Well, another excerpt from one of my Robotech works.  I'm specifically
looking for some commentary or scenic style writing, or any comments on the
general ideas expressed here.  Keep in mind that this is an excerpt.  As
such, it lacks a lot of the establishment that would accompany a completed
fanfic.

-The Reverend Prez

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_______


Excerpted from Chapter 17: Wild Fire of _Separate Paths_ 


"KUA?" THE YOUNG CHILD WATCHED AS A SMALL RAY OF WHITE SUNLIGHT PEAKED
THROUGH the overcast above. Trails of smoke had etched across the sky only a
few days ago, adding to the bleakness of the morning sky. The small child's
sea-grey hair fluttered as a putrid-wind moved in from the south. She
shuddered only slightly as the cold breeze crawled inland from the nearby
sea, pushing the mid-morning mists that had yet to disperse into
nothingness. While her hair danced with the liveliness of youth, her face
was dirty and marred with grime--the result of nearly four days of walking.
Ever since they had left their home--now a pile of burning, crumbling
cinders atop even greater devastation--their journey had tested and broken
their spirits as well as soiled their bodies. The child's mother gently
kneeled behind her, surrounding her cold shoulders with her warm, motherly
arms. The child's left hand clutched a small, homemade doll to her puerile
breast. 
	"Hara-chyuan, kuru ha d�?" she whispered gently in the child's ears. Hara's
left hand gripped the doll with a new intensity as her right lifted a finger
accusingly and traced the criss-cross pattern of fumes across the sky. The
mother's eyes answered her own question as she followed the smoke trails to
their conclusion. Very near here, she thought to herself. Who would make
trails like that? She knew nothing about such things, but she feared that
the Confederasi might find them. She, like her daughter, had been taught
about the cruel, mechanistic acts Confederasi storm troopers did to Hw'ithae
civilians. The thought of such monsters nearby made her stomach turn with
disgust as well as fear. Had they not fled far enough from their homes?
Hadn't enough of their loved ones and friends died in the firestorms that
razed their city? 
	Her daughter was old enough to understand, but not even she could
appreciate the full horror of the Confederasi. Instead, her eyes sparkled at
the sight of something new; unexpected. Those trails had not been there only
a day before. Even though it seemed as if the fighting was over, she knew
that the black contrails could mean only one thing. 
	She gathered her daughter in her arms and rushed back to the camp, a
frightened warning welling in her throat. The military man leading them
would know what to do. He had seen the Confederasi, and fought them on the
ground. He and his soldiers would protect them, of that the young mother was
sure. 

