* * *
Earth, March 12, 2170
"And as you see, General, both RIKER and DELILAH have been
properly confirmed through three separate channels," Brigadier
Colonel Westfall Green completed his report. A senior analyst
officer with the G2 Intelligence and Espianoge, the key
military intelligence asset of the Department of Defense, Green
definitely looked the part. He stood roughly five-foot-eight,
boasted rough, sculpted features, and sported a thick mane of
jet-black hair. His slick grooming only contributed to the
sly, scrupulous character eminating from him. The person he
was speaking with, however, clearly did not follow the suit.
The major general dwarfed him by nearly a full foot and a
half. Director Ghers Banatm, Major General--Robotech Space
Forces Marine Corps, inherited his lineage's correlated
physiology, including the dark complexion and distinctly
Negroid-like features. His handsomely etched countenance drew
attention to the deeply furrowed, sullen brow. Years at the
operations end of things forced decades of experience and
weariness onto Banatm's shoulders. His ears, situated slightly
farther back and lower (at the base) than most other humanoid
species, rose sharply upward and curved forward before the tip
of the upper lobe rejoined just before his temples. They
seemed to radiate an earthy dignity that attested to Banatm's
enervation.
Rather advanced in his years, the General had entered the
Marine Corps as a infantry private at the age of one-hundred
and thirty. As the CCW-3 reached its peak in the mid-twenties,
Ghers bounded through the ratings up to the rank of gunnery
sergeant. Within a week of the actions at Marist 551 2 A,
where the RSF-Marines held off a Corron invasion force for two
months, he had been breveted to first lieutenant and received
command of an infantry platoon in the 89th Marine Infantry
Battalion, 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit. Ghers continued to
distinguish himself throughout the war, as a brevet captain and
company commander, major and divisional G2 intelligence
officer, and ultimately as a lieutenant colonel and full-bird
at the end of CCW-3. Commissioned to Brigadier General in
2138, his first command as a member of the generalcy, the 2nd
"Rigel's Sword" Brigade of the First Marine Expeditioanry Unit,
would become the mainstay of the Battle of Ganymede. When
deep-strike Corron campaign vessels penetrated Jovian space and
began their seige on the Ganymede and Europa colonies,
Brigadier General Banatm's forces instrumentally contributed to
Earth's momentarily successful push-back of the enemy's
forces. The Battle of First and Second Callisto had resulted
in fourteen thousand Marines--one-thousand seven hundred fifty
from 2nd Brigade--and Spacy aviators killed in action. A few
years after CCW-4 concluded, Ghers and the Marine Corps
commandant successfully lobbied for the commission of a
permanent Marine outfit in the Sol System. The VII Marine
Assault Force, dedicated to the defense of the Sol System in
particular, stood as the single largest Confederation ground
force under the Core Systems Defense Command. After the
Confederation evacuation of the Sol System in 2142, the remains
of Gher's devastated brigade were redistributed amongst other
badly undermanned outfits. The brigadier found himselfing
bouncing from divisional command staff to division command
staff until he managed to land the exective slot and First
Brigade command of the IV Marine Expeditionary Force, under
Major General Alberta Pacci. General Pacci eventually would
recommend Ghers for the open slot of assistant director of G2
Intelligence. To top it off, following his promotion to Major
General eight years ago, Ghers inherited the empty chair the
late- Director (Military Intelligence General Two) Lieutenant
General Mikhail Zhaluv left atop his grave.
Westfall Green, on the other hand, had not served as a
rifleman since his late thirties; a fact he grew steadily
resentful towards as he drew near fifty. His rank of Brigadier
Colonel, RSF Army, put him on level enough ground to fraternize
freely with the upper-echelons while avoiding the chains that
accompanied a promotion to the generalcy. Of course, Green
understood that his current situation might change at any
time. His next, and probably last promotion--to brigadier
general--would most likely receive congressional confirmation
within the next year or two. Nonetheless, he resolved long ago
that getting kicked upstairs and tied to a desk hurt a lot less
than retiring. After all, with thirty years in the
intelligence business, the RSF couldn't simply "let" him go.
The past four years of his career mainly involved high-level
courier command and control. "Courier service," of course, was
in itself a far stranger task than it's name suggested. Not
only did the job requirements include directing well over a
hundreds intelligence circuits flooding in an out of the
Confederation on the hundreds of non-aligned
sovereignties--including the hostile Corron and H'than empires,
but the job entailed an occasional break from the intelligence
racket to actually direct operations carried out based on his
intelligence. The Helsinki File Incident of 2159--the foreign
investigations aspect of it, of course--had ballooned Green's
career and brought him to the attention of G2's analysis
bureaucracy. Now, Green felt a eerie, sinking feeling that had
accompanied him through Helsinki, as well as the entire Fourth
Corron-Confederation War. High-level ops tended to disconcert
him, but only a handful of intelligence campaigns had ever
disturbed him this much. The two that had either involved a
full-scale war or the threat of genocide. In his hands lay
reports and analyses that seemed to lend credence to both of
these possibilities. Green swallowed the thought and replayed
the briefing in his mind.
Nearly two decades ago, G2's Studies and Operations
Groups--working with the Central Intelligence Network--had
managed to recruit several highly-placed Corron officials and
clerks on outlying worlds to gather intelligence floating in
from Corron Prime. Green himself had led the recruiting
effort--surgically modified to resemble a member of the
Empire's Hw'italni ethnic family--during the 2150s that managed
to solicit the favor of a Representative to the Imperial Senate
(or Council, whichever way one translated it) from the
high-born Turas family. For the first decade, Green's
brainchild network gathered badly needed information on the
Corron social and political structure. However, Green and the
Confederation intelligence community quickly learned that
secrecy was not only in vogue amongst the Corron government
itself, but an inherent, traditional practice as well. The
real names of Royal Family members were unknown to officials of
the lower ranks, and even today, the family-structure and
ranking system of Corron society was a vague outline sitting in
one of the CIN's high-security vaults. Of course, Intelligence
was aware there was a monarchial system in place, and that the
current monarch was a queen/empress/etc. Furthermore, at least
twenty-eight royal names (not pseudonyms) were listed--without
faces, unfortunately--in the CIN's database.
If gathering information on and analyzing the domestic
structure of Corron society was an intelligence challenge in
itself, G2 found its task on keeping tabs on the Corron
military forces mind-harrowing. Thirty years ago, it was
presumed that the Corron forces--know within the Empire as the
Hwi-zhemal'orra--maintained a strictly organized, centralized
military unit that was primarily based on troop transports.
However, in 2139, the Confederation would gain accurate and
shocking intelligence through one of the worst defeats in its
history. As Commander General Hw'italni Mika slashed and
burned his way through the Blue Corridor--so named after the
distinctive low-visibility coloring of his fleet's hulls--the
Hwi-zhemal'orra Fifth Star Brigade would become a feared name
amongst the Core Worlds. G2 gained valuable insight into the
operating structure of the Corron military organization.
Largely feudal and in many cases, inefficient, G2 was surprised
to learn that incredible compensation was made through the
Hwi-zhemal'orra soldier's impressive capabilities. With leeway
in initiative granted to Corron commanders by their government
was unrivaled by any other military power--even the
Confederation. By the word of a commanding general, all the
feudal, ritualistic and bureaucratic excess that plague the
Empire's domestic situation dissipated into the oblivion.
General Mika demonstrated this boundless operational latitude
with proficient efficacy; leading his diminutive, yet
remarkably organized, flotilla of warships and transports
filled with Imperial Marines into the heart of the
Confederation. During the space-side engagements, G2 quickly
learned of the Hwi-zhemal'orra's ability to adapt to a rapidly
modernizing battlefield. Despite the fierce attachment to
traditional tactics and strategies, the ingenuity with which
Mika and his officers executed traditional maneuvers earned the
Corron Imperial Navy a great deal of wary respect from their
Confederation counterparts. Finally, the ferocity of Corron
groun forces unleashed bore down against the unprepared
Confederation defenses. They waged their grisly, brutal ground
war no against some outlying border world--bordering the edge
of emptiness and insignificance; instead, they fought through
the deserts of Ganymede and rained nuclear fire down on Mars.
