A note on continuity: this particular Tenchi universe is the OVA's, and
by extension the manga.  Robotech is based off of both the show (for a
primary source) and both the RPG and the Mckinney novels (to fill in the
gaps).  Book 18, though, will be ignored and eventually negated.

No Need For Protoculture
by Andrew Wilson

Chapter 2: School Days

Tenchi groaned as he collapsed onto his bunk. "I'm going to join," he
said in a low sing-song, "it's my duty.  I have to do something against
the aliens."

"You act like you have it worse than the rest of us," the cadet on the
upper bunk quipped.

Tenchi considered standing up to confront the smart-mouth, but decided
to just roll over onto his back. "Well, unlike the rest of you fly-boys,
I've never been at the controls of a plane before two weeks ago." *A
spaceship, on the other hand...* "And you don't get consistently singled
out by the drill sergeant."

A smiling face topped by a mass of spiky hair poked over the edge of the
bunk. "You know, you got a point there, Masaki.  Keep it up!"

Tenchi groaned again as he managed to leaver himself out of the bunk.
"Very funny, Hunter.  Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to call the
medbay."

Rick Hunter's face sobered instantly. "Still no word on your sister?"

Tenchi shook his head. "It's been over a month, and she's still
unconscious."

'She' referred to Sasami.  Tenchi had told the others that she was his
sister to avoid having to explain everything else that would go along
with their real relation.  Washu has woken up a week after Tenchi had,
and had immediately set about tinkering with the medical equipment
monitoring Sasami.  And while there was much more information being
gathered by the same instruments, the usefulness of the information was
negligible.

Tenchi's hand was an inch away from the wall phone's handset when it
suddenly started ringing.  Tenchi hesitated for a moment before picking
it up. "Cadet barracks, Masaki speaking."

Washu's face appeared on the phone's video screen.  The scientist didn't
even bother with pleasantries. "She's awake, Tenchi.  Get over here,
now."

"Washu, I can't just leave-"

"Yes you can," Yosho's voice interrupted from off-screen. "You've got a
pass for the rest of the evening, authorized by the captain himself."

"Oh," Tenchi said slowly. "I'll be right down."

Washu nodded, then broke the connection.

*******

Sasami was indeed awake when Tenchi arrived in the medical bay at a dead
run.  She was still laying on the bed with wires covering her, but she
was aware and smiling weakly.

"I'm sorry I had you worried," she whispered to Tenchi was the latter
stood by her bed. "I don't know what happened, Ryoko was dragging you
into the room, then everything started hurting."

Washu ran her hand over Sasami's forehead. "It's alright, little one,"
the scientist said in a gentle voice. "Rest now."

Sasami's eyes closed and she relaxed as she slept for the first time in
six weeks.  Washu met Tenchi's eyes for a moment and motioned outside
the ICU.

"So *mom*," Ryoko gave that one word the same bite that Jews used for
'Hitler', "Sasami's alright, now will you tell us what the hell
happened?"

"Patience, little Ryoko," Washu smirked.  In her adult body more so than
her other form, the redhead seemed to take immense pleasure in teasing
Ryoko. "Though I think you know as well as I do."

Ryoko snorted. "That wasn't a fold, that's all I could tell."

Washu sighed and shook her head. "That's an understatement if I ever
heard one.  Look at this." Washu held her hands in front of her and
mimed typing. "Notice anything missing?"

"Your computer?" Ayeka asked in surprise. "Why aren't you using it?"

"Because I can't summon it," Washu replied in a frustrated voice. "I
can't even feel the connections I had to it.  Same thing with my lab. 
Everything is gone."

"How?" Tenchi asked.

"If I knew I would be able to fix it!" Washu snapped.

"Perhaps if you started with what the event was, if not a true fold?"
Yosho spoke.

Washu sighed. "That I can do.  You know how a standard fold works,
right?"

Ayeka nodded. "You create a corridor through hyper-space that is a
connection between two points in normal space.  Essentially skipping
over the space you would have to travel."

"Right," Washu said with a nod. "The drawback to it, besides the obvious
problem if your calculations are off by so much as one trillionth of one
percent, is that long distance fold cause gaps in perceived and actual
time."

"What does that mean?" Tenchi asked. "That you don't think as much time
has passed?"

"Close," Yosho said, "it means that the time you spend in the fold is
not the same as the time that goes by outside of the fold."

"In any case," Washu said to bring the lecture back on track, "this
so-called fold was performed with badly-tunned engines and inside a
planetary gravity well."

