The Protoculture Wars



                         Derek Sherman

                           Robotech:
                       Alternate Points
                            Of View
                             
                            
                             David
                            Marshall
                              
                           
This book is dedicated to the following people:
  Aubry "Neoculture" Thonon (aubry.thonon@qed.qld.gov.au)
  K. Wiley (kkwiley@uccs.edu)
  Alex (profnut@nyongwa.montreal.qc.ca)
  Steve (epustay@aol.com)                 
  Kirstin (adathono@cc.uq.edu.au)           
  The Ever-Mysterious Izabelle "IZI" Fate (whom I hope to *never* meet in
real life)
  And everyone who ever wrote a fanfic that I liked  :)


Legal Stuff

This work is c 1994-1996 by Derek Sherman, except for the portions directly
related to other characters. It should be noted that Robotech and all things
Robotech-related are owned by Harmony Gold.


Feel free to copy this book and distribute it as long as:
          A)   The copyright notices are left in;
          B)   If it is printed in a fanzine or any other free,
               nonprofit publication, could you mail me a copy
               please?
          C)   It may *not* be printed in a commercial publication
               without the prior assent of *all* the copyright
               owners, myself included.
          
I apologize to Aubry for lifting some of the previous section from his part
of this "collective fanfic", but I'm not very good at dedications or
legal-type stuff.


------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 02

[Time Hack - Saturday, 27 June 2009, 1210 hours, Macross City]


<It's the end of the world.> David thought to himself as he 
ran through the ruined streets of Macross City. Whoever it 
was that was attacking the island had been bombarding the 
city for almost fifteen minutes now, and the number of safe 
places in the city was rapidly dwindling. Entire city 
blocks were being blown into smoking craters all around 
him, and a steady rain of dust and debris was raining down 
on him. Thousands of people were probably already dead, and 
most of the ones who failed to reach the shelters on the 
outskirts of the city would probably join them soon. 
Including himself, he noted unhappily.

  As he ran, he began to think about what had been 
happening. He had just gotten clear of the tarmac when a 
female voice came over the PA system and announced that 
"alien invaders" were attacking from sector 412. He had 
scoffed at this for a few moments, believing that it was 
some bizarre military way of describing an attack by the 
Anti-Unification Forces. His disbelief faded slightly when 
he noticed that the fighters that were launching to engage 
the enemy were heading straight up. Seconds later the 
missile bombardment began, and he hadn't had time to wonder 
about anything any more - his desire for survival 
overriding his intense curiosity.

  He dashed around the corner of a half-collapsed building 
and skidded to a halt in the gravel and debris. Standing 
before him, roughly fifteen meters away, was some sort of 
giant machine that looked like a spiny egg resting on 
reverse-articulated legs. The machine was currently 
levelling one of its spines - which David assumed to be a 
weapon of some sort - at a man who was standing in the 
rubble. David hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether 
or not he could save the egg's victim. There was an 
eruption further down the street as two more of the 
enormous egg-machines tore their way through an apartment 
building and waddled into the street.

  "Ah, dammit!" David cursed, then turned and sprinted down 
a side alley. <Why did I even bother to think about that?> 
he asked himself as he hurdled an overturned bicycle. <The 
damned things are over forty feet tall! There's no way for 
me to fight them!> He slowed his pace as he approached the 
next street, not wanting to run out in front of one of 
those machines. Sure enough, one of the huge reverse-
articulated legs smashed down in front of him, shattering 
the concrete of the street and knocking him off balance. He 
blurted an inarticulate obscenity, pin-wheeling his arms as 
he fought to regain his footing, then turned to run back 
the way he came. A sound like an enormous buzz saw tore 
through the air, followed by a flash of brilliant light, 
intense heat, and a thunderous explosion that blew him off 
of his feet. He quickly rolled over and looked back over 
his shoulder, but the gigantic egg was gone.

  <What the hell is going on here?> He stood up, walked to 
the end of the alley, and peered cautiously around the 
corner. <Nobody builds machines like that. No one of Earth, 
at least.> What he saw made his heart race even faster than 
it already was. A giant robot of some sort was standing in 
the middle of the street, holding a large rifle-like device 
in its hands. He looked closer and cursed quietly - the 
"rifle" looked exactly like the gun pods he had seen on the 
Veritech fighters that had been on display! "What the HELL 
is going on here!" he shouted, to no one in particular.

  As he watched, the robot pointed its gun down the smoke-
filled street. <What's he aiming at?> David wondered. He 
didn't have to wonder long - two of the giant <alien?> eggs 
burst through the smoke, weapons blazing fluorescent death. 
The robot dodged the fire easily, firing its own weapon in 
return. One egg was holed in over a dozen places by the 
robot's shots, and collapsed backwards in a cloud of smoke 
and fire. The other one leapt high into the air on jets of 
flame, raking the entire area with weapons-fire. The robot 
dodged this, too, then shot the other egg out of the sky 
with a sustained burst from its own weapon.

  "All right!" David yelled happily. "Go get them 
bastards!" The robot turned towards him, and he realized 
that the pilot had heard him. He raised his hand to wave, 
then became aware of the fact that he had moved to the 
middle of the street. He realized how vulnerable he was out 
in the open, and turned to move off to the side of the 
street. There was a loud noise behind him, and he turned in 
time to see another egg-shaped machine rise up out of the 
smoke further down the street. This one, however, had some 
sort of rack mounted across its top. He paused to wonder 
what the rack was for, hen cursed himself and began backing 
away from the giant machine.

  The egg fired a flurry of missiles, then bounded into the 
air. David gaped at the enormous machine as it leapt high 
above him, its shadow falling across him as it passed. With 
a start he realized the the missiles the enemy had fired 
were coming right at him. He scrambled to get out of the 
way, lost his footing, regained it, stumbled over a dead 
body, and concluded that he wasn't going to make it.

 The missiles streaked down around him, and David barely 
had time to shout before the world exploded.

------------------------------------------------------------


Derek