Second Chances 2.0

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters and universe that I am about to mangle around for my own demented author amusement – sadly all Robotech characters and concepts remain the property of Harmony Gold – I am merely borrowing them and make absolutely no profit from their use. As a result, please keep the legal attack dogs – also known as lawyers – firmly muzzled and on a leash as I have no money to give to anyone.

Chapter Two

Officer Barracks

Macross City, Macross Island

Lisa Hayes awoke with a gasp. Blinking she awkwardly sat up in a bed that was not her own, it was far too small and it was cold without the familiar warmth and weight of Rick lying next to her and looked around. To find herself in a room that had the distinct look of a room in a military barracks, there was standard military furniture everywhere from the pale beige carpets to the formed plastic seats and the generic reformed wood desk with a computer sat on top of it. A computer that to her eyes looked impossibly outdated as she looked at it from the bed, it even had an old TFT screen instead of the projector field emitter she was used to. It was a room completely devoid of any and all personal touches.

It was a room that she had not seen in over forty years.

For a moment she was confused, wondering if this was all some really strange and realistic dream and that she was really still lying in bed next to her husband aboard the Pioneer, then as the last of the mental cobwebs of sleep dissipated realized exactly what had happened. And as a consequence where exactly she was now and how exactly she had gotten here.

"It worked then," she said softly to herself as she threw off the bedclothes and stood up, luxuriating in the fact that her legs and back didn't immediately scream at her in protest for doing so as arthritis amplified by the injuries she'd sustained in the Edwards mutiny that she had had to get used to was simply no longer there. Reaching over she flicked on the bedside light and winced at the sudden brightness before truly looking around the room.

As she had suspected this was her old temporary quarters in the military base on Macross Island. The lack of any real personal touches telling her that she had arrived here in the past, and been merged into her own younger self, just days at most before the launch festivities of the SDF-1 were scheduled to begin. Festivities that would get so rudely gate crashed by the Zentraedi when they finally caught up with Zor's now rebuilt and refurbished battlefortress. The data I need to know the exact date, she thought knowing that while she did have some options – she was already a lieutenant commander in the United Earth Defence Forces and second officer of the SDF-1 – about what she could do to make things a bit better for them in the war that would soon erupt – she wasn't so foolish as to think that she could stop it starting given the neuro-somatic conditioning used on the Zentraedi by the Robotech Masters hadn't yet been compromised by both Minmei's singing and exposure to a completely different way of life and thus they wouldn't do anything but fight – but what those would be would really depend on when exactly she was before launch day.

Moving over to the wardrobe she opened it to look at the calendar on the back of the door. And resisted the impulse to groan aloud as she saw that there was only one day left before launch day. A measly twenty-four hours – given or take another couple of hours – before a thousand ship strong fleet of warships, that were packed to the gills with the deadly products of the Masters mastery over robotechnology, appeared in Sol and all hell broke loose. Damn it Claudia couldn't you have sent me back a few days earlier, she thought knowing that with even just a week's additional lead time she could have made a hell of a difference. Twenty-four hours though, well she could still do some things but not as much as she would have really liked.

After a moment she sighed. As the old saying went there was no use crying over spilt milk after all, she was here and had a day of prep-time before the arrival of the Zentraedi and the outbreak of the First Robotech War. Of course the first order of business was to get herself sorted out for the day and then…

…then she would start working out just what it was she had to work with. So it was she took out a clean uniform, the only one still here all the others having been transferred to her assigned cabin on the SDF-1 along with the few personal mementoes she'd brought with her to the island from her ancestral home in upstate New York, before heading into the small, attached bathroom for a shower.

Twenty minutes later Lisa emerged from the front entrance to the officer's barracks to be met with the site of the bustling military base. With preparations for tomorrow's festivities well underway, and with the first guests due to arrive sometime in the next few hours, the base gave the impression of being something of a beehive albeit that was being run and organised with military precision. For a moment she watched the vehicles whizzing around before looking up and seeing it.

Sitting there like a gigantic, beached whale was the leviathan form of the SDF-1 her hull gleaming pristine in the bright tropical sun. It was honestly quite strange to see her lying like this, completely unharmed and waiting to take to the stars again. It was such a difference to the last time she had seen her. Then she had been a shattered, almost completely burned out and heavily irradiated with hyper phasic radiation wreck being cocooned in a cylindrical containment shell to prevent the radiation leaking from the broken – by Khyron's last suicidal attack upon them – ship and her ruptured reflex furnaces from further contaminating the already grievously wounded Earth. And she had not been alone two other shells being constructed around the equally burned and contaminated wrecks of Khyron's battlecruiser and the SDF-2, while the contaminated city around them was evacuated prior to demolition.

