Robotech: Crystal Dreams

- Doug Lanford -

Author's Notes

Once upon a time, I worked on a Robotech video game (Robotech: Crystal Dreams for the Nintendo 64). I also designed much of the story for that failed game. This unfinished fanfic is directly based on the story and dialog we built for that game....

Robotech is copyright and trademark © 1985 by Harmony Gold, USA, Inc.

Robotech: Crystal Dreams and all game related pictures are copyright © 1998 by Gametek, Inc.

Prelude

It is unlikely that we will ever know the details of Kergen's mission for the Robotech Masters. What is clear is that Kergen's fleet was detached for special duty from the Zentraedi Grand Fleet, and sent to the fringes of the Masters' failing empire. Perhaps they were sent into the unexplored territories in an attempt to find new resources to replace the rapidly diminishing supply of Protoculture.  However, when Kergen lost contact first with Dolza and soon after the Robotech Masters, that mission no longer mattered.  Perhaps the most frightening thing about Kergen's forces was not the life force they found, but the fact that we don't know how many other lost fleets are waiting out in the void of the galaxy.

- Domillan Exedore Formo, as quoted in Lapstein's Interviews

Looking out from the command bubble of his flagship, Kergen Krashavera watched his fleet come out of fold around him. Five years had passed since the final messages from the Zentraedi Grand Fleet told of its complete destruction by micronian warriors. Soon afterward, his communications to his overlords, the Robotech Masters, stopped being answered. Without anyone to give him orders, Kergen had taken his fleet where he willed, traveling aimlessly from system to system... searching for a purpose, a reason for existence.

At first, the freedom had been intoxicating. Without Dolza or the Masters to tell him what to do, Kergen felt free to plunder several colonies at the edge of explored space. Eventually, though, the slaughter became boring. Kergen took his fleet into the unexplored, looking for new challenges.

As each new star system proved either empty or too weak to satiate his bloodlust, Kergen began to get angry. A growing sense of indignation, a desire for revenge on those who destroyed his race and left him abandoned out here grew within him. As his much more famous clone brother Khyron had proved many times, the Krashavera clones were at their most dangerous when bored or angry. Kergen became both.

At first glance, this new star system looked as boring as the last... a standard yellow sun with a series of rocks and gas balls as companions. His assessment changed abruptly, however, as a beam of energy stabbed out of the darkness, spearing one of his Thuveral-Salan class Destroyers. Even as the two kilometer long craft expanded into a ball of fire, the beam swung across the void, cutting through a Tou Redir Scout that was escorting the Destroyer.

"Evasive! Launch pods from all ships!" As the crew arrayed below him in the operations area went into overdrive, Kergen felt a surge of anger and excitement expand within him, mixed with a small kernel of Imperatived joy. Here was finally some action! "Where did that attack come from?! Hurry up, negronta fools! Do you think we can just sit here and get cut apart?!"

He watched with satisfaction as the crew below him tensed under the barrage of words, and within seconds one of his monitors was lighting up with a picture of the attacker. By the moons of Fantoma, what is that?! It looked nothing like the battleships he was expecting. Instead, the display showed a massive pulsating crystal asteroid surrounded by what appeared to be an expanding cloud. As he watched, the energy beam sprang out from one of three massive spines hanging below the crystal structure, swinging over to slice through another of his fleet ships.

"All ships! Open fire! Kill that thing!" A thousand bolts of energy spewed forth from the Zentraedi fleet, but most seemed to get no further than the cloud surrounding the massive crystal, and those that did make it through seemed to do no damage. Kergen demanded higher magnification on the cloud, only to discover that it was made up of millions of small diamond shaped crystals, each smaller than a battlepod. As he pulled back the view, he discovered that the majority of the crystal cloud was heading straight towards his flagship and the cruisers escorting it.

No matter how much he fired at the crystals, no matter how many battlepods he threw in the way, the cloud advanced on him. He watched in horror as an uncountable number of crystals clustered around his ship. Without warning, the bridge lights darkened, and he felt the flagship stop firing.

Anger flowed through Kergen. "Continue firing, damn you!"

His adjunct, standing behind him in the command bubble, replied with a tremor in his voice. "My lord, our Protoculture is being drained!"

Kergen reached out and grabbed the adjunct by the throat. An evil glare settled into his eyes. Quietly, he said "What do you mean our Protoculture is being drained?" The adjunct, unable to speak with Kergen's hand tensing around his neck, shakily pointed at a nearby monitor. With a glance, Kergen confirmed the drain of energy.

His anger boiled over. With a primal scream, Kergen threw the adjunct across the command bubble. By the time the Zentraedi warrior hit the back wall with a sickening crunch, Kergen had turned forward again, and was screaming at the Zentraedi technicians below. "Kill them! I don't care if every warrior on the ship has to go out to pry those things off the hull by hand! I will NOT allow us to be helpless!"

His ranting was cut off by a booming, inhuman voice over the internal communications. "I HAVE YOUR VESSEL PARALIZED. YOU WILL CEASE YOUR STRUGGLES AGAINST ME. YOU WILL TELL ME WERE I CAN GET MORE OF YOUR TYPE OF POWER, OR I WILL DRAIN EVERY VESSEL HERE, AND THEN DESTROY YOU."

"Never!" Kergen raged around the command bubble, shouting down at the duty stations arrayed below him. "Kill them, you fools!"

"PERHAPS A DEMONSTRATION WILL PROVE MY POWER." Kergen watched helplessly as two of his Queadol Magdomilla Cruisers, each covered in crystals, suddenly went completely dark. The crystals attached to them broke off, pulsing with energy, and then a beam stabbed out of the night, quartering both ships. Drained of all their energy, they didn't explode. The ships just came apart, cut by a cosmic knife that spilled thousands of Zentraedi warriors into the cold death of space.

"I AM EBOLIAR. I HAVE NEVER FED ON ENERGY SUCH AS THIS. YOU WILL TELL ME WHERE I CAN OBTAIN MORE, OR BE DESTROYED." Kergen stood in shock, his rage temporarily overpowered by the suddenness of the destruction around him and his helplessness to fight it. Then, as he stood there, desperately trying to find a way to fight this enemy, a new idea came to him.

Slowly, a small smile crept across Kergen's face. Perhaps there was a way to stop Eboliar from destroying his fleet, as well as get the revenge he had wanted for so long.... He hit the communications panel.

"Eboliar! I am Kergen, leader of the Zentraedi forces! There is only one place in the universe to get an unlimited supply of Protoculture Energy! It is on a planet on the other side of the galaxy, a planet that has destroyed my people, and stolen the Protoculture Matrix from its rightful owners! If we work together, we can both get what we want!"

"YOU WILL TAKE ME TO THIS PLANET."

Kergen's smile grew larger.

* * * *

It would be almost five more years before the new alliance could plunder the Robotech Masters' and Invid empires for enough Protoculture for the journey. The final fold across half the galaxy, with Eboliar in tow, drained the fleet's systems of most the unique fuel, leaving even Eboliar with only a shadow of the energy it had upon their initial contact. However, the Earth they found was also largely drained of resources and rationing the limited supplies of the interstellar fuel.

Kergen looked upon this species of Micronians from his fleet rendezvous point at a nearby ringed gas giant. He watched them argue and fight over the pitiful resources of their planet, and smiled a deadly smile as he planned the initial scouting attacks.

Chapter 1 - Kyle's Story

 Every war has a few special people who become known as its heroes, and the Crystal War was no different. It was Kyle Bartley's path to that status that is unique....

 - Zachary Fox Jr., Men, Mecha, and Crystal Dreams

Kyle looked out across the expanse of concrete. Even through the haze rising off the heat soaked ground, the distant Veritech was quite recognizable. Kyle's stomach twisted, only partially due to the reckless driving of the RDF cadet next to him. Maybe I should call Sanchez and just quit. I don't want to do this!

Kyle forced his gaze away from the Veritech and the memories it was already stirring up in his mind, and glanced towards the mountains that towered over everything in this portion of the Rio Grande river valley. The once smooth lines of the Sandia Mountains were now jagged and torn, due to a Zentraedi energy bolt that hit the center of the north peak during the Rain of Death. The destroyed peak and a crater lake out on the west mesa clearly displayed the fate of the original city of Albuquerque. The towering buildings of New Albuquerque twenty kilometers to the north were all less than ten years old.

A sudden light exploded across the horizon. Kyle glanced over toward the main launch facilities, where he saw a half dozen ships fire themselves into the heavens, trails of smoke following behind. He couldn't tell what kind of vehicles they were, but this made the eighth launch he had seen since arriving. Something major was obviously going on above the atmosphere. Almost a minute later, the deep rumble of the launch rolled over them.

It was obvious that the cadet driving the jeep was anxious to get rid of his passenger. It was an attitude Kyle was used to. Kyle was surprised he had been allowed on the RDF base in the first place, much less handed a Veritech to fly. Given my reputation, somebody at MBS must have cashed in some major favors. Even so, the rarely used launch pad was nearly fifteen kilometers from the main launch facilities. The RDF is not going to any extra lengths on my behalf, though.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, MBS news pilot Kyle Bartley had been on vacation, visiting his brother in the Southland city of Trenchtown. In the aftermath of the Malcontent Uprisings, the city in the canyon once known as Cavern City had degenerated into near anarchy; in the wake of the panic, destruction, and plagues of the final days of the Uprisings, motorcycle gangs thrived, driving out the local police and government. However, Ron Bartley and his wife Geena remained, trying to raise their young daughter Rook. On this trip to the Southlands, Kyle found out that Geena was pregnant again. He had only been there three days, however, when his editor called.

"Something big is going on in orbit, Bartley. A half hour ago, a satellite probe at Saturn detected a flash of light and some radiation anomalies before suddenly going dead. Within minutes, every RDF base on the planet was on alert. Something folded into the solar system, and we need you up there to film the action! This could be the biggest story since the Uprisings!" His editor sounded thrilled at the idea.

"Why me? This is the first vacation I've had since I came to work for you! Use one of the other news pilots!"

"Kyle, we think there's fighting going on up there. You're the only pilot we have with combat experience, and we need someone who can take care of themselves if things get hairy! You'll need to rendezvous with the SDF-3. After you get the details from the RDF command staff, follow the story where it takes you."

"Blast it, Sanchez! You know what the RDF thinks of me! Do you really think Admiral Hunter is going to let me on board that ship, much less interview anyone?"

"They already know you're coming. Now get back to the airport and fly yourself to Albuquerque. We have a Veritech waiting for you." With that, William Sanchez hung up, and Kyle was left with a dead phone in his hand, and a heavy rock in his stomach. A Veritech! He really expects me to get back into the cockpit of a Valkyrie? He almost called his editor back to tell him he quit, but his sister-in-law stopped him.

"Kyle, this thing has been hanging over you for too long. This may be your shot at redemption. Don't run away from it." The determined look on Geena's face cut through him in a way very little else had in the past two years. His habitual angry reply died before it got past his tongue. Perhaps the scariest thing of all was that he knew she was right.

And now, less than a day later, Kyle Bartley was about to get into a Veritech for the first time in almost two years. A detached part of his psyche noted the details of the Valkyrie class Veritech growing before him. It was an old VF-1A, pockmarked across its surface from years of grime and repairs. Somebody had hastily painted his personal logo, a stylized chess knight, across the tails, but the paint had streaked in a few places. The twelve Rapier missiles hanging under the wings proved the old bird could still be deadly.

