Snipes In Wonderland
By J. Austin Wilde
Fission Park Press


J. Austin Wilde, K.B.C.S.
Minister of Propaganda and
Super Critical Reactor Axe Man
Fission Park Press
jaustin@aloha.net


I dusted this ‘fic off the old hard drive and polished it up in response 
to the comment that there wasn’t enough non-Ranma fanfics on the 
ML. This ain’t Macross by the way, it’s most definitely Robotech. 
You can send me all the hate mail you like for it.

For those of you who follow such things, I’m using the Jack McKinney
continuity for a timeline of major events. The characters in Snipes will 
probably never meet the established characters of Robotech except in
passing. This story isn’t about mecha pilots, idol singers, or Bridge
Bunnies. It is about the men and women who fought the hardest battles
of all -the battle to keep the SDF-1 in fighting order.

If you’re wondering about the title of this ‘fic, a ‘snipe’ is a Navy term 
for an engineering type, one who usually works below decks in the 
fire rooms and engine rooms of warships. The term comes from the 
name of the barracks building at Naval Training Center Great Lakes 
(outside of Chicago) where the prospective engineers lived while going 
to their rating schools. Alas, I’m sorry to report that Snipes’ Castle (as
Snipe Hall was known) is no more. An old chum from back home was 
one of the last of the Enginemen to live there in 1994. (Having fun on 
the Vincennes, Tommy? Enjoy your WESTPAC!)

The situations, mecha, and some of the characters portrayed in 
this work of fanfiction are the property of Harmony Gold USA. 
So there.


Prologue


     "Standing by for Test Series 336 Alfa, all watchstanders make 
reports to Central," the 2MC announcing circuit cried. The voice 
of Commander Giles Lochland echoed throughout the cavernous 
Engineering Spaces of the SDF-1.
     Men and women scurried about the decks and catwalks as the 
exotic systemry hummed at a higher pitch. No one really pretended to 
understand what half of the systems did, but if they were ever going to 
learn they would have to try them out.
     "Commence Data Run 336A, time 1306, mark!" Lochland 
announced on the 2MC.
     Power Systems Technician First Class Milo Wasserman noted 
the rising power levels in Number Four Reflex Furnace, his primary 
responsibility. His panel was of human manufacture, rigged by bundles 
of armored cable runs into the alien technosystems he monitored. All 
of the original displays were in the glyphic language of the people who 
had built this ship. His panel was an attempt to convert that language 
and number system (the aliens used a base 27 system to the humans' 
base 10) into something the human crew could use.
     "Are these tests ever gonna be done?" Power Systems Tech 3rd 
Class Jimmy "Stick" Stave asked.
     Milo regarded the skinny eighteen year old with a tired look.
     "Kid, just wait until we get this pig into space. You think we're 
busy now, just you wait."
     "Chief said things would get better after the launch."
     "And you believed him?" Milo retorted.
     Milo returned to his panel. He felt old having a watch section of 
eighteen and nineteen year olds to look after. He was twenty-five 
himself. Stick was probably the youngest looking of the entire 
Engineering Department, and Milo suspected that he had lied about 
his age to get in. The Global Civil War had taken care of most of the 
paper trail that could prove Stick's age to contrary.
     Stick just wasn't going away. Milo craned his head over his 
shoulder to regard the diminutive petty officer.
     "You still here?"
     "Hey Milo, you want some more coffee?" Stick asked.
     "Are you trying to stay out of Central or something?" Milo 
returned. Stick was the Engineer's Messenger in this watch section, 
and was supposed to be in Central to run errands and such.
     "Yeah. All the big wigs are in there right now, including Lang. 
That guy really freaks me out."
     Milo shrugged. "Well I might understand how you could feel that 
way about Lang. You aren't alone in that respect."
     He finished his data run and sent his logs to Central via optic tie 
bus.
     "What kind of coffee are we talking about?" Milo asked, holding 
his black mug emblazoned with the RDF fighting kite in his hand.
     "Thomas made some Kona Cinnamon Vanilla," Stick replied. "You 
can smell it all the way to Fold System Forward."
     Milo winced. "Anything else besides that foo-foo coffee?"
     "There's always Standard Robotech Joe," Stick offered warily. 
Standard Robotech Joe was the name given to the military coffee that 
came in ten kilo steel cans. Most of the stuff was held over from 
World War Two.
     "Gimme some SRJ, black and sweet."
     "Aye!" Stick cried at having a mission. He took Milo's mug and 
ducked under a run of twenty centimeter diameter piping that made 
up the Reflex Furnace's Tier Three Cooling System.
     "Completed Test Three Three Six Alfa, time 1311," the 2MC 
crackled.
     Milo got back to work.
     It was only two days to Launch Day, and they had a long way to 
go.