Eventually, their Marines spread across the blue-white visage
of Earth, the Imperial Army's immense reserve taking up the
slack as Mika's shock forces swept away the last vestiges of
Terra's organized resistance. By 2142, the Sol, Pollux, Tau
Ceti, and a full third of the Core Worlds lay at the mercy of
Commander General Hw'italni Mika and the Corron Empire.
As the war progressed along the front, the intelligence G2
had gained there--at an unimaginable price--would pale in
comparison to the intelligence Confederation "observers" and
"expeditionary forces" amassed on Earth, Pollux II, and Ceti 4;
fighting alongside the native resistance movements as they
struggled to break the yoke of the Corron dominion. On Earth,
the struggle for independence had broken out into some of the
most violent and bloody wars of attrition in the First
Quadrant's history. Green had been onworld at that time--a
young eighteen-year old recruit in the RSF Army Armored Corps,
when Mika's forces first began attacking the space stations and
orbital colonies in Earth's skies. Close to two billion people
died between 2140 and 2142, including Green's parents and older
brother; victims of a genocidal space war waged unilaterally
against an unarmed civilian populace. He and his three younger
sisters managed to hide out as civilians with their
grandparents in England. Green, however, would eventually
leave the restricted life of an "occupied" citizen to link up
with the various British resistance groups around Prestwick,
Scotland. It was during that time that he linked up with
operatives from the Central Intelligence Network and Defense
Intelligence Department G2. During that time, Green gained a
great deal of intelligence on Corron planetary tactics,
developing tactical doctrine for operating against the
blue-skins in dirt-side engagements while refining and testing
several concepts of planet-wide, guerilla warfare. Still, a
gruesome price often accompanied his actions, and more often
than not, non-combatants paid for the resistance's struggle.
When a Corron garrison-governor--fittingly called "The
Butcher"--ordered the execution of five-hundred thousand
residents of the Northern Chinese-Tibetan area in retaliation
for attacks by local resistances, Green had hooked up with an
Asian militia to secure the rescue of close to a thousand of
the Butcher's prisoners. The rest were herded into a deep
valley and saturated with toxic chemicals and acids. Following
the war, Green visited the site; its name translated from
Chinese to "The Valley Of the Burning Rain." Ironically, over
a century and a half ago, this flourishing valley had once
served as the death-bed for two-million people; victims of the
Zentraedi Holocaust.
The reports Green had passed on to General Ghers seem to
re-open that chapter in his life. The first segment of the
briefing regarded the reports of increased activity detected on
an orbital facility above one of Corron Prime's two moons.
Docking reports and appropiation bills, passed through the
courier chain leading to an operative only a handful of G2 and
CIN officials knew as YOKKURI, were immediately handed over to
CIN agents implanted on Naman--a common-world ("common-worlds"
were semi-neutral planets usually known for their high merchant
traffic) about fourteen lightyears away from the Jarao system.
Furthermore, a photograph--an outdated one from the Fourth
Corron war--was included. Pictured on it was a Corron military
officer; short in stature, sharply-dressed, and donning a pair
of...sunglasses. The trademark depiction of.
"The Butcher," Ghers snarled. Green smoothed his green and
black uniform, nodding in grim understanding; he easily
recognized the contemptuous ire breaking through the general's
reticent facade. Midway through CCW-4 on Earth, Green made the
acquaitance of a particular Mutan officer, working as a DeForce
"envoy" to the resistance, during the observation effort in
Eastern Europe. For nearly two years, Green and his Mutan
companion continued to shuttle some of the best data back to
the DoD's Intelligence SOGs. However, the Mutan field officer
had accompanied Green to Asia when the Edinburgh Resistance
detached several liaisons to help tear down the Butcher's
regional government. As a result, Green barely escaped with
less than a thousand refugees while his comrade--Ghers Kuthal,
the general's first-born son--was executed along with hundreds
of thousands of others in the Valley of the Burning Rain. So
many others had died--close to sixty-seven million--under the
Butcher's tenure as military governor of Eastern Asia. After
the cease-fire, the withdrawing 5th Star Brigade had managed to
evacuate him. Every appeal from the Confederation to extradite
the genocidal war criminal had failed; adding to the strain of
the already tenuous cease-fire.
Ghers curtly examined the rest of the briefing packet,
which basically listed the variety of activities--genocidal or
not--the Butcher had participated in while a member of the late
General-Commander Mika's occupation forces, as well as a small
listing of post-Occupation titles and duties. Currently, he
held the rank of Commander and was at the helm of a flotilla of
some of the Corron military's finest attack vessels. However,
it was his most recent accomplishment that further outraged the
general. "No name, aka, 'The Butcher.' 2155, appointed to the
Imperial Senate Review Committee for Planetary Offensive
Tactics. 2159, elected to the candidate position for the <No
family name available--assumed generic> fleet command.
Commissioned to <No family name available> to fleet command in
January, 2160. Received command of the Romeo-November--what?
Romeo-November 13?"
"Yes, sir," Green nodded. Eight years ago, the Romeo
November 13--known to the Hwi-zhemal'orra as the Arisula, the
"Battle-axe of Ula"--crashed onto an asteroid just outside the
Rubian system. The Defense Force, playing up the event as a
humiliation to the Hwi-zhemal'orra and an intelligence triumph
for G2, escorted the "humiliated" crew--with their Romeo-class
battlecruiser (after G2 and the CIN had finished disecting it
for all that it was worth--to the Giovanni Buffer Zone. Two
years later, it was discovered that the cruiser had been
deliberately beached so that the Corron military could gain a
better perspective of the Rubian defense perimeter--an
intelligence community farce that the CIN and the Department of
Defense had struggled vainly to keep under wraps. Despite its
eventual public revelation, the compromised security
organization in the area had been maintained, as the
Confederation focused its wrath on a handful bureacratic bodies
in both the CIN and DoD's G2. "Granted an audience with the
Empress soon following. Rumor is that ever since, she's
entertained his presence at all advisory functions pertaining
to offensive operations. Apparently, that's how he secured the
command of the Foxtrot 2A."
Foxtrot Two-Alpha, the designated code-name for the Corron
command carrier Kw'al, was a Hellfire (Tringal)-class behemoth
of a ship, twice as large as the Confederation Patton-class
dynacruiser and more heavily armed than anything in the Defense
Force arsenal. Still, it were poorly shield; several of the
earliest producation models of the Hellfire (Intelligence had
learned eight years ago) had cracked up during atmospheric
re-entry. Torpedo bombers and the powerful energy and
ballistic weapons onboard Confederation vessels pretty much
levelled the combat field. The Kw'al itself had been recently
refitted and sent out on a renewed campaign by the Hillth
family to incite the Confederation into a brush-fire border
war. It was in just over a year ago that the Butcher made his
presence known once again. In a daring raid against the
Ishtar-anai system, two the far west of the Jarao sector,
Hwi-zhemal'orra forces had razed the outer industrial asteroids
with thermo-nuclear warheads. Proceeding to the primary colony
planet, the Kw'al descended far enough to execute an attack on
the civilian capital. Some twenty-thousand were killed during
the incident; although the Hwi-zhemal'orra were expelled. The
Corron Empire categorically denied officially sanctioning the
attack. Fortunately for them, their harrowing attack on the
Confederation thirty years earlier was more than fresh in the
memories of the UPC's citizens and council representatives.
War was to be avoided at all costs.
Until now. Now, the Butcher was about to wage another
reckless attack against Confed citizens; only this time, the
Confederation possessed information which could be used to
circumvent him. The sole question left was would the
Confederation break its own self-imposed peace to do so?
"We can't just sit on this one," Green understatingly
pointed out. Ghers nodded in agreement. Unfortunately,
despite the realities Earth had faced under the Occupation, the
rest of the Confederation wasn't simply going to risk it's
sorry excuse for peace on the basis of a single report and a
planetary size thirst for vengeance. Terra had been playing
her hand too poorly politically to simply force the issue down
the Council's throat--and Command answered to the Council.