She wondered if there was something she could do to prevent that outcome for the SDF-1, an all of them, this time. It was not going to be an easy thing she knew that for sure, especially given the forces that would soon be brought to bear against them first by the likes of Breetai – which was hard to reconcile with her memories of Breetai before his death over Optera as a good man determined to do right by everyone and in the process atone for some of the harm the Zentraedi had wrought on the universe at the behest of the Robotech Masters – then Khyron, Azonia and finally Dolza himself. It might even be impossible but she would do her damned best to change or at least mitigate the worst of the future as she remembered it, and she knew she would not be alone in the attempt. There would be others here, others from the future.

She just hoped Rick would be amongst them. Not only would his knowledge and skills, both as an officer and a pilot, be highly useful for all of them but she was certain she would need his infectious good humour and ability to know when it was time to let your hair down and just chill. Something that she herself, she had to acknowledge, had sometimes having difficulty knowing when to do and had learned to follow his lead on such things as a result. Plus he was fun in bed and a great pillow at night.

The beep of a car horn jolted her out of her thoughts. She jumped slightly and looked around to see a jeep being driven by one of the many nameless ratings on the island had pulled up and was waiting for her. And from the beep had probably already been waiting for a minute or two. Blushing slightly in embarrassment she hurried down the remaining steps outside the barracks and climbed into the passenger seat.

"Are you okay ma'am," the rating asked, "you seemed to be staring into space there a bit."

"I am fine," Lisa replied understanding that the other soldier was merely concerned for her, "I just got a bit lost in my thoughts is all. Thank you for getting me back on track."

"Your welcome ma'am."

"Now take me to the SDF-1."

"Yes ma'am."

Hunter Ranch

Northern California

A Short Time Later

Sitting in his favourite armchair Mitchell Hunter felt alternatively like he wanted to scream in horror or throw up as sitting in the chair opposite him, his son outlined events of a future that was nightmarish to say the very least. A future that within a day would begin to repeat itself when a fleet of massive alien warships, crewed by bioengineered humanoids who were as massive as their ships, would defold from hyperspace and begin approaching the Earth searching for the vessel now known as the SDF-1 and something called the protoculture matrix that had been concealed aboard her by her original creator a humanoid alien named Zor before sending both ship and matrix away.

An act that would prompt a previously hidden program to activate causing the former alien vessel, which Rick referred to as a battlefortress, to power up and fire its mighty main cannon at the approaching giants and in an instant destroy two ships starting the war. A war that before it finally ended in early twenty fourteen would see the annihilation of eighty percent of the human race in one terrifying bombardment that future generations would refer to as the Rain of Death.

To say it was horrific would have been an understatement.

"Is there no way to prevent war?" he asked looking pale, sickened by the unimaginable death toll of a war that was yet to take place, though was now only a day away from beginning, "maybe some way to come to an understanding with the Zentraedi?"

Rick resisted the impulse to sigh. While he understood well where his father was coming from. Due to his experiences in the Gulf War, especially the death of his best friend and wingman Dan Fokker among other squadron mates, Pops was strongly opposed to warfare except as the very last resort. He was much the same - especially as unlike his father he knew the full destructive capabilities of even simple applications of robotech weaponry even a basic cobalt missile easily matched the most powerful nuclear device ever detonated the Tzar Bomb for sheer destructive power - and would be lying if he said that there was any relish in the prospect of fighting again especially against those who in the other timeline, he had considered friends. Unfortunately, thanks to the thrice damned Robotech Masters peace with the Zentraedi at this time would be impossible, even trying to speak to them to broach the topic would have been an exercise in futility.

"Unfortunately, no that's not possible at this time much as I wish otherwise. I have seen far too much of what robotech weaponry can do to ever relish using it," he answered sadly, "the neuro-somatic conditioning and programming used on the Zentraedi by the Robotech Masters is far too powerful for that. Right now, the only thing the Zentraedi know how to do is fight. Diplomacy is very much a foreign concept to them. Any attempt at diplomacy would simply be seen as weakness and at best ignored and at worst answered with a cobalt missile to the face.

"Plus, we are what they would at this time call micronians," he continued. "Little more than something to be stepped on and crushed if we get in their way. At this point in time war between us and the Zentraedi is inevitable as short of surrendering the SDF-1 and with her the protoculture matrix to them for them to take it back to the Masters we cannot do anything to prevent it."

"From what you've already said I guess that would not be a good thing."