* * *

"Dauru? Where did you see it?" The officer's name was Ajin. His family was a
minor one--not even a member of the Corron aristocracy, but an insignificant
Hachi clan--but they had produced some of the Hw-zhemal'orra's finest Rapid
Armored Infantry volunteers. He held the rank of der'shuok'taisa,
translating roughly as 'senior lieutenant,' and his soft features betrayed
the barely post-adolescent youthfulness one would associate with such a
junior rank. He was only four seasons beyond his ascension to manhood, and
as of yet unmarried. Still, as an officer in the Rapid Armored Infantry, the
rough equivalent to the ground combat element of the Confederation Marine
Corps, he had seen more combat than most of his peers in the Fleet. The
Rapid Armored Infantry had deployed his unit over sixteen times in this war,
and each time they had taken massive casualties in return for concessions on
the ground. 
	When they deployed him one last time, Ajin wound up as the senior surviving
officer of the 498th Armored Infantry Regiment. Many of his mentors and
comrades had died less than a week ago, and most of those in the funeral
pyre that was once the city of Nera Hego-rhela. Moreover, the 498th's losses
were heavily concentrated on his senior NCOs, while plenty of staffers and
commissars that constituted the Regiment over-populous supernumeraries were
left alive. Within the space of two weeks, his experiences had matured him
even beyond the exceptional rate of the past thirty days of fighting. 
	The woman Ajin was listening to spoke rapidly and almost incoherently,
looking away from him occasionally and back towards the mouth of the cave as
if anxious to run and hide from something. The woman's daughter--Ajin
assumed as such--clutched onto the her mother's left leg while holding a
tattered doll by the left leg. He wondered if the little girl felt worried
at all. If so, she did not show it; not even a single muscle tensed as her
mother frantically tried to describe her earlier encounter. From what he
could extrapolate, what seemed like a smoke and debris trail from some sort
of tactical aircraft had appeared suddenly today--that might mean that the
Hwi-zhemal'orra were still fighting the Confederasi! Ajin's heart lifted
momentarily, but he decided not to raise his hopes too terribly; after all,
it was most likely a straggler left behind by the retreating enemy forces.
That's if they actually retreated, Ajin-chuoko, he reminded himself. If they
had truly retreated, then why had they been out of contact with friendly
forces for so long? He wouldn't be moving from hill to hill, cave to cave,
if the Hw'ithae truly held this world. The refugees were tired and dirty, as
he was, and he could not bring himself to believe that Command would simply
leave him and his charges--and maybe thousands of other groups just like
theirs--to rot on this devastated ball of mud and rock. 
	As fate would have it, he did not have the luxury of time necessary for
pondering the strategic situation. He had more than enough tactical problems
to deal with. He had one of the supernumerary commissars--humbled by his
almost draconian enforcement of command authority over the past week and a
half--lead the woman and child back to the enclave. After a few minutes of
collecting his thoughts, he withdrew from the mouth of the cave and
proceeded deeper into its bowels. About half a kilometer in, buffering the
civilians from whatever dangers may lay in the outside world was the
surviving ninety-four veterans of the 498th. It embittered him terribly to
see his once beautiful unit torn apart by the hellish reality of war, and it
tore at his heart to see looks of despair equal to his own on his men's
face. Yet he no longer had the comfort of looking to a senior officer to
either find solace in or blame for his problems--instead, Ajin occupied that
most unenviable post. The responsibility of command forced him to suppress
the aching sorrow and melancholy that boiled within his gut; the shear agony
of the experience often plagued his nights in the form of fierce bouts of
nausea. The gash across his midsection didn't help, and it festered from
irregular changes of bandages. It wasn't serious enough to warrant an
increase in his personal ration; even though he had the authority to get
extra rations, Ajin was far too practical and duty-minded. He was an
officer, and these people were his charges--they came first. So, Ajin
refused to take more than his share of treatment, and his
officers--including the commissars--followed his suit. 
	"Jr'taisa," Ajin called in as he entered the radar suite room. It wasn't a
room as a cavity with a thinner than usual carapace. An electromagnetic
sensor, like radar, could be used from this point and not attract much
attention. Retreat or no, the Confederation had wreaked horrific damage in
this area; and their forces might still be at large. It went against all
tactical doctrine, but Ajin had been engaged with enemy troops when the news
of their retreat had come in. If they were still around, then he had to
operate as if the tactical situation had not yet changed. Caution was the
paramount word today. "Honuy ne miserida. Did you see anything unusual
within the last half-hour?" 
	"Forgive me, Senior Lieutenant, but this equipment is old and outdated. I
am not entirely familiar with it. I have, however, recorded everything since
this morning. Shall I scan through my datatapes for anything I might have
missed?" 
	"No, "Ajin answered in a soft, forgiving tone. Now was not the time to
accuse and point out weaknesses. "I will send someone to do that for you.
Simply do your best and make sure you notify me of any change you may
detect--no matter how insignificant. Radar is very difficult to work with,
jr'taisa." 
	"Thank you, Sir," the junior lieutenant smiled and returned to his work.
Ajin left, already forming the scout patrol's ranks in his mind. 