"Still, this is too weak to actually commit to," Ghers
replied objectively. "No one on the defense committees will
buy this without 'human' confirmation."
Green nodded understandingly. The truth was that
everything the Confederation received through Corron channels
was immediately suspect. The psychological profile of the
individual and the reaction of the individual to the varying
social climates inherent in Corron and Corron-subjugated
cultures made it completely unfeasible to abide by standard
confirmation rules on information as sensitive and vital as
this.
"I think I can possibly wheedle an operation out of
Dawson--I'll have Rawlings' and Jea's support on this one.
However, I can't guarentee that even a confirmation run will
hold water."
"Sir, there is something we've been considering for
sometime over at Operations," Green interjected. Ghers looked
up interestingly. The reason he liked Green so much was even
though he served in the analytic department of G2, Ops was
still his primary home. I hope he doesn't get caught up in
this bureacratic mess, Ghers remarked; it seemed like (it
actually had been) decades since he could enjoy at least a
simulated drop with his Marine company--fighting blueskins
along the Majestic Frontier, biggest damned mountain chain on
Jarao IV. With that thought, he beckoned for Green to
continue.
"Three weeks ago, Ernaas Mur approached me for Admiral
Smith," Green invoked the name of a mutual friend of theirs, a
Spacy (or Navy) skipper who had found himself unwillingly
kicked upstairs a month ago. Lieutenant Commander Mur was his
Centauran god-son, as well as the chief tactical officer
onboard Smitty's alma mater--the Benyamin Cohen. "Shocked the
hell out of me the first time I heard it, but here it goes."
Major General Ghers nodded in partial undertanding. Green
had known that Smitty sent a courier back to Earth with reports
of potential of increase in the Hwi-zhemal'orra's offensive
posture. Combined with the an increase in the level of the
Imperial Forces' operational exercises at the extent of their
territories, Smitty had every right to feel concerned.
Apparently in a pointed attempt to incite Smitty's bitter
temperment, Vice Admiral Vara and her deployment and strategy
oversight committeee had recommended against his bid to
strengthen on-station forces up to sixty-five percent. In
fact, the Congressional Military Oversight Subcommittee felt
thoroughly convinced of the "necessity" to maintain a "low
profile" in the DeForce's responsive posturing. Instead, the
farsical Druse Kingdom envoys attempted to spin their insolvent
negotiations as "progressive." Green snorted, and the look on
the Director's face ensured him that the rest of Intelligence
agreed as well.
"Anyway," Green now reached the main bulk of his story.
"It seems that Admiral Smith's had Task Force Six-Nine snooping
past Jarao's interstellar territory for the past few months;
he's worried. When Smitty worries, I listen."
"And?"
"Well, it seems that the Corron have increased their
deep-space patrols their operational exercise activity by
thirty-five percent from the last best intelligence estimates.
That's what the Admiral's saying"
"Impossible, the whole fleet would be up in a titty," Ghers
scoffed. "Intelligence would've pulled that out before they
could've moved a ship up to the line."
"First of all, do you really rely on Naval Intelligence?"
Green's asked nonchalantly. "We both know they're being held
on a tighter leash than the rest of us, and we've been doing
their jobs for a decade. The information you've been getting
from Admiral Messeur has been way to scant--I'm surprised
Rawlings even puts up with his mess. Secondly, Admira Smith's
telling us the enemy's newest exercises are rather poorly
coordinated. We both know that the Hwi-zhemal'orra closely
models the factional clan structure of their civilian society.
Commander-General Haano may be the big man across the buffer,
but NavInt knows that individual families may posture their
fleet elements without central coordination. Admiral Messeur
claim's they've seen this pattern once or twice in the past
fifteen years. His arguments do make sense, I'll
admit--although I'd lean towards Smitty's gut feeling over
analyses with his John Hancock anyday. Nevertheless, I don't
count in the big scheme of things, and Oversight will
undoubtedly lean towards the admiral's
conclusions--"low-profile" is the monthly buzz-word over at the
Committee House."
"To summarize," Ghers completed Green's thought, "Admiral
Messeur thinks he's looking at a simply restructuring of the
Imperial Forces' operational posture along the border--a burp.
Seems the good admiral's voting early. Well, how long has
Smitty been in on this?"
"We know about the five-percent annual increase; but
Admiral Smith's predicting between seven and twelve percent.
They're spreading it around, so God knows how much is floating
through the Eastern Giov. Don't forget, their ships can
cloak--and so can a majority of their bases. Our deep-space
probes are defense-oriented, so Mike's information could only
be better than ours--he's actually tried shipping them out into
the Buffer Zone."
"God help him if Command ever got a whiff of it," Ghers
smirked.
"Yeah, I think Admiral Cannady said the same thing," Green
turned up the corner of his mouth deviously. "In any case, I'm
putting my confidence in Smitty. He'll back you up on your
proposal."
"Even so," Ghers leaned back, sighing ever so slightly,
"there's still no guarentee it'll work. Vara chewed Smitty up
at the last conference. When I head down to Bravo Eight next
week, though, any operation you can come up with an finalize
will be presented to our friendly, Honorable Senatorial Admiral
Westinghouse. All right?"
"Thank you, sir," Green rose to his feet. Ghers looked
over the brief one final time and signed it, handing it back to
the "courier."
"I'm looking forward to a good write-up, something
tangible--understand?"
"Yes, sir."
"Dismissed."
* * *
181 Malique, the Greater Jarao Sector, March 25, 2170
Manazya Joangu was nineteen Earth-years of age, although,
through the oddities of time, she had barely aged over the past
year. The artificial gravity generators, the null-gee
environs, and the miracle of superluminal flight had preserved
her youth--despite her long-lived Zentraedi heritage--to an
almost seven percent factor. Prior to the recession to lower
levels of superluminal flight, space-folding had involved the
incredulous time dilations problems that were only beginning to
be sorted out by 2060--when Earth lost its capacity to ever
execute a spacefold/slipspace jump forever. Spacefold involved
the instantaneous transition from realspace into the upper
"third" region of hyperspace, refered to commonly as transwarp
space or even more so as slipspace. Warps operated in the
second inferior region, known commonly as subspace or warpspace
and defined as the hyperspace region that bordered the line of
causality.
Folds further demonstrated the distinction between neural
function rates and metabolic rates. During a fold, the neural
effects of superluminal flight were still experienced through
time dilation, however, metabolic effects were much more
widespread. Somehow, the tachyons that continued to energize
against the warp field that mediated a vessel through
hyperspace were able to effect a preservation, almost
regenerative process on the body. The neural systems of
organisms, however, which engaged in bioenergetic processes
that were unique to its cells and its cells alone, experienced
a sort of backwash in time-dilation--they were accelerated to
register sensory input and translate it much more efficiently
than during a spacefold. Neural functions suffered slight
disorientation for a few seconds following the warp jump,
compared to the nearly ten minutes required to recover from the
effects of a pre-Severance spacefold. Soon afterwards, both
neural and metabolic rates would equalize, giving the
impression of increased longetivity as memory capacity had been
accelerated to calibrate for the effects of time dilation and
suffered no real dilation. Metabolic rates were continually
affected proportionally to the dilation involved. As far as
Manazya was concerned, however, such pensiveness on the subject
of artificial longetivity was irrelevent--as a Zentraedi, her
physical make-up was genetically predisposed to a two
century-plus lifespan. Instead, the lavender-mane,
solidly-built Academy undergraduate zipped up her flight
uniform. The vac-suit snugged comfortably against her body,
pressing her curvaceous form into statue-perfect form. Manazya
Joangu sighed vainly as she shut the locker, threw her flight
helmet under her arm, and hastily made her way towards the
flight deck.