"We should be dead," Ryoko snorted.

Tenchi shuddered. "Then why aren't we dead?"

"Because this ship has more luck than all of us put together," Washu
replied. "Instead of being destroyed, it simply caused an inversion of
the dividing line between n-space and hyper, with an additional aspect
of sending feedback along any pseudo-space links within the fold area."

"Huh?" Ayeka, Tenchi and Ryoko said.  Yosho simply raised an eyebrow.

Washu sighed. "Reality took a hike and anything that was running through
the area of disruption got one hell of a shock."

"Well," Ayeka commented. "That would certainly explain things.  After
all, Yosho and I have our connections to our trees."

"But yours isn't as strong," Yosho said. "Because Ryu-oh is not even a
sapling yet."

Washu nodded. "So you can understand why Sasami had the worst time.  Her
connection to Tsunami is so deep that when it was removed - and
painfully, at that - her mind was unable to even run her own body's
functions for several days."

"Meow!" Ryo-ohki said from Ryoko's lap.

Ryoko nodded. "So this squirt's extra mass was...amputated."

"Good to see you do have some of my smarts, little Ryoko." Washu ignored
her daughters return growl. "And since you had a mental link to both of
us, and all three of us were inside the fold area, you got what we were
feeling pumped right into your head."

"What about you?" Tenchi asked. "For that matter, why was I affected?"

Washu sighed, then said three words Tenchi figured that hell would
freeze over before the redhead said them.

"I don't know."

*******

"Today's simulation," the instructor said to the class, "involves
escorting-" the officer paused as a wave of groans swept through the
class. "Escorting an S-WACS patrol near a comet.  For the purposes of
this exercise, the SDF-1 will be unable to provide information or
coordination.  Any questions?  Yes, you in the back.  Cadet Wallace."

The cadet named lowered his hand. "Just one, sir.  What kind of
resistance can we expect?"

The instructor just smiled.  The class took that as all the answer they
needed.

Tenchi sighed as he headed for his sim unit.  He had a very bad feeling
about the scenario.  Oddly enough, it wasn't the sim that was giving him
the feeling. (1)

The sim units looked like the cockpits of Veritech fighters.  Cockpits
only, though, since the units were truncated just forward and aft of the
hatch.  The hatch itself was completely opaque as well, because of the
Enhanced Video Emulation displays that projected a three-sixty degree
view with life-like clarity.  A similar system was under construction to
allow for simulation of the sky and weather in the hold where Macross
was located.  Artificial gravity units within the simulators also gave a
reasonable approximation of the g-forces involved in combat.  Unlike a
normal Veritech, though, the seat had special sensors in it to monitor
the pilot's life signs and dial back the artificial gravity if he or she
was in danger.

Tenchi gave that information a cursory thought as he donned the
'thinking cap' and went through the sims power-up sequence.  The
engineers had given a insane amount of detail to simulators, and almost
all their time was either spent insides the sims or in classes
discussing tactics, basic engineering and physics, and other essential
topics.  Conventional military discipline was thrown out the window in
this accelerated program, since the important goal was getting competent
pilots trained so they could defend the SDF-1 and its passengers from
the alien menace.

Tenchi experienced a brief moment of claustrophobia as the hatch closed
over him, but that vanished as a glittering star-field appeared around
him.  The detail was perfect down to the constellations and a few
shining dots that had to be planets.  The comet was off to starboard,
and Tenchi followed the rest of his squadron as they arranged themselves
around the S-WACS shuttle, designated as 'Spyball' for the sim.

"This is Green Lead," Wallace's voice came over the radio, "Spyball has
picked up enemy pods approaching at two-eight-five by three-two-zero."
Tenchi resisted the urge to glance down and too the left.  At these
ranges, it would be impossible for his eyes to make out the targets.
"Come about and prepare to intercept."

Something was bothering Tenchi as he changed course.  This was too
simple.  The instructors wouldn't use something like this, they had
already run dozens of dogfighting sims.  But Spyball hadn't detected
anything.  That would mean that there wasn't anything out there, or...

Tenchi slammed down the 'G' lever on his control panel as fast as he
could.  Even before the mechamorphosis was complete, flipped the more
maneuverable Guardian around and sent his thrusters onto full burn.  the
acceleration pressed him back into his seat as his fighter slowed then
began accelerating back toward the S-WACS.

"Twelve, what the hell are you doing?" Wallace snapped.