Episode One



     "Commencing power ramp to ten percent. All Section Leaders 
make reports to Central."
     Milo looked up from his mug of SRJ to hear the 2MC over the 
steady thrum of power from the titanic Reflex Furnaces of the SDF-1. 
Auxiliary systems chimed musically and the lights flickered as the 
Furnaces took up the load from External Power.
     Several members of the Damage Control Party stood by in silvered 
proximity suits. The alien furnaces had never been taken above ten 
percent power, and no one was sure what would happen if they did. 
Of course Lang and the others had sworn up and down to the 
politicians that everything would be fine.
     "That explains why we're ready for the damn things to explode," 
Milo concluded to himself.
     Today was Launch Day. God willing, at 1500 the SDF-1 would 
rise above Macross Island on it's way into Low Earth Orbit. They'd 
perform some engine trials (the main reaction mass drives had never 
been above .005 percent thrust on the island), make a quick jaunt to 
the moon and back. On the dark side of the moon they would test 
fire the Main Reflex Battery, known as the Main Gun to the crew. 
Once again, no one was entirely sure what would happen when they 
fired it.
     Milo didn't even want to think about what was sitting in the 
compartment forward of Reflex Four; the Fold Generators. Those 
mammoth machines were locomotive sized testament to the ten-
dimensional universe predicted by physicists and cosmologists alike. 
In theory they could transport the SDF-1 through time and space to 
any point in the universe.
     The orbit of Mars would do for now, but _that_ test wasn't for 
another two full weeks of space trials.
     Outside the battlefortress the big airshow and Launch Day 
festivities were in full swing. The Veritech Fighters, and the Destroids, 
and the other fantastical machines Robotechnology had made possible 
were all going through their paces. Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of 
the ship the crew was in the middle of the final countdown to launch.
     Doctor Emil Lang and his staff were making a tour of the spaces.
     Milo set down his mug to make way for them.
     "Gutenmorgen Vasserman. How is everyzing?" Lang asked. His 
odd all-pupil eyes absorbed the light of the compartment.
     Milo gestured to his watch section. "We're standing by sir, just 
give the word."
     Lang nodded. "Zo... Do you zink ve'll get her off ze ground?"
     Milo laughed. "If I have to get out and push her, sir."
     "Good! I haf every confidence in your abilities Vasserman. You're 
vun of ze most experienced operators in ze Department. I'm zure ze 
American Navy regrets losing you."
     Milo shrugged. "If you say so, sir."
     Lang continued on through the spaces with his entourage. Lochland's 
voice issued over the 2MC.
     "Doctor Lang sir, contact Central."
     Milo went back to supervising his Section. Stick was there, having 
been exiled to the spaces to serve as an operator after annoying CDR 
Lochland continuously in Central. PS1 Milo Wasserman wondered how 
he been stuck baby-sitting him.
     "What's going on, Milo?" Stick asked.
     "They're getting ready to take us up to 20 percent. They need to 
get Lang's concurrence first, and then call the Captain for permission."
     "I thought the skipper was at the Launch Day party." Stick replied.
     "He is. So siddown and shut up, 'cause we're gonna be waiting for 
awhile."
     One of the other watchstanders, a Fusion Maintenance Tech 2nd 
Class named Rod Fowler sat down on the deck with his logs across 
his lap. He had a look of mischief on his face, and the numerous 
practical jokes unleashed in the SDF-1's Engineering Spaces most 
often sprang from his fevered brain.
     "Hey Wasserman, we gonna get this pig off the ground?" He asked 
idly.
     "So they tell me," Milo answered.
     "Aren't you supposed to be the CMO4 right now?" Stick asked 
Fowler. CMO4 stood for Chief Mechanical Operator, a roving 
supervisory mechanic in the Number Four Reflex Furnace 
Compartment. The CMO4 answered directly to Wasserman, 
who was the Number Four Top Watch, or '4Top'.
     "If so, why aren't ya rovin'?" Stick continued.
     Fowler threw his logs at Stick. "Shut yer ass, nub!"
     "Stick's right, Rod." Milo said. He then scowled at the skinny PS3. 
"For once," he added. "If ever there was a time to be keeping an eye 
on things, it's now."
     "Aye," Fowler grumbled. He retrieved his logs from the deck plates 
and shot a death look at Stick, who wisely retreated around a huge 
magnetic blocking valve.
     "As for you, Stick, get me some coffee and quit fucking with my 
watchstanders!" Milo yelled.
     "I'll wait for Fowler to go down to Middle Level first," Stick said 
from behind the safety of the blocking valve. There were pros and 
cons to being the smallest guy in the department, and for the moment 
being able to go where no one could reach you was a boon.