* * *

Forty kilometers from the city, east of the Caves just outside of Nera's
walls, a battered Horizont assault carrier shuttle settled into the black
mud; debris strewn across the terrain the rain had turned into a bemired
bog. A few hills to the southeast, on far more solid ground, the survivors
of the Provisional Strike-Fighter Group 16 and their companions with Company
E, Second Battalion of the Fourth Marine Regiment, set up camp. Nera was a
blazing inferno, defying the misty rains that had descended from the
northwestern mountain ranges to blanket the ravaged area. The remains of
Delta and Foxtrot Company lay on the compost heap that once marked the site
of a beautiful, thriving metropolis. Their transports had been caught in
same hellish bombardment that rained in from orbit onto Nera; whether or not
the city was the target fell beyond the survivors of Second Battalion's
ranks. Despite their own battering losses, and despite the contempt
hostility between the Confederation and the Corron had engendered, no one
could deny the stark reality of the fire. Nearly one million
civilians--elderly folk, woman and children--had lived in that city.
Many--maybe most--had perished in the ghastly blaze. 
	Despite the terrible blow to morale, the surviving unit had managed to set
up on what the local maps called Hill 613, roughly three klicks from the
assault shuttle crash sight. The officers convened meetings with their
enlisted charges; yet everyone knew there was nothing they could do. If they
were stranded on this world, as the last dispatch from Admiral Jak had
indicated just before the assault shuttle's hyperstate transmitter burned
out, then the strike force moved at the mercy of the enemy holding the high
ground. Whether or not the enemy would fire on them so close to one of his
own population centers had been answered only a week and a half ago. Still,
despite a week and a half of staying put, nothing had happened. Even looking
at the skies at night, a person could only detect the sweet serenity of
twinkling stars. No tell tale blooms or sudden bright objects indicating a
warship exploding and concordant, horrifically sudden snuffing out of
thousands of lives. If the enemy held the high orbitals, then he clearly
demonstrated his unwillingness to show it; different or not, the Corron were
similar enough to humans or Mutan that the Confederation officers couldn't
simply write the space-side situation off as a failure. 
	Still, it was a world of shit dirt-side, and Captain Ti Hien--CO, Echo
Company--had more than enough to concern her at the bottom of the well. 
	Stepping out of the camouflaged tents, she made her way informally to what
Company E had already dubbed "Space-Crazy Country." They had pulled the
largest tents; the Navy aviators needed enough awning to cover their
visually identifiable machines--the Tymanech strike-fighter. The VF-20s were
stowed safely within a sink over the next hill, covered by the awnings the
infantry battalion's Archer detachment would have used if they had survived
the crash. Through the netted awning, Captain Hien could see the avis form
of one of the Variable Fighters under the awning; configured in Guardian
mode as if it were a bird nest on its perch. Yet it's flowing curve and
graceful features failed to disguise it's dark-purpose, as the hardpoints
still bristled with missiles and missile pods. Echo Company had to scavenge
stores they carried for the 33rd Detachable Mobile Suit Platoon, victims of
Nera's bombardment. With the only heavy ground detachment to the infantry
battalion destroyed, the Navy aviators found themselves learning on the fly
how to fight a ground and air war simultaneously. For a week and a half,
they had been fortunate not to come across any major engagement; but Captain
Hien knew it was only a matter of time before the enemy discovered them.
They'd couldn't afford to stay here, yet Hien didn't relish the idea of
having her Navy counterparts learning how to fend for themselves on the
move. Of course, the aviators would do the best they could--Hien really
couldn't ask for much more. So, she stayed out of their way for the most
part. Their senior surviving officer, an obscenely young lieutenant junior
grade, maintained an air of professionalism when handling her people; Hien
definitely appreciated her hand in slapping together the ad hoc Table of
Organization and Equipment. Maybe, when this was all over, she'd look that
lieutenant up again--share a drink and reminisce about... 
	No, she thought to herself. I don't ever want to remember this place. 