"Not now, lead," Tenchi grunted as he pulled another high-g brake and
came to rest relative to Spyball's course.  He switched modes one more
time and held the GU-11 easy in the battleoid's hand.

And instant later the missile pods that had been all but shut down in
the comet's tail unleashed a swarm of missiles at the shuttle and it's
sole guardian.

Tenchi gulped as certain memories from the assault on the Soja suddenly
came to mind.

The numbers on his rangefinder scrolled downward as the missiles came
closer.  The first thing Tenchi did was launch a pair of fragmentation
missiles at the far ends of the elipsoid swarm.  The other four missiles
on the hard points were armor piercing, and those shaped charges would
be useless for this purpose.  The two missiles he fire exploded at the
same instant and sent thousand of glittering fletchets slicing through
the storm.  Explosions spread through the cloud as his two missiles
started a chain reaction that took out half the approaching warheads.

The other half, on the other hand, was still coming fast.

The Veritech's targeting computer was working overtime to plot a
sequence with the GU-11 that would take out as many missiles as possible
before they reached Spyball.  Tenchi aborted the process with a quick
command and instead sent the computer on a mission to try and find the
frequency the missiles were using.  The Veritech's electronic warfare
systems were laughable at best, but the might be able to pull it off. 
At the same time, he locked onto the nearest pods that had launched the
missiles and fired his remaining warheads at them.

Suddenly, there was no more time for thought, because the missiles were
in range.  Tenchi's hands danced over the controls for the battleoid as
his thoughts focused on the task at hand.  The rail gun's slugs cut
through the void of space without even a flash, and more missiles died
as bullets designed to cut through hardened battle armor ripped through
their flimsy shells.  Tenchi ignored the heat warnings as he disengaged
the cannon's governor and let loose a continuous stream of shells.

But still more came in, and even the battleoid's head laser was unable
to ease the last swarm bearing down on the S-WACS shuttle.  At that
moment Tenchi's computer beeped, and the missiled turned as one and
zeroed on on his Veritech.

Tenchi's hand flew for the ejection lever as the stars vanished.  For a
moment he stared in confusion before reality reaserted itself and the
simulator's hatch lifted.

*******

"They're horrible," Tenchi groaned as he dropped to his bunk.

"No argument here," Rick agreed.  They had just done twelve seperate
combat sims in one day, a new record. "Why do you supposse they're
stepping up the pace?"

"I don't know, and I don't want to think about it right now."

"Agreed."

*******

"No attacks in weeks," Ayeka mused. "At the rate this ship is traveling,
we should be approaching the sixth planet in the system."

Sasami nodded as she finished setting the table.  The extended and
expanded Masaki family had been given modest quarters in the city. 
Sasami had immediately set about coverting a portion of the building
into a resteraunt to compete with the White Dragon down the street.

Sasami's face suddenly lit up with a question. "Why are they going so
slow, Ryoko?"

Washu answered instead. "Because when they burned out their fold
engines, they also burned out the power for their grave drive, so they
have to use conventional-" Washu said that word with a snort "-engines."

All three of the women were helping Sasami with her idea for a
resteraunt.  There was a two-fold purpose to it.  The first was to give
them something to do besides worry about Tenchi (or, in Washu's case, be
frustrated over her inablility to figure out what had happened to her). 
The other reason was to watch over the blue-haired girl that was so dear
to everyone.  Sasami had recovered quickly once she had woken up, but
she got tired easily and there were times that she seemed to space out.

"Sasami," Ayeka commented. "I do believe this is all we can do for now. 
We still have to wait for the supplies from the distrobution center."

"I know," Sasami sighs, "but there's nothing else to do.  I feel like-"
Sasami broke off as an alarm klaxon began ringing thoughout the city.
"What's that?"

Ryoko sighed. "It means we're about to be attacked and they want
everybody in a more secured area."

"Let's get moving," Washu said as she grabbed a duffle bag from the
floor, "explosive decompression is not something I like going through."

"Fine," Ryoko grumbled as she followed the others. "Stupid bigots, if it
weren't for them I'd just stay."

"We've been over this before," Ayeka shot back. "If anyone found out
about us, we'd probably be shot by an angry mob."

"That doesn't mean I have to like it."

"Then why don't you do something about it, Miss High and Mighty Space
Pirate?"

"Yeah right," Ryoko snorted. "If I tried I wouldn't last five minutes
against all their ships and mecha.  That's why I have Ryo-ohki.  Space
combat is *her* specialty."

