Ranmatech 1/2:

                       RANMATECH 1/2:
                      FIRST GENERATION
 
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Greeting and salutations all. Well this is my third fic. I said I'd 
write Ranma 1/2: ROBOTECH.  I might as well and go ahead and write  
this right know and YES I know I still have two fics still incomplete  
but I have an excuses: WRITER"S BLOCK!!! :( Well before warned that in  
these stories people do get killed and people do indeed die cause this  
is a Sci-Fi/Adventure and you can't have that type of story without  
people dying.  No its not a DARK FIC or a LIGHT FIC; its more of a  
GRAYISH FIC. 
Well on with the show.... 
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                            Prolog: 
 
     In the year 1999, it was the time of a Global Civil War and an  
unknown craft was approaching the Earth at an increadible speed.    
Its entry was that of a powered object, and it had appeared form nowhere.   
Its long descent spread destruction and death as its shock waves and  
after-blast of its engines leveled cities, deafend and blinded many,  
made a furnace of the atmosphere, and somehow awakened tectonic forces. 
Cities burned and fell, and many, many died in its wake.  
     It came to rest on a gently sloping plain on a small island in the  
South Pacific, called Macross.  
 
                           Chapter 1: BoobyTrap
 
     10 years has passed since the great catastrophe and on Macross island  
it was a time for celebration.  The SDF-1 construction/reconstruction has 
finally been completed and during the 10 years the small island managed to 
grow in population and a city was built around the ship.  
     "Fireworks," Lt Commander Genma Saotome murmured to himself as he 
watched the light show.  "Fireworks instead of bombs; celebrations instead 
of battles.  I hope it's aways like this: parades and picnics.  We've  
seen enough war!"  


**************


     Across town, a motorcade made its way with flashing lights and  
wailing sirens towards the SDF-1's platform, already late for the ship's  
scheduled launch on its maiden flight. 
     "Captain Tendo doesn't seem too happy about it," Vern said to the  
mayor.  
     Not happy, indeed.  "Don't look so sour, Tendo!  It's our big day!  
Surely you realize all those loyal citizens out there consider you their  
hero! You could at least wave back to them."  
     Tendo grunted, chin sunken his chest, arms folded.  He was wearing a 
dress uniform and decorated with meddles that he was entitled to wear was 
in place.  
     "All right, I'll wave," said Tendo, hoping the speech-makers' fool- 
ishness and political hacks' patting themselves on the back wouldn't last  
long. Tendo only wanted to be out in space with his new command.  


****************


     Up on the bridge of the SDF-1, Commander Akane Tendo arrived to 
make sure everything would be squared away for launching.  
     She'd carved out an amazing career for herself.  At twenty, she'd  
been made First Officer  of the SDF-1.  A lot of that was due, no doubt,  
to her familiarity with with the ship's systems. 
     But there were her endless commendations and top evaluations as well, 
and two single-minded in obsession with duty, but no one accused her of 
not earning her rank. 
     She paused to survey the bridge, a slim, tall, pale young woman 
with brown hair that was wrapped up on her head. Her subordinates were 
already at their duty stations. 
     Nodoka Saotome seemed to have things well in hand, speaking into 
an intercom terminal from her position at the Bridge Officer's station.  
"Roger, engine room; that's affirmative." 
     Yuka, Sayuri, and Kim, three young female enlisted-rating techs, 
completed the bridge complement; Tendo like running things with as little 
as little confusion and as few people possible. 
     Yuka was feeding computer projections of fuel consumption to the 
engine room while Kim finished up the astrogation checklist and Sayuri 
saw to the manual systems.  They were all young, like Akane----but most 
of SDF-1's crew.  Robotechnology and the weapons and machines it had 
spawned were a hole new game; taking people while they were young and 
instilling its strange disciplines in them had proved more workable, in  
most cases, than trying to get veterans to unlearn what they'd already  
taken to heart. 
     Akane sighed, brushing her hair back with her hand, making her way 
to her station.   "The ceromony starts in fifteen minutes.  I hope the captain gets
here on time.  The scuttle-butt it that he didn t get much sleep last night." 
     Nodoka gave her a smile, her light face creasing, eyes dancing.   "Yeah;
the flanking officers threw him a farewell party.  They probably stayed up all
night telling each other war stories.  You know how they are. "
     Akane hid a mischievous smile.  "And where were you, Nodoka? Hmm?"
     Nodoka was taken off guard.   "What're you talking about?" 
     "You didn't get back to you quarters untill four in the morning, that's
what!  You must ve been partying too."
     Nodoka stuck her nose in the air and struck a glamorous pose.  She was
taller than Akane and several years older, with exotic goo looks crowned by a
cap close coffee-colored curls.
      "You jealous?  I had a late dinner with Commander Saotome."
     Akane had been joking, assuming Nodoka had spent her last ground-side
leave visiting her family, but suddenly the first officer was angry.
      "Nodoka!  You stayed out all night when you knew both you and
Genma both had flight duty today?"  Duty was everything to Akane; she had
trouble understanding how anyone could be so causual about such an important
mission.
      "My private life is my own buisness!  Nobody else's!  I hate to bother
you, but hadn't you better check you monitor, Commander?"
     Then Akane relized that an instant signal was sounding from her duty
station.  She crossed to it, trying to put the argument out of her mind as Kim 
called out, "It's an unidentified incoming aircraft, Akane!"
     Akane opened up a communication link, "Attention, aircraft approaching
on course 1-0-7.  Please identify yourself."
     A youngish male voice came in response.  "This is Ranma Saotome.  I
have an invitation for today s ceremonies, invitation # 2-0-3."
     Akane checked it against the computer display of invitation number list. 
She responded, "That's confimred as an invitation from Lt. Commander
Saotome."    Saotome! It s too much of a coincidence' Akane thought to her self. 
 Follow course 5-7 for landing." 
     "Roger," the voice said cheerfully, and signed off.
     Meanwhile  Ranma?  It couldn t be my son, but Genma said that he had
a suprise to give me today during the celebration'  though Nodoka.


