Disclaimer: The characters within belong to Pioneer and Harmony Gold. 
No profit was made from this work of fiction.

No Need For Protoculture
by Andrew Wilson

Chapter 1: A Really Bad Day

Macross island.  An insignificant atoll in the southern Pacific Ocean
until a titanic starship had crash-landed on it.  Now there was a
bustling town built up around the battle fortress.  Originally it was
there to simply provide a bit of creature comfort to the scientists and
soldiers stationed there, but had gained a life of its own as the years
passed.  Now it was thriving city, if small compared to metropolises
like San Francisco or Tokyo.  Festivities were breaking out all over the
island as sleek fighters maneuvered in the air above.  All around there
was signs of celebration and happiness.

Given that the year is 2009, and that the SDF-1 is about to be launched,
this author will forgive his readers for thinking this is a bad sign.

In a matter of moments, a small craft will enter the area and disrupt a
squadron of planes as they performed for the crowd.  This small prank
will set into motion events that would eventually envelop half the
galaxy, and Rick Hunter would be right in the middle of most of it.

This is not his story.

Instead, let us direct our attention to a small group of somewhat
odd-looking people making their way along the civilian perimeter around
the SDF-1.

"Wow," Tenchi Masaki breathed as he stared at the gigantic star ship.

Ayeka shrugged at the sight. "Some of the older Jurian dreadnaughts are
larger than this, and much more elegant looking."

"Size doesn't mean anything, Princess," Ryoko drawled. "After all,
Ryo-ohki blew up one of those nice, fat ships when we were last on
Jurai."

"Only because you attacked them before they could get their shields up!"
Ayeka shot back.  The princess was glaring lightning bold, and Ryoko was
returning the glare full force.

"So where's the man we're going to meet?" Sasami asked as she scampered
between the arguing parties and diffused their glare.  How the
blue-haired girl was able to get *those* two to stop fighting was a
mystery, but somehow she usually succeeded.

Katsuhito smiled. "He'll be here.  Emil is too punctual to miss an
appointment, unless he's discovered a new toy to play with."

"How can any toy compare with the one I've had for the past ten years?"
asked a voice from the crowd in a light German accent.

"And a spectacular machine it must be," Katsuhito replied as he greeted
his old friend.  Lang was of medium height and could almost blend into
any crowd if it weren't for his eyes.  His eyes had no whites, no
irises.  They were solid black, and seemed creepy to Tenchi.

"Oh it is," Lang replied as he led Katsuhito through the perimeter, "and
what we've been able to glean from it has been amazing.  I'm
particularly proud of the Veritech fighters."

Katsuhito shook his head. "Hasn't this planet seen enough war?  Why are
you so proud of creating more weapons?"

Lang's hand tightened on Katsuhito's shoulder as the two men exchanged a
measuring look. "I would appreciate it if you would drop the facade,
Yosho," everyone in the group started at the use of Katsuhito's real
name. "And I think it's time you knew what-" Lang broke off as the bulk
of the space fortress above them shuddered.

"What's going on?" Tenchi asked.

No one answered.  Instead the prow of the ship split into a pair of
booms that crackled with energy like an electrified tuning fork.

"Interesting," Washu idly commented as she worked on her terminal. "That
weapon is drawing almost as much power as the Soja's main gun."

"What?" Tenchi, Ayeka, and Ryoko said as one.  Further questions were
cut off as the weapon fired.

A column of pure destructive force leapt from the booms and streaked
across the sky like the fires of hell.  The inferno lasted a moment,
then vanished.  The booms then rotated back to their original position
without any prompting.  Were it not for the scorch marks on the cliffs
on the edge of the city, the entire sequence might have been a mass
hallucination.

"I had better get to engineering," Lang said quickly. "I hope we can
continue this later, Yosho."

Tenchi watched the scientist jog toward a hatch leading into the ship,
then turned to his grandfather. "Grandpa, why did he call you 'Yosho'? 
I thought no one knew about you."