I don't know if I can do this. I've spent two years trying to forget everything a Veritech reminds me of.... The Veritech obviously didn't care.

The cadet cleared his throat. Kyle glanced over at him, noticing the aggrieved expression on his face. Stepping out of the now halted jeep, he turned to thank the boy, but the Jeep was already accelerating away. Kyle stared after it a moment, and then glanced up at the fighter on the launch pad above him. He found himself studying the Veritech, scanning every detail. Kyle told himself he was re-familiarizing himself with the ship, but he knew that he was actually delaying the climb up into that terribly familiar cockpit. The huge orbital boosters hid half the ship, but Kyle could still see the sleek lines of the Valkyrie, his memories filling in the hidden parts. With a shock, he discovered a small kernel of excitement deep within him. Part of him still remembered the thrill of piloting the powerful vehicle, a feeling that he had never matched on the many planes he had flown since the disastrous end of his RDF career.

Ah hell. He grabbed the ladder, and swung himself on to the first rung.

As the cockpit canopy closed over him, he barely held back the rush of memories. The instinctual ease with which he went through the systems checklist surprised him.

"Albuquerque Control... this is Knight One. My systems are running, and I am prepared for launch."

He noticed the long pause before the reply came back, as well as the coldness of the radioed voice. "Roger, Knight One. Rotating launch platform now." His ship began to tip up, and within seconds he was almost vertical. His heart began to pound faster in anticipation. As the platform shuddered to a stop, the flight controller's voice reappeared. "Five minute launch countdown begins... now." As the on-board clock's numbers began to count down, Kyle finally gave in to the rush of memories pushing at the barriers he had created years before in his mind.

Vala....

When Kyle first met Vala Norri, he had just been transferred to the St. Laurence Citadel RDF base, straight from the Robotech Academy in Monument City. It was early 2017, at the height of the Malcontent Uprisings. After arriving, he dropped off his stuff at his bunk and headed for the hanger. Private Kyle Bartley wanted to see the Valkyrie he would be flying.

However, the first thing he noticed upon entering the huge building was not a Veritech, but a beautiful young girl with purple hair. From the moment Kyle saw her, he was hooked. His Veritech forgotten, he immediately tried to talk to her. He then discovered that being thrown ten feet on to the wing of a fighter plane leaves a number of bruises.

She awkwardly and cautiously apologized. As she reluctantly helped him off the wing, he got a close look at her hair. That's not a dye... that's her natural hair color! She's Zentraedi! Kyle found himself stammering a question to her. He wasn't entirely sure what he asked, but as she looked back at him, he studied her. She's amazing!

She replied with her name..."Vala Norri, vehicle repair technician, first class..." and then grabbed his arm.

She dragged him into the middle of the hanger, and pointed at a Veritech, a VF-1A almost as battered as the one Kyle sat in now. She said proudly that she had just finished repairing the ship. He knew the comment should scare him (especially given her Zentraedi heritage), but Vala's obvious excitement over her work defeated the feeling. He climbed into the cockpit, and for a moment even Vala was forgotten. This Valkyrie is mine! He ran his hands over the console, automatically finding the various controls and displays arrayed in front of him from months of training. He started up the on-board computer, ran a systems check, and even played around with the missile control systems. When Kyle glanced back down at Vala, standing on the floor of the hanger next to his ship, it was with a smile on his face. He found a curious expression on her face, one he was not sure how to read. However, his smile was answered, if briefly, before Vala walked away, leaving him alone.

That evening he met the rest of his squadron in the base's bar. He was initiated into the flight group in the traditional way - getting the new guy embarrassingly drunk. However, he did manage to learn before he passed out that all the male members of the squadron considered Vala Norri off-limits. Apparently, several people in the squadron had been sent to the infirmary by trying to make passes at her. As a Zentraedi female, she still had trouble being near males. She was also a former Quadrono pilot under the famous Miriya Parino Sterling, and as a successful Zentraedi, a manufactured clone who didn't age, she was far older than she looked... older than Kyle would ever be.

Somehow, none of these things stopped Kyle. The flight commander told Kyle that he was surprised Vala had shown him to his Veritech... apparently, the only time she interacted with males was when she absolutely had to for her job, and was cold and abrupt even then. Everyone in the squad agreed however that she was the best repair technician around, because she took a pride in her work that few humans could match.

Kyle managed to talk to Vala several times over the next three days. The fact that he didn't end up with any broken ribs made him a minor hero among him squad, despite his lack of combat experience. However, that was a lack that changed on the fourth day. Kyle swore that it was luck, but he managed to kill two enemy ships that day, one by traveling under the jungle canopy in Guardian mode and breaking out underneath the Officer's Pod that was controlling the Malcontent forces.

When he landed, his entire body covered in sweat and shaking from the adrenaline and fear just then bleeding off, Vala was there to formally congratulate him on his performance. It was the first time in anyone's experience that Vala had talked to a man without being addressed first. Instantly, he became the lucky charm of the 37th squadron.

Over the next month, Kyle continued to get to know Vala, at least in the occasional moments he could take advantage of her emotional confusion. This cost him a number of bruises and a mild sprained ankle, but he found that it was worth it - the confusion he saw in her eyes was enough to prove she felt something for him, despite her heritage... something she wasn't sure how to handle. It wasn't until he began to understand how the Zentraedi think that he finally challenged Vala to a competition. It took Vala five minutes to blow Kyle's simulated Veritech out of the rendered sky, and he managed to get in a couple of solid hits in the process. For a Quadrono warrior with nearly a century of combat experience, that was impressive to see in a green pilot. The next day, Kyle managed to get Vala to agree to a date.

He took Vala to a small dinner club in the nearby city of Federale. It ended up being the most unusual date in Kyle's experience. All of the responses Kyle had come to expect from women on romantic dates did not exist in Vala. She questioned everything, and was obviously confused by many of the mannerisms she saw around her at the small restaurant. Dancing completely unnerved her, but for once she didn't smack Kyle, but allowed him to teach her. Vala's vulnerable and amazed face during a slow dance made up for all the bruises she had given him in the past. At the end of the evening, as they stood outside the barracks entrance staring at each other, Kyle remembered feeling a huge desire to kiss her, but mixed with a huge fear of scaring her off, of pushing her into something she wasn't prepared to handle.

Thus, it came as a complete surprise when Vala took the initiative. Vala later admitted that she had called Miriya Sterling before the date to find out what she should expect. She had then spent the entire evening dreading and yet intrigued by the ritual that often ended these social events... this pressing of lips known as kissing. By the end of the evening, the idea had so unbalanced her, that she decided to attack the problem like a warrior... she went on the offensive. She grabbed Kyle's face with both hands, and fiercely pressed her lips to his. At first, Kyle was so shocked he didn't respond, but as his lips reacted, and his arms slowly went around her, the tough and tense warrior woman slowly softened against him. When they finally moved apart, Vala stood for a moment, staring at him with a confused and yet awed expression, and then turned and ran inside.

The next day she asked Kyle, in a direct and professional manner, if he would mind practicing kissing with her. She said that she must have some talent for it, because she seemed to be fairly good at it the first time, but like combat and repair work, she would become better with training.... Kyle, with a hidden smile, told her he would be honored to help.

The next six months were a blur of terrifying combat with Vala always at the end. She taught him combat in the simulators, while he taught her how to express her emotions, how to feel. He taught her how to care. They were the talk of the base, and mostly oblivious to it.

The one minute warning drew Kyle back to the present. The RDF control officer started counting down, and Kyle felt his pulse leap to a higher rate. It's to late to stop now. I guess I'm going up.... The count reached zero, and Kyle felt the acceleration shove him violently back into his seat. He couldn't help noticing that the radio officer did not wish him luck, a tradition on launches.

For several minutes, the only thing possible to think about was the bone rattling thrust of the booster rockets strapped to the back of the Veritech. He watched the sky darken to the color of night, the blue haze giving way to the hard points of light the stars become above the atmosphere. As the thrust finally died off, he drifted into null gee. He forced back the faint feeling of nausea he always felt when first entering a microgravity environment, and reached forward to hit the switch to disconnect from the booster pod.

Kyle was interested to see how complete the SDF-3 was. Pieces of Breetai's former flagship, along with parts from the ruined SDF-1 and several captured Zentraedi capital ships, had become the largest starship ever built by Earth, but Kyle knew that it was still incomplete. Up until a few months ago, the SDF-3 had been hidden inside Little Luna, the captured alien Factory Satellite that was the RDF's main shipyard. It had been unveiled a week ago, one of the few times Kyle had ever piloted in space, as well as being his last MBS assignment. The ship was missing the spacefold drives (which would be installed from Breetai's ship in a few months), as well as half its crew quarters and hanger decks. They had yet to even give the fortress its final coat of paint, the current primer coat a glaring blue and white reminiscent of the now buried SDF-1. The week of performance tests might have ironed out a lot of the system bugs, though.

The curve of the Earth spread behind him. He watched over his shoulders as the boosters drifted away, and then tipped his ship over, placing the globe above him. Kyle aimed the ship towards the SDF-3's beacon, and hit the autopilot, only then allowing himself to glance up and rediscover the unique majesty the Earth becomes from orbit. He finally gave in to the rest of his memories.

Those six months with Vala were the best and yet most frightening times of his life. Every few days, combat would provide a few minutes or hours with terror, adrenaline, and death. But Vala was always waiting at the end, eager to help him become better at his job, and eager to learn the boundaries of her growing feelings. She was everything Kyle wanted - a woman who was not only exotic and quite unique, but also a paradoxical combination of strength and vulnerability. In the end, it was surprising how easy it was to destroy it all.

He was flying patrol along the southeastern edge of the Zentraedi Control Zone, watching for any activity, when the signal came in. A squad of Southern Cross tanks was in serious trouble. They reported they had been ambushed by a group of Malcontent Stingers, the hybrid vehicles made from spare mecha parts that the rebel Zentraedi had learned to build. Kyle informed his squad leader of the communication, and then thrust towards the tanks' location.

"Bartley, leave it alone. That is Southern Cross business, and we shouldn't get involved." Kyle could hardly believe what his flight leader returned.

"We can't just let them get slaughtered by the enemy! I've got to help!" At the time, Kyle felt he was following his duty, but in the aftermath realized he was really trying to be a hero, too caught up in being the squadron darling to think about the consequences of what he was doing. Kyle set his radio to short range, tuning out any further protests from his squad leader, and rocketed towards the SC distress signal.

When Kyle arrived ten minutes later, he could see from a distance that the fight had been already deadly. The smoke of burning wreckage rose from several locations in the surrounding jungle, while three Stingers buzzed overhead, dodging blasts coming from below the trees. Bartley used the element of surprise to get a missile lock on one, tracking the smoke trail all the way to target. The Stinger blew into a cloud of mismatched debris, as Kyle switched to Guardian mode and dove for the trees. He could feel one of the remaining Stingers getting a lock on him, but out of the corner of his eye he saw a tank shell bisect the ship in a burst of flame. One of the harried Southern Cross tanks must have taken advantage of the distraction he created.