     "Hurry your ass Stick, or you'll wish it was Fowler who was after 
you," Milo growled.
     Stick climbed out from behind the valve. "I'm goin', I'm goin'!"
     Milo looked back to his panel. Everything seemed normal, power 
levels were steady at ten percent. The enormous energy produced by 
the enigmatic Reflex Furnace was being channeled through the ship's 
electrical power distribution system. The electrical operators had 
reversed External Power, and in effect, the SDF-1 was now lighting 
Macross Island.
     Not that the energy produced by the Reflex Furnace was actually 
electricity. Whatever the animating energies were that gave way to 
Robotechnology, they were not actually coursing through the ship's 
External Power cables and into the island's grid. They were however 
driving conventional 3 Phase AC generators at 60 and 400 Hz.
     Lang and many other scientists had scribbled across endless dry 
erase whiteboards about whatever it was the Reflex Furnaces were 
producing. Milo and the numerous others who attended the Robotech 
Engineering School in 2007 had scratched their heads and moved on. 
Robotechnology was perhaps the only discipline (outside of religion) 
in history where you had to accept just about everything on faith.
     He was about to make his hourly tour and check on the other 
watchstanders in his section when his indicators all jumped into the 
red. An alarm klaxon blared and red revolving lights began flashing.
     He scanned his panel, trying to figure out what the hell was going 
on. Power levels were climbing rapidly, systems only half understood 
came on line without any outside prompting. The Reflex Furnace 
began to rumble in the near subsonics as it jumped to 70 percent 
output in under two seconds.
     Fowler appeared at the top of the ladder from Middle Level.
     "What the fuck's going on?"
     Milo stabbed at the overrides. There was no response.
     "The thing's freaking out!" He answered. He continued stabbing 
at the touch sensitive display. "I think Central has locked me out!"
     The deck plates began to shake as an ominous sound rolled up 
from the depths of the battlefortress. Massive servos whined and 
multiton disconnects engaged somewhere forward of Reflex Four.
     "Quench all Furnaces locally!" Lochland cried over the 2MC.
     "Central ain't doin' shit!" Fowler cried. "Nobody's got control of 
this fucker!"
     Milo stabbed at the Quench switch again and again. There was no 
response, and the Furnace output climbed to 90 percent.
     "It's not working!"
     “Now what?!”
     "I think we can do this manually!" Milo cried. "Come on!"
     He dashed past Fowler and down the ladder into Middle Level. 
An operator named Lopez was trying to engage the manual trips the 
Restoration Crews had installed for just such an emergency.
     The trips were manually operated magnetic blocking valves that 
would secure plasma flow through the Furnace and interrupt power 
distribution, known as a ‘Quench’. They also wouldn't budge.
     “Can’t trip ‘em!” Lopez gasped. “They’re locked open!”
     “They’ve got Closing Power available!” Fowler yelled back, 
looking at the series of white lights on a nearby display. “What the 
fuck?!”
     “Line up to hand pump them shut!” Milo ordered. It was possible 
to use hydraulic pressure through an emergency hand pump station to 
position the magnets manually in order to secure plasma flow.
     Lopez grabbed a laminated copy of the hand pump procedure that 
hung by a lanyard at the hand pump station. They had walked through 
the procedure a few times in training, but he had never performed the 
evolution for real.  Another operator known as Doomsday scrambled 
up from Lower Level to assist. 
     Lopez finished lining up the valves and set a huge orange breaker 
bar into the hand pump well. He and Doomsday began to work at the 
pump. Some of the DC party jumped to lend a hand.
     "What's power at!?" Milo gasped.
     "96 percent and ramping up!" Fowler cried.
     "Where's the power going?" Milo gasped again. Six men were 
straining against the trips to no effect.
     "No idea, man!"
     The howl of the Reflex Furnaces became deafening. Harmonics 
and resonances that rattled their teeth and made their eyes swim in 
their heads coursed through the deck plates at their feet. The massive 
meter thick bulkheads seemed to warp and close in on them.
     The air pressure changed dramatically in the compartment, and 
for a moment Milo thought something had just ruptured. A sudden 
heat washed over them.
     Without further warning, Number Four Reflex Furnace powered 
down to ten percent.
     Alarms ceased wailing, to be replaced by curses of surprise and 
amazement by watchstanders on all three levels. The universe returned
to normal.
     "What the fuck was that...?" Fowler asked in the relative quiet.
     "Beats the shit out of me," Milo replied.
     The 2MC crackled for attention. "All hands check spaces for 
damage and injured personnel. Repair Bravo lay to Main Reflex Battery 