******************


     Ranma Saotome whislted as he got a better look at the SDF-1.  The
descriptions the papers gave didn't begin to do it justice to the astonishing size
of the thing!  The two supercarriers anchored among the flotilla of the ships in
the harbor were of the new Thor class----each longer than a 150-story office
building resting on its side----yet they were modest in comparison to the battle
fortress.
     And the sky was full of the sleekest, most advanced-looking fighters
Ranma has ever seen----Robotech fighters, the newscasts had called them. 
Whatever that meant.  For a moment Ranma couldn't blame his parents for
dedicating themselves to this Robotech stuff.
     Ranma maneuvered his ship smoothly through the traffic, relying not on
his computers but on his own talentand training----a point of pride.  He was the
offspring of a proud daring breed of fliers.
     He was 18 years old and hadn't been outflown since----well, long before
his voice had changed from a kids to a young man's.
     He tossed a dark forelock of hair back and adjusted his tinted goggles,
then went into a pushover and power dive for the SDF-1.  This Robotech stuff
*looked* impressive . . . but maybe it was time to somebody showed these
military flyboys that it was the *pilot* that mattered most, not some pile of mere
metal.


**************


     Far out beyond the orbit of Earth's moon, a portentous tremble shook
the space-time continuum as if it were a spiderweb.  It was only a preliminary
disturbance, yet it was exacting and of great extent.  A force beyond reckoning
was making tentave contact on a day that marked a turning point in the history
of the unsuspecting Earth.


*************


     On Macross Island, in the shadow of the SDF-1, Genma didn't have time
to notice the tiny racing plane making a pass over the ship's bow, thousands of
feet above him.  The public address system carried an announcement of the tens
of thousands gathered there.
     "And now we present an amzing display of aerial acrobatics, demonstarting
the amazing advances we have made through Robotechnology.  Lt. Commander
Genma Saotome, leader of the Veritech fighters' Skull Squadron, will desribe and
explain the action for us."
     Genma made his entrance to enthusiastic applause; he was known to and
well liked by most people on Macross.
     "Today, ladies and gentlemen, you'll see how we've applied human know-how to understanding and harnessing a complex alien technology."
     Overhead, a half sozen swift, deadly Veritech fighters peeled off to begin
their preformance.
     "Keep your eyes on planes 2 and 4," Genma went on as 2 and 4 lined up
for the first maneuver, engines blaring.  "Flying at speeds of 500 mph, only fifty
feet above the ground, they will pass within mjust a few yards of each other. 
Robotechnology makes such precision flying possible."
     Genma was thinking about that happily as he spoke, waiting for the
inevitable gasps from the crowd as the first high-speed pass was executed.  It took
him a few seconds to realize that the people below him on the ground weren't
gasping . . .
     They were laughing.