Captain Yusuf Obegwo of the United Nations Ocean Patrol steps out of the live green Space Marine Toyota Avalon Hover Model staff car. Carrying a briefcase, he opens a glass door leading into Admin Building 310 and walks into one of the many buildings in Joint Forces Air Field Tirol. He passes some enlisted servicemen, who briefly stand at attention as the Ocean Patrol captain passes by.
After riding an elevator, he walks down the hallway and enters a room. Already he sees field grade officers from the Space Marines and the Air Force.
"Good morning," he says.
"Good morning," says the Air Force lieutenant colonel. "How was your trip?"
"I haven't even started unpacking." answers Obegwo. " I was so tired."
A Spacy commander walks in, and they all greet her. The officers all sit around a large wooden table. The Secretary General had convened a joint commission to investigate the accident that claimed the life of Third Lieutenant Hyun Seuk.
Captain Obegwo opens the briefcase. He had printed out copies of the preliminary reports from the accident. There is still so much more needed, such as the assignment of a joint staff to assist the commission.
There are times when Obegwo wonders what he had been thinking when he accepted a regular commission in the Ocean Patrol after the Robotech Wars ended. He spends much more time holdings meetings, reading reports, and writing reports than sitting in a veritech simulator, let alone a veritech cockpit.
They all stand at attention. A raven-haired woman, appearing to be in her early forties, steps in. She wears a blue jacket and a white skirt. Ribbons pinned to her chest tell the story of her service, and there are three silver stars each pinned to her shoulders. The woman walks to the seat at the end of the long wooden table and opens a black briefcase.
"We shall begin this meeting," says Lieutenant General Marie Crystal of the United Nations Air Force.
Ooooo
Over four dozen pilots gather in one of the hangars in J-FAF Tirol. All of therm wear their CVR-03 armor. Among them are the commanders of the J-School squadrons, including Commander Arihiso Hamato.
Lieutenant Roy Hunter, sitting on a wheelchair with an extension propping up his cast legs, looks and listens. His ears notice that the hangar is missing the sounds of veritech maintenance and repair.
"There is neither rhyme nor reason," says Hamato, looking at the student pilots. "We must all remember Third Lieutenant Hyun Seuk. She can no longer fly out there for us, so it is our duty to fly in her stead."
Everyone with reasonably working legs stand at attention. Among them is Captain Obegwo, who serves on the commission.
Hamato looks and faces Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes-Hunter. Instead of some sort of uniform, Rick wears a brown jacket, a turtleneck sweater, and a red scarf.
"I did not expect to see you here like this, sir" the commander says to him.
"We're standing by Roy's side now," replies the admiral.
"No, I mean your outfit."
"I'm on leave, Commander, by order of his Excellency the Secretary General. I have no authority to issue orders for now."
"I will have to fly to Earth for Lieutenant Seuk's funeral. A U.N. Spacy Reserve detachment will be there, in full dress uniform."
"You take care, Commander," says Lisa Hayes-Hunter.
Hamato then looks at Obegwo. "Captain," says the commander, "if you have time, we can go to the office and I can hand you whatever documentation your commission needs."
Captain Obegwo stays silent for a few seconds, still reeling from being at this memorial service. He remembers these kind of services over ten years ago while he was flying an Alpha to resist alien occupation, and these services had been much more frequent. "Yes, Commander," he says. "Lead the way."
"Aye aye, sir."
Some of Roy's class mates walk up to him. He recognizes their names- Vang, Burbich, Zhao, Dhankar. Knowles; there are a few others whose names he can not remember off the top of his head.
"It's good you could make it," says Lieutenant Vang.
"Yeah," replies Roy. "Tomorrow morning, I start my first of what could be many surgeries. Got to make sure my bones heal right. After that, we'll find out."
"What?" asks Lieutenant Burbich.
"If I'll be able to walk with these legs."
ooooooo
The skin on the legs is pealed back, revealing the musculature and broken bone underneath. The surgical team make sure to take pictures and to look closely with their eyes.