Ninety-five light-minutes beyond 181 Malique's final
planetary orbit, a single vessel dropped out of warp, flanked
by two smaller twenty-men corvettes; her chock-full mecha bays
and armories were prepared to open at a moments notice. The
destroyer-escort immediately threw her grav-impeller's stress
bands into reverse, lending her most forward momentum (and
velocity) instantly to the artificial gravity wake dogging
behind her. If the destroyer's captain had elected to cut his
engines, the inertia imparted back to the vessel would have
been sufficient to maintain her previous momentum, and
consequently, the ship would continue on its heading at a
constant velocity. However, by swinging the impeller wedge
into reverse, the drive field remained upward, and the ship's
inertia and momentum focus followed the grav-wave like young
children, bringing the vessel. The shift in the drive field
allowed for an "instantaneous" drop from point-two of
lightspeed to barely over a kilometer per second while
maintaining the drive fields integrity, and by that virtue, its
inertial compensation sump. The sump of the impeller's gravity
field shallowed a bit as the power cut to a third of max, but
it retained enough depth to permit agile course manipulations
without the rendering the gruesome effects of acceleration upon
the crew. A good thing, too; as the dolphin-like warship
banked and turned its broadside to its previous heading; all in
a space of time that made absolutely no sense when one
considered its mass eighty-three thousand metric tonnes.
Pitch black and illuminated only by its own running lights,
the Callant II-class Garfish destroyer-escort boasted a
sleeker, feminine design than predecessor Katana-class DEs.
Measuring about fifty-nine meters longer than the previous
century's Katana, the Garfish II's internal improvements also
overshadowed the relatively aboriginal technology at the time.
With sublight gravity distortion drive--the
grav-impeller--clearly demonstrated a fifty-eight percent
efficiency advantage over vessels of comparative displacement
mounting similar propulsion systems. This particular DE's
markings indicated her affiliation with Destroyer Squadron 219,
and her christianed title, the RSS Ulyanov, ran across the hull
at the water-line. Although a Spacy ship, assigned to a Spacy
picket, the Ulyanov--like the rest of her DE sisters in DesRon
219--also carried a Marine complement. In this case, the RSF
Marine Corps made up the entire aerospace and planetary
operations component of the picket--and for good reason, too.
After all, 181 Malique belonged to the the Robotech Space
Forces Marine Corps. Everyday, the fighter and attack
squadrons of the 7th Marine Air Wing enthusiastically engaged
in their morning rituals; whether in the orbital berths of
Malique's inner system or in the cold wastes of deep space, the
7th MAW drilled regardless--period. Five hours from their home
base on Malique IV, the Garfish and her two Horizont escorts
opened their bays, leaving the barn door open for the dozens of
Marine VTs standing by inside. Each Marine onboard embodied
the corps d'esprit of the RSF; after all, the Marine Corps
alone refused to succumb to the idea of elite units where it
could boast that the entire outfit was the best of the best.
Neither Spacy nor Army personnel willingly debated that;
the Marines, throughout their history on hundreds of
worlds--through thousands of incarnations--represented the
supreme unification of the armed forces' ideals. In the early
years of the 21st century, the infantry division of the
recently incorporated United Nations First Marine Amphibious
Force--stationed on Macross Island to guard Earth's first alien
asset--valiantly held Starship Hill against a Neasianist
invasion force; holding out until regular UNDF reinforcements
could arrive. The cost in lives included over two-thirds of
the division's battalions--a total loss of eight-thousand
seven-hundred men and women. Similar situations rise up from
Mutan and Eridani military lore; the Corron Empire often
appointed the bold and courageous of their assault ground
forces to their equivalent of sainthood--more often than not,
posthumously. For many of the various space-faring star-states
within the Confederation, the Marines were the elite ground
forces within their respective military structures.
Like the other service-branches, the Robotech Space Force
Marine Corps primarily traced their history back along Terran
military lineage; placing their establishment in 2006.
Afterall, two-thirds of the Corps consisted of Terran troops,
and Terra's own Earth Defense Marine Corps often worked as
incorporate forces within their RSF counterpart. The first RSF
Marine Assault (Space and Planetary) Force (and its travelling
mirror persona, the I Marine Expeditionary Force) consisted of
three-fourths of Earth's United Nations Marine Corps for the
first twenty years after its conception. Ultimately, its
through Terran lineage that the Marines claimed a great deal of
their traditions and code of honor. The "Earthling" ability
and battlefield code of honor had been tested and proven
through three Robotech Wars and four interstellar bloodbaths
with the Corron Empire, and the respect the Corps drew from
both the people and the rank and file of other services only
continued to increase. In the Marines, no excuses for
inefficency and incompetence existed; only the constant
drilling of the operational and logistics ends of the outfit
ensured a smoothly operating machine of men and equipment.
That went for aviators, groundpounders, and spacers alike.
"Get a move on!" the shouts from and to ground crew and
pilots went out. The fold's effects rapidly receded and hangar
activity boosted to full swing. Midshipman Lieutenant
Commander Manazya zipped up her flight uniform and tossed her
helmet, emblazoned in huge scarlet letters with the title
"Jade," to her canopy attendent. This wouldn't be the first
time she had flown with the Marines. With most of the Spacy
holding stand-off positions along the Buffer Zone, and
patrolling the region for Chorymi raiders, the Academy's
premier cadets were introduced to aviation posts within the
Marine Corps. To fit into the line of command, all cadets and
officer candidates undertaking service internship received a
temporary commission to Ensign 2nd class--the naval equivalent
to a Temporary Third Lieutenant and the lowest possible grade
occupied by a commissioned officer.
Color-coded catsmen rushed into the lower launching decks
of the A-level hangar, readying the plasma-induction launch
units for a rapid deployment. The Garfish's current compliment
wasn't particularly large, only sixteen Veritechs and three
AWACS/ELINT "Goonies." One was from the 245th
Marines-AC--First Marine Action Force: the 12th Veritech
Fighter Attack Squadron "Mackerals"--detached to Fifth Tactical
Veritech Squadron "Tartars" for the next three years. The
second consisted of elements of the Spacy Veritech Fighter
Squadron Two-Three--"Firebricket"--a permanent member of the
5th Wing/2nd Strategical Veritech Squadron "Mongols." Both
answered to the First Tactical Corps, though for the former it
was only a temporary arrangement; Marines were often shuffled
to appropiate Task Groups (and, consequently, different command
structures) due to a variety of situations. Manazya heralded
from the Mars Base Gloval DeForce Academy--Robotech Space
Forces--Spacy--and was attached to the latter squadron.
"Have fun, lieutenant. It's just like a game of solitaire;
no one about and very little to do," the flight leader--a tall,
lieutenant commander of African-American heritage--offer his
fist for a swift "pound," a North American gesture she had
learned adequately during her years on Eden. "Just fly around,
ignore the scuttlebutt, and slap yourself in the face if you
start to fall asleep. It's gonna be a long haul."
Manazya smiled turned for her VT. One of the crew warming
up the cockpit system tossed her a small diskette package from
the table near the rear of her VT, which she strapped firmly
into one of her uniform's utility pockets. Climbing into the
reclined interior, she removed the four crystal-diskettes and
inserted them into respective slots next to her mecha
configuration control board. By simply taking hold of the
sidesticks, her VF-2-SVF Ultra-Valkyrie's internal systems came
to life. On her screen, the familiar ACS bootup logo flashed
for about two or three minutes as the ARRC-200d1 Main Combat
Computer completed its software bootup. Manazya quickly
punched her five-digit/three-letter flight code. For
convenience Her green-hair, inherited from her Zentraedi
parents, was rolled tight into a bun as she strapped on the
duck-billed systems-helmet. Plugging into her cockpit's main
computer, the diodes within the helmet's transparency lit up,
revealing complimentary information to that of the full canopy
head's up display. Her CVR-9 flexisuit allowed her to
sychronize in her various suit-embedded systems, including a
wrist-communicator and bio-monitor. All this was via the
strong hyperoptic data link through her helmet. Manazya nearly
felt like she was one with her fighter.
She turned on her tac-net and switched off to a direct
transit route to the Control room. The face of the Ulyanov
CIC's chief defense controller, a Marine Corps First
Lieutenant--Kanuka McIntyre, appeared on the OLCD right-hand
screen, her permanent glare notwithstanding.