"It wouldn't," Rick confirmed, "the Robotech Masters are one of the most technologically advanced and powerful civilizations in the known universe. They are also utterly pitiless and merciless. Using the capabilities of the various grades of protoculture, and their Zentraedi warrior servitors, they've conquered and subjugated multiple galaxies. Only the fact that they don't currently have the matrix – and with it the ability to make more protoculture – has stopped their expansion."

"So, what can we do? There has to be something?" Mitchell asked, determined that there had to be something they could do to if not stop the war at least reduce the death toll.

Rick sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "There isn't much," he said at last, "not with such a short build up time. Had I had a year or two to play with well things could be a bit different but we don't so all we can do is somehow reduce the death toll, or at least limit the severity of Dolza's attack so that more of our race survives. We will need them if we are to have any chance as neither the Zentraedi nor the Robotech Masters are our deadliest enemy."

"I'm almost afraid to ask but who is?"

"The Haydonites."

"And who are they?" Mitchell asked clearly hearing anger in Rick's voice when he mentioned that name. Given how laid back his only biological son could be, well as long as it wasn't something that involved flying as there the perfectionist streak Rick had inherited from him would come out full force, he almost didn't want to know what it was about this race that had Rick so angry. Not to mention how powerful they had to be if Rick considered them an even bigger threat than the Zentraedi and their creators.

"Very much a wolf in sheep's clothing," Rick answered, "they were members of the Sentinels Alliance – a group of worlds and sectors that banded together for mutual protection after the Tirolian Empire transitioned from its current state of slow decline into complete collapse – and were supposed to be our allies. They're a race of machines, like a real-life version of the Cylons, that answer to an advanced artificial intelligence they call the Awareness."

"I take it they weren't friends after all?"

"No, they weren't they betrayed us. They were responsible for my death, and the death of my entire crew, up time and would go on to kill thousands more with longer term plans to kill billions, to wipe out entire planets."

"But why?" Mitchell asked horrified at the scale of the planned genocide. He was also incensed that these machines had dared to harm his son, had dared to stab him in the back so to speak, in that future timeline.

"Because of protoculture the Awareness see's it and all who have used it or would use it as a threat to its plans for intergalactic dominion. We didn't know it at the time but the Awareness see's organic beings as inferior lifeforms worthy of only death or servitude."

"Sounds a bit like the plot of a movie."

Rick chuckled as Pops verbalised something that he had honestly been thinking ever since Angel Roy told him about the genocidal plans of the Awareness. "it does " he agreed an amused smile on his lips before the seriousness of the situation gripped him again. "And I, and anyone else who's come back hopefully including Lisa, have to somehow positively alter the outcome of three whole wars to have any chance of stopping them."

"Three wars? And whose Lisa?"

"Yes there are two more robotech wars on top of the coming war with the Zentraedi against first the Robotech Masters and then the Invid. As for Lisa she is or is that will be, ugh time travel tenses are a pain in the arse, my wife. We got married in twenty- two just before the launch of the Expeditionary Force to try and prevent a second robotech war."

"Seems like you've got a lot more to tell me."

"Unfortunately and it doesn't get any better."

Mitchell grimaced at that almost not wanting to know. But somehow he knew that he had to know, he had to let Rick tell him and share with him the burden of knowing the truth of the apocalyptic future that was. A future that could still come to pass. How he could help him stop it he didn't know; he was a bit too old for active service as a pilot these days and honestly he wasn't as fit as he had once been the slow ravaging decay of time having taken its toll on him. Not trusting himself to speak he gestured for Rick to continue with his terrible, both in its content and the quite matter of fact way in which Rick was talking which he could tell was a very military mask for his true feelings, recital.

Rick nodded, unable to stop himself from feeling a smidgeon of guilt for dumping all this on his father, before resuming his narration.

Two Hours Later

Silence reigned in the living room of the Hunter Ranch. Rick had finally fallen silent, finished narrating future events that were at the same time amazing, unbelievable, and absolutely terrifying especially how it outlined decades of warfare, pain and struggle that made all of the wars of humanities storied history seem like schoolboy squabbles. The idea that Rick had, in the other timeline, lived through such horrors made him feel more than a little sick though there was also pride there as well as while the Robotech Wars had obviously hardened Rick a lot – nobody could go through even a fraction of that without being in some way changed – he had not become a monster.

Certainly not like some of the others – like whoever this T. R. Edwards was – had. Honestly the things that man had done in his quest for power and vengeance upon Rick and everyone he thought had wronged him in his life were horrifying to say the very least. Though his ending – being turned into a literal monster and getting killed by one of his own weapon designs – was quite a poetic one in the justice sense.