Katsuhito nodded. "Two people have figured out who I am, or at least
that I am not what I seem to be.  Both were in the last century."

"Really?" Ryoko teased. "So much for keeping a low profile.  Getting
senile, old man?"

"You're over seven times his age, Ryoko," Washu commented. "You
shouldn't talk."

Ryoko blushed and looked like she was about to tear into her mother when
Tenchi continued his inquiry. "How'd he find out?"

Katsuhito shrugged. "Early on in the war, a confused young man stumbled
into the shrine, searching for direction in the chaos that was
enveloping the world.  Over a few games of chess and shogi, we became
friends of a sort while he was stationed nearby.  After the ship
crashed, he returned and confronted me with several...inconsistencies in
my cover.  I do not know how he managed to find them, but he did."

"So you told him?" Sasami asked.

"Yes.  I then told him that I did not recognize the ship, and that it's
design did not match any known races style."

Washu snorted. "Well, that would explain why Mihoshi had to leave. 
Something like that would have to be reported to the Galaxy Police."

"Probably the Galaxy Police know something about it," Ayeka commented.
"Strange, I do not remember anything similar to this when I left Jurai. 
How can such advanced technology like that weapon be developed in less
than seven centuries?"

"I have a feeling we'll eventually find out," Katsuhito said, "and that
we'll not like the answer."

And then the alarms started going off.

*******

The members of the Masaki household allowed themselves to be shuffled
along towards the shelters as a meteor shower streaked down towards the
ocean.

"I have a very bad feeling about this," Tenchi said.

That bad feeling was justified half an hour later as a swarm of giant
mecha that resembled headless ostriches overran the city. Ryoko, Ayeka,
and Tenchi broke away from the crowd while Katsuhito, Washu, and Sasami
attempted to keep them heading for the shelter.

Once they were out of sight of the crowd (no need to spook those people,
after all), the three summoned their combat suits.

"You know, princess," Ryoko commented, "your powers aren't going to do
much good against mechs like that.  Maybe you should sit this one out."

"Ryoko!" Tenchi snapped. "We don't have time for bickering.  Let's go."

Mollified, Ryoko followed Tenchi and Ayeka back to the streets.  They
immediately saw a pair of alien mechs were hopping down the street
towards the refugees.

"You two take the one on the left, I got the one on the right," Ryoko
stated.  An instant later, she was streaking through the air (1) while
unleashing a hail of energy bolts against the mech's armor.  She flashed
by the mech, and an instant later one of the ovoid missile pods on its
'head' split in half.  The severed missiles detonated while still in the
pod, which blew shrapnel into the mech and the other missile pod,
causing a chain reaction that consumed the entire mech.

"Come on," Tenchi cried as he ignited the Master Key and charged.

Ayeka summoned her remotes as Tenchi deflected the mech's initial shots
from its cannons.  Energy crackled around the remotes as she released a
compression wave at the mech.  A hemisphere of air harder than diamond
slammed dead center between the mech's main cannons.  The resulting dent
seemed to prevent the cannons from tracking Tenchi as the young man
leapt at and sliced through the bird-like knee of the mech's left leg.

The mech trembled once, then crashed to the ground as the severed leg
tumbled away.  The intact leg and the stump each kicked once in an
attempt to right itself, but the pod remained on the ground.

Ryoko floated down to join Tench and Ayeka as they moved closer to the
alien machine.

"I've never seen anything like this before," Ayeka observed. "The design
is like nothing any race in the Galactic Union would use."

Ryoko nodded. "Doesn't look like anything Ryo-ohki or I saw outside the
Union, either."

"Maybe this is what Mihoshi was so frantic about?" Tenchi asked as he
stepped closer to the mech. "After all, you were out of touch for close
to seven hundred-AHH!"  Tenchi yelped in surprise as a hatch on the top
of the mech burst open and skidded down the street.  A pair of huge
hands gripped the sides of the hole of the hatch, and a gargantuan form
levered itself out.

