Chapter 4
The grinding and squealing of the hatch had covered the pill bugs' approach. There were eight of them, rolling to a stop in the street in a snaking line just on the other side of the crater created by the explosion that had launched the ATV through the air. The dust was starting to settle, and all eight enemy units unfolded and panned their sensors back and forth across the street.
"Down!" Vanessa hissed. Garo stared dumbly for another second, and Vanessa, who hadn't been able to disentangle herself from Priest yet, kicked her frozen subordinate behind his knee. He dropped to the ground with a small grunt.
"Desolé," Garo whispered, rolling out of sight, but Vanessa hadn't been fast enough. The chirp echoed loudly in the cabin, and then the nearest pill bug scuttled toward them, its scores of legs tapping out time on the street with the same unnerving gait possessed by the first one they had encountered. Before it reached the defenseless officers, an eye-wateringly bright bolt of energy intercepted it and blew the murderous machine to fragments.
A black and blue Spartas battloid had lurched around the corner behind the pill bugs and unleashed a burst of continuous fire from its EU-11. Two more pill bugs were crisped before the others all emitted their alert calls, curled up defensively, and then rolled off in the Spartas's direction with astonishing speed. They clattered and slammed off of the walls and each other as each plotted an erratic course toward the hovertank. The incoming fire slowed as the pilot was forced to pick their shots with care so as not to blast the wrecked ATV too. Still, their marksmanship was some of the most impressive Vanessa had ever seen, knocking out one, two, then three of the hard to hit attackers by the time the last two finally closed the distance and, somehow, defied gravity and bounced up at the battloid. They both flashed blue and sounded their detonation signals as they uncurled in midair.
"No!" Vanessa cried out uselessly as their protector crossed both its arms, putting its narrow and bulky integrated armored shield modules in front of it. Priest pulled her back from the open hatch just before the almost simultaneous explosions rocked the ATV and blew more smoke and dust over them. Bits of debris pelted the alloy plate above their heads, and then all was quiet.
"Is anyone alive in there?"
The familiar voice coming from the loudspeaker surprised all of them. Vanessa sprang back to the hatch and looked out. The battloid loomed over them, still intact… mostly. The cloud of black smoke was drifting away in the breeze, revealing a scarred chest carapace and the sparking stumps of both arms.
"Colonel, that was you?" Vanessa called in disbelief, then remembering, fumbled with her comms. "Colonel Kravshera?"
"Indeed, Captain. I'm very pleased to see you safe and uninjured."
"Are you here without backup? That was extremely reckless!"
The battloid transformed in front of her, its modules splitting, folding, and swinging into place until it was back in hover mode. The worst of the damage was hidden by the new configuration, and Vanessa could see Kravshera in the open-topped cockpit. He unbuckled himself and stood, planting one boot on the rounded slope of the tank's front hull plate as he looked down at her.
"The rest of my unit was needed to execute my plan. Given your last order was to evacuate all personnel from the city, it was necessary for me to come and recover you myself. Bold action was needed."
"If you held off the air support so you could play hero, I'd call it bold to the point of madness!"
The Colonel stiffened, then inclined his head. "Madness is what made the Kravshera line famous, is it not?"
Vanessa suddenly felt her temples pound with the rush of blood, such was her anger. How dare he throw that in my face, as if I haven't supported him at every step since the Pioneer Mission began! She slammed her exposed right fist against the inside of the hatch, and the shock of the blow, strong enough to rattle the wreckage of the ATV, brought her to her senses. She remembered the legendary arguments on the bridge of the SDF-1 between Lisa Hayes as Flight Direction Officer, and a teenaged Rick Hunter, commanding the old Vermillion Team. The brash young Valkyrie pilot had been the only person able to get under her mentor's skin and break her cool, commanding persona during combat. But Captain Gloval had always been above it all, nearly unflappable in battle. Now Vanessa was the Captain. She had to model herself after him. She took a breath and slowly forced her fingers to uncurl from clenched fists.
"We'll review your decision-making during the debriefing. Do you have room for the three of us?"
Kravshera let the matter drop, and quickly crouched down to release a chain link ladder from a port in the tank's upper hull. "It won't be comfortable, but yes. I can only get us out of here in hover mode, and that attack deprived me of all my weapons, so I suggest you move quickly. This sector is not secure."
