Chapter 1
Chapter 1
The loud and insistent banging of a fist on metal finally penetrated deep enough to wake me from my slumber. Slapping the lighting pannel by the side of my bed, I winced as the lights went all the way to their daytime setting instead of the lower nighttime one I had expected. Checking the chronometer by the side of my bed, I was somewhat relieved to see my sense of time hadn't abandoned me and only about an hour had passed since I had passed out.
"Because of course." I muttered as I pulled myself out of bed.
Grabbing a fresh uniform coat from the small cubical by the side of my bed. I pulled it on as I made my way to the still thumping door. Somewhat impressed by the tenacity of whichever newly promoted junior officer had been given the sacrificial duty of waking me from the first bit of sleep I had had in nearly three days.
Making sure to stand slightly off to the side so I wouldn't get hit by a suddenly unobstructed fist. I slapped the wallpannel that would open the door, watching with some bemusement as it slid open and a short, blue haired, Meltrandi tumbled forward.
"Regult?" I ask after taking a moment to confirm the poor officers rank as she pulled herself up off the floor. "I was very clear that, barring all but the most dire of circumstances, I should not be disturbed. So I do hope that you have a good reason for waking me."
"Surpreme Commander Raj Gotta Sha!" She snapped, standing ramrod straight and saluting in the pre-programed way I had long come to universally assosiate with those recently decanted from their cloning pod. "I have an urgent message for you from Sub Commander Taliya Nayea Fariz."
I waited for a moment for her to continue before mentally facepalming as I realized what she was waiting for.
"Proceed Regult." I prodded levelly trying not to let my inpatients show.
"A massive fold wave was detected emanating from the one hundred eighteenth's," She began, only to trail off mid sentence as I broke into a dead sprint down the passage that lead to the Fulbtzs-Berrentzs class vessels command center.
"Fleet readiness status!" I snapped the moment the door slid open, silently thanking whichever nameless protoculture designer had placed the command staff's quarters within walking distance of their expected posts.
A dozen pairs of eyes snapped to me on entrance, and then in a show of well drilled professionalism, all but those of Sub Commander Fariz went back to the various command and control consoles situated around the room that made up their own work.
Standing at nearly ten meters in height, with bright red hair that was a stark contrast to the much more common blues and greens that dotted the room. The Meltrandi Taliya Nayea Fariz, was pretty much everything I could ever ask for in a second in command. A fact which made the worried look she shot me all the more concerning.
"The losses from the most recent assault on the Supervision Army remnants were somewhat worse then initial reports indicated." She put forward after a brief moments hesitation. "At best we are looking at sixty-seven percent of the fleet at any sort of combat readiness. With an additional four percent capable of being repaired to that level within the next ninety cycles."
I did my best to outwardly hide my wince, that was a good deal worse then the eighty-three percent I had gone to sleep too.
"And the fold wave." I asked, switching to the issue that had instigated my dash to command. "What was the delay, and were you able to project a likely defold point?"
"Twelve to eighteen hours delay at best." Fariz responded after a moment of mental calculation. "And we've been able to narrow the likely defold point to an area of space encompassing around ten-thousand systems at the outer edge of the fourth galactic arm."
I frowned at that, mentally estimating the length of time needed to break up the fleet and have them search an area of space that large. Only to come up with a number a good deal longer then we likely had, assuming at least that this was the event I feared.
"Were any of those flagged with a prime classification on the old protoculture star-maps?" I asked hoping to either narrow things down, or at least put my fears to rest.
"Apologies Surpreme Commander, but I didn't think to check that information." Fariz replied, embarrassment momentarily flushing the bronze colored skin of her cheaks.
"No apologies necessary Sub Commander." I waved off, as I made my way over to the central control station so I could bring up the information myself. "You can't be expected to know everything, and those particular star-maps were last relevant hundreds of thousands of taarms before either of us were decanted."
"Lets see." I muttered, as my fingers tap danced across the input. "No reds, which isn't surprising since those were almost universally clustered around the core." And which, lacking any sort of map key, I highly suspected was the color the Protoculture had assigned to Vajra holdings.
"A handful of blues, but we can rules those out since the fold faults make it near impossible for even a single one of our ships to get through, let alone a fleet the size of the hundred eighteenth." A fact that had been continually reinforced over the years, since the more advanced Supervision army vessels liked to use those area's to lose our hunter fleets. "And twenty seven greens."