"Excuse me, ladies," Yosho said from behind the arguing women. "Perhaps
you might tone down your arguments?"

"Who asked you?" Both women rounded on the Jurian prince at the same
time, with the same words, and the same expression.  Of course, that
allowed Washu to walk up to them and-

*BONK!*

-Slam their heads together.

Washu dusted off her hands. "Right, I'll take Ryoko, you carry Ayeka."

*******

"Well," Tenchi mused, "at least we know why they were trying to kill us
in the sims."

Rick nodded as he zipped up his flightsuit. "Yeah, final exams.  You
sure you're ready for this?"

Tenchi grabbed his helmet and regarded his friend. "Are you?"

Rick pause for a moment. "Ask me when we get back here tonight."

"I'll hold you to that."

*******

*This is it,* Tenchi thought as he swept his eyes over his Veritech. 
*His*.  That still took some getting used to.  They had been given their
final scores just before the alert.  Tenchi had scored dead last when it
came to flying, but his scores in the combat tests more than made up for
it.  That was probably the only reason he hadn't washed out of the
Veritech corps and transferred to the Destroid brigades.

But those walking tanks had no grace, not mobility.  They had to take
what came to them, and Tenchi was taught to take the fight to the
opponent.  He briefly ran his hand over the 'Skull-24' written under the
hatch before climbing into the cockpit.

"Tenchi!"

Techi jumped as Ryoko appeared beside him.

"Ryoko get down!" he hissed. "If they see you floating like this-"

"I'm already leaving." Ryoko smiled, then gave Tenchi a peck of he
forehead before he could react. "Fly well and shoot straight."

Tenchi watched as Ryoko faded from sight then shook his head. *I'll
never figure them out,* he though as he climbed into his fighter. *But
what was with that bump on her head?*  He shook his head again and split
his attention between readying the Veritech and the final briefing being
transmitted to his communications screen.

"Operation Blitzkreige?" He said softly. "This is more like...what was
that American place...the Alamode?"

"That's Alamo, Six," Rick commented over the radio. "And you might want
to make sure your radio is off before making comments like that."

"Acknowledge," Tenchi gulped.  He quickly made himself busy with the
Veritech's startup.  The engines were particularly important.  While the
turbines could operate almost indefinitely inside an atmosphere, they
needed reaction mass for operations in space.  Luckily, the Veritechs
had been designed with that in mind, and there was enough mass for close
to an hour of combat.  Environmental systems could last close to a day
in case he had to separate the cockpit or about thirty minutes if he had
to eject. *All the more reason to stay in one piece.*

The plan for the day was surprisingly simple.  One of the alien (they
still didn't have a name for those things) squadrons had broken off from
the fleet that was tailing them.  It was fast approaching the SDF-1, and
they would not be able to outrun them.  Instead, they were going to try
and destroy them using a combination of the main gun and a new shield
system while the battle fortress itself used Saturn's gravity well to
accelerate closer to the inner system.

*It only took us a few days to travel light-years with Ryo-Ohki, and now
it's taking us a year to travel from the edge of the system to home.*

The flight controller's voice interrupted Tenchi's musings. "All wings,
prepare for launch."

The launch sequence seemed needlessly anachronistic.  Skull squadron
(more like Skull wing) was launching from the Prometheus, the carrier
that had been at Macross island during the SDF-1's fold and had later
been attached to the ship.  It and the Daedalus formed the lower ends of
the arm-like segments of the SDF-1's humanoid mode.  It was like the
movies Tenchi saw of aircraft carriers on the ocean.  The space-suited
techs directed the Veritechs out of the hangers, onto the flight deck,
and out into space in a wash of thruster fire.  Given the VTOL
capabilities of the Veritechs it should have been more efficient to take
up through the launch bays of the SDF-1 proper, but when logic and
tradition clash, tradition usually wins.

Tenchi patiently waited his turn to launch, and carefully maneuvered his
Veritech to rest just behind and 'below' Rick's.  Saturn hung incredibly
close as the collected squadrons began moving into the rings.  In
theory, this would give them some cover while they positioned themselves
for an attack run on the approaching enemy cruiser.

*******

Aside from Rick getting a tongue lashing from the XO, the trip through
the rings was uneventful.  As they reached the departure point, Tenchi's
nervousness increased exponentially.  The entire situation felt wrong to
him.  It wasn't as though this was his first time in combat, or the
first time he had to kill.  It also wasn't the first time he faced an
opponent that was so bent on destruction.  What was wrong was that it
was so impersonal.  All the combatants were separated from their
opponents by layers of armor and machinery.  Clay had also hidden behind
his machines, and look at what *he* was like.