As he dodged both trees and bolts of energy raining on the jungle from the last Stinger, Kyle wondered where the rest of the Malcontent forces were. From the tone of the distress call, he expected a full sized offensive, but the enemy forces so far were few and desperate. He pulled suddenly out of the jungle canopy, trap shooting the last Stinger as it overshot above him... an unconscious replay of his first combat mission. It exploded, leaving a trail of smoke and debris during its plunge to the ground.

"Thanks, Jaguar 17! We appreciate the help. ATAC Seventh Cavalry out."

With a satisfied feeling glowing in his gut, Kyle Bartley glibly replied, and headed back towards home base.

Upon landing, he was chewed out fiercely by his flight leader. Of course, he expected that, and bore it in silence. Only after being assigned enough extra duties to make his future life miserable was he allowed to take a shower. After washing the stink of combat off, Kyle headed to the base's bar, hoping Vala was there. He didn't find her, but he sat down at their favorite corner booth and ordered a stiff drink, ignoring the news broadcast displayed on the large screen across the bar. He did not have to wait long, for either the alcohol or Vala.

He had just ordered a second drink when she walked in. Vala headed straight for his table, and sat down next to him. She had an expression he had never seen before, though the painful kick he got under the table helped define it.

"You helped the Southern Cross today." Her eyes glared at him. "They think of only one thing... the destruction of my people!"

"Vala, they are supposed to be our allies! I couldn't just let them get killed!"

She stared back for a moment before responding, obviously conflicted in her feelings. "I do not trust Anatole Leonard or his army!" However, she did stay, and even ordered a drink, something rare for the Zentraedi woman. For the next few minutes, life seemed good to Kyle.

The news report changed that.

"A little over five hours ago a Southern Cross tank squadron wiped out a village of peaceful human and Zentraedi civilians. The town of Vista Del Tratinu was established by a group of micronized Zentraedi who wanted to give up the pursuit of war, and were joined by a number a human sympathizers. According to reports, the Southern Cross tanks bombarded the village, killing most of the population. The event sparked riots throughout the Southlands and the Arkansas Protectorate that have already killed dozens. In defense of the action, Field Marshall Anatole Leonard told reporters that the town had been supplying the Zentraedi rebels, and thus became a valid military target. He further mentioned that a lone RDF Veritech had helped eliminate the Malcontent defenders of the village."

The heavily jowled face of Field Marshal Leonard appeared onscreen. "This just proves that even elements of the RDF believe that the alien threat must be met with as much force as possible. We cannot afford to...."

The next thing Kyle knew, he was airborne. After a brief moment tumbling across the room, he came to a jarring halt against the wall. Then Vala was above him, her fist cocked and then planted into his stomach. She was immediately stopped by several officers, but Kyle would always remember vividly the cries of "Hajoka!"... traitor in the Zentraedi language, as he fought for breath while she was dragged off him. Even more distinct was the look of pain and anger on her face. The following inquiry and his dishonorable discharge seemed small punishment compared to the lost spark of Vala's companionship.

Two days after his discharge, as he slouched dejectedly in a bar on the fringes of Monument City, a man sat down next to him. When he said "we want you to join the Southern Cross," the bouncer had to pry Kyle off him.

He never tried to contact Vala after he was removed from the RDF. The horror he felt over the destruction of the village and the deaths the ensuing riots had caused proved to him that he deserved the punishments he got. Kyle got a job at MBS, where he pursued his assignments with reckless abandon, and drank himself into a stupor in between. Those who have destroyed their lives have very little to live for.

But now, sitting in the cockpit of a Veritech again, he knew that this was part of what had been missing. The fear of impending danger and possible combat, the surge of adrenaline, the power of a Protoculture fueled combat fighter... he felt more alive than he had in a long time. And Vala's on the SDF-3. He felt both excitement and anxiety over the thought.

His first glimpse of the SDF-3 came as a highlighted dot on his radar and the HUD, the ship appearing just above the curved horizon. Minutes later, he could see the ship with the naked eye. Suddenly, a flare of light drew his eyes to the side. A glaringly bright ball of energy had appeared, rapidly dissipating into a Zentraedi capital ship. I would call that confirmation that something is going on in orbit! I think that's a Thuveral-Salon Destroyer! Since the ship still had the original Zentraedi coloring, Kyle knew that this was not one of the few Zentraedi ships the RDF had captured and integrated into the fleet after the Rain of Death. As the SDF-3 slowly grew before him, he watched distant balls of fire start flashing around the Earth sentinel. The ship was under attack!

Without a conscious thought, Kyle disengaged the autopilot and hit the afterburners. There was a major story going on in front of him, and he had to get it on tape! He made sure the MBS camera tied to the laser turret underneath him was active. At twenty kilometers from the SDF-3, his radar finally picked up the enemy fighters, a mess of battlepods and a few tri-thrusters, with five missile pods heading towards the SDF-3. He took in the cockpit displays as fast as he could, and made sure his weapons were armed... just in case. Kyle then flipped his radio over to the SDF-3 flight control frequency, and called in his callsign and position.

He was shocked to see Admiral Hunter himself appear on his console. "SDF-3 to Knight-1. This is Vice Admiral Rick Hunter. Landing clearance denied! We are under attack from Zentraedi forces!"

Kyle decided to go for gold. He wanted to know who these Zentraedi were. "Malcontents? In space?!"

"No... these are new forces. We don't know where they came from, but we could sure use your help!"

A surge of adrenaline rocketed through Kyle. "My help? In case you forget, I'm...."

He was interrupted before he had a chance to continue. "Consider yourself temporarily reinstated! Blast it, Bartley! We weren't expecting this!"

They needed him! He knew there had to be a catch somewhere, but for that moment, he felt almost like he was back in the RDF.

"All right...I'll do what I can." With that, he let his targeting display pull up the closest enemy pod. At three klicks, he could get a lock with the short range Rapier missiles he carried. It took several minutes of tense waiting as he closed the distance, but finally the tone sounded, and Kyle instantly let two small missiles fire themselves off his wing, corkscrewing away on trails of smoke. Seconds later, the still distant battlepod disappeared from his radar, a sphere of debris and flame marking the location of its death. Kyle immediately targeted another enemy.

Kyle's radio lit up, a face appearing on one of the side cockpit displays. "Skull Leader to Knight-1... is that you, Kyle? It's been a few years...." He immediately recognized Max Sterling, the ace pilot who had helped win the Robotech War by falling in love with a Zentraedi woman. He had met Sterling when he and his wife Miriya were on an inspection tour of the Zone RDF bases. Since the all Zentraedi Twenty-Third squadron had been stationed at St. Laurence Citadel, the sight of the hybrid couple of ace pilots became common. Kyle had taken advantage of a rare situation, using Max Sterling as a teacher in both combat and romancing a Zentraedi woman.

"Several Zentraedi Missile Pods are making bombing runs on the SDF-3. If you can, try to take them out!" Max's face vanished from the console.

He's testing me! Okay... let's see if I still have the talent. He brought up one of the missile pods on his target display. Five klicks away, on the other side of the fortress. He pulled around to a new vector, and hit the afterburners, waiting for the range to drop enough for his missiles to get a lock. At three kilometers, the tone sounded, and he sent two missiles towards the first target, immediately targeting the next pod and waiting for another lock. Another two missiles left his wing mounts.

Now at less than a kilometer, he was too close for missiles. A flip of a switch started transformation, and as Guardian mode wrapped around him, he tracked the gunpod across the heavens, aiming ahead of the first pod he saw. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the image of his missiles striking another missile pod. It dropped behind too fast for him to see what the outcome was, but missiles rarely leave more than debris. He thumbed the trigger of his gunpod, and watched with satisfaction as the pod in front of him came apart from the impact of the kinetic slugs smashing through it, the rack of missiles attached to top of the anthropomorphic craft spinning off alone.

"Good flying, Kyle! Like riding a bicycle -- you never forget!" He noticed that Skull One's face had reappeared on his displays. "Watch it, though! You have a couple of pods on your tail!"

Kyle instantly threw the legs of his articulated fighter forward, the sudden thrust backward causing the pods behind him to shoot out ahead. He riddled one with slugs from the gunpod. As it tumbled off to the side, a trail of fire and debris behind it, Kyle saw a Veritech flash overhead, its blue trim marking the pilot. Kyle could only watch in astonishment as Max took out the other pod, then proceeded to kill two incoming Fighter Pods with seemingly casual flips of his gunpod. Kyle pulled around and highlighted the last missile pod, hosing the area with bullets even as the missile pod launched its missiles. One of the missiles exploded meters after launch, and the missile pod spun off, exploding seconds later. However, one missile got through, diving towards the hull of the SDF-3.

The missile was too fast to catch... Kyle was helpless to stop the warhead. He tracked it all the way to the massive ship, seeing the small explosion flower against its surface. I hope no one was in that section.

He flipped his target display over to the closest enemy ship, and discovered that the remaining pods were retreating, a damaged Officer's Pod, trailing smoke, leading them. A number of Skull Veritechs pursued.

As Kyle throttled back, allowing Max's pilots to continue the chase without him, Rick Hunter's face once again appeared on his displays. "SDF-3 to Knight-1, you are now cleared for landing."

The Admiral's face fading from the console in front of him, Kyle pulled around to face the Super Dimensional Fortress. He followed the landing beacon to one of the two working landing bays, both on the upper hull of the ship, and negotiated the launch tunnel into the hanger.

He had not even climbed out of the Veritech yet when his name rang out through the hanger bay. "Pilot Kyle Bartley, report to the Situation Room immediately."

He climbed down from the Veritech, finally standing upon the deck plates of the large bay. Several other Veritechs were present, and a shuttle was slowly moving up on an elevator from the storage bays below, a huge radar dish perched on top. Kyle strode past the supply shop, and into the elevator, punching the key for the Situation Room.

When he arrived on the War Room command balcony, he found one of the huge screens across the command center displaying a massive face, instantly recognizable the world over from the jewel-eyed metal plate covering half of his features. Lord Breetai was speaking, his booming voice easily filling the massive command center. "We do not know who these Zentraedi are, Admiral."

It wasn't until he spoke that Kyle noticed the shrunken figure standing with him on the command deck. Exedore's unmistakable voice aimed itself at Admiral Hunter. "It is entirely possible, Admiral Hunter, that a few Zentraedi were left behind by Dolza or escaped the battle that destroyed most of our race. Without interrogating one of our attackers, we cannot give you more information."

Hunter paused, running his options through his head. He then turned back to the massive screen. "All right, Breetai... contact me if you find anything new. Hunter out." Breetai nodded, and the screen went blank, quickly replaced with tactical data. The Vice-Admiral glanced at Exedore, who also nodded before heading for the elevator. It was then that Kyle noticed the technician manning one of the command deck consoles. As he focused on her, he could tell that Vala had already been staring at him. The expression on her face was poignantly familiar - her Zentraedi heritage gave her little ability to hide her emotions, and he recognized the look of confusion underneath the stubbornly angry surface. God... she's still as beautiful as I remember.

He stared back a moment, and then forced himself forward. As Kyle stopped next to her station, he blurted out the first thing that came to mind.

"Vala...I thought I'd never see you again."

"I was hoping the same thing." The almost casual coldness of her reply had him reassessing the emotions he thought he had seen in her. "And furthermore, that's Chief Technician Norri, Mr. Bartley. I suppose I expected you'd be here to cover the war...I'm sure you'll do your usual thorough job."