The lead surgeon, a lieutenant commander in the United Nations Spacy Medical Corps, looks at the damage. She had not seen injuries as grievous since she had been an assistant field surgeon in the aftermath of the Battle of Reflex Point. Memories of those times briefly surface.
She buries those memories. If this young man named Roy Hunter is to walk with the legs that his mother gave him, she must focus.
Ooooo
It was late at night, in a region of the planet Earth known as Korea. Hyun Seuk was among some children, aged eleven to sixteen, outside late at night. They had snuck out to this place in the countryside, just a mile outside of town, to listen to music and drink home brewed booze. A campfire surrounded by rocks provided an orange light. It was summer, and then teens wore short-sleeved or sleeveless tops and shorts or short skirts.
What caught the teens' attention was the light show in the night sky above. There were flashes of light above.
"It's not fireworks," said a 15-year-old boy. "Someone's attacking the aliens."
Hyun looked up. She had seen the alien occupation fleet with a telescope. The aliens invaded before her first birthday; her immediately family was not anywhere near a large city nor a military base. She had been aware of the alien blockades all her fourteen years of life, cutting off Korea from the rest of the planet; she had heard that the aliens occupied other parts of Earth.
And then there was another light show, much more spectacular. Columns of light appeared, reaching all the way to the sky. It took a while for the girl to realize the light was going upward from the surface. She wondered if that was an attack from the alien occupiers to whoever was attacking them.
And then the lights stopped. Hyun and the other teens were in awe and confusion, wondering what just happened.
Oooo
The next morning, Hyun's parents summoned her. For a few seconds, she wondered if she was about to be punished for sneaking out late at night to drink beer with her friends. She thought it would have been awesome to hang out with the cool kids.
They instead took her and her little brother to the Kims' house, who loved just across the dirt road from them. She had known the Kims all her life, especially their daughter who was a few years older than her.
On the wooden coffee table in the Kims' living room was a little metal box- a radio. It was plugged in to an electrical outlet. There were words coming out of the built-in speaker. Hyun recognized the language as English, though she did not speak it and could only understand a few words.
"It's from the Expeditionary Command of the United Nations," said Mr. Kim, who could speak English fluently. "They are saying they defeated the aliens. The aliens left. We're free."
It took a few seconds for Hyun to fully take in what the man had said. The aliens had blocked Korea from the rest of the world, let alone the rest of the galaxy. The 14-year-old girl only heard rumors of what happened from other places, even the land immediately across the other side of the Yalu River. .
She could visit other places like India and Africa and America and the stars in the sky.
The opening up of possibilities make her smile.
Ooooo
The Seuk family memorial service for Hyun Seuk is held at a community center in her hometown in Korea. The attendees almost all dress in muted colors. Commander Arihiso Hamato wears his U.N. Spacy dress whites, basically a white coat with brass buttons along the middle and white trousers over his legs. Medals pinned to his chest tell the story of his service, medals that include the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Sentinels Campaign Medal, the Battle of Reflex Point Medal, and the Battle over Haydon IV medal.
A tripod holds up a photo collage of Hyun, including baby pictures and pictures of her in uniform as a newly-commissioned third lieutenant in the United Nations Spacy.
He presents the United Nations flag to the Seuks.
A bugler plays taps, and Hamato and the U.N. Spacy reservists, also in dress whites, salute.
Sadness fills the room.
Hyun was a daughter, a sister, a friend to everyone here.
The Spacy commander steps out of the building. He looks up at the gray overcast sky over Korea.
So many sad emotions surface, including a memory of the fallen veritech pilots in his unit just after the Battle of Reflex Point.
Ooooo
Commander Hamato walks down a hallway in Admin Building 310 in Joint Forces Air Field Tirol. He nods to a Space Marine MP serving as a guard.
Entering, he sees uniformed officers composing the Commission of Inquiry. Sitting at the end of the table is General Crystal. Hamato had heard of her; Crystal had been a veritech combat aviator and had cut her teeth fighting what was left of the Robotech Masters, over twenty years ago.