"Flights Hammerfist Romeo and Hammerfist Juliet, this is
Delta-Charlie-Mike. Your signal is five-by-five. Continue to
points Wyvern and Mystic, standard patrol formation. ETA,
first waypoint: one-hour, forty-five minutes."
"Roger that, Control," her flight commander replied over
the tac-net. Then switching to flight-band only, he began to
spout off launching orders. "All right. I want a tight,
Double-Gee with Romeo Two, Five, and Eight on Three's ass.
Six, you awake?"
Manazya--flying as "Romeo Six"--acknowledged, "Sir,
ordnance report. Arming complete."
"Got that, Control?"
"Loud and Clear, Romeo One," the defense controller
replied. "You have three hours, operational time. Now hold
on, we're affixing weapons packs Code
Niner-Oh-Niner-Mark-Tango."
The two main turbines on the VT seemed to hoist up,
anglinged downard thirty five degrees. In pretty much the same
way the older generation Valkyries transformed, the
Ultra-Valkyries tail control surfaces folded downward as most
of the posterior fusealage flipped foward, revealing the
Guardian-mode's thruster unit. Automated drive units slipped
on the turbine armor/weapon packs as a massive, horseshoe
shaped affixture descended on the dorsel fusealage, affixing
the main FAST pack to the top of the VT. The Valkyrie
immediately emitted foreboding aura; a heavily armed implement
of war.
Five hours total, Manazya groaned in recognition of the
time-length for this flight. Normally, a VT flight from Phobos
launch point would last about an hour to two hours of flight
time, including strafing runs on the moon and eventually and
atmospheric descent. Even more exciting was earning her
paratrooping wings; a test only satisfied by leaping off of the
Mars Equatorial Tower at the five-hundred mile mark.
Once the FAST-pack was stablilized and jacked into the
combat system, the three technicians responsible for prepping
her bird quietly shut the canopy, removing extraneous equipment
and fixtures from the Valkyrie's hardpoints and making way for
the deployment units.
The four levels of fighter bays opened up to loose the two
Veritech flights. Affixed on electroplasmic catapults, Manazya
felt not even a slight jerk as the catapulted heaved her
Veritech into the vacuum of space. Every last Veritech on deck
was hurtled from its bay like a bullet out of a muzzle. Within
moments, the Ultra-Valk's engines accelerated her to seventeen
gees, the inertial compensators sparing her from the tremendous
forces throttling her forward. At the ten second mark, the
engine burn cut out, preserving valuable reaction mass for
local maneuvering; the Ultra-Valks began to form up in a Flat
Triangle formation.
Romeo Six, equipped with a specialized sensor palette,
situated where the main autocannon ought to be, trailed Five
and formed the eight o'clock vertex; this position allowed her
the greatest operational coverage of the situation without
making her terribly vulnerable to tactical surprise. To
further confuse any untoward visitor, Romeo Seven, who formed
the four o'clock vertice, and Romeo Five were equipped with
radio beacons that intermittently flashed--drawing attention
away from Manazya's vulnerable craft.
"All right, people," Romeo One blared over the tac-net.
"Keep a tight formation. We're go for Waypoint One grav-boost
in ten seconds. Romeo Five, commence the count-down."
"Roger, Romeo One," Five replied. "G-minus ten seconds,
G-minus nine seconds..."
As the countdown continued, Manazya gazed blankly out of
the canopy. The emptiness--the cold, dark vacuum
beyond--remained so unwaveringly still. Although the
reaction-mass burn had cut out, the frictionless void permitted
the flight of Veritechs to glide freely along their current
vector. Only minute changes made by the attitude adjusters and
variable thrusters situated in various strategic locations on
each Veritech's fusealage did anything to deviate their present
course. Of course, the outside void would remain unmoving. As
much as she hated thinking about it, relativity pretty much
considered their present velocity, in absolute terms, far
closer to the lowest motion limit than highest--the "speed" of
causality. Hell, the Ultra-Valk could easily accelerate to
into orbit from within an atmosphere, assuming it started off
on jets and conserved its reaction-mass for the final leg.
Still, with reaction drives--even with the improved ion-fusion
powerplant and gravitic exhaust "energizers"--and a total
delta-v of little over three-point-five kilometers per second,
a small craft like Manazya's fighter had little or no chance of
getting anywhere terribly fast. The practice staging area lay
nearly two standard lunar units (four-hundred thousand
kilometers) beyond her maximum operating range. The solution,
Manazya noted, came in the form of the special dual-prong
assembly looming over her head, visible as a pair of
distending, corpulent javelins on either side of the canopy.
Manazya gazed at the weapons extensions on the forefront of
the pack's starboard protrusion, quickly testing the bay-ports
before Romeo Five hit "G-minus one....mark!" Immediately, her
thumb flipped open the safe-guard on her left-side throttle
stick. Depressing the naked, red button-key, Manazya felt the
slightest disconcertion as the inertial compensators kicked
in. Only the low hum of her pod's drive warned her of the
accelerations she had just attained; the small power-plant the
"booster" pack's had just accelerated her at close to
fifty-gees.
The FAST booster pack maintained its acronymic meaning since
its functional conception for United States Air Force--two
hundred years ago. However, this particular arrangement--the
Charlie-Lima-Victor-Zero-Three-Zero-Lima-Romeo-Alpha (the
CLV-030-LRA) Main Veritech Armor Assembly--no longer mounted
additional reaction boosters. Instead, modern strike-craft
mounted packs with small gravitic-impellers, designed for
long-range fighter operations. Certain FAST Packs,
particularly the CLV-044 series, were dedicated drive
units--primarily for the use of recon and ELINT craft. The
-WRA variant of the Forty-Four class pack also mounted a small
Kingspin hyperspace translation module. While a suitably
modified fighter mounting a CLV-044-WRA could execute a local,
short-range fold (with a maximum range of just under three
light-minutes), the craft suffered a decisive lack of
additional armor. Even more so, the power drain of a warp pack
allowed only for four hyper-jumps between powerplant
refurbishment.
To the chagrin of the Confederation military-industrial
complex, it remained a known fact that the idea had been
borrowed from the Corron; although the Hwi-zhemal'orra
"borrowed" the design concept of an externally-mounted booster
from the Terran aerospace philosophy. Still, the
innovativeness of Corron R&D reared itself in that unusual
manner (unusual considering that the Corron space-faring
civilization ranked humanity's existance as a sentient species
by nearly one million years, yet their tech-base had not even
broken into gravitics until less than twenty-thousand years
ago). However, employing gravity drives--albeit with severely
limited power capacitance--instead of reaction-mass and fuel
opened a whole new world of small craft operational doctrine.
As the young Zentraedi midshipman remembered from her Basic
Tactical and Strategical History course, small craft operations
had always been limited to planetary assaults--after the
orbitals had been secured. In fact, the concept of the space
carrier, a CV for extraterrestrial warfare, had largely been an
accidental offshoot of mecha-carrying battle-line warships in
nearly a dozen space-faring cultures. Before Manazya's
ancestors educated Terrans in the realities of interplanetary
warfare, the old Earth United Nations Defense Force maintained
a spacy--a space-navy--that the carrier-concept dominated
absolutely. The fact that carriers had played such a large
role in the navies of Earth's last superpowers and the
development of light, transatmospheric aerospace craft had
forced Earth into an unholy marriage with the tool; a
technically "ineffective" primary weapon that the Terrans had
managed to turn to their advantage.
The primary problem with fighters and other small craft was
their infinitessimally small range. As gravitic propulsion in
an era of long-range missiles, particle beam weapons, and
fusion-pumped lasers gave new credence to the space navy's
battle-line, the same advancements spelled doom for light,
infighting mecha and their carriers as naval weapons.