Before he had said more than one sentence, he was on the defensive. He felt his stomach shrivel, but he forced a hard expression on his face. "Look, I just...."

She bolted up out of her chair. "Do not presume upon our former love! Your dishonor stains us both, and forgiveness is not the Zentraedi way! Simply make sure our paths do not cross!" Every pair of eyes on the command balcony was suddenly centered on the two of them.

Kyle was about to reply, attacking back at Vala despite the audience, when he heard Admiral Hunter call him over. He turned away with a final glare at Vala, and as he walked to the front of the balcony, Kyle made a decision. He didn't wait for the RDF leader to speak first. "Admiral, there's a war on. You need good pilots...and you know I'm good. I can do a lot more for Earth than just snap pictures!"

Rick Hunter stared a moment at the angry young man standing in front of him before replying. "Kyle, you did pretty good out there. But I'm not about to risk combat morale by placing someone with your...personal history...into active duty. The best I can do is offer you a mercenary position... you'll have full access to our shops and repair bays, and we'll pay you the best rates we can. You'll be free to fly where you want, so you can do your reporting job as well. Dismissed." Then Admiral Hunter turned away.

Kyle's first reaction was anger, but years of self-hatred tempered the impulse. He recalled what his sister-in-law's words... perhaps it was time to stop running away from past mistakes. Despite the anger and self-doubts, he forced himself to stand straight. With Vala's menacing scowl following him, Kyle walked to the elevator.

Once back in the hanger, he stopped by the repair shop, discovering that Hunter had made good on the deal, and he had some credit. He added some Protoculture fuel, refilled his ammo and missiles, and even had a little extra for an enhanced radar and communications system.

It was with a feeling of satisfaction that Kyle Bartley once again sat in the cockpit of his Veritech. He brought the craft around as the canopy lowered, aiming himself for the launch tunnel. After a final check with SDF-3 traffic control, he lifted off the ground and accelerated through the passageway. He burst across the threshold of the hanger doors, and watched as the SDF-3 main cannon shafts passed beneath and then dropped behind. Now life gets interesting. Maybe I should go see what the Southern Cross thinks about this conflict. He felt a brief twinge of the old anger when he thought of the Southern Cross, but he quickly supressed it. Hell, I'm supposed to be an unbiased reporter.... Kyle brought up Armor Platform 13 on his travel map, and let the autopilot calculate a course. Turning towards the waypoint the computer placed on his heads-up-display, he pushed the throttle to full, and then activated the autopilot.

Kyle Bartley's coverage of the Crystal War was just beginning.

Chapter 2 - Armor Thirteen

 In terms of raw military strength, it would seem that the Army of the Southern Cross couldn't possibly have had an influence on the outcome of the Crystal War.  Given General Leonard's history, however, it shouldn't have surprised anyone that he was not content to allow the RDF do all the fighting.  In the end, the ASC affected the conflict far more than anyone expected.

 - Scot Robertson, A History of the Southern Cross

Two hours later, the Earth had changed from a mass of colors and textures that filled half the sky to a jeweled crescent slowly dropping behind, a scattering of faint lights dotting the night side. Off to the left, the moon appeared a little larger than Kyle had seen it before... he was farther from his birthplace than he ever had been in his life.

For the first half hour after launching from the SDF-3, Kyle enjoyed himself. He played with the on-board computer, pulling up readouts on every system of the Veritech and running tests on his updated radar package. A part of his mind recalled that day in the South American hanger where he met Vala and played with a flight computer just like this one, but he forced down the twinges of regret that followed.

After a while, though, the excitement drifted into thoughts of his encounter with Vala aboard the SDF-3. He tried to distract himself by writing up the details of the SDF-3 battle, electronically squirting it down to his editor in Monument City along with the footage from his turret camera. That didn't take long, though, and as he dropped into the enforced idleness of the autopilot, his emotions began oscillating between guilt and anger, both increasing in intensity as his mind dwelled on the conversation with the micronized alien woman. All the old regrets came to the surface, but this time they competed with a touch of indignation. Kyle had made a terrible mistake, but the time they had spent together should have been worth something to her.

His confused thoughts were interrupted by an unexpected call coming over the comm. "This is Southern Cross Convoy Tango. We are under attack, repeat, under attack! We need help!"

Oh, blast. Kyle's first thought was to let the Southern Cross deal with its own problems... it was a call very much like this one that destroyed his life. After a few seconds of rational thought, however, Kyle reached toward the cockpit and thumbed several switches.

The convoy was not within the limited range of his radar, so the first question was obvious. "This is MBS Veritech Knight One. Give me your position... over."

The sender of the distress call immediately rattled off a series of Earth relative polar coordinates. Kyle inputted them into the flight computer, which plotted the position of the convoy and displayed it on the radar and information screens on the cockpit. The distress call was coming from a position one hundred and twenty three klicks away, at 49 degrees to starboard and 8 degrees down from Kyle's current heading.

"Convoy Tango, this is Knight One. I'm about twelve minutes from your position... heading your way now. I can't promise much... I'm alone out here, but I'll try to help. What's your situation?" As he spoke, Kyle disengaged the autopilot and grabbed the flight stick, maneuvering until the highlighted waypoint appeared ghosted on the canopy in front of him and moved into position directly in front of his nose laser gunsights. He hit the afterburners with a flick of his right hand, and felt his body sink into the padding behind him.

"Sixteen fighter pods ambushed us, down to twelve now. We've lost two of our six escort Veritechs, and the convoy is starting to take some hits! I hope you can get here soon, Knight One!"

A bit over two minutes later, at a distance of a hundred kilometers, the convoy and its attackers appeared at the edge of his radar. Over the following four minutes, the tension increased as Kyle listened to the battle. By the time Kyle could see the distant flashes of combat ahead, two more tri-thrusters went into oblivion, as did one more of the SC Valkyries.

"Thank God you're here, Knight One! We're taking a beating here!" Kyle quickly sequenced through the targets his radar was now picking up, highlighting the lead transport. It was a fairly new Jackalope class shuttle, unhurt so far. As Kyle continued flipping through radar contacts, though, he noticed that two of the other three shuttles in the convoy showed signs of damage. At six kilometers, the Extended Range Rapier missiles he had picked up aboard the SDF-3 could get a lock... though they had the same speed and payload as the basic Rapier missiles he was loaded with on Earth, the ExRaps had twice the range, and he fired all six of them at the first three tri-thrusters that came up on his target display. He then had to switch to his remaining Rapiers, and wait for the distance to drop to three klicks before he could do any further damage.

While waiting to lock-on again, he watched as the ExRap missiles destroyed one of the target tris. The second fighter pod took a grazing hit from one of the missiles aimed at it, but managed to avoid the other, while the last pod was obliterated by the first missile to hit it, leaving the second missile to detonate in an already expanding cloud of debris. Kyle was initially tempted to target the damaged tri for his first Rapier shot, but as he watched it spiral out of the battle leaking smoke, he realized it was out of the fight. He quickly clicked through the remaining targets, finding one the SC Veritechs were not concentrating on, and waited for the distance to drop.

About a minute later, his gunsight turned red, and seconds later, with the lock-on tone echoing through the cockpit, he fired two Rapiers off his wings towards the enemy fighter. He immediately brought up the next Raulon've pod in the computer's list, waited for the lock tone, and fired two more. Then he was within the battle himself... too close for missiles.

He quickly keyed a control next to his right hand, and the closest enemy target popped up on his target display and radar. Kyle flipped off the afterburner and matched speeds, turning hard over to bring the target in front of him. The tri-thruster was making a dive run on one of the damaged transports, and Kyle fired off a couple of shots, even though he knew he was too far away to expect to hit the pod. As he hoped, the arrow shaped craft veered off of its attack on the shuttle to deal with him. It came at Kyle in a head-on attack, and though Kyle managed to put a couple of laser shots into the tri, he took a grazing hit that would have holed his canopy and killed him if it had collided three feet further to port. As a surge of adrenaline flooded his bloodstream, he pulled up and placed the pod in his gunsight, waiting until it turned green before gently pulling the trigger. As Kyle kept the fighter pod in his sights, five laser bolts from the nose and head turret of his VF-1A impacted the body of the pod, converting the enemy mech into an expanding ball of gas and shrapnel.

The next Raulon've Kyle targeted had a better pilot. Every time he had it in his sights, the blasted thing would suddenly jerk in an unexpected direction. After a number of useless laser shots around the ship that never actually hit, the enemy pilot suddenly braked and spun around, putting a hole through Kyle's port wing that somehow managed to miss the two missiles still slung underneath. With a quick flash of thought, Kyle reached forward and flipped one of the transform switches, flinging his Veritech into Battloid mode. He sprayed GU-11 slugs across space around the dodging pod, running through a quarter of his gun ammo before the pod spat out a trail of smoke and spun out of control. However, before he could finish off the tumbling craft, it righted itself and once again dodged to the side, right into a hail of laser bolts from one of the SC escorts. The tri-thruster ended its life in a ball of flame.

As Kyle quickly sequenced through the remaining targets, he stopped in surprise when his cockpit display highlighted a ship well outside the boundaries of the battle. Sixteen klicks away, a recon variant of the standard Zentraedi battlepod sat quietly, watching the combat. A quick check of the radar showed the recon pod had an escort of three standard Regult pods. A second recon pod group floated on the opposite side of the battle.

He didn't have time to dwell on the mystery... two laser blasts flashed by, and Kyle immediately juked his Valkyrie to the side while he pulled up the offending Raulon've on his target displays. The enemy ship, moving much faster than his battloid, rocketed by on his right, and though Kyle sent several seconds worth of gunpod slugs towards it, he missed entirely. A quick flick of his hand, and he was matching speeds in Guardian mode. When he got the on-target tone from his gunsight, he pulled the trigger, and half a dozen depleted uranium bullets punched through the back of the tri-thruster. The damaged fighter slowly drifted to the side, exploding into two tumbling pieces several seconds later. Kyle had a brief glimpse of a giant tumbling humanoid figure spilling into space before a secondary explosion obscured his view in a flash of bright light.

Kyle quickly pulled up the closest enemy target, mildly surprised to notice that it was one of the recon pod escorts. All the attacking tris were gone, and the recon groups were already retreating at max thrust. Three of the four Southern Cross transports showed minor damage, but all were still under power.

"You're a godsend, Knight One! Would you mind joining our escort until we reach Armor Thirteen? Our cargo must reach there ASAP!"

It didn't take Kyle long to make his decision. "No problem, Tango Leader. I was heading that way anyway. What's so important about your cargo?"

"We have experimental technology from the Tokyo research facility. Zand himself designed some of the components. I don't know exactly what the parts are for, but General Leonard is anxious to have them aboard."

That gives me something interesting to follow up on when I get to the SC Platform. I smell the beginnings of a story already. As Kyle matched his heading and speed to the lead transport, another question popped into his head. "Anyone notice the recon pods that were watching us during the fight?"

A new voice crackled across the comm circuit, coming from one of the three surviving SC Veritechs. "Yeah, Knight One. When we first picked up the ambush, the recon groups were traveling with the tris. Once they got close enough to engage us, though, they remained back at a safe distance." The pilot sounded a touch worried. "I fought during the Uprisings, and I've never seen Zens do that before... the aliens always attack with everything they have."

A small voice in Kyle's head whispered that the mysterious enemy recon pods were going to end up being much more important than any experimental technology Lazlo Zand had come up with.