"You think it might be one of the greens?" Fariz questioned from the position she had taken slightly behind my left shoulder. No doubt picking up on the consideration I was giving the last, from the way I had trailed off without further expounding on the option.
"I have reason to suspect it." I distractedly answered, flicking through each of the systems on the list. With the feeling of dread in the bottom of my stomach growing with each passing stellar cluster. Until finally it hardened into a certainty as an obviously out of date, but still somewhat recognizable, ten planet star system appeared on the screen.
"You recognize it?" Fariz asked, studying the visual on screen with an intensity normally unseen on her face outside of battle conditions.
"A protoculture refuge." I answered with a partial truth after a brief moments consideration.
"Deculture!" Fariz exclaimed, her shock at my pronouncement made all the more clear by her use of the, forbidden in my presence, slang term. "Golg Boddole Zer may be a stubborn old fool, but even he wouldn't dare attack one of the forbidden worlds."
"Would he?" She trailed off, sudden uncertainty underlying her previously firm pronouncement.
"You know his obsession with the Protoculutre. Can you think of anything else that would allow him to justify pulling his fleet from it's patrol duties to preform the full, fleet level response, indicated by the size of the detected fold wave?" I questioned, giving her a look I hope conveyed just how serious an issue I considered this.
"Yes!" She snapped, returning my look with one of her own. "Maybe they finally located that Supervision Army facility they have been trying to track down since before we came out of our tubes. Or maybe there was rebellion and he wanted to put on a show by bringing the full force of his fleet down on it."
"True." I admitted, giving an internal sigh, as the downside to pushing my officers towards a greater ability to think outside the stratified rules and regulations of regular Zentradi doctrine, once more bit me in the ass.
"But this is the way the galactic well is pulling me." I finished in a low tone, before turning back towards the image still displayed on my screen.
You're sure?" Fariz, having picked up the hidden meaning to what was being said, asked in a near silent whisper of her own.
"Absolutely." I admitted, turning back to look Fariz in the eyes.
Weighing what she saw there for a moment, I could see the moment a decision was reached, and her response just confirmed it. "Then we go."
"Inform the fleet to ready itself for a long range fold!" I called out to the rest of the command staff, before turning back to my command station and entering the necessary code strings that would bring the massive fold engines of the Fulbtzs-Berrentzs class vessel to life.
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Watching the Macross descend, Captain Misa Hayase, felt the illusive flame of hope for the future, that she had thought extinguished along side most of the life on Earths surface, flare back into existance.
"Come on, lets go." Hikaru's voice brought her out of the brief revere, and she turned to give him a smile.
"Do you think any others made it?" She asked, as they settled back into the, admittedly cozy, confines of the Valkyrie's single person cockpit.
"Probably." Hikaru admitted, putting his arm around her shoulder in a way that made a, small and treacherous part of her mind, admit felt pretty nice.
"From orbit." He continued, voice turning sad at the recollection. "It looked like the Zentradi were focusing their attacks on land based population centers and active military targets. So there's a good chance at least some of those out at sea survived."
"That's something at least." She returned, watching intently as Hikaru finished going through the various system checks.
"Hold on tight." He cautioned with a smile, after the last of the lights turned green. "It's sure to get a bit windy without the canopy."
He pushed the throttle forward and they were off, the fighters gerwalk mode boosting towards the recently landed form of the SDF Macross. It thankfully wasn't a long trip, the ship having landed less then a hundred kilometers away. But by the time they arrived at the still cooling crater, she could see people already beginning to disembark, from where the Prometheus and Daedalus were resting up against the craters inner lip.
Doing a loop around the main canon, they angled towards a flare outlined bit of land, before settling down onto a recently flattened bit of land to the south of the Prometheus's bow, which looked like it was being set up as a temporary landing zone. Looking around, she was relieved to see a handful of non-military aircraft, along side the more numerous Valkyries, suggesting at least a trickle of other survivors having decided to head towards the Macross the same as them.
"Huh." Hikaru commented in bemusement, his eyes fixed on a shockingly familiar red and white aircraft frame. "That brings me back."
"Is that?" Misa asked, eyes widening in disbelief.
"A Fan racer? Yup." He finished for her, mirth coloring his voice.
"Do you know the chances?" She barely got out as laughter started to bubble it's way past her lips.
"It" Began Hikaru, as he started laughing along side her. "It was a limited production run."