It appeared human...if you ignore the fact that it would be fifty feet
tall if it weren't crouched by its mech.  The master key fizzled out at
Tenchi starred at the giant.  The giant muttered something in an
unfamiliar language as it rose to it's feet.

"It's...human?" Tenchi asked in wonder as his battle armor dissolved.

"Tenchi?  That might not be such a good idea," Ayeka tried with no
effect to pull Tenchi back from a potential confrontation.

Tenchi didn't get a chance to respond as a sound like a thousand
buzz-saws ripped though the air and the giant shuddered before crashing
to the ground.

"You folks alright?" A voice called over a loudspeaker as another
fifty-foot form walked toward them.  This one, though, was a giant robot
with several markings in English that indicated it's planet of origin
(compared to the alien characters on the dead mech's exterior).

Tenchi nodded briefly and tried to keep his body between the mech and
Ayeka's exotic armor. "We're fine.  What was that thing?"

"That," the voice continued, "is classified.  You folks need to get to
the shelters, though.  The whole island is being invaded." The voice -
apparently the robots pilot - paused for a moment then softly groaned.
"Alright, I can't stay here.  You know how to get to the shelter?"

Tenchi nodded again. "We were headed there."

The robot gave a nod with its head, and then seemed to collapse in on
itself.  The end result was a madman's idea of a cross between a
humanoid form and a jet plane.  Tenchi was able to read the insignia
"Skull-1" before the hybrid shot into the air over the city.

"Come on," Tenchi said. "Those people are still in danger until they can
get to the shelter.  And I want to ask Grandpa and Washu
about...whatever that was."

*******

There were no more attacks on the civilian refugees that Tenchi had
adopted as his area of responsibility.  The aliens were concentrating on
the SDF-1 and its defenders, as though the civilians were unworthy of
their attention.

In fact, when the battle fortress shot into the sky on pillars of flame
a while before, the alien mechs began to retreat.

"Nothing?" Ryoko asked for perhaps the hundredth time.

"Nothing," Washu replied. "My databases were five thousand years out of
date when Tenchi killed Kagato.  You expect me to get everything back up
to that in just a year?"

"But it does not make any sense," Ayeka stated.

"No, it doesn't," Ryoko said.  She continued before Ayeka could react to
the agreement. "There weren't even hints of something like that when
Kagato was running me around the galaxy."

Tenchi tore his gaze from Macross' skyline to join his friends in the
entryway to the shelter.  The underground structure was secure, but they
needed a little more privacy than the spartan environment below could
offer them. "So why couldn't it have emerged while you were out of
touch?"

Washu shook her head and made a few entries on her terminal.  A
holograph appeared above her head of a cylinder shaped ship. "The
apparent tech base is too high.  I was able to get some long-range scans
of this with the equipment I have set up at home."

"And?" Ryoko said with more than a bit of impatience.

"And the apparent command ship here is around nine kilometers long and
possesses as much firepower as a squadron of Jurian battlecruissers."

"What?" Ayeka stared at the image. "How can that be?  Juria's ships are
the most powerful in all of space!"

"Meow?" chirped a fuzzy form on Ryoko's shoulder.

Ayeka blushed. "Present company excepted, of course."

Washu's consol beeped. "Uh-oh," the pint-sized scientist said, "We'd
better get inside.  They ship's coming back, and it's going to try a
fold."

Tenchi immediately found himself being dragged inside by Ryoko.  Ayeka
followed along with Washu trailing the others. "Wait.  What's a fold?"

"Spacefold drive," Ryoko said. "One of the more creative methods of
suicide in interstellar travel."

"Oh," Tenchi said in a small voice as Ayeka closed and sealed the
shelter doors. "How long?"

"About five seconds," Washu replied.  She made a final notation in some
file or another, then banished the terminal. "Better safe than sorr-"

And then the world exploded.