"Good morning, Commander," says the Air Force general. "How was your trip to Earth?"
"Tiring and sad, ma'am," answers the commander. "I had to be at Lieutenant Seuk's memorial service. There was no time for sightseeing. I only touched down back on Tirol late last evening. To be perfectly honest, I hope to go back to my unit so I can take a look at the sim training. I.."
"That's enough, Commander," says General Crystal, holding up her palm. "We feel that your sworn, live testimony will aid us in our inquiry. You will be sworn in."
"Of course, ma'am."
A Space Marine sergeant approaches Hamato. "Commander Arihiso Hamato," he says, "do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
"I do, Sergeant. I do, General Crystal."
"Very well then," says the general. "Let us start. State your name for the record."
"Arihiso Hamato," he answers. "Commander, United Nations Spacy, presently in command of the veritech training squadron for the U.N. Spacy, Joint Forces Air Field Tirol."
"Summarize your career in the United Earth Forces for us," she says.
"Where to start?" he asks. "Glorie Military Institute, U.N. Spacy ROTC. I graduated V-School, right here on Tirol. My aircraft was the Stonewell Bellcom VFA-6 Alpha veritech fighter. I flew in the Battle of Optera, to take down that renegade general. Then came the Battle of Reflex Point to liberate Earth, and then I flew combat against the Haydonites until the Battle over Haydon IV. I was assigned command over the Spacy's V-School Training Squadron three years ago. I am on the fast track to captain, so I've heard."
"Describe the incident."
"We were conducting live maneuvers through the debris field surrounding Fantoma. It is part of the syllabus approved by the Joint Chiefs. We went aboard the Anatole Leonard. Our student pilots would fly in pairs. The first two were Burbich and Vang. They flew through the field, and returned to the flight deck after twenty minutes. Then we sent out Seuk and Hunter. I was in the command center with my cadre. I heard Seuk yelling to look out and then someone said that they lost her."
"What happened after that?" asks Crystal.
Hamato takes a deep breath. "We had a signal from Lieutenant Hunter's veritech transponder. Captain Sawyer- he was the captain of the Leonard- he sent out a rescue team. Hunter was retrieved within ten minutes. We then searched for Seuk; I even rode inside the cockpit of a Beta. We...identified the debris of Lieutenant Seuk's Alpha. She died."
"Anything else?"
"I waited aboard the ship until Lieutenant Hunter was cleared to be flown down to the hospital on Tirol. And.. now we're here."
"Does anyone else have questions for Commander Hamato?" asks General Crystal.
"I do," says a Space Marine lieutenant colonel. "Commander, were these pilots ready?"
"Of course, Colonel," says Hamato. "They were outstanding. All of the pilots I had assigned to practice debris field maneuvers passed it in sim training twice. I personally sent this commission my evaluations of all the pilots in my class, not just those who had flown in that tragic incident."
"Were they physically ready, Commander?" asks an Air Force lieutenant colonel. "I mean, any physical or medical issues?"
"With all due respect, Colonel," replies the commander, "I am not a Medical Corps officer. I have to trust the judgment of those who are. Lieutenants Seuk and Hunter had perfectly clean bills of health when they set off. Neither of them so much as said they felt dizzy or had blurry vision. Last year, there was a pilot I ultimately had to drop. He complained about headaches too many times, and I referred him for two examinations by two separate flight surgeons. They both said he wasn't fit for veritech combat aviation, so I dropped him. I did hear he's a cargo shuttle pilot. Believe me, I wouldn't put those pilots out there for real if I felt they couldn't handle it."
General Crystal looks around at both the witness and the other officers in the commission. "Commander, we have no further questions for you at this time," she says. "We thank you for your time. If you come across any new information, this Commission will appreciate it if you provided it to us. Dismissed"
"Aye aye, ma'am," replies the commander, standing at attention.