Controls. All Section Leaders lay to Central immediately."
     Milo looked to Fowler. "You're in charge, Rod. Make sure 
everything's squared away."
     “Sure man, as soon as I change my shorts,” Fowler replied.
     Milo climbed back up to Upper Level and across a catwalk to 
balcony ledge that circled the huge compartment. He stepped through 
an airtight door and into a man-sized passageway. Most of the 
Engineering spaces were scaled to accommodate the giant aliens that 
once crewed this ship.
     When he reached Central, it was pandemonium. All of the Top 
Watches were there, the Furnace Supervisor (Milo’s immediate 
superior), the Fold Supervisor, the various Division Officers and 
Chiefs, and Lochland, who was the Assistant Engineer and second 
only to Lang in the department.
     They were arguing back and forth as to what had happened. 
Lochland kept yelling for quiet, but didn’t get it until a crusty old Master 
Chief named Felder bellowed that he was going to rip the balls off 
the next guy who piped up. Felder may have been an old cuss, but he 
was a _well built_ old cuss. The guy could practically bench press a 
Buick.
     Lochland continued from some point before Wasserman had arrived. 
“All we know for certain is that certain automated routines within the 
ship’s primary AIs superseded control authority from the Engineering 
AI systems and activated the Main Reflex Battery.”
     “Damn straight they did!” Someone called. Felder looked around 
with narrowed eyes for the offender.
     “The Main Reflex Battery fired what we believe was a full strength 
salvo across Macross Island. There are no casualties as of yet, but it’s 
too soon to tell for certain. We have suffered no immediate damage 
and no casualties... I’m going to recommend to Lang that we interrupt 
control and indication feeds with the Command Tower in order to 
preclude another event.”
     “In other words, no adult supervision,” the Main Propulsion 
Assistant observed.
     Lochland nodded. “More or less, but until we discover exactly 
what happened and take steps to isolate this rogue command authority 
override its the best we can do. Truth be known I don’t like the idea 
of those ‘Bridge Bunnies’ looking over our shoulders anyway.”
     The assembled engineers laughed heartily in agreement. The 
Engineering Department was one of the few on board dominated by 
men, and the testosterone flowed freely. 
     “Everyone back to your stations except Mister Donovan and 
Chief Takeda,” Lochland ordered. “No one’s canceled the Launch 
and we still have a job to do.”
     Everyone mumbled in agreement and filed back to their posts. 
Milo wondered why he even bothered to show up. If Lochland and 
the others really didn’t understand what had happened, what did they 
expect to be able to inform the rest of the Department?
     “GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL 
HANDS MAN BATTLESTATIONS! SET CONDITION ALPHA 
THROUGHOUT THE SHIP! NOW GENERAL QUARTERS!”
     The voice of LCDR Lisa Hayes, the Ship’s First Officer, rang 
over the ship’s general announcing circuit intercom, or 1MC. 
Following her announcement came the strident warble of the 
ship’s General Alarm.
     **Battlestations?!**
     By reflex he ran to his Battlestation, which fortunately was as 
Number Four Top Watch. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about 
a rushed turn-over with someone on the questionable status of the 
space.
     Upon his return to Reflex Four he was handed a pressure suit by 
Fowler. He took the suit and began putting it on. They had run drills 
in pressure suits before, but that was always with the comforting 
thought that there was a nice safe atmosphere available in case 
anything went wrong with the suit. Now...
     “What the hell’s going on?” Fowler asked. He had his faceplate 
visor up so as not to clutter the commo channels.
     “I guess we’re under attack,” Milo replied, he was getting status 
reports from the rest of his section as he dressed out.
     “Who? Anti-Unification terrorists?”
     The Anti-Unification movement was a well armed and fanatical 
group of malcontents who couldn’t see the SDF-1’s arrival for what 
it was: A reminder that the petty conflicts of Earth were insignificant 
when compared to the great wars in deep space that the ship had 
escaped. A war that could easily come to Earth.
     The rebels had already destroyed Mars Sara and massacred the 
colonists. Who knew what they had planned for the Inaugural launch 
of the SDF-1, the UEG’s crown jewel and symbol of its authority.
     Another possibility entered Milo’s mind.
     **What if those aliens really have come to Earth?**
     “Could be anything, but I don’t think it’s a drill. Just keep your 
eyes open and your people ready for anything,” Milo admonished.


End of Episode One.


If you liked it, let me know. If you didn’t, well let me know too. 
I’d hate to waste my time on something no one cared to read.