With a sharp gesture, Vanessa wordlessly ordered Garo and Priest to climb the ladder first, then clambered up after them. The colonel gave each of them a helping hand in turn. His build was nowhere near as massive as Lord Breetai's, or even Bron's, but his grip was strong. He didn't flinch even slightly at the strength in her cybernetic hand. Was that a smirk she saw through his helmet's green-tinted visor?"
"The jump seat is rather cramped, I'm afraid," Kravshera said. "You'll have to double up." Priest and Garo looked dubiously at the tiny, bare metal seat that their rescuer folded down behind the padded pilot's position, and then back at each other.
"Après vous, Docteur."
"No, no, Ensign, after you, I insist."
Kravshera hopped back into the cockpit and beckoned to Vanessa. "Captain, since you're the smallest, you'll ride up front with me. I need to be able to steer."
Vanessa swallowed dryly. It seemed the universe was laughing at her today. Just how many times had Admiral Hunter ended up flying with a woman in his lap, or clutched in his Valkyrie's hand like an ingenue in an old monster movie? She hesitated, but even as Garo reluctantly began squeezing himself into the jump seat, the clattering racket of metal on pavement echoed off the buildings around them.
"I'm sorry, Captain, but it is time-to-GO!" Kaden Kravshera exclaimed as he reached up and seized Vanessa's hand, roughly pulling her off her feet to fall atop him. Before she even had time to face forward, he spun up the fans with a howl, lifting the enormous main battle tank a meter off the street and kicking up new storm-fronts of dust in every direction. Behind them, Priest let out a panicked cry and forced his body down into the narrow passenger space, crushing a wheezing groan out of Ensign Garo. Then Kaden slammed the throttle all the way forward, the speed of their departure pressing her chest against his, and she could do nothing but wrap her arms around his neck and hold on for dear life.
Buildings raced past in a blur, and Kaden drifted the hovertank through a ninety degree turn at the next intersection. Vanessa's visor clacked against his. Is he smiling? she wondered. His eyes twitched, meeting hers for a fraction of a second. He's enjoying this? He really is mad!
Coming out of the turn, she managed to shift around more or less sideways, her legs dangling across Kravshera's lap, and her arms still wrapped around him for lack of any better handhold. Finally reaching a position where she could see forward or backward, it looked to her like they were headed toward the edge of the ruined city in more or less the correct direction. Kaden glanced down at his sensors display and his smile broadened.
"Ah, good, they're following us. Quite a few, too."
Vanessa's eye went wide as she interpreted the data for herself. About half of Kaden's hovertanks were scattered in tight little knots forming a rough semicircle across the entire west end of the city, and moving away from each other. The destroids were more concentrated, holding back hundreds of attacking pill bugs on the grand boulevard. The ATV's were in the clear, speeding past the rest of the hovertanks, which were arrayed along the low ridge just outside the urban area. The main horde of pill bugs had split into four smaller but still monstrously large clusters, each pursuing a group of hovertanks or pressing the attack on the destroids. There were two or three hundred of them following their own tank, and a quick glance over her shoulder had her heart in her throat. They were spilling into the street even now, piled on top of each other three or more deep, and flowing toward them like floodwater from a broken dam.
"Getting chased was your plan?" Vanessa demanded.
"Certainly. If the hostiles had stayed in one large mass, we'd have been overrun in no time. But it's no good spreading them out across the city. We'd never be able to eliminate them. They have to be led into locations of our choosing, where they can be engaged and destroyed properly."
"And does Zentraedi doctrine call for using senior officers as bait?"
Kaden chuckled. "The Zentraedi are nothing if not pragmatists." Vanessa found herself grudgingly agreeing that his plan would probably work, but before she could say anything, she had to stifle a scream and hold on tight as he pulled them through a narrow alley without slowing, the tank's sides shrieking and striking sparks from the walls the whole way. Their other passengers cried out in dismay, and then the mecha blew out of the other end of the tight space into a wide plaza, and Kaden side-slipped under the thirty meter arches of a heavily ornamented arcade. Behind them, the congested wave of pill bugs were piled even higher, towering in a cresting wave that crashed down again as they exited the alley and followed.
"We should be able to remain ahead of them," Kaden calmly assured Vanessa. "I do wish I knew how such ungainly machines move so devilishly fast."