*******

Ryoko was only dimly aware of passage of time.  She had been the only
one that hadn't screamed in pain as reality turned itself upside down. 
There was some discomfort coming from the true jewel on her right wrist,
but otherwise there was nothing but a vague feeling of discomfort at the
fold itself.  When the fold ended a moment later, she did scream as pain
flooded though both mental links.  Both Ryo-ohki and Washu felt as
though they're very beings had been ripped apart.

She didn't know how long they drifted in null-gravity.  Whatever had
happened, they were in deep space, but that was about all she could say.

"Over there!"

*Who are they?  Rescuers?*

"Those civies weren't kidding.  Call Medical.  Tell them we have six
individuals coming in, five adults and one child."

*One child?  They miss Washu or something?  Or did she...nah, she
wouldn't do that...*

Gentle hands guided her to some flat surface and she groaned as they
strapped her to it. "This one's awake, at least."

"Yeah, maybe she can tell us about-SHIT!" The second voice cut off in a
curse somewhere to her right. "This one's flatlining!"

*Flatline...does that mean...to die?  Who is it?  Who could it be? 
Tenchi!  Where are you?*

"CLEAR!"  A jolt of electricity. "Okay, she's responding."

*She?*

"Right, we're taking her to med-bay one.  They're the best ICU.  Let's
go."

"Poor kid, what could have caused that?"

*Kid?  Oh, no! Sasami!*

"We'll find out later.  Move!"

*******

Sometime after that rush Ryoko fell asleep.  When she awoke, she was
laying on a bed in a white room that practically screamed 'hospital'. 
Footsteps announced a doctor approaching a moment before she came into
view.

"You're awake," the grey-haired woman stated. "Do you understand what
I'm saying?"

Ryoko nodded.  The woman was speaking English, but Ryoko had always
possessed a knack for languages.

"Good, are you feeling up to answering a few questions?"

"Sasami," Ryoko rasped.

The doctor held out a cup of water, and waited for Ryoko to take a few
sips. "I'm sorry, who?"

"Sasami," Ryoko said in a clearer voice. "Girl, about ten years old. 
Long blue hair.  Was with me."

"Oh, her," the doctor made a show of checking the clipboard in her
hands, but Ryoko could tell she already knew the answer. "She's fine. 
It was touch and go for a while there, but she's stable, and breathing
on her own."

Ryoko sighed in relief. "And Tenchi?  Teenager, dark hair?"

The doctor nodded. "He's still unconscious.  That's what I needed to ask
you.  I gather that you're close to them?"

Ryoko nodded. "Bit of an extended family." *Even Ayeka.*

The doctor nodded. "Do you know of any health conditions that they have
in common?"

Ryoko shook her head. "How long was I out?  And where am I?"

The doctor shrugged. "It's been a week since Launch Day.  You're in
Macross hospital's ICU."

"Bull," Ryoko snapped. "Macross was trashed then spaced."

The doctor smiled. "You'll see.  Space is still limited, though, and
you'll be sharing this room with the others." Ryoko finally noticed two
other beds in the room, each occupied.  She didn't give more than a
glance at them, though.  The doctor's voice turned stern. "I would
suggest you do not fool around."

Ryoko nodded absently.

The doctor nodded once more and walked out of the room.  A few minutes
later a cute nurse came in to deliver something that someone might have
the audacity to call food.  As he left, Ryoko spied a small brown shape
zip into the room before the door closed.

Ryoko patted her lap. "Come on, squirt."

"Meow!" Ryo-ohki hopped into Ryoko's lap and absently sniffed at the
tray.

"Yeah, I know, no carrots." Ryoko 'listened' for a moment as she
scratched her friend's head. "I don't know, they didn't say where she
was.  Wait a minute, if they're all down, how come you're awake?"

Ryo-ohki gave a mental shrug and pointed to Ryoko's right with her ears.
"Meow?"