* * * *

An hour later, Armor Thirteen appeared on Kyle's target displays. A year ago, the space platform had belonged to the RDF, but pressure by the United Earth Government eventually forced Admiral Hayes to hand over one of the RDF ships to the Southern Cross. Given the recent political rise of the Southern Cross in Earth politics, the UEG felt Leonard should have at least a minor presence among the orbiting forces. Armor Thirteen, just off the Factory Satellite assembly lines at the time, was one of five new ARMD class space platforms built since the end of the Zentraedi War. Though it looked nearly identical to a pre-war Armor Platform, its propulsion and armament made it nearly a match for a Zentraedi Tou Radir class scout ship.

Kyle watched the distant dot of the Armor grow in front of him with a touch of anxiety. Every time he dealt with the Army of the Southern Cross, it turned out badly. After losing Vala and his RDF career, he couldn't think of the SC without being engulfed in anger. Though the emotions faded with time and enough alcohol, they still remained.

This time, though, it was thoughts of Vala that brought anger. For the first time, Kyle realized that perhaps he had been using the Southern Cross as a convenient scapegoat. They didn't force him to disobey orders... he did that all on his own. Perhaps he was placing the blame in the wrong places. He already blamed himself, but if Vala had really loved him, she would have stood by him rather than trying to kill him; her alien blood just kept getting in the way. Perhaps it was time to give the Southern Cross a chance.

Kyle listened in on the communication chatter between the lead transport and Armor 13 as they got closer. Everything was going smoothly until the convoy was about twenty kilometers away from the Platform. With a flash of light, a Tou Radir scout appeared. Though it was the smallest class of Zentraedi capital ship, the Zen Scout was slightly larger than the Armor Platform. It was only a dozen kilometers from Kyle and Tango flight, and already Kyle could see a flood of pods appearing on his radar.

Suddenly, an unmistakable face appeared on his cockpit console. "This is General Leonard... the transports are here, but enemy forces will reach them before they can make it to the landing bays. Flight Tango, we are launching fighters to deal with the enemy. Tango Escort, Knight One, guard the shuttles... let Ghost Squadron deal with the aliens!" The heavyset face then disappeared as a full squadron of twenty Veritechs jumped out of the launching bays of the ARMD.

The next several minutes were tense, if uneventful. Kyle made sure his speed was matched to the transports as they went to full throttle, and then kept his eye on the radar and flight computer. The battlepods behind Kyle gained on the transport convoy rapidly, but Kyle watched as the Ghosts flicked past, their afterburners then lighting up the night behind him. Less than a minute later, Kyle noticed the first missile launches, and the stars paled behind a wall of explosions nearly a kilometer across.

With little to do other than keep his position in the convoy formation, Kyle kept most of his focus on the battle behind him. The Ghosts were obviously far better than the Zentraedi pods, but the enemy had a three to one advantage in numbers. Despite that, in the first few minutes of the battle seventeen pods went into oblivion, nearly a third of the enemy squadron compared to only two of Ghost's Valkyries. Once again, Kyle noticed two small groups of battlepods guarding recon pods a ways back from the main combat forces.

Kyle was beginning think that his part in the situation would be nice and calm, but suddenly his flight computer flashed a warning.

With a flick of a couple of controls, Kyle found out that several pods had broken through the line of Ghost fighters and were racing towards Tango Convoy. All three of the remaining Tango Escorts spun around and accelerated towards the approaching ships. Kyle almost joined them, but something held him back. I'm a reporter, blast it! Not a bloody RDF or Southern Cross military pilot. Anyway, if any of those pods gets past the Tango Valks, they'll need someone here.

Kyle dropped back almost a kilometer behind the shuttles and then again matched speeds. Once again he waited, adrenaline pumping in his blood and his eyes glued to the cockpit screens.

The three Tango escorts managed to hold off the dozen or so pods for two minutes before going to oblivion. With the shuttles now less than five kilometers from the Platform, another well-known face appeared on his displays. "Knight One, you have several bogies incoming. I'm on my way!" The silver metal that covered half of T. R. Edwards' face glinted with a reflection of sunlight before the comm window closed. As Kyle spun his ship around, he noted that five Veritechs, including Ghost Leader, were hot on the tail of the nearby pods, but they were not going to reach him before the enemy ships.

Kyle picked the closest pod and immediately fired off his last two missiles. He then flipped to Guardian mode, spinning around to face the incoming enemy battlepods but throwing the legs of his Veritech forward, so he was still velocity-matched to the shuttles. He then waited for the distance to close. As the first few pods came into range, Kyle kept his finger twitching on the gunpod trigger, firing a spray of bullets towards each pod as it came within range... there was no way he could hold off the incoming pods, but if he could get the first few to evade, the much faster Ghost Veritechs would be within range to start picking off the rest.

The first two pods jerked to the side after a couple of near misses, but the third decided to try his luck at a head-on pass. Though Kyle took a minor hit to his Valkyrie's right intake and fired off the last of his GU-11 ammo, the Regult pod disintegrated when three gunpod slugs punched through the center of its cockpit. Then Ghost rockets were landing among the enemy pods, and within twenty seconds none remained.

Suddenly the Zentraedi Scout Ship folded away in a blaze of red light, leaving behind the couple of pods still engaged with the main force of Ghost Squadron. The two recon pod groups were also gone... either they were destroyed in the battle or they made it back to the Zen Scout before it left.

The half-metal face of Ghost Leader once again appeared on his display. "Nice work, Knight One!" Edward's single visible eye seemed to delve into Kyle, even through the cockpit screens. "I've heard of you, Bartley. Those fools in the RDF made a grave error with regards to you. You could be of use to humanity by working with us in the Southern Cross. Bring the transports in to Armor-13, and then land there yourself. We need to talk." The comm window blanked, leaving Kyle to his thoughts as he toggled back to Fighter mode and accelerated towards the Armor Platform. With his much faster VF-1A, Kyle had nearly caught up with the Tango shuttles when they moved into a single-file formation and entered the landing bay tunnel, one by one.

As Kyle lifted the cockpit canopy, he watched Ghost Squadron land around him. By the time he climbed down on to the hanger floor, the lanky, blond-haired form of T. R. Edwards was waiting for him at the bottom of the ladder.

"You did good, Bartley. You kept the aliens busy just long enough for us to get to them." Again, Kyle had the feeling that Edward's single eye bored inside him, digging for any secrets he held to himself. Edwards, perhaps aware of his effect on Kyle, turned away with a flip of his blond hair, though he continued to speak. "You're good in a fight. We need people like you." The metal-cowled face turned back towards Kyle. "Yes... you could be very useful."

"Commander Edwards... Pilot Bartley... report to the bridge for debriefing."

Edwards looked up as the announcement blared over the hanger bay speakers, then looked back at Kyle, a smirk on his face. "We shouldn't keep the General waiting... after you, Mr. Bartley." Edwards gestured towards the elevator, so Kyle nodded and headed towards the steps to the raised platform where the exits from the hanger bay resided.

As he reached the top of the platform, Kyle turned and fired a question at Edwards. "What do you think of the renewed fighting between human and alien forces, Commander?"

Edwards looked up at Kyle, answering as he climbed the steps. "Its like anything in life, Mr. Bartley. You fight when there's a reason for it." He crossed the platform, and touched a control next to the elevator doors. Turning back to Kyle, he continued. "You do what you can to survive and prosper."

The lift arrived, and the two pilots entered. As the elevator climbed toward the bridge of Armor 13, Kyle silently pondered Edwards and his comments. Though his words were reasonable and perfectly politic, something about Edward's expression made Kyle feel that something far more complex was going on beneath the surface of that half-shrouded face. Despite his reporter's instinct to continue grilling his subject, Edwards made Kyle uncomfortable enough that he kept his mouth shut as they waited for the elevator to arrive.

The lift doors opened to reveal the bridge of Armor 13. Though it had the same basic layout as all the RDF ships, this bridge had obviously been personalized by the Southern Cross. The stylized lion and shield of the SC was splashed everywhere, replacing the much simpler flying kite of the RDF, and most of the bridge stations had been shuffled around to different locations, though the captain's chair was in its usual position. As the lift doors closed behind, that chair swiveled around to face them, revealing the large frame of General Anatole Leonard.

Leonard stood and walked towards Kyle, his hands clasped behind his wide but muscled body. "You were a lot of help today, Bartley." He gave Kyle a thorough inspection, starting at his feet and stopping once he was looking into Kyle's eyes. "We can use someone like you here. The RDF was stupid to discharge you just for doing your job."

"Thank you, sir... I think." Something about this situation made Kyle nervous. After years of distrusting the Southern Cross, here he was at the heart of it. He wasn't entirely prepared to take anything at face value. "I'd like to help the war effort any way I can, but my primary duty is to report on what's happening up here for my editor and Earth's population. I'm not here to take sides between the RDF and Southern Cross."

A faint expression of annoyance flitted across Leonard's face before it smoothed back to calm friendliness. "Of course not, Mr. Bartley. All I meant was that its good to find people who are dedicated to their duty, whatever that may be. We are all up here to do what's best for humanity." He gestured towards one of the control stations at the back of the bridge. "You might find this interesting, Mr. Bartley."

Kyle followed Leonard and Edwards to the duty station. What he found there was a video displaying on a screen, apparently recorded near Saturn since the massive ringed planet floated in the background. The video began with several explosions of blue light which resolved into Zentraedi ships. Over the next twenty seconds of video a dozen ships folded in, including a Zentraedi flag ship, the most massive of the Zen capital ships. A brief flash of light from a laser turret on one of the closer ships ended the recording, though Kyle caught glimpses of more folds in progress before the video turned to static.

"This was taken two days ago by a satellite out at Saturn. I assume the RDF already showed you this...?" Leonard looked towards Kyle questioningly.

"Actually, they didn't. They were a little busy when I was aboard the SDF-3. Can MBS have a copy of this tape, General?"

Leonard smiled magnanimously, and gestured to a nearby bridge technician. "I already had one prepared for you, Mr. Bartley. I wanted to make sure that you, and MBS of course, got a copy of this... in case Hunter decided to keep this to himself."

Holding the tape handed to him by the bridge officer, Kyle nodded in appreciation. "Thank you, General. MBS will be very glad to get this."

"The aliens are our enemy, Mr. Bartley, and they must be eliminated!" Leonard gestured emphatically, and Kyle's first instinct was to defend the Zentraedi and RDF. However, his anger towards Vala, his realization that the impulse was due to feelings he had for an alien woman who thought he was trash kept his mouth shut. "To that end, we've had Dr. Zand work on enhancing our weapons technology. If you would be willing to help us out a bit... perhaps by escorting a few more shuttle convoys for us... I might be willing to give you access to the fruits of his labors. In the meantime, feel free to use our supply shop, and think about what I've said here, Mr. Bartley. Carry on."

It was obvious the interview was over, so Kyle turned around and called the lift back, leaving Edwards and Leonard in a private conversation. Once down in the hanger bay again, he went to the supply shop and picked up a fresh batch of twelve range extended Rapier missiles and replenished his depleted gunpod ammo. The Southern Cross had given him a good rate for his unexpected escort services, so Kyle also bought some extra protoculture fuel. Though the Veritech could theoretically hold enough protoculture to run for years, in actuality the cost and rationing of the complex fuel meant that nobody ever came close to a full tank. Kyle was happy to note that the damage to his wing and intake were being patched for free.