They must have stayed like that, laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation, for a good five minutes. And likely would have gone on longer, had an impatient arresting gear officer not interrupted.
"I said move it or lose it you two." The man, whom, a quick glace at his uniform patch reveled to be Lieutenant Junior Grade Milan Sokoll, repeated once it became clear they had missed him the first time. "We got a heavily damaged Tunny comeing in with survivors from the thirty fifth."
"Sorry!" Hikaru apologized. "Anywhere specific you want us?"
"Macross assigned forces over by the Daedalus." Lieutenant Sokoll answered, gesturing to the north with jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.
"And keep it on the ground!" He finished a moment later, almost perfectly in time with Hikaru reaching for the thrust controls. "We got things packed down pretty tight here. But anywhere else you're going to kick up a dust cloud like you wouldn't believe."
"Got it!" Hikaru called out, as he began walking the Valkyrie towards the indicated area.
"Looks like you're the last of skull squadron to show up." Misa commented, spotting an unmistakable pair of red and blue battroids, helping to direct a small exodus of vehicles from the Daedalus's lowered boarding ramp.
"Yeah." Hikaru agreed somewhat sadly, an awkward and somewhat depressive silence settling down between the two.
"Hikaru!?" The speaker enhanced voice of Max Jenius jerked them both back to the present.
"Max!" Hikaru tried to wave, before realizing their position and catching himself just short of smacking Misa in the face.
"Er, sorry." He apologized somewhat abashedly.
"I should probably." Misa started, face turning red in embarrassment as she suddenly remembered the position they were in.
"Don't want anyone getting the wrong idea." Hikaru agreed with her unspoken comment, his face turning an almost brighter shade of red then her own, as he set the Valkyrie into a low crouch so she could get out.
Misa tried to watch her footing as she pulled herself out of the cockpit, but the limited movement afforded by her skirt made that a much more difficult task then anticipated, and she ended up stepping on various parts of Hikaru at least twice in her climb down.
"Misa!" She heard a familiar voice call out, and braced herself, turning just in time, as the tiny missile that was a sobbing Shammy Milliome shot out from one of the groups of exiting people and slammed into her with a death hug. "We..." She stammered out in between sobs. "We thought you were dead."
"Hikaru was able to get me out a few minutes before the grand canon's power core overloaded." Misa explained, somewhat awkwardly returning the young woman's hug, while shooting one of her patented, get back to work, glares at the small crowed that was gathering to watch the show.
"We would have called." Hikaru added in, as he began to make his own way down. "But the radio was one of the systems that came out somewhat the worse for wear on our way out."
"Figured it was something like that after seeing." The voice of Max broke in, only to pause mid sentence in a way she had come to associate with someone getting a message on a second channel. "Sorry, would love to stay and hear what happened, but I really gotta get back to work. The gravity systems took a pretty heavy beating, and the engineers say we only have a couple hours at most before it fails entirely. So there's something of a rush to get the city evacuated."
"Oh, right!" Shammy exclaimed, pulling back from the hug and drying her eyes with a sleeve. "I need to..." She tried to finish before embarrassment caused her to trail off awkwardly.
"Go?" Misa finished for her, trying not to giggle at the all to familiar situation.
"Yeah." Shammy nodded in agreement, before turning around and starting to head towards a small group of tents Misa could make out near the boarding ramp. Only to pause after a few steps to add in a last parting comment. "The bridge is a bit of a mess, but I am sure the Captain would welcome your help coordinating everything with the surviving brass."
Misa pushed down the tears that threatened to leak out at the reminder that she still had a place with the Macross crew. When the reality of what Max had said before finally sunk in.
Turning to Hikaru, and seeing him with a look of quiet concern almost identical to her own. She gave a nod, before breaking off into a run towards one of the nearby transport jeeps that looked like it was about to head back in for another load of passangers.
"Hold up!" She shouted, as the vehicle started to pull out.
"Sorry! Can't..." The driver started, then trailed off as he turned his head and noticed just who was yelling. "Lieutenant!?"
"It's Captain now Donovan." Misa corrected, using the Ensigns hesitation to slip into the front passenger seat.
"Get this vehicle moving ensign." She ordered after a moment, when it became clear he wasn't going to go without some additional prompting.
"Of course Captain." He agreed, and Misa breathed a sigh of relief as the vehicle accelerated up the boarding ramp and into the belly of the Daedalus.