But it was necessary.  All histories are full of conflict.  There comes
a point where a person must draw a line in the sand.  The aliens had
crossed that line when they had insisted on attacking defenseless
civilians.  And for those people's sake, Tenchi had to fight.

That didn't mean he had to like it.

Commander Fokker's voice came over the radio. "Skull lead to Skull
Squadron, let's boogie."

Tenchi still didn't understand the casualness that Commander Fokker used
when issuing orders.  It seemed more bravado than anything else.  In any
case, though, he had his orders.

For this mission (and likely his permeant assignment) Tenchi was Rick's
wingman, which for him meant that he hung onto the better pilot's course
and kept the aliens off his back.  In theory the favor would be returned
when aliens were on Tenchi's back, but Tenchi was usually able to take
care of them.  Like many other pilots, he had a thing called 'situation
awareness,' which was a general knowledge of what was going on around
them.  Without such an ability, a pilot could become too focused on one
goal or object, and be killed when something comes from another
direction.  Tenchi's own sense of situation awareness, though, bordered
on precognition.  Another reason he was in the Veritech corps.

"Here they come," a Skull veteran spoke over the communications net. 
Swarms of battlepods (as they had been dubbed) were belched out of the
alien cruiser as the Veritechs split into individual wing-pairs.  The
SDF-1 would be approaching in a counter orbit, which would both isolate
the cruiser from it's mecha and trap it between the Veritech wings and
the SDF-1's firepower.

Tenchi thought he saw the battle fortress in the rings some distance
away.  It was impossible to be sure, though, since the same jamming that
was preventing (hopefully) the enemy from detecting them was also
playing havoc with the Veritechs' radar sets.

And then there was no time for thought, only instinct.

The first wave of battlepods were savagely mauled by Skull Squadron's
laser fire.  The Veritechs didn't stop either, and repeated the process
on the second and third waves.  Once passed the third wave, though, the
Veritechs switched to Guardian mode and turned, brought their gun pods
to bear, and opened fire.  Pod after pod died as they tried to adjust to
the new and unfamiliar tactics.  They were able to pull a semblance of
order out of the chaos, but not before half their number was decimated
by Earth's skilled and stubborn defenders.

Even though they were facing toward the first three waves, momentum was
still carrying the Veritechs in the direction of the alien cruiser and
the next waves of pods at high speed.  The cruiser and pods were
accelerating toward the Earth fighters as well.

All part of the plan.

Of course, 'plan' didn't really enter into Tenchi's mind at that point. 
In fact, after the next step, the 'plan' largely said 'engage at will
until battle fortress is in position.'  He did know what to do, though,
and when the cue came in over the comm net he shifted the Veritech back
to Jet mode and rocketed away at a right angle to his original course.

Tenchi and Rick switched to Battleoid mode once they cleared most of the
enemy swarm and opened up with their gun pods.  Tenchi directed his
weapon with cold presicion as he fired bursts into the approaching
pods.  Just like the 'trap' sim, his fire shifted from one target to
another even the before the first shots hit.

"Attention all forces," the XO's voice surprised Tenchi in it's sudden
intrusion, "fire in the hole!"

Tenchi spared a glance at the battle fortress as it entered optimal
range for the main gun.  Given the volume of fire coming from the enemy
cruiser, the SDF-1 was surprisingly undamaged.  The new shielding was
apparently working.

Tenchi and Rick shifted back to Jet mode and accelerated out of the cone
that their navigational systems had labeled in crimson to indicate the
path of the main gun.  The countdown had already begun, and any Veritech
that didn't get out of the cone would die just as quickly as the
aliens.  Tenchi winced as an aborted scream came over the comm net.  One
of the other pilots had been hit trying to clear the area, and in space
the smallest damage could be deadly.

The XO continued her countdown. "5...4...3...2...1...firing."

The fortress didn't fire.

Tenchi glanced at his sensor readings.  The two titans were closing with
each other, but the SDF-1 wasn't firing.

Why wasn't the main gun firing?

End Chapter 2

Notes:
1: yeah, a little heavy on the foreshadowing.  Oh well.

I'd like to thank my pre-readers, John Dunkelburg and Nathan Baxter. 
Plus the usual cast of psycho's (you know who you are).

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