He took the time to schedule another SC escort mission... it couldn't hurt to keep in the good graces of the Army of the Southern Cross. It was launching in less than an hour, heading for an Earth-bound base near Monument City.

Nearly an hour later, Kyle once again launched into the void, escorting a convoy of three Southern Cross shuttles and looking to find his next story about this new war against the alien Zentraedi.

Chapter 3 - The Minmei Attack

"That the RDF has not used the Minmei tactic against this threat proves that they are incapable of making the decisions necessary to ensure the survival of the human race.  We have a weapon guaranteed to stop these invaders in their tracks,and yet the RDF Command is too involved in wedding plans to use it."

"The losses in this battle were completely unacceptable... the RDF should have been more prepared.  Their reliance on the Minmei Attack was a tragic mistake that cost the human race over eight thousand lives."

Excerpted from speeches made by United Earth Government Senator Joseph Reymond before and after the Minmei Disaster.

- Asoya Hiroshi, Hypocritical History

"Admiral Hayes! I demand to know why you have not used the Minmei attack yet! We've lost one of our Armor Platforms, for God's sake! We can't just sit here and let the aliens slaughter us!"

Lisa forced herself to take a silent breath, shoving the black thoughts she was feeling to the background of her mind... again.

"Senator... so far the enemy has been using hit-and-run tactics against us. They fold a single ship in, hit whatever is near, and then fold back out. If we use the song attack on one of these small and quick attacks, we may be giving away our most important weapon. Once the enemy knows we have a way of disrupting their pilots, they might come up with a way of blocking us."

"I wouldn't call the destruction of one of our Platforms a small and quick attack, Admiral!" The Senator's multiple chins jiggled emphatically. "You must act to stop them now! The people of Earth are getting rather worried over your handling of this situation."

Lisa stared at the irritating man on the console in front of her, once again taking a few slow breaths. "This 'situation,' as you call it, Senator, is known as war. In war, things are rarely simple or easy. The destruction of Armor 3 proves that the enemy is increasing the scale of their attacks. We're expecting a major attack soon, and we have a plan in place to deal with it, using the music attack.

"Now, Senator, I really must get back to my command. Good day." Lisa glanced at the male tech standing at the communications board, and he cut off the signal. She slumped back into her chair, giving in to a moment of exasperation, before sitting up straight and getting back to work. She once again looked to the communications tech. "Get me the Situation Room."

A moment later, her fiancée appeared on the console, in the blank space just vacated by the signal from the U.E.G.

"What's up, Admiral?" the Vice-Admiral's face said.

Lisa raised an eyebrow. "Is that all I am to you?" A faint smile ghosted across her lips. "The Admiral?"

Rick smiled. "I didn't see you complaining a few evenings ago... I know when to follow orders!" Lisa felt herself begin to blush. She heard a few snickers around her, but all the techs were industriously busy as she glanced around the Bridge. Lisa brought a small smile to her face to mirror the one on Rick's... she could tell he knew he would be punished for the comment later, but that, of course, was part of the game.

"What's the latest news, Rick?"

He sighed, and smoothed his face back to seriousness. "Several more Zentraedi Cruisers have folded into Earth orbit. We still don't know anything about where they're coming from, or how many more 'guests' we can expect."

She already knew about the destroyers, of course. Rick had informed her the instant they had detected the folds into Earth orbit, ten minutes before. "Anything we can use?"

The ghost of a smile remaining on Rick's face vanished... for several days, they had been waiting for an opportunity to use their plan. "No... its two separate ships... a Zen Scout, and a Destroyer. Armor 12 is dealing with the scout... the destroyer folded in near a supply convoy heading to Armor 7. The convoy is taking heavy losses... I don't think the squad of Veritechs I sent will get there in time. The Bou-Suketh is working out the fold coordinates of the destroyer. In about ten minutes, they should be ready to intercept it, but the convoy will be mostly destroyed by then."

"So much for our vacation. It seems like every time I plan to spend some time with you, something gets in the way!" It was a small attempt at levity, a ploy to force the grim look off Rick's face. She could tell that he knew what she was doing... the smile that appeared on his face was every bit as forced as the comment that had prompted it. Lisa abruptly noticed how strained he looked, hidden underneith the calm expression where only she, as his lover, could read it. "It's not your fault, Rick."

Even through the small video screen, she could see the frustration and guilt left behind when the forced expression crumbled. She knew he wanted to be out flying with that rescue squadron rather than being responsible for all their lives. He looked back at her for a moment before speaking again, changing the subject to another unpleasant topic. "Lisa... we may need to postpone our wedding. I hate to do it, but defending Earth comes first."

She had already figured out that their wedding plans were going to be a victim of this war, but hearing it from Rick was still painful. "I know. We'll talk about it later... if we can find the time. Keep me posted on those two ships. Hayes... out."

* * * *

For the first time in three days, Kyle once again had the SDF-3 in front of him. Though it was still nearly a hundred and fifty kilometers away, the sun lit the nearest side, making it shine like a bright star.

He felt nervous.

He knew intellectually that there was little chance that he would run in to Vala while he was on board... the ship was huge, and she spent most of her time in the War Room. It didn't change the anxiety he felt knowing he would soon be near her.

Ten minutes later, as the SDF-3 grew larger in the view out his cockpit, he heard her voice. "All local craft, prepare for incoming spacefold. Orbital coordinates are being transmitted now. Five minutes until fold."

Kyle glanced down at the cockpit monitors, noticing as the fold coords popped up on his radar. Wow... whatever is folding in is BIG. Given the size of the space they are clearing of traffic, it's at least as big as the SDF itself. His convoy was completely clear, though, so no course corrections were needed.

Minutes later, Kyle's thoughts were justified... a three kilometer long Zen cruiser folded in. In a flash of light and power, a Quiltra Queleual class Zentraedi cruiser appeared 23 kilometers away from his convoy. It was painted in stripes of color, marking it as the Zaketech-Quo, one of two Zen Landing Cruisers the RDF owned. Even as Kyle narrated over the footage his turret camera was filming, his reporter memory filled in more details... its captain was a sixty foot tall former Quodrono named Rodila Nifi.

"Knight-1, this is SDF-3 Flight Control... you are cleared to land in Upper Bay 2." Kyle was surprised to discover he was mildly disappointed that the voice was not Vala's. She must be handling the traffic around the fold. Then he had no time for further consideration of the feeling, as he had to concentrate on flying through the hanger bay tunnel and landing his Valkyrie.

An hour later, Kyle was finally finished settling his Veritech. By the time he was ready to launch in eight hours or so, it would have a full load of mini-cluster missiles and a new speed booster that would increase his maximum throttle by ten percent. For now, however, he just wanted to get some sleep.

He headed up to Quarters Deck Three, where the flight coordinator told him he could find a bed for a few hours. Most of the RDF pilots stationed on the SDF-3 slept in shifts... with much of the SDF interiors still under construction, there weren't enough sleeping quarters for the pilots and SDF crew. Kyle headed forward from the lift, and then turned down a second corridor, following the tech's instructions towards the block of rooms reserved for temporary pilots.

A door further down the hallway slid open, an RDF uniform topped with purple hair appearing in its wake. Uh oh.... The head turned, the neutral expression on the crewmember's face turning to anger. Over three thousand people on a ship the size of a small city, and I end up in the hallway outside Vala's quarters! Kyle's steps slowed to a stop, incapable of moving him closer.

Vala glared at him a moment longer, and then spun around to stomp away. As Kyle watched her retreating back, he suddenly found his legs moving, chasing after. As she spun around to face him, he skidded to a stop again. He could feel the tension filling the two feet between them.

"Vala...."

"How dare you! After all you have done, all the death you have caused my people, you have no right to be here! Go crawl into a bottle somewhere and stay away from those who still have a shred of honor! You dirty me." With that she once again spun around and began to stalk off.

Her words tore through him... he felt the familiar guilt and pain begin to drag him down into despair once again. He wanted to crawl into a corner and hide. He wanted a drink.

Not this time. This time, he exploded.

"You think I wanted that to happen?! Do you really think I wanted to have the lives of several hundred civilians on my conscience?" His voice echoed down the corridor, halting Vala in her tracks. She didn't turn around, but he had her attention. "I was naïve and made a mistake, Vala! But I was long gone when they started shelling the village... if I had known that was their target, do you really think I would have come to their aid?" Do you really think I would have risked losing you?

Kyle realized he had almost said the last thought aloud... he forced himself to calm down. "But that doesn't matter, does it? You say this is about what I did to your people, to your honor, but that isn't really true.... the truth is that I hurt you, didn't I? For the first time in your life, you felt real pain... human pain. And like a human, it scared you... you ran away from the pain by blaming it all on me, by embodying all the horrors the Southern Cross committed that day in me."

Vala's shoulders were hunched... he could sense in the building tension clinching her back that she wouldn't take much more. Kyle continued anyway. "Pain is a part of life, Vala... it's the price we pay for having emotions." He then dealt the final blow, the words he knew would get a reaction from her. "If all you do is run away from being hurt, then you really are nothing but a genetically engineered machine."

It definitely got a reaction, but he was already walking past her. He could hear her yelling after him, her voice spitting out obscure Zentraedi epitaphs that he couldn't possibly translate. As the words continued to bounce off his back, Kyle gave in to a small smile. I must have hit a nerve... score one, finally, for Kyle Bartley!

* * * *

He was fast asleep when the alarms went off. With a groan, Kyle rolled over, trying to wake up enough to listen to the ship-wide announcements.

Vala's voice appeared again, sounding flat over the room's intercom speakers. "Spacefold will commence in ten minutes. Skull and Charger squadrons scramble. Jaguar Squadron is on stand-by."

Kyle felt a burst of adrenaline surge through him, forcing him fully awake. A fold? But the SDF doesn't have any fold engines yet... the Zen cruiser! Kyle was out of bed, in his flight suit, and pounding down the corridor before the announcement repeated.

* * * *

"Sir! He has no business here! He can't be trusted!"

Vice-Admiral Hunter glared at Vala until she subsided. "Lieutenant, you will follow my orders." Vala paled, and then nodded.

Rick lowered his voice, so that only Vala would hear. "This could be the most important battle of this war... the U.E.G. has been pressuring us to use this tactic, and we need an objective recording of it for them and Earth's population. I understand your feelings about him, but he's an MBS reporter, and he even happens to be on board at the moment. We need him."

Vala looked unconvinced, but she turned back to her console.

Rick turned back to the forward views, all showing a broadcast image of a three kilometer long Zentraedi Command ship, at the center of a fleet of three Zentraedi Destroyers and half a dozen Scouts. They had folded in five minutes ago, about two hundred kilometers from the Factory Satellite... the massive orbiting spaceyard was already exchanging fire with them.

Rick felt a chill. Here we go....

* * * *

"Kyle Bartley, report to the Situation Room immediately." Kyle could hear the disgust in Vala's voice, even over the intercom.

As he redirected the elevator car towards the War Room, he tried to still the irritation he felt over the summons. The biggest battle in the war yet, and I'm heading in the wrong direction to watch it first hand!

The doors opened, showing the massive expanse of the Situation Room Command Balcony. Kyle stepped over the threshold, and found himself face-to-face with a glaring Vala.