Carriers, mounting no integral armament of any serious
capability, found that their only defense and offensive weapon,
the space fighter and attack craft/mecha, lacked the range and
the effectiveness of the tactical weapons mounted on a real
battle-line naval vessel. The old Earth REF demonstrated this
aptly as they introduced the mollusk Invid's carrier-oriented
Navy to the striking firepower of the battle-line. The
Tirolians and the Zentraedi had mastered an entire Quadrant
with their stupendous warships; the dreadnoughts and
battleships of a Zentraedi wall, as well as the lighter vessels
of the screen, handled the space end of things. The ships were
built large enough to hold huge quantities of mecha, ready to
deliver against any enemy mecha formation both in space and
dirt side. With the range of the farthest-reaching of a
battle-line's armament over ten thousand times the range of a
large, reaction-drive Light Attack Craft, the unarmed carrier
could never hope to answer functionally.
Still, the most frustrating aspect of this sad story lied
in theory that a carrier that could deliver its fighters
OUTSIDE of the range of a battle-line could have a
realistically positive effect on the playing field. The
Confederation's R&D organs around the latter half of the 21st
century had recognized the potential of refitting small craft
with the new, miniaturized gravitic drives debuting during that
time. However, the drive philosophy was for an internal
arrangement, which made for a tremendous sacrifice in both
avionics, sensors, and weapons. Fighters mounting the new,
massive armament, were tremendously large and bulky, as small
craft still rely on reaction mass for local maneuvering--at
that point, no shortcuts past inertial mass and related
properties exist. However, the Corron modified several of
their non-transformable fighters--upon acquiring the concept of
the modular, detachable engine mount from the Confederation--to
support small gravitic drives within nacelle-like structure
under each wing. The simple fact of the matter was the
Confederation had never even considered the possibility, and
the obvious solution stung of humiliation once the RSF Spacy
discovered that the Hwi-zhemal'orra were deploying strike-craft
and fighters in battle-line engagements. Immediately, the
Confederation's military (and civilian liner corporations)
seized the idea and ran with it. The result: a FAST pack that
mounted both the impeller and the inertial compensator--even
small, thanks to a superior Confederation tech-base--and a
range increased over ten thousand percent. With the new
impeller drive, the Ultra-Valkyrie could effectively make a
trip from Earth to Mars--alone. Whereas the maximum attack
acceleration Manazya's bird cut off at about fifteen gees, the
gravity drive alone could accelerate a fighter up to
two-hundred gees. Not enough to outrun any real naval vessel
mounting a gravity drive, but enough to put their operating
range beyond that of a missile and beam offensive envelope.
The strike craft and the carrier, for the first time, had
become a viable weapon of space warfare.
In addition to its function as a long-range "booster," the
FAST pack also had the capability to support a number of
ordnance loads, including Hammerhead-MX-IV guided rockets,
Diamondback and Silver short-range missiles, M0D-24d02 "Mods"
five-missile SMRM pods, Firestorm long range anti-ship
missiles, and a variety of other fittings; not to mention five
slave ordnance pods that could be tractored within her gravitic
drive's acceleration wake. For this current Shoot-Ex (Shooting
Excercise), she was merely outfitted with Stiletto-9
AFSRSAF--Anti-Fighter (Short-Range) Shoot-and-Forget missiles.
Additionally, the left pod of the pack assortment was outfitted
with a thirty-five millimeter light mass-driver cannon, capable
of firing up to 40 rounds per minutes. Although the current
outfit parameters only afforded her fifteen the expensive,
ribilium-coated energizable projectiles. With such an
adaptability to modern weapons systems, the Ultra-Valkyrie
still retained its frontline value even in the face of its
newer, more powerful descendents.
Manazya broke off from her train of thought and focused on
the ever-imperative present. Fifteen minutes ago, the flight
disengaged their gravity drives and proceeded along their
current vector; coasting at approximately five-hundred and
seventy kilometers per second. The lone midshipman switched
her receiver to wideband neutrino frequencies, setting the
reception to pick-up ship-to-shore and ship-to-ship
transmissions.
After nearly an hour into the patrol's first leg, the
scuttlebutt finally began..
"It looks quiet enough," Romeo Seven said to himself. The
Oort cloud region they were entering portrayed eerily
distinctive lines of debris and dust, and an occassional
signifigantly large piece of cometary matter. "I mean, we're
lightyears from anything anyway, so what could happen?"
"Bull. I heard a troopcarrier got her ass stuck out here
for three days. I think they it was Thirty-Seven?"
"I heard that, too," Romeo Four spoke up. "It was right in
that gas cloud up ahead. Whoever it was, they took one hell of
a whuppin' and then cut out. I haven't talked to any from
Thirty-Seven, but I wouldn't doubt it. Damn pirates, all balls
and no brains."
"Man, it's all dead space" another voice rose up; harsh,
yet lacking unwavering confidence. Manazya swallowed hard.
"Ain't nothing out here," Romeo Three continued.
Naturally, Ensign Midshipman Joangu wasn't quite sure; still,
she tried to suck in her anxiety--concentrating on anything but
the dark void that enveloped her canopy. The other flight
consisted mostly of midshipmen like herself. However, Manazya
relished the privilege to spend the rest of the day with the
slightly less green officers of the VFMA-299 Firebricket
Squadron. And with a Shoot-Ex prepared for the second leg of
the BARCAP practice run, they had nothing to worry about.
"C'mon guys," the junior grade Lieutenant flying Romeo
Seven--Manazya had formed her Veritech on his low, seven-thirty
flank--genuinely pleaded. "I've got enough to worry about than
some spook Pariah squadron busting out over our heads."
"Whattsa matter, Nalevsky?" Romeo Five taunted. "You ain't
getting cold feet now, are ya'?"
"No...it's just that," Nalvesky stuttered. "What if it is
true? I mean, we should--"
"Hey back there," Romeo One interrupted; a sonorous,
authoritative rumble swelling in his throat. "Keep the tac-net
clean and the scuttlebutt in the lounge. That kinda talk won't
do anyone a bit of good out here. Six? What do you see?"
"Clear, clean and naked," Manazya responded. "We'll be
passing through as small dust cloud at four-seven-seven-echo in
five minutes, Romeo One."
"ETA?"
"Two hours, forty-seven minutes."
"Aw hell," Romeo Two snorted. "Another long boring run."
"Quiet," Romeo One retained a nominal measure of
amicability in his tone. "Distance from waypoint one?"
"We're at....."
"Six? Romeo Six? Jade? Hey, Manazya!"
?
She suddenly froze, as if something cold had just swept
passed across her soul.
"Sir, we're five-zero-eight-ten kilometers from first
waypoint," she immediately requested a datapack recall from the
AWACS birds flying point towards their west star-relative.
"AWACS-Greenclan recommends a detour; is as follows. 'Come
about to one-nine-nine mark three-three; advises we avoid the
gaseous collective.' "
"The dust cloud? Damn babies," Romeo One laughed
hoarsely. "Recommendation duly noted. Flight commander opts
to ignore. Maintain course."
"Sir, the recommendation is being recognized and heeded
by--"
"Don't worry about it, Six."
"Copy that, Romeo One."
"Very good," then switching to his OLCD display. "Romeo
Three, take your group and spread into V-stack formation
parallel to present position. I want all our asses covered
going into this cloud, even though its most likely nothing."
The cold...The feeling rushed through her again, this time
provoking a shivering chill. "Romeo One, this is Romeo Six.
I'd advise caution, Romeo One."
"Really, Six?" Romeo flashed off tac-net and onto her left
OLCD screen. "What's up?"
"I don't know, sir. I just have a cold feeling about this
place."
"You Zentraedi worry too much. We're lightyears from the
nearest star--of course its a bit chilly. Intersteller patrols
are enough to spark any anxiety. You'll get used to it."
Manazya, "Jade," wanted to protest, but decided against it,
and continued to monitor their flight status. She called up
AWACS-Greeneyes.
The data transmission didn't log.
She tried once again, and continued to fail to connect to
the AWACS guidance systems. Checking her codes briefly, she
tried one more time, and still failed to break in.
"Commander, I've lost contact with Greeneyes. Trying
Greenclan."
No response.
"No response," she repeated outloud. "Sir, I have no AWACS
contact. Please advise, over."
"What was that Jade? Confirm."
"Romeo One," Manazya breathed in. "I have tried to call up
both of our seeing eyes and I can't raise either of them.
