interior of the space fortress remained undamaged, and the bunkers had allowed the civilians to ride out the battle safely.

Later on the operation against the factory satellite would go off without a problem. Its forces were utterly demoralized, almost as lost as the fleet they had faced without Dolza or their defense fleet around and Garaccus would take it easily. When the assault force returned to Sol in three weeks time, they would be bringing with them a true game changer.

OOOOOOO

The search for knowledge in the computer systems of the Dyson Sphere/space station however would prove in vain. The systems had been wiped of everything, not just star charts but everything else as well. Despite the knowledge they could glean from their tech, that part of the mission seemed a failure until Ranma stumbled upon Dolza's private quarters and the device within.

Emil and his team spent several hours examining it in specially designed Archimedes destroids, which didn't have any weapons but made up for this 'lack' by having the same arms and finger dexterity as on the best surgical tools. They discovered that it was a highly advanced communication system, far smaller and with far larger range than their own fold space communication gear. This find was of huge value, though Emil found it hard to balance against the lives lost taking this station intact like this.

"You're sure even if I turn this thing on you won't be able to trace the signal?" asked Ranma sadly.

Dr. Lang shook his head just as sadly. I'm afraid not, tracing a signal through fold space is beyond our means right now. Perhaps eventually we will be able to do it but not right now."

Ranma nodded then grinned evilly. "So, does anyone object if I poke whoever is on the other side a bit?"

Dr. Lang chortled a little and waved one arm grandly. "Be my guest." Behind him the other scientists and their guards crowded in, out of sight of the pickup, but still wanting to see what was going to happen.

OOOOOOO

Far, far away from Dolza's space station three beings looked up in shock as a light on their central console, a light that had burned a solid green for so long they had trouble remembering when it hadn't, suddenly went out. They all looked at one another in shock. "Now we know at least what all the proto-culture readings we were getting was. The Micronians sent their space fortress and detonated it or something."

"The how does not matter" said the second one shaking his head. "Send the order. Purge the systems of every ship of the Zentraedi and all of their stations and that space station in particular. The Micronians cannot learn where our forces are. That way even if they survive the hammer blow coming they will not be able to find us."

The signal went out and the trio began to discuss what could possibly have happened, and how to get some real information about it. This discussion was interrupted however six hours later as an incoming signal began to ding on their console. One of them looked at the third, who had been the designer of the Dolza unit. He shrugged and said coldly "Dolza is dead, whatever this is, is not him."

A moment later a voice they had never heard before came over the line, and the image in the center of their console showed some kind of humanoid spacefighter. "Is this thing on?" said a loud voice.

The three beings looked at one another not responding but it still seemed to sense they were there. "What are you?" one of them asked in its own language which the console's systems immediately translated to that odd human language just as it had done the reverse. They had taken the translation program from Dolza when it had attempted to interrogate some Micronian prisoners.

"We're the ones who cut your puppet strings oh Masters," said the thing, every inch of it screaming contempt and irony. "Don't get comfy wherever you are, I don't care if you did erase all the information about where the hell you are, we will find you eventually, and then we're going to put you masters down just like your puppet."

A glowing blue fist suddenly slammed into the system on the other end of the communication and the signal cut out abruptly, leaving the Masters to stare in astonishment at the high-end proto-culture reaction apparently being controlled and sustained by a living being. The sight sent a shiver of pure atavistic fear down their spines. "What have we awoken here?"

End chapter

---

There goes this fight. I know some of you wanted to read about a massive, awesome duel between Ranma and Dolza, but at this point he alone was about as much threat to Ranma and the others as a child would be. Don't worry, I won't try to just ignore or summarize the events back in Sol. Oh, and don't worry, about Zor and his message, I will cover that in the epilogue but couldn't put it here without diminishing it far too much.

Next time, Azonia and Breetai have their day, and maybe an epilogue too, don't quote me though. Until then.