"Anti-gr- gravity, I think!" Priest gasped out from the back, his hands braced against the sides of the tiny passenger bay, while Garo, pinned behind him, was looking very ill. "Probably a field just strong enough to allow them to move at speed and pull off some of those stunts. Still clumsy, though."
"Which is why our pursuers are about to have some trouble," Kaden added smugly. The pill bugs were smashing down the pillars as they rushed on through the arcade and the plaza. Seconds later, the arcade's entire facade collapsed, burying dozens.
"The rest of them don't seem very concerned," Vanessa warned.
"Of course. They're just machines. But that was only a bonus. We're almost there." The colonel swung the tank around and took a curved on-ramp up to the elevated highway system. The pill bugs, strung out further and further by his delaying tactics, followed, soon filling the sleek, interlocking highway sections for half a kilometer behind their prey. Ahead of them, a fifteen meter span of the highway had been blasted loose, but Kaden simply boosted the turbo fans to full power and lofted the tank across the gap, then angled the vernier thrusters to kill most of their momentum as the tank's belly gently kissed the surface of the road and then rose again. Kaden deftly brought the tank to a halt, broadside to their pursuers.
"Gold Leader, this is Storm Leader," Kravshera signaled. "I've recovered the package. Does your attack wing have a fix on the enemy positions?"
"Affirmative Storm Leader. Looks like things are getting a little hot down there. Can you hear me, Tang?" Vanessa immediately recognized the jovial voice of her CAG, Jose May-Reyes.
""I'm here, Commander."
"Ha! I knew if traitors, rogue Zentraedi, and Reflex missiles couldn't put you down, there was no way you'd die on this dust ball."
"If your squadrons are ready, Gold Leader," Kravshera interrupted, "please proceed with your attack run."
"I thought you'd never ask."
Down they swooped, like golden eagles. More than sixty Lightnings dove from high altitude and unleashed their massed firepower on the concentrations of pill bugs that the Marine forces had carefully funneled into position around the city. For a few seconds, Vanessa and the others watched the trails of a thousand missiles interweave across the sky, and then the city rumbled and shook with the explosions. A couple of kilometers to the north, Kaden's hovertanks had led a group of pill bugs through the stagnant, debris-choked canal system, and out into a nearly empty reservoir, where they became mired in the swampy terrain and were left stranded in a killing ground when the missiles came down on them. To the south, hovertanks in battloid mode jumped clear of a terraced arcology, leaving the pill bugs chasing them to fall with the megastructure when it collapsed like a layer cake under the barrage from above. Elsewhere, the main boulevard in front of the destroids' last ditch holding positions abruptly turned into a serpentine line of smoke and flame, consuming their attackers.
Meanwhile, the pill bugs chasing the command tank had just neared the gap separating them when the volley struck the thin, graceful, support struts of the elevated highway. Vanessa threw up an arm to protect her face from the lashing wind and shrapnel as the entire half kilometer span of sky-bridge pitched over, spilling the pill bugs fifty meters to the unforgiving pavement below, and then shattered on top of them.
"Tres bien," Garo breathed.
"This is what you people do?" Priest asked with mingled amazement and horror.
Vanessa regarded the air strike analytically. It was well executed, as she would have expected from Reyes and Kravshera. But she didn't feel any relief. One hour and a handful of skirmishes was not long enough to be certain of their foes' limits. "Impressive," she murmured. "But this doesn't mean the battle is over."
"Indeed. They're very tough against anything but a direct hit. I expect quite a few have survived the missile barrage," Kravshera commented, not sounding especially concerned. As the dust began to settle, Vanessa was sickened to see that he was right. Dozens of the pill bugs were already squirming their way out of the tons of debris beneath the tank's perch.
"Not a problem, Storm Leader," Reyes replied. "We'll see how they handle a few strafing runs."
Groups of Lightnings switched to guardian mode, the sun glinting off their golden armor, and descended slowly on roaring leg thrusters until they were almost level with the elevated highway, sharply pitched forward to sight in their paired beam cannons, and then released streams of bright energy pulses at their targets. Instantly the street level was a cauldron of fire, and the numbers of the enemy were cut sharply. The scene was being repeated at the other battle sites across the city. But as Vanessa had tried to warn the UN Spacy war college staff time and again in the lead-up to the Pioneer Mission, the REF was facing unknown foes with unknown capabilities, and they were going to present threats far different than those posed by the Zentraedi. Today they were receiving a sharp reminder of that fact. The pill bugs, helpless on the ground as the veritechs circled on their thrusters and fired away, all curled back in on themselves.