Please advise."
The commmander paused for a few moments before switching to
wideband tac-net. "Romeo-Three? Hey, Romeo Three?"
"Damn," Romeo One finally gave up. "Homeplate, this is
Flight Romeo-Green. Request positions of
AWACS-Greenclan,--Greeneyes, and Romeo-Bravo detach. Over."
"Yes, commander. We read you," a small, alien-toned voice
of feminine quality replied. "We have also lost contact with
our birds. The Hammerfist seems to also suffering heavy
interference."
"Interference?"
"We're not sure, commander, but there hasn't been a single
indication of Corron activity anywhere in this sector. Captain
Leharvey is mandating the continuation of patrol patterns."
"Who am I speaking, too?" Romeo One gritted his teeth.
"He's my new victim, Spaceman Recruit Saki Tokamura, Harb,"
the Defense Controller shoved her way on screen, pushing her
relief aside. "We don't know what's happening out their, but
the Hammerfist--"
"Is also missing," Romeo One continued. "Yes we--"
Romeo Six spotted it, but it was Romeo Two who first spoke
up.
"Sir! Look out!"
But it was two late. Part of a small short-range missile
barrage penetrated the weak outer coating of the unshielded
fighter, Romeo One disappearing into a blossom of exploding
hydrogen reserves and shrapnel. More enemy missiles struck
Romeo Four and Three. Three managed to escape with half his
rear fuselage torn in half, and leaving enough circuitry intact
to jettison the forward life-support module. "What the HELL is
going on here?"
"Bandit! Bandit!"
"I've got no visual confirmation! Where the hell is
Three?"
Manazya jinked past any potential gun turrets that might be
aimed on her six, burning out of formation just as a second
missile barrage struck Four and Five. "Knapsack! Four and
Five are down! I can't confirm the bandit's position!" They're
dying. My whole team! They're being wiped out! She searched
her screen desperately for any sign of Three or Five, the other
two cadets on this flight. Only debris stumbled into the path
of her neutrino-pulse sensors as she advanced aimlessly through
the blackness, occassionally squeezing off close range, kinetic
fire at the spectre that simply wasn't there.
Lasers puncuated space's Cimmerian character, flashing
across the black background like the glowing streams of light
they were.
"Going to Battloid!" Manazya's Ultra-Valkyrie barrel-rolled
away from the last missile barrage, where Romeo Three's debris
was circling around the gravitational fluxae. Through a series
of changes informally dubbed mechamorphosis, the Veritech
became a fourteen-meter gigantic mechanical humanoid.
Bringing her GU-23 autocannon to bear, Manazya affixed it's
monomolecular bayonet as it's metallic sheen readily reflected
the brief pinpricks of starlight that surrounded her.
"Romeo Six!" Knapsack, Romeo Two, came live onto the
tac-net. "As soon as you can, I want you to make a run back for
the Ulyanov. Hammerfist is point-zero-six from our position;
posted a distress call to--look out!" Manazya reacted even
more quickly than the lieutenant's warning. Three laser bolts
raced past her and nearly grazed Romeo Two as well. Knapsack
quickly recovered and went to Battloid mode, sticking to
Manazya's flank like a fly on the wall. "They musta laid some
thermo-chaff before we got here. Don't rely on your high-band
sensors. Switch to ELINT-low systems and activate all ECM.
Fire at anything that moves--and not me!"
"Yes sir," Manazya remained calm, despite the near
annihilation of her entire squadron. Debris was floating
slowly by, she noticed between heavy breaths. She loosened her
helmet strap and gripped both sidesticks tightly...waiting.
The back-lit green screen, her old style luminal based radar,
remained empty without so much as a disturbance outside....
It flucuated...
"They're cloaked," Romeo Two whispered over the remains of
the tac-net. "And that's thermo-chaff out there. No message
gets in or out."
"And if homeplate--"
"Homeplate can't hear us, and they've probably set up
mirrors to prevent the luminal and superluminal explosive
signatures from reaching visual and mechanical sensors. We're
alone, kid."
"Be advised. Enemy appears superior. Quality, unknown.
Quantity, unknown," she knew both of her computers were
assessing the situation correctly. The Veritech computer
compensated for the shortcomings of the slow, organic mind of
the living being, allowing for the impredicatability and the
coordinative power of intelligence to easily interface with the
means to execute logical and illogical decisions in a flexible
yet efficient manner. The VT computer, even in an aging
VF-2-SVF, was an amazing feet in multitronics. Manazya hoped
that the rumors of technology being on the Confederation's
side--the propaganda spread throughout every war coverage news
service in the organization--were ultimately true.
Quiet.
"Where the hell is he?" Knapsack broke the tense silence.
"Cadet. On my count, go to Fighter mode and get ready to get
the hell outta here."
"Sir? You require assistence. Probab--"
"Cadet, that was not a suggestion, nor a request for
recommendations. That was a no-question order. You do know
what a no-question order is? Right?"
Manazya silently conceded. "I'm going to count to three,"
the lieutenant continued. "Then you turn tail and run.
Overboost the hell outta here. I'll cover you, but--just get
the hell outta here, got it?"
"Yes, sir."
Quiet...
"One..."
Too quiet.
"Two.....THREE!!!" The reversion to fighter mode was as
quick as a single thought--her helmet neural sensors dedicated
to adjusting mechamorphing procedures to fine-tune her manual
controls. As soon as the fighter mode was achieved, neural
sensors went back off line, and Manazya thrusted her throttle
lever full ahead. Her engines glowed bright white as she
literally jumped passed Mach One; the sudden shift nearly
knocking the wind out of her.
"Romeo Two! I'm away! How's my tail look?"
Quiet...
"Romeo Two?" Still, no answer.
She didn't call a third time, switching completely off
tac-net as her fighter "afterburned" all the way back home.
Her radar showed no signs of pursuit or any bandits in the
area.
Manazya stared forward and let a deep recess in her soul
take the painful brunt of the horror the cosmos had dealt her.
* * *
Earth, November 12, 2170
"Infinitesimally small," the Muroc--an extraterrestrial
slightly resembling a bipedal horse--simply shook his equine
head. Commodore "Bud" Koreh had served in the Spacy at his
present rank longer than most junior admiral's throughout their
entire careers. One could argue that his particular
uninteresting entrance into the aristocratic, noble community
of officers--through an OCS program--worked against his
achieving his first star. Historically--particularly in Terran
navies--flag officers primarily came from Academy backgrounds;
a time honor tradition that separated the reservists from the
career, active-duty officers. However, Koreh had elected to
remain in the service, and for seventy-four years, the
olive-drab alien faithfully and expertly handled his duties in
a fashion that earned him the respect of the Admiralty. The
current Chief of Naval Operations had fought long and hard with
his immediate UPDC superior, the Commander of the Robotech
Space Forces, to boot Koreh up into the brass. However,
Dawson's efforts came too late. Within the next two or three
years, the Muroc commodore would retire after nearly eighty
years in the Confederation's service; the retirement benefits
the only privilege coming with his final promotion.
Nevertheless, the Spacy endured the commodore's almost
constant presence in the meantime. He had, after all, served
since the UPDF's inception in 2101. Currently, Koreh commanded
the Farreach 38 station, one of a series of self-sustaining
spherical habitats. Six-hundred kilometers in radius, the
number of civilians the station could support had yet to reach
its maxim potential; still, the half-million civilian colonists
onboard required a split in administrative duties. A primarily
civilian project, the Defense Force involvement amounted to a
relatively small part, earning the Spacy and her sister
branches a miniscule percentage of the station's usable
volume. Technically, Koreh commanded only the military
operations centered around Farreach, although he secured the
sphere station's most advanced control stations. As Farreach
38's "commander," Koreh also assisted in the implementation of
Confederation policies in the Rubia sector, currently devoid of
the presence of a sector flag. Rear Admiral Mike Smith and a
large portion of the Seventh Fleet had set off for the Jarao
sectors two months ago, spreading out amongst three major
star-systems along the instable Buffer Zone. If anything,
Koreh and Smith were cut from the same cloth; the extreme
differences between their species paled in comparison. Both
were, for example, highly enthusiastic in respect to their
assignments. Moreover, both flag commands expressed an extreme
distaste in Admiral Francois Messeur's intelligence; neither
was willing to rely on the abstract and often obvious data the
current NavInt director threw their way. Instead, Koreh and
Smith formulated their own intelligence network out of local
people and intelligence gurus on their own staffs. The
informal coordination proved to be quite successful, and a
source of private embarrassment to Admiral Dawson on behalf of
Messeur. Of course, if the admiral had actually disliked Koreh
and Smith, and actually tolerated Admiral Messeur, then that
embarressment might have cut both the Muroc's and the Terran
task force commander's careers rather short. Fortunately, such
was not the case; Dawson knew he could rely on his operational
ends out in the boonies, and that was the major reason he had
elected to call Koreh in today. The Chief of Naval Operations
of the Robotech Space Forces' Spacy needed advice.