"So what are you going to do now Rick," he asked his son who suddenly looked a great deal older than his physical nineteen years, there was an incredible weariness about him giving him a glimpse of the immense emotional toll going through all of that and having to narrate it to him had taken. Yet there was also a fierce determination, which burned hotter than the surface of the sun itself, there to do whatever was necessary to prevent that future from coming to pass a second time.

"The only thing that I can do Pops," Rick answered, "I'll go to Macross Island and the launch of the SDF-1 as planned – huh I wonder if we will actually get to name the damned ship this time – they're going to need me there."

"Because you know Zentraedi combat tactics?"

"That and I know more about flying and fighting in a veritech than any of them do right now. I know what all the modes can do and how to fully take advantage of them," Rick answered, "they'll need that knowledge. Without it they're going to be in for an appalling attrition rate as they try to learn the hard way. The trick will be passing it on without incurring too much suspicion I mean I can hardly tell them that forty-five years from now in another timeline I was the fleet admiral."

"What do you mean other modes? What does veritech even mean?"

"Oh I didn't explain that did I. Veritech is an abbreviation it means Variable Engineering Robotics Integration Technology. A uniquely Terran application of robotechnology that allows a vehicle to have multiple different forms and functions. For example the current VF-1 Valkyrie veritech fighter – like all future veritech fighters – has three modes fighter plane mode, guardian mode which is a hybrid plane/battle mecha mode and a humanoid robot mode called a battloid.

"At the moment nobody really understands the full potential of the modes and far too many will tend to get mode stuck," Rick continued, "forgetting that they can literally change forms in a blink of an eye to avoid trouble. It will get a lot of them killed."

Mitchell considered how to respond to that. Part of him wanted to stop Rick going to Macross Island now and getting caught up in the firestorm that was to come once again, to keep him safe. As much as the father in him wanted to do that he knew he couldn't, plus Rick would certainly disobey him if he did try to stop him going to that island and that blasted alien starship.

"I understand and I won't stop you going," he said at last. "How can I help you Rick? Do you want me to come with you as granted I might not be as spry as I used to be but there is still life in this old warhorse yet."

"You could but it would be a waste of your own skills pops," Rick answered, "what you can do is take up that offer that Admiral Hayes gave you the other day?"

"You know about that? I was going to say no but if you think I can help train the next generation of pilots then I'll take it up. But how will that help? The training base would be on land and vulnerable to attack from space."

"Of course I know, I knew last time as well. Also the school wouldn't be vulnerable the base Admiral Hayes would assign you to is actually aboard the UES Ceres a Prometheus-class supercarrier, which through a careful application of a basic form of robotechnology is fully capable of submerging. The advanced flight training school was placed there because a stationary base was judged to be too vulnerable to infiltration or attack by the Anti-Unification League."

"A supercarrier that can act like a submarine?! I thought that was just a rumour."

"It's not. A couple of them survived the First and Second Robotech Wars because of their ability to submerge as particle beams and other-directed energy weapons are relatively easily dissipated in water. The last of them, UES Pluto, would be sunk a few years into the Invid invasion when it was caught on the surface after a strike on an Invid hiveship."

"Alright I'll call Don after I see you off," Mitchell decided after a few more moments of thinking it over. He would be lying if he said he was completely thrilled with the idea of putting a uniform on again – it was why he had been planning to tell Don no – but if Rick thought it would help change the future… well he would do it.

Rick smiled.

Optera

Invid Space

That Same Time

Standing together in one of their increasingly rare displays of unity the Regis and Regent observed the results of the science castes investigation into the space-time shockwave that had teased their mutual psionic senses. The scientists had determined that it was indeed a temporal distortion of some type, likely the wake of something breaking through temporal/spatial barriers that were better left alone, but what exactly had caused it they had no way of knowing. Whatever it was it had mostly dissipated by the time either of the two living embodiments of the Invid lifeforce had become aware of it.

The only thing they'd determined was that it had come from somewhere deep in the unknown regions of the local group. A large but unremarkable galaxy that now that they both thought about it had come up in some intelligence reports recently as a sizeable Zentraedi war fleet – led by one of the greatest of all the Robotech Masters slave warlords Breetai himself – and their support units had been sent there by the Masters though the reason was currently very unclear.

Now they had to wonder if the distortion was their doing, maybe the Masters were testing out some new technology there – likely another perversion of the protoculture – and that the Zentraedi were there to guard whichever science triumvirate was there.

"We should send a probe," the Regent suggested at last, "if the Masters are indeed messing around with some technology that could let them break through temporal barriers then we need to know. Those idiots have no idea of the danger they could be putting the entire universe in messing with those forces."