{CHIRP} {CHIRP} {CHIRP}
{CHIRP} {CHIRP} {CHIRP}
{CHIRP} {CHIRP} {CHIRP}
{CHIRP} {CHIRP} {CHIRP}
Vanessa and the others winced in pain as the cacophony rang through their helmets and even seemed to briefly feed back through their comms. Then, a rolled pill bug began rising from the ground. Like a- like a lead balloon! Vanessa thought, taking in the absurd sight. Only they're actually flying… or levitating. One by one, others rose, until almost half of them had taken to the air. They rose straight up, little faster than real balloons at first, drifting a little on the wind, and trailing dust, dirt, and burning cinders.
"Anti-gravity, it has to be," Priest said, his voice awed. "We underestimated what they could do… but I don't see how they could keep up the energy output necessary for very long."
"Long enough to be a threat!" Vanessa countered. Kravshera, who had been the fastest to react throughout the day, seemed frozen by this newest shock. "Colonel!" The sound of her voice brought him back to himself.
"Gold Leader! Abort! Targets are- targets are airborne!"
But the pill bugs were already intermingled with the Lightnings' formation. One of the surprised pilots had just collected their wits and opened fire at the rising enemies when a pill bug flared blue directly under their guardian's nose. The forward half of the mecha's fuselage was ripped to pieces, and the rear half tumbled wildly, its thrusters still engaged, and crashed somewhere on the far side of the highway bridge. The squadron scattered as more pill bugs simultaneously detonated, turning the skies as chaotic and fiery as the ground had been seconds before. Vanessa and her companions, squinting against the glare of the powerful explosions, hunched over, trying to make themselves as small as they could in the tank's open cockpit.
"Abort, abort! All units, break contact and climb to angels ten!" Reyes ordered hoarsely, desperately trying to regain control of the situation. His well-disciplined pilots immediately ceased fire and boosted their thrusters to full power, flying up and out of the devastation, but not before taking a succession of hits that rent through armor plates and severed mechanical limbs. Vanessa couldn't tell how many more veritechs were lost before they got clear of the sinister metal spheres that hung in the air looking like sea mines from old Earth.
"Sorry Tang!" Reyes signaled. "Until I can regroup my squadrons and figure out how high up the pill bugs can threaten us, you're on your own!"
"It's alright, Gold Leader. Careful reconnaissance only. Otherwise, stand by and cover the withdrawal from the city."
"Acknowledged."
Vanessa turned her gaze back to Kaden, whose visor was still only a few centimeters from hers. His violet eyes, tinted green through his helmet's visor, were wide with anger, and his face carried a sheen of sweat.
"Damn them," he said through gritted teeth.
"It's time for us to go, Colonel."
"I nearly had them all!" he snarled, slamming a fist against the console.
"Colonel!" His eyes swiveled to meet hers, and she finally had his attention. "That is not our objective. We are returning to the LZ. Immediately!"
"Capitaine!" Garo warned urgently. One of the floating pill bugs was drifting in their direction. They seemed to have only limited horizontal mobility, but it was already close enough that it was frantically chirping in anticipation. Kravshera watched it approach, his eyes narrowing, and grabbed the throttle.
"All units, withdraw to the ridge line," he ordered briskly, throwing the tank into reverse and backing away from the danger. "Teams Two and Four, begin final protective fires!" The tank continued to accelerate, and he craned his neck, looking past Garo and Priest. "Hold on," he said abruptly, and Vanessa and the others cried out as he deliberately struck the tank's hindquarters against the divider for the next off ramp, violently spinning them 180 degrees and sending them down the ramp at full speed. Then the first rounds arced over their heads, fired by the cannons of the guardian configured hovertanks that had remained on the ridge line outside the city limits. The explosion annihilated the end of the elevated highway and the pill bug, which had just touched down and begun rolling toward them. More rounds dropped in, both nearby and at the other battle sites. The crawling barrage followed them along their route through the streets, covering their escape. How many of the pill bugs were destroyed, and how many scattered to remain a threat, it was impossible to say. How many more might still be hidden in other buildings, or lurked in the system of catacombs beneath the ruins of the pyramid?