Ryoko glanced to the side, and nearly choked as she saw the form lying
in the next bed over.  Washu lay there, but not the Washu she expected
to see.  Instead of her normal, child-like form, Ryoko's mother (not
that she'd admit to *that* aloud) was in her original form.  The tall
redhead was *not* a sight Ryoko had expected to see.

Further thoughts on the subject were delayed as a groan came from the
bed to the left.  Ryoko tore her gaze from Washu and looked over.

Ayeka rubbed her head as she sat up. "What happened?  Where are we?"

"Hospital," Ryoko stated. "We were out for a week."

"Oh dear." Ayeka glanced around the room in an attempt to get her
bearings. "Oh," she drawled, "I see she's in that form."

"Sasami's not here," Ryoko said as Ayeka's glaces grew a little more
frantic.

"Where is she?"

Ryoko shrugged. "They didn't say.  It was bad for a while, though."

Ayeka's face paled. "How bad?"

"She's fine now," Ryoko assured her rival as she pulled the various
needles and electrodes out of her skin. "I'm surprised we're not under
armed guard, though.  Must not have looked very closely."

"Jurians are anatomically identical to humans," Ayeka said with a shrug.
"Actually, half the races in the galaxy seemed to be genetically
compatible."

"Whatever." Ryoko gentle removed Ryo-oki from her lap and swung her legs
over the side of the bed.

Ayeka gave Ryoko a sly look. "They probably didn't look very closely
because no one wanted to go near a monster like-Wait a minute!  What do
you mean she's fine *now*?  What happened?"

Ryoko shook her head at the heat in Ayeka's voice as she stood. "I don't
know, but I'm going to find out."

"Where are you going?" Ayeka demanded.

"Out, of course.  Gotta find where they put Tenchi, after all."

"Wait for me-OOF!" Ayeka's attempt to stand was aborted by Ryoko pushing
her back into the bed.

"I don't think so, princess.  You're in no shape to be up and about."

"Neither are you," a voice said from behind Ryoko.  She turned and saw
the same doctor from before standing there with a scowl on her face.

"Back in bed, young lady," the doctor commanded in a stern voice that
allowed for no arguments.  Though she has destroyed planets, stared down
gods, annihilated battle fleets, and generally been there and done that
(no t-shirt, though), Ryoko felt herself shying away from the
middle-aged woman's gaze.

"Good," the doctor said with a nod. "Now, I suggest that you get some
rest.  I realize that it's hard to do so when people close to you are
hurt, but you need the rest.  Don't make me post guards."

Ryoko glared at the doctor's back as she exited.  The woman was right,
though.  Ryoko's energy reserves were all but gone.  Even the battle
with Kagato hadn't left her this drained.  But the idea of just laying
there for hours or days was *not* her idea of a good time.  Her eyes
flew around the room, and came to rest of a small box on a shelf across
the room.  It was a game, one that she had seen played a few times when
she was exploring the Earth astrally.  The rules were simple, but it
also required a great deal of thought.  Just what she needed to take her
mind off what's going on.  Of course, it needed a second player, and
with Washu out of the running that left only one person.

"Tell me, princess, have you ever played chess?"

*******

Knight takes rook, queen takes knight, bishop takes queen, queen takes
bishop, knight takes queen, rook takes knight.

Ryoko and Ayeka paused simultaneous as they noticed the symmetry of the
previous six moves.

"Alright," Ayeka commented as she moved one of her pawns up, "that was
decidedly odd."

"No kidding," Ryoko replied while moving her remaining rook into a
covering position.  They had been trapped in the hospital for a week
since waking up.  In that amount of time, they had played at least three
hundred games of chess, watched the same news stories over and over
again, and cleaned out the computer library the doctors had allowed them
to access.  In short, they were bored.

Ayeka smirked as her remaining bishop cut across the board and came in
line with Ryoko's king. "Check!"

Ryoko returned the smirk with interest as her knight knocked the bishop
off the board. "Mate!"