The trip to the bridge felt longer then Misa remembered. And by the time she arrived at the metal door, the sheer anxiety over what she would say, was enough to keep her standing there, hand poised over the door control, for good five a minutes.
Finally biting the bullet, she pressed on and entered to a scene of moderately controlled chaos. A medical officer was fussing over a somewhat battered looking Captain Global. While both he and the Zentradi officer Exsedol tried to play video call peacemaker between an angry group of UN Spacy and Zentradi officers.
"Captain Misa Hayase, reporting for duty sir!" She announced, breaking into a salute and hoping Captain Global caught the distraction for what it was meant as.
Twisting his chair to face her, she caught a brief flash of surprised relief that quickly morphed into a sly smile she had come to know well over her years serving under him.
"Thank you for arriving so promptly Captain Hayase." He began, turning back to face the divided screen with the indignant, but now thankfully quiet, parties on them. "As I was just explaining to our Zentradi allies. While we would more then welcome their help with recovery efforts, given the circumstances, we heavily prefer limiting that only those Zentradi or Meltrandi willing to undergo the micronization process."
"A completely reasonable request all things considered." Exsedol quickly agreed before any of the others could derail things back into a shouting match.
"My men won't be happy about this." One of the Zentradi officers added, cutting the transmission in a move that was quickly followed by the others.
"Perfect timing as always Hayase." Captain Global commented, giving a sigh of relief as the medical officer finished whatever they were doing and moved off.
"Indeed, the timing of your entrance was quite fortuitous." Exsedol concurred with a nod.
"Anything I can help with?" Misa asked, worry gnawing at her as she noticed more then just Shammy's station sitting dead and empty.
"Internal communications are down, so we sent everyone we could spare out to coordinate the evac with radios." Captain Global reassured her, noticing where Misa's gaze was lingering.
"Do you need me to?" She started, only to stop as a wide eyed look of panic made it's way onto Global's face.
"No!" He all but shouted, pausing to give an embarrassed cough into his fist at the uncharacteristic outburst. "I mean, we could very much use your expertise here to help deal with the wider scale issue."
"Of course Captain." Misa yielded, trying to hide an amused smile.
I should be." She began, only to be interrupted by the wailing of a familiar alarm that sent her into a sprint towards the abandoned long range radar station.
"Report!" Global snapped, former joviality gone in an instant.
"Massive defold!" Misa returned, eyes widening in despair as she counted out the climbing number of signatures. "Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, three point three million and a large signature matching that of the Golg Boddole mothership."
"Deculture." Exsedol uttered, disbelief and shock mingling together in his voice. "The only other Zentradi fleet in range is the two thousand first, and their supreme commander would never follow Golg Boddole Zer."
"I am picking up communications between the new fleet and the surviving Zentradi vessels." Vanessa added, speaking up for the first time since Misa had returned to the bridge.
"Nothing directed towards us?" Global inquired, pipe clutched thoughtfully in his hands.
"Negative." Vanessa confirmed, eyes never looking up from her screen.
"If I may?" Exsedol offered, previous uncertainty all but gone as he made his way over to the communications station.
"Go ahead." Global allowed.
Exsedol bent down, entering a long sting of commands into the computer faster then Misa could make out.
"All communication ceased." Vanessa announced, giving a confused look to the now smug looking Zentradi making his way back to the captains side. "Incoming signal from the mothership class vessel."
"Put them on." Global commanded, subtly straightening out his shirt and adjusting his hat.
The face that appeared on screen was younger then Misa expected, looking more like a human in their early thirties, instead of the fifty plus she had seen of every other high ranking Zentradi officer so far. More surprising then his age however, was the fact she could spot both Zentradi and Meltrandi working together in the background.
"Supreme Commander Raj Gotta Sha." Exsedol began, in a tone Misa had come to associate with own dealings with much higher ranked brass. "Thank you for responding."
"Of course Archivist Exsedol." He acknowledged with a slight nod, before taking a moment to look over as much of the bridge as the camera's would allow. "The priority communication codes you used are still good for another thirty seven point four Taarms. And I assume if anyone would have a good explanation for what's going on in this system, it would be you."
"I can of course." Exsedol agreed, motioning to the captain. "But first may I introduce Brigadier General Bruno Jay Global of the United Nations Spacy."
"Supreme Commander." Captain Global greeted, putting on his best diplomatic face once it became clear things might not devolve into a shooting match. "Welcome to the solar system."
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Trying to get back into writing now that I have some free time. So enjoy the read everyone.