* * *

The sheets pulled away and Kyoko Yatsumi stood at attention. A wave of the
Marine captain's hand and she immediately fell back into her previous
routine. The CO of the SVF-103 found it amazing that paper work could find
its way hundreds of millions of kilometers behind enemy lines. However, as
both her squadron clerk and his Marine doppl�ganger were quick to point out,
records were to be kept at all times. That meant her completing both a work
and personal log daily, as well as signing off on the reports submitted by
her "senior staff." Of course, she didn't have a staff--Jenna and
Maximillian were simply responsible for "staff" duties along with their
posts as squad COs. It saved precious time and money in preparing the
TO&E--at least Personnel and Records' time, Kyoko suspected. 
	Captain Hien took a seat just across from the jury-rigged desk Kyoko had
scratched up from the Horizont wreckage. It consisted of a slab of metal
bulkhead set upon two large limestone rocks. At least they seemed like
limestone--Kyoko was no geologist, and this world was alien. Hien coughed
once and cut to the chase. "I'm still feeling a little exposed here. It
might be time to move the strike force around the city." 
	Because of her rank, Kyoko was the executive officer; and hastiness
surrounding the amalgamation of the two chains of command demanded the
Marine captain confer with the XO regularly. Any major decision based on any
tactical assumption, the rule book stated, in any drastic and unusual
situation must be made with approval or disapproval of the executive officer
noted in the log; Still, Kyoko had gotten to know her senior officer soon
after the fleet marooned them here; Hien was a smooth, capable operator and
the Navy aviator rarely found any ground to contest. To be utterly honest,
moving the strike force was on her mind as well. Tonight's log would have
noted a recommendation to the battalion CO to do so. "I have to agree,
Ma'am. Any ideas as to where?" 
	"I'm having my intelligence officer look at that now, but it looks like
this areas surrounded by enough lime-stone deposits for a million caves. I
don't see why we should stay on the steppes like this when we can move
indoors. Here's what we have so far." 
	Kyoko smiled weakly as Hien produced a disk. They wouldn't have to deal
with those bothersome awnings anymore, but that was assuming the cavities
were large enough to maneuver her fighters into. The approximately
ninety-man infantry battalion, their armored power suits, and stores would
consume a sizable portion of that space. Still, neither she nor Captain Hien
could afford to be terribly picky; each day they stayed out in the open the
risk of being discovered increased. 
	The lieutenant reached behind her desk and pulled out a datapad, calling up
the battle survey of the area. Captain Hien handed over the disk, which
Kyoko inserted into the appropriate slot. The device whirred for a second or
two and the mapping program automatically updated its gray-scale maps. The
area that interest the Marine had been circled in orange. 
	"Fifteen klicks away, Ma'am." Kyoko said cautiously. 
	"It's a jump, I'll admit that, and moving those Veritechs isn't exactly the
quietest thing we can do. Still, I feel better about risking that than
waiting for the blueskins to drop on our heads. I want to do it in the next
two days" 
	"Yes, Ma'am. I think we can manage this, but it's going to be rough flying
the birds still on the repair list. We reckon four days, minimum--assuming
the damage isn't worse than what we've already assessed." After all, Navy
aviators were not mechanics, but pilots. Their pit crews were back aboard
the Hedley, and while they had a basic understanding of maintenance and
repair, the aviators were nowhere near the same league as their chiefs and
POs. "Actually, it may not even be that much of a problem. Is it all right
if I go over this with Max?" 
	"The intel isn't solid yet, but that sounds like a good idea. The scout
party should be back before nightfall, and then I'll make my decision
official. Yes, keep your people alert and informed, Lieutenant." 
	"Aye, Ma'am." 

* * *

 



	

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+-----------------+-<The Badass Reverend of Funk Prez>---+
|    Presley H.   | Political Science / Computer Science |
|    Cannady II   | and Electrical Engineering Undergrad |
|<revprez@mit.edu>| at the Mass. Institute of Technology |
+-----------------+-<Anime Manga Development Group>------+
+     Author of Liars and Dreamers, a Robotech fanfic    +
+-------<http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/1731/index.html>-+
| MIDN 4/c A-2-2 SQD, MIT-Harvard-Tufts NROTC Battalion  |
|_|"The art of war is of vital importance to the state"|_|