"No, that can't be right." Ayeka searched the board.  Sure enough, her
king was in check, and the only possible escape route was blocked by the
rook Ryoko had positioned.  The princess of Jurai deflated. "I can't
believe I missed that."

"The key to winning," Ryoko said in a profound manner, "is not so much
utilizing your own skill as it is exploiting your opponent's mistakes."

"Oh quiet you!  You've screwed up too.  In fact the score is one hundred
seventy eight to..." Ayeka trailed off as she calculated how many games
each had won.

"One seventy eight to one seventy eight, Ayeka." Ryoko smiled again as
she began rearranging the board.

Both women turned their heads when they heard clapping from the room's
single door.  Standing there was a tall man in a hospital robe and a
smirk on his face.

"Very good ladies, I see there are ways for you to compete without
blowing up everything within a hundred yard radius."

"Who are you, sir, and how dare you suggest that I'm..." Ayeka trailed
off as she studied the\ man's features.

Ryoko sprang from the bed toward the man's throat. "You bastard!  You
were leading us on the whole time!"

The man calmly caught Ryoko's wrist and swung her around.  He let go at
just the right instant for Ryoko to land right back in her bed.

"Yosho?" Ayeka breathed.

The man nodded.  *Why didn't I see that before?* Ayeka asked herself.
*Has it truly been that long?*

"Is Tenchi awake?" Ryoko quickly asked.

Yosho - it wasn't right to call him Katsuhito in that form - nodded. "He
awoke shortly after I did.  He's checking in on Sasami, since the doctor
told us you two were alive and kicking."

"The doctor?" Ayeka asked. "About this tall, gray hair, and a temper to
match Father's?"

Yosho nodded while Ryoko snorted.

"She also," Yosho continued, "said that you two could look in on
Sasami.  She also told of some of your attempts to force her to let you
see Sasami.  Really, sister, despite our history as a pirate clan, heirs
to the throne of Jurai should not use that kind of language."

Ayeka tried to hide a blush as Ryoko snickered. "I didn't...that is to
say...Perhaps we should be seeing Sasami now?"

Yosho nodded. "A good idea."

The doctors allowed them to see Sasami, but seeing was all they were
allowed to do.  The child was in a bed behind a wall of glass.  It was
almost impossible to see her under the maze of tubes and wires.

"They said she was stable..." Ayeka half-sobbed.

"She is," the girls hadn't noticed Tenchi watching Sasami a few feet
away. "She's able to breath on her own, but they're not taking any
chances." There was a trace of anger in Tenchi's voice, and a something
that spoke of determination.

"What about Tsunami?" Ryoko asked.

Yosho shook his head. "My connection to Funaho was disrupted in the
fold, which is why I lost my disguise.  Ayeka, I assume you went through
something similar.  If I had to guess, I would say all connections like
that were disrupted, such as the connection Tenchi and Sasami have to
Tsunami, or Ryo-ohki's connection to the rest of her self."

"So we have to find other ways," Tenchi said.

"Other ways for what?" Ayeka asked.

"To fight," Tenchi growled. "Those monsters just came in a started
shooting.  They're worse than Kagato." Tenchi turned to Yosho. "Grandpa,
I need your help.  The last three weeks-"

"I understand," Yosho said. "You need to build up your muscles before
applying to the academy they're setting up.  Very well."

"You're just going to let him join the military?" Ayeka frantically
asked. "Just like that?"

"It's my choice," Tenchi said. "I'm not going to just sit back and watch
more people be killed when I can make a difference.

End chapter 1

notes:
1) NOT LIKE THAT!  Perverts.

You know, I actually had two stopping points in here that I could have
used, but they weren't at the point I knew I needed to stop at (trust
me, it will make sense).

I'm looking for pre-readers for this little gem.  I'd use my normal set,
but they're overworked with the other stuff I've been sending them. 
Anyone interested?

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