"Captain," Kaden said, battering aside a decaying ground vehicle and sending it pinwheeling along in their wake, "I appear to have a breach in my pressure suit. Would you be so kind as to patch it?"
"Where?"
"The right bicep."
Vanessa shifted her grip around his shoulders, and glanced up and down his arm, then frowned. "You're bleeding!"
"It's only superficial, I assure you. But it looks like we'll be sharing some time in quarantine on the flight back."
"You didn't move us far enough from the air strike," Vanessa admonished, retrieving a packet of circular patches from her belt, and a length of sturdy synthetic cord.
"What can I say? I enjoy bearing witness to the beauty of my art." Even after everything, there was a hint of pride in the colonel's voice.
"I've seen Zentraedi art, Colonel, and Zentraedi warfare. Please don't confuse the two. There's nothing beautiful about the way the Masters trained the Zentraedi to wage war," Vanessa said coldly, swiping the area around the tear in his suit clean of the spreading circle of crimson as best she could, and applying one of the patches. She used enough pressure that Kaden winced, but he said nothing. While she tied off an improvised tourniquet with the cord, she turned her attention back to the tactical situation.
"Mister Garo, contact the landing zone and order all shuttles readied for takeoff. All personnel and mecha are to be embarked. Temporary structures and offloaded supplies are to be abandoned and destroyed in place. We will take off as soon as the convoy has returned. Then get an uplink to the Jeanne d'Arc. Inform the admiral that we are abandoning the surface."
"Oui, Oui Capitaine."
Kaden guided their tank out of the city, across the surrounding beltway, and over a low berm of earth, toward the safety of the ridge line. North and south of them, the remainder of the entry teams, speeding hovertanks and double-time marching destroids were also withdrawing. On the ridge, Vanessa saw the Spartas guardians still hammering away with their main cannons, and behind them, the Phalanx destroids moved up to add their own firepower. Heavy missiles streaked across the sky like comets, and when they passed over the target areas, their nose cones split apart, scattering a rain of guided submunitions that darted down in a crisscross of fiery lines. As the entire REF force turned away from the city, whole districts, already ruined ten years ago, were razed to the ground. With their tank skimming easily over the open terrain, Garo was handling comms, while Priest brooded over the destruction in silence. Kaden kept his gaze fixed on his instruments, or the horizon, speaking only when he needed to issue orders to his Marines. Vanessa shook her head.
What a disaster.
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I don't usually include author's notes in response to reviews, because I tend to prefer a dialogue via private messaging, but I wanted to respond to the guest review from 3/12/24, since the topic touches on my approach to these novels. The Jeanne d'Arc is indeed a Tokugawa class vessel. I am aware that the Robotech Reference Guide, unofficial as it is, posited 6 ships of the Tokugawa class, and in recognition of that, in my story, the REF has launched six task forces, each centered around a battlecarrier of the Tokugawa class, for the Pathfinder operation of the Pioneer Mission. My philosphy as regards canon and continuity is that the broadcast TV series - Macross, Southern Cross, and Invid Invasion, are ironclad canon. I will at all costs try not deviate from them (and even within those bounds, there is room for disagreement and interpretation). Vanessa's status as a protaganist stems from the very fact that her name was omitted from Supreme Commander Leonard's speech eulogizing the fallen bridge officers of the SDF-1. As for everything else adapted for Robotech - novels, comics, rpg's, video games, Sentinels video, Shadow Chronicles - I reserve the right to ignore or incorporate individual concepts, characters, plot points, and mecha as I see fit. Thus, I see no problem with naming a Tokugawa class ship the Jeanne d'Arc, because none of that class received names on the show - not even Major Carpenter's ship. To me, this is not an 'AU' story, because I only take the broadcast series as reliable canon, but for those who bravely try to unsnarl the continuity of 40 years of adaptations and changes in direction at Harmony Gold, I understand that it probably would be considered an AU story. I think that's perfectly alright - the genius of Robotech is that it is such a rich setting, able to be explored and adapted in so many different ways. Thank you for the review!
Next chapter… isolation, a legacy of ruin, and the Admiral's table…