"Agreed," the Regis answered with a deeply concerned frown. The Invid had seen what could happen when someone tried to mess with temporal causality before, long ago before the Children of the Shadow – may they be damned for all eternity – had destroyed their first homeworld and exiled them to a slow death in space. If Haydon himself had not come along and guided them here to Optera where the Flower of Life had grown even better than it had on their original home – until that was Zor at the behest of the Robotech Masters stole them.

Needless to say the consequences of messing with time could be very, very nasty indeed.

"I will have one prepared to launch immediately though it will take some time to reach the galaxy in question," the Regent answered prompting the Regis to nod in agreement. It couldn't be helped as even with space folding technology crossing the great void between galaxies was a difficult and time-consuming process.

Pleased with his wife's agreement – which was quite rare these days another thing he blamed that bastard Zor for – the Regent began to move over to the nearest computer console to give the appropriate order to the banks of biocomputers beneath the hive only to pause as he abruptly sensed something strange. Something powerful was coming, something that had never been before and whatever it was it registered very strongly on his psionic senses.

"What is that?" he wondered aloud.

"I don't know," the Regis answered sounding both intrigued and puzzled by the strange feeling, the Regent turned to her to see a completely bemused look on her Tirolian-like face. The strange feeling grew stronger and both got the impression that whatever it had arrived a moment before a brilliant flash of golden-white psionic energy filled their royal chamber and both got the distinct feel of a very powerful and determined mind being present one that was as strong psionically as they were combined.

Then the light faded and in the centre of the room stood a slender woman. She appeared to be Tirolian but both Invid rulers could immediately tell that she was not, she felt like she was Invid but different, powerful in away that they had never felt before.

The woman turned to look at the Regis and smiled. "Hello mother," she said in greeting.

"Who…. Who are you," the Regis asked confused by this stranger.

"And how did you get in here?" the Regent added gently probing this stranger with his psionic senses and not getting anything as she was effortlessly keeping him out of her mind, something that should have been impossible for anyone not the Regis and even she would struggle to keep him out for long.

"I teleported it is an ability you will discover mother but not for some time," the stranger answered, "as for who I am… I suppose I should have expected that you wouldn't know since I will not exist for a few decades yet. My name is Ariel, I am your daughter and crown princess of the Invid."

"Are you responsible for the temporal distortion," the Regis demanded not doubting for a second that Ariel was speaking the truth, somehow she knew that this person was a child of hers in away that none of her other children could be.

"Unfortunately yes."

"Why would you bend time? Do you not know how dangerous that is child?" the Regent asked.

"There was nothing left to loose and everything to gain," Ariel answered, "others were sent back in another way by beings infinitely more powerful than us but they could not send me directly. They could however open the door for me to come back myself.

"As for why I came back I came not just to help our people but to help the entire universe," Ariel continued anticipating the next question, "you see in the time I came from the universe was dying. World after world, civilization after civilization including our own being wiped from existence… by the Children of the Shadow."

"WHAT THEY WILL RISE AGAIN," the Regent thundered instantly enraged by the mention of the one enemy he – and indeed all Invid – hated more than even the Robotech Masters. He had thought that those foul cybernetic creatures had perished in the last great war with them. He was not alone as he could sense his wife's own instant rage and fear at the mention of those… those… monsters, those cybernetic demons.

"They will. I have come here to help stop them and defeat them once and for all. But to do that will require a lot of changes as we cannot defeat them alone. Nor can we truly regain what the Masters forced Zor to take from us without the aid of others, others who are at most days away from being drawn into conflict with the Zentraedi."

The two rulers of the Invid exchanged a look, communicating without needing words for a few seconds before turning back to the deceptively Tirolian looking Invid. It was the Regis however who spoke next.

"Tell us everything."

Authors Notes: Well another chapter of the rewrite bites the dust. I hope you all enjoyed it. I know some of you might have guessed that one of the other time travellers was Ariel/Marlene as she did have the power to do it – with the assistance of certain higher beings – especially after what happened to her in the future as she comes from a few years after the destruction of the SDF-3 when the Haydonite genocide is in full swing. Naturally she took the opportunity to come back and try and change things for the better for everyone though she is well aware that swaying the Invid from their current course onto a much better one is not going to be easy given the Invid have very, very good reasons to hate Zor, the Robotech Masters and the Zentraedi. Still the fic is called Second Chances for a good reason as the second chance is for everyone and not just for Earth. Finally next chapter we will begin to get into the events of launch day and the onset of the First Robotech War. Until next time.