"I see," the admiral breathed slowly.
"It's not that it can't be pulled off," the Muroc officer
explained, his large, fluttery lips surprisingly well adapted
to enunciating Standard Terran English. For the past three
hours, he had elaborated on largely the fallacies in the
operational simulation plan presented to him. The operation's
parameters called for a Buffer Zone brushfire exchange between
Confederation and Corron units--the latter party defending--in
a small, limited engagement. Not incredibly detailed, Koreh
made it a priority to inform the Chief of Naval Operations not
only of its flaws, but of the correct way to go about it.
"Sir, when I first arrived at Farreach, we looked over this
sort of thing--something really damn similar. In general, it's
possible. That's what this thing is: a huge generalization."
"I think I know what you mean," Dawson folded his hands
over his lap. The operation they were currently discussing had
come to the table during the March Bravo Eight conference; a
meeting which recapped theater situations, the status of the
forces, and the general state of the military. While the
proposal itself was not discussed on the general floor, enough
powerful people in the backroom had managed to include the
Military Oversight Committee while reviewing the suggested
course of action. The Department of Defense's G2 General
Intelligence and Espianoge directorate, under Major General
Ghers, produced breaking intelligence on Corron military
activity across the Buffer Zone from the Rubia and Jarao
sectors. Furthermore, in an even more exclusive meeting, the
Chairman of the United Planetary Defense Council and the
Commander of the RSF, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Marine
Commandant General, and G2's briefing contingent discussed a
related, more specific matter. Admiral Dawson had the pleasure
of meeting with a rapidly rising brigadier colonel in the
intelligence service, Westfall Green, who presented the general
operational solutions G2 had devised. Commodore Koreh, who was
obviously excluded from this inner circle, had just finished
listening to the "hypothetical" operational briefing. As far
as the Muroc was concerned, the operation was entirely
simulated.
"It's just that there is no stealthy way to sneak a carrier
group--even a converted destroyer--across not only their sensor
frontier, but ours as well," Koreh stated. Apparently, someone
wanted such a crossing to be extremely hush-hush. "I'm not
sure what the hell G2 was thinking when they came up with this,
but it looks like a great deal of hocus-pocus to me. In fact,
it looks more like an abstract--an unrevised one at that--than
a plan. Reads like a gosh-darn press-release, too. In
anycase, the political dimension--I'm sure you'ved considered
that--is a little hazy in the abstract. We are, last time I
checked, in what the civvies like to call a state of peace.
Despite the justification of such an operation--like I've said,
we've been talkin' about this for years in the field--it still
presupposes a major shift in current foreign policy. I'm not
only talking about a hardline crackdown on the raids, but a
complete shift in the current political demographic. We both
know that as long as Terra maintains a minority Council status,
and as long as Mutanak holds the House and Senate, you're not
going to get even this much leeway. This operation--er,
abstract--doesn't consider that at all. What about the
Secretary of Defense? Has this gone past him yet?"
"Not yet," the CNO replied. "We're not bringing it to the
secretariat yet--the Chairman wants to keep this inhouse for
now. As for the vague character of the report, Commodore, you
are looking at the abstract. I'm afraid that's all we could
show you without violating operational security?"
"Understood, sir." The Muroc nodded understandingly. He
expected better of G2, and knowing that this wasn't a final
plan permited him to sigh in relief. "In any case, it's a
change of doctrine in our simulations, and I'm sure as hell the
Corron are going to shout about it. Remember '66? Fourteen
House respresentatives hounded into resignation for calling for
a renewal of hostilities and the immediate cancellation of what
people are actually calling diplomatic ties. It's almost as if
they think that Druse is the Corron embassy to the
Confederation!" The truth was that the Corron Empire, through
the Druse Star Kingdom, did have diplomatics ties with the UPC;
the single tour de force for the ousted Achelle
administration. However, there presence--located on a small
artificial colony orbiting Betelegeuse's outermost planet--was
a pitiful reminder of the Hwi-zhemal'orra's romp through
Confederation territory thirty years earlier. The colony
itself had been the last outpost the Confederation negotiated
out of Corron hands at the end of the Fourth
Corron-Confederation War.
"Not that I expect the politicos to think rationally, sir,"
Koreh rhetorically mused. "The political dynamic plays an
important part thought, especially if the government's suffered
a real recent shocker. If you don't lose wars every once and
awhile, you get so used to winning that a single, major defeat
is enough to throw dampen any political will and throw foreign
policy in a detrimental state of indecisiveness. Terra's
different, and so is Karth and maybe even Tyndale IV.
Nevertheless, survival hasn't become an intrinsic enough issue
to the rest of the UPC. The Confederation will respond with
force when it's left with no choice, but by the time that comes
around, the time to strike back will have already passed We'll
be fighting a defensive war, sir. That's why I like this
proposal, from an abstractive perspective. Still, the
Democratic Unificationists, the Liberal Progressives, and every
other party and their so-called 'military experts' are going to
be up in a titty if we start changing our operational posture.
Exercises like this are just fuel for the Corron intelligence
agencies--they'll pounce on it with all sorts of diplomatic
threats and carrying on. The LibProgs are more liable to
listen to them than they are to us, and they've got the DUs in
their camp right now."
"No argument here," Dawson nodded in agreement. The truth
was that Green's operation proposal was just that--a proposal.
Stealth-preferable, rapid transaction and retreat--it sounded
more like a poorly written sci-fi shoot-'em-up flick than an
actual operation. However, Dawson understood that the
colonel's priority wasn't to actually devise the operational
standpoint--from his record, the CNO clearly understood that
Green was capable of something far more elaborate and
plausible. Instead, G2 only sought to get the ball rolling;
with the politicians in the "grey," less attention to detail in
the abstract was necessary. "That's why we wanted your input
on this."
"If I may ask--I'd think I'd field your questions better if
I did--but who else are you talking to about this, and what did
they say?"
"Chandler said the same thing," Admiral Dawson answered,
"and he pretty much speaks for Mike Smith. I haven't spoken to
S'tan'yi or Satie as of yet, and the Marines are only too happy
with the idea. However, we have the same problem with them as
well: the operation's specifics. Other than that, the
situation parameters and mission goals are do-able."
"Chandler's pretty up on the mark. I noticed you didn't
mention Admiral Cannady, but I'm sure he heard it at the
Bravo-Eight briefing. What did they say about political
aspect?"
"We're not worried about that at the moment," the CNO
explained. "G2 was serious when they wanted to run the
simulation as a black op. That's all I can say about that."
"You're kidding, right?" Koreh turned up his eyebrow. He
might've served as a quaterdeck-breed skipper for his entire
career, but that didn't mean he wasn't street-smart. G2 never
ran anything without a reason, and sending the CNO to interview
him about--
"Are you sure this isn't for real, admiral?"
"As far as you're concerned, commodore: Yes, I'm quite
sure."
Dawson dismissed Koreh, closing the briefing packet.
Tilting his head over his shoulder, his gaze shifted beyond the
transparency to his rear as his as traced the Earth's
curvature.
<part two break>
cannady@magiccarpet.com