"Ah, Mr. Bartley." The words came from the command chair, which turned to show Vice-Admiral Hunter. "The RDF has official need of your services." Kyle walked around Vala to face the RDF leader. "We are about to attempt the so-called 'Minmei' attack. We need you to cover the battle from here. One condition, though... your report will be recorded, not live. The enemy is most certainly scanning the Earth public transmissions." The diminutive form of Exedor, the now famous Zentraedi scholor, stood beside his chair.

Kyle smiled, and pulled his mini-cam out of his bag... as an MBS reporter, he realized this was the place to see the battle from. He attached the camera to the cloth patch on his left shoulder, and clipped the viewer over his eye.

"This is MBS correspondent Kyle Bartley aboard the SDF-3, where an important battle is about to begin." He heard Vala counting down the fold timing behind him as he panned the camera across the tech stations surrounding the massive situation board on the floor below the balcony. "In less than two minutes, the Zaketech-Quo will execute a spacefold, carrying the SDF-3 and the RDF command staff with it. Once we arrive near the enemy fleet, the RDF will begin a music attack to confuse the enemy... the now famous 'Minmei' attack."

Kyle then pointed the camera at Rick Hunter, a perfect shot showing an industrious military leader. Kyle spoke with an extra note of optimism... "This battle could be the first step to ending this conflict." He thought the words fit the video image perfectly.

Vala announced the one-minute warning. One by one, the main participants in the fleet called in their ready status. The center main viewscreen held a forward view of empty space, but the side screens displayed images from RDF recon shuttles, showing the Landing Cruiser and the slightly smaller and leaner SDF-3 floating beside it. He panned the mini-cam across the balcony consoles, filming other views of the fleet, as well as the more personal touch of the technicians efficiently at work. He closed with a shot of the Vice-Admiral talking to the bridge. He wasn't close enough to record the conversation, but it the face of Admiral Hayes on Hunter's console as Vala's countdown reached zero.

Here we go! Kyle felt his pulse speed up in anxiety. Across all the monitors, a ball of blue light expanded outward. For less than a second, the many viewscreens in the room flashed from blue to yellow as the spinning glow passed the fleet cameras. Then the fleet was encased in a yellow shell, twisting and pulsing with violent energy. An instant impression of huge speed... a disquieting feeling of separation, of being split in two, and then the massive energy field collapsed, revealing stars once again.

For a brief moment, there was silence. Then Hunter's voice rang out across the huge room. "Status?"

"SDF-3 systems nominal."
"Skull Squadron... still here."
"Zaketech-Quo systems nominal, fold engines nominal."
"Epsilon Flight okay."
"Reflex reactors on-line and ready for action."

The balcony was a flurry of action as the fleet checked in. As the reports tapered off, the Vice-Admiral spoke up. "The most important questions first... where are we?"

"Still near Earth, sir." Kyle noticed that several of the balcony consoles showed views of the familiar planet. "Factory Satellite found, 75 kilometers behind us. We made it, sir!"

"Good. Next important question... where's the enemy?"

A number of viewscreens shifted and flickered, then zoomed in on three distant Thuveral-Salon destroyers, surrounding a Command Cruiser. "64 kilometers, dead ahead, sir. The nearest pods are 23 klicks... about four minutes... away. There's a solid mass of more than a thousand pods reaching all the way back to the fleet."

Kyle's camera was glued on Hunter.

"Bring the transmitters on-line. Execute Minmei Attack." Rick, having known Minmei for years, had no doubt that she was appalled that her name graced the title of a combat tactic. "We Will Win" poured out over the Situation Room speakers before the tech in charge muted the volume. Kyle recorded a slight blink as Exedore reacted to the now familiar music.

There was a pause... the enemy ships seemed to stop their attack. For a brief moment, there was the beginnings of relief as the Minmei attack worked as it always had in the past. Kyle swept the mini-cam over the room, recording the tense postures of Hunter and Exedore, focusing once again on the massive viewscreens in front and the views they showed of the enemy capital ships.

Then both the enemy destroyers opened fire on the Bou-Rajegeth. The lightening bolt painted down the side of the RDF Thuveral Salan blackened, half a dozen small explosions appearing near the center of the ship. Within seconds, the massive hull detonated, spewing nearly three thousand Human and Zentraedi lives into space.

For two more seconds, silence reigned on the War Room balcony. Then Exedore's dispassionate voice said "You know what you must do now, Vice-Admiral."

Hunter turned to the misshapen Zentraedi scientist. "You're not surprised, are you... you expected the music to fail."

Exedore, his eyes still glued to the massive screens at the front of the War Room, calmly replied. "You humans sometimes tend to rely on the same tactics... your attitude, if I might paraphrase, is 'why fix it if it is not broken?'" He then turned to look at Hunter. "It was only a matter of time until some Zentraedi somewhere became immune to its effects. We saw hints of this during the Uprisings, though that was with T'sentraedi that had previous experience with human emotions."

Rick nodded as Exedore continued. "Of course, you were prepared for this as well... you brought enough firepower to handle the enemy if the music did not work."

"Yes, I did. I hoped it wouldn't...." He was interrupted by a call from one of the techs at the front of the command balcony.

"Multiple spacefold detected!" The leftmost of the forward viewscreens suddenly changed, showing the last instants of a fold that left behind a second enemy Thuveral-Salan Destroyer. The rightmost then flipped over to a massive Queadol Magdomilla cruiser and two escorting Tou-Radir scout ships, each the size of an RDF Armor Platform... there were now two of deadly Command ships facing them.

Kyle recorded Vice-Admiral Hunter mumble "oh hell..." as the tension level around him jumped. He glanced over his shoulder at Vala, who locked eyes with him briefly. In that glance he sensed a connection between them... faint and tenuous, but existing anyway. He could read the grim reality of their situation in her eyes. At that moment, they both knew what his next words would be. He knew that it didn't break any of the walls between them, but just knowing that they could still communicate so much between each other with a look meant there were a few chips in the mortar.

Ignoring the military decorum around him, Kyle spoke up. "Let me get out there, Admiral! My MBS story will be meaningless unless we win this battle! I can't do any good standing here, but I can be useful out there!"

The Vice-Admiral then half turned his head, glancing at the tense young man standing at the back of the command balcony. Rick nodded... Kyle was already racing towards the lift door before he turned his head back forward.

* * * *

Vala's eyes followed Kyle off the command balcony. He probably just wants to get some good footage of the destruction before running back to Earth. Even to herself, though, the thought tasted sour. Despite her emotionless Zentraedi heritage, she had seen both the fear and the determination in his face, his posture.

"Lieutenant Norri!"

She turned with a start, suddenly aware that it was the second time she had been called. "I'm sorry, sir!"

Vice-Admiral Hunter gazed at her in stony silence for a second before responding. Only for a second, though... Rick was keenly aware of Vala's Zentraedi heritage, as well as her innate intelligence. He saw in her eyes the confusion and guilt she felt, as well as in her posture the fact that she knew it was secondary right now. To a Zentraedi, the battle always took priority... a product of the genetic design the Robotech Masters gave the warrior race. Only the confusion of complex human emotions could have distracted a Zentraedi (or human) as intelligent and experienced as Vala, even that much.

He glanced around the command balcony, noting that everyone was focused on him. It was a disconcerting moment for Rick... it was the first time an entire fleet, even a small one, depended on him. Lisa was on the bridge, captain of her ship and head of the RDF, but the tactical decisions, like the Situation Room he stood in, were all his.

"Launch the rest of the Valkyrie squads." He then turned to Vala, and spoke the words that both excited and frightened him. "Call Professor Lang in Engineering. Tell him to start charging the main gun."

* * * *

Kyle jumped into his cockpit, the canopy closing over him even before he finished strapping in. His could feel the effects of the adrenaline pumping through his system... he knew the SDF fleet was in trouble. He belatedly recalled the active mini-cam on his shoulder. He pulled it off the velcro strip, but then realized he had left its carrying case in the Situation Room when he ran out. With a small smile of chagrin, he dropped the little camera into a compartment behind his seat.

He had to wait a minute or two for Jaguar Squadron to launch... as an independant pilot, he had lower priority than the RDF wings. It was somehow comforting to hear Vala's voice calmly directing the launching over the communications. Despite all the anger and cultural differences between them, he was glad that she was near. Though he ignored the feeling, he knew that part of the reason he was in the cockpit of this MBS Veritech right now was to protect her, as silly as that was for a woman who could still probably outfly him in space combat.

At least he was now in a cockpit, involved in the battle rather than just recording it. Finally, his Veritech was pulled into position at the edge of the launch tunnel. The voice he had been waiting for appeared over the com chatter, directed at him this time.

"Knight One... prepare to launch." There was a pause, and then the voice appeared again, in a quiet tone totally devoid of emotion. "Be careful." The whisper echoed like thunder through Kyle's mind as the acceleration of the catapult robbed him of his ability to reply. With a bone-jarring thrust, he was flung through the launch tunnel and into a battle more massive than any he had ever flown.

* * * *

"Lisa, I know that!" Rick could hear the exasperation in his voice. He took a breath, looking at his fiancé's face on the console while forcing himself to calm down. "Please tell me you have a better idea... I'd love to have some options right now."

Lisa's face flickered briefly with a resigned smile. "I wish I could think of something, but unfortunately you're right. We don't have a choice."

"Now I know why I agreed to marry you. You're as insane as I am." Rick noticed Vala motioning to him with a hand gesture. "Hold on, Lisa... I'm having Lang patched in."

The enigmatic pupil-less gaze of Professor Emil Lang appeared in a second window on the console. "Ah... Admirals... the Main Gun is charging. Assuming no problems, it will be ready to fire in four and a half minutes." The heavily accented voice paused, then spoke again. "I should mention that to get this to work, we had to do some hasty patchwork of the reflex power connections over the past few days. This weapon has not been fired since it was re-built from the damaged parts of the SDF-1. It may not work at all."

Rick glanced back to Lisa's image... he could read the determination there, as well as a mirror of his own fear buried underneath... he was surprised he could see it, since he knew that to anybody who did not know Lisa like he did, it would be invisible. He turned back to Lang.

"It has to work. Keep me posted, Professor. Hunter, out." Lang's face disappeared, but Rick's eyes were on Lisa. She looked back, a short moment of communion between them before the worst of the storm hit. Her image disappeared, and he got back to work, taking strength from that shared glance.

Had Vala been watching Rick Hunter at that moment, she would have been startled to notice the similarity between the look on Rick's face at that moment and the look on Kyle's face minutes before.

* * * *

Ten kilometers ahead, explosions blossomed. Skull and Charger Squadrons had met the first line of enemy pods. Kyle kept the turret camera aimed at the distant battle automatically... his thoughts were scattered across a battlefield of ideas, all warring for his attention. Fear, calculation, duty... Vala....

Ahead, space was a light show of explosions and death. Pods and Veritechs clashed in a sea of missile trails, laser bolts, and gunpod tracers. Kyle brought up the cluster missile targeting program, letting it automatically assign the closest dozen enemy ships to the four missile racks slung underneath his wings. At five kilometers, the closest enemy pod locked in to one of the tiny missile processors. By the time he was three and a half klicks from the closest, all the missiles were locked and ready... a single pull of the stick trigger fired three cluster missiles from each launcher. A dozen smoke trails swirled away.

An explosion flashed in the near distance, then another. As he started the missile lock program for the next dozen, more detonations lit up across the sky like flashbulbs. In the view beyond, a sea of pods waited.

* * * *

"Sir! We just lost Captain Solory! Lieutenant Bilfort is trying to round up the rest of Charger Squadron, but half the squad is gone!"

Rick closed his eyes for a moment... he remembered Anton Solory from the Macross, a dedicated pilot who had flown with Roy Fokker in the Global Civil War. He had been in charge of the Chargers since before the Malcontent Uprisings. And half his squad as well... damn.

Behind him, Vala opened a small side window on her console. She felt angry... people are dying, and he just goes out to film it. She held on to that anger... it gave her the subconscious excuse she needed to keep a watch over that lone MBS Veritech.

* * * *

Rick Hunter's voice echoed out across all the RDF squadron frequencies. "All Veritechs, we will attempt to fire the main cannon in three minutes. Be prepared to move out of the firing path on my signal."

Kyle fired another dozen cluster missiles in to the void, only then glancing down to the console to find the shot path that the computer just downloaded. He was almost in the thick of the battle... he flicked the missiles back to single shot, and then transformed to Guardian for close-in gunpod combat. He could recall the turmoil his mind had been in just minutes before, but now he felt... focused. A thousand pods stretched for fifty kilometers in front of him, with several massive cruisers sitting at the other end, and yet right now he was completely calm.

He set his targeting computer to automatically load the closest enemy pod when his current target was destroyed... with the number of pods out there, he would have no time to carefully choose targets. The computer automatically picked one of several battlepods that had gotten past the Veritech squads, a little over a kilometer away. Kyle pitched forward a touch, bringing the targeting locater on his HUD into line with the gunsights. The distance was dropping quickly. Kyle dropped the sight a little more, and pulled the trigger.

He could feel the slugs fire from the GU-11 gunpod held in his Guardian's right hand. Every tenth one, about two a second, lit up the void as a tracer. The distance dropped to 0.5 Km, then 0.4... Kyle could see the distant pod, now just a spec, but growing rapidly. He continued to hold down the gunpod trigger, knowing that the GU-11 would overheat in just a few seconds more.

Suddenly, laser blasts flashed out of the emptiness in front of him. Above and below, the bolts of compacted energy flew past him. Then brightness and shaking... I'm hit! Again, the cockpit around him jerked. Oh hell. This is getting bad!

Then the battlepodpod, now easily visible in front of him, veered away trailing smoke. Kyle, his breathing heavy, pulled his finger from the trigger and swerved to the side, curving around to finish off the enemy ship. He automatically matched throttle, and pulled behind the damaged fighter, putting several more shots into its damaged thrusters.

His Valkyrie rocked from an impact. Kyle automatically jerked his control stick to the other side, going evasive. Blast! The other two pods are still out there! He dove down, flicking targeting controls, searching to find his attacker.

Another thud rocked the Veritech. Several indicators flashed on the console, and then he was thrown forward as the throttle booster he had just had installed burned out. He threw the legs of the Veritech forward, working with the sudden deceleration to change his direction of flight. Now accelerating backwards, he flipped over to missiles and locked them onto the enemy pulling in behind him, using his gunsight to aim the targeting software. A double-flick of the trigger, and he watched as two cluster missiles blasted out from under his wings. One went wide trying to track the quickly oncoming craft, but the other clipped a thruster leg and exploded, causing the pod to tumble and then explode.

Kyle hit the switch to Battloid, and began searching for the last Regult Battlepod. He ignored the red flashing lights on his console... he'd have time for that if he survived.

There! His targeting computer pulled up the pod, highlighting it on his HUD. He tried to get a missile lock, but it was evading too fast. He switched back to his GU-11, and sent a spray of depleted uranium slugs out ahead of oncoming Zentraedi fighter.

Then the pod dissolved into explosion... not from his guns, but from a missile trail that unexpectedly intersected it.

"Thought you could use some help, Knight One! I hope you don't mind some interference." The familiar face of Max Sterling was already on his cockpit display.

Kyle released a breath he hadn't even known he was holding. He rapidly checked his computer... several minor systems were damaged, though the Protoculture driven automatic repair systems were already at work. He had used nearly half of his gunpod ammo, however. He then turned to the comm.

"Thanks, Skull Leader! That was getting rough!"

Sterling replied from the console in front of Kyle. "We have less than a minute to get ourselves out the way of the cannon. Time to fly, Mr. Bartley!"

Kyle threw the throttle completely forward to rocket himself out of the shot path shown on his console computer. Without warning, his Veritech rocked from a small internal explosion and he was thrown forward as the engines shut down.

Several flashing banners appeared on his console. A control coupling near the destroyed throttle booster had burned through... his console reported that it would take the repair systems about a minute to fix, a minute he did not have.

With panic dancing at the back of him mind, Kyle saw that he didn't have enough momentum to get out of the way of the SDF-3 main cannon blast in the time left on the countdown.

* * * *

"Main cannon will fire in 30 seconds. All Veritechs, clear out NOW." The Vice-Admiral's voice once again echoed across the communication frequencies.

Vala voiced the countdown... "twenty-seven... twenty-six... twenty-five...." A part of her attention was focused on that tiny extra window on her workstation. His Veritech wasn't clear of the firing range yet.

"Fifteen...fourteen...thirteen..." What's wrong with him? MOVE!

"Five... four... three... two... one...."

Rick Hunter spoke the word, but the system was already on automatic. "Fire!"

Vala felt a sense of panic beyond anything she had felt before. He's still in the way! We can't fire yet! Damn you, Kyle... you can't do this to me!

Nothing happened. Rick glanced back at Vala, catching her eye. Within seconds, she was patching in Dr. Lang, her training luckily one step ahead of her swirling thoughts.

* * * *

Kyle heard Hunter's message with a flood of relief. "Short in the main cannon! We are attempting repairs now. Be careful out there!"

His repair systems signaled him... the throttle controls were partially fixed. The controls were a bit sluggish, but functional... he closed his eyes for a couple of seconds, trying to get his heart back into a normal rhythm. He then targeted the closest pod, heading off at the best speed possible.

* * * *

Vala felt a surge of relief, immediately followed by a flood of guilt... the main cannon had failed to fire, and they were in an even more desperate situation than before. Dr. Lang was trying to track the problem, and Vala could see the Vice-Admiral fidgeting in the command chair in front of her.

The board in front of her flashed... she called the Vice-Admiral, then fed the signal to Hunter's console, automatically splicing in the Bridge as she transferred the call.

"Ah... Admirals...." The enigmatic gaze of Professor Lang appeared on Rick's workstation, alongside the face of Lisa Hayes. "We think we have a short in the Reflex power transfer cables... we had to run some temporary lines to bypass the missing fold drives... one of them appears to not be working."

Vala watched from the periphery as Lisa's face on the console spoke up. "How long are we looking at, Emil? We don't have time to play around!"

"We should find the faulty line in a couple of minutes. I have the entire team testing connection pathways right now." Lang's pupil-less gaze stared at each of the RDF leader's faces in turn. "We are working as fast as we can." The feed from engineering vanished.

Vala heard Rick whisper "...good luck, Professor...." It disconcerted her a great deal.

* * * *

It was the most terrifying dogfight Kyle had ever been in. Explosions went off all around him. He would pump a couple of shots into a pod, and then get hit once or twice himself from another. No matter how many enemies the Veritechs around him destroyed, more were always coming. His automatic repair systems were falling behind with half a dozen important systems damaged, and it was only a matter of time before they did damage to something the repair systems couldn't fix. Of course, if one of the sporadic cannon blasts from the enemy capital ships hit him, it would be over with before he knew it. They plowed through the massive dogfight on their way towards the SDF-3 fleet and FactSat, annihilating friendly and enemy fighters alike.

His radar display was a mass of enemy blips. No matter where Kyle looked, there were ships and explosions, smoke trails and laser flashes. Two laser bolts flashed past his canopy... Kyle went into a sharp climb, forcing his thoughts back to the goal of immediate survival.

* * * *

"We've found the problem... unfortunately, it is in a section of the power connections that is not easy to access. We should have it repaired in two or three minutes." Lang's voice echoed back to Vala from the Vice-Admiral's console.

"Work fast, Professor! We don't have time to spare!" Hunter's words were punctuated by a shudder through War Room. Both Rick and Vala recognized the vibration... an enemy missile had got through the screen of Veritechs.

Lang glanced to the side, and then returned his attention forward. "We are lucky... the cannon is still charged. As soon as we have the connection repaired, we will be ready to fire."

Rick immediately got on the fleet comm channel. "Attention all ships! Repairs on the main cannon are underway. We will be ready to fire momentarily. Try to lead the enemy fighters into the path of the cannon!"

* * * *

Well, that shouldn't be a problem.... Given the number of pods within a couple of kilometers of his Veritech, Kyle was sure that getting the enemy in the killing zone would be easy. The real problem was getting himself out when the time came. Kyle was still wary of his throttle system.

His cockpit suddenly brightened... Kyle turned his head (and the turret mounted MBS camera) in time to watch the Zaketech-Quo break in half, laser turret fire from the distant enemy capital ships continuing to cut through the three kilometer long ship even as it came apart into several pieces. Though its captain was Zentraedi, the now blackened colors of its hull had contained a multi-species crew from both races, most now dead or dying.

Then laser shots were once again raining around his Valkyrie. He heard Max Sterling giving out commands to Skull squadron, but Kyle had no more time for consideration of anything but survival.

* * * *

The SDF-3 was shaking frequently now, as cannon blasts from the enemy fleet hit the ship. Though most were deflected by the pinpoint barrier shields run from stations on the Situation Room floor, they still imparted a sizable momentum. When a blast got through, however, the entire ship rang like an off-tune bell.

Rodila.... Vala could remember many battles with Rodila Nifi at her side... years of combat and comraderie in the Quodronos. She could remember the human ceremony when Rodila had been given command of the Zakatech-Quo... it was a proud moment for all the Quodronos. Vala could still taste the champagne, the first alcohol she ever sampled.

Over the decades, Vala had lost many companions... many Quodronos died in battle, and new clones would usually replace them. Like Miriya and Vala, however, Rodila was one of the old-timers... they had survived hundreds of years of combat together. Vala felt a hole in herself, an emptiness she knew she would never have understood a few years before.

Her board lit up... engineering was calling the Admirals. Vala forced her emotions away, and channeled the call to the command console.

The instant Dr. Lang's face appeared on Rick's monitor, he spoke up. "I hope you have good news, Emil."

"Indeed I do. The coupling is repaired. We will be ready to fire in less than a minute." As usual, Dr. Lang seemed calm and objective, despite the stress of the past few minutes.

* * * *

Once again, the Vice-Admiral personally spoke across the fleet frequencies. "Attention all ships! Repairs completed! Main cannon will fire in sixty seconds. Get out of the fire zone immediately!"

Kyle transformed to Fighter mode, going to max throttle. He could feel the engines stutter a bit as they channeled more thrust... the repair systems hadn't been able to fix everything. He waited until he had gained some momentum, and then toggled the afterburners. He was thrown backwards into his seat with a satisfying grunt, as the Valkyrie kicked into overdrive.

Several enemy pods flashed by, but Kyle was moving too fast for them to catch. He felt a thud, though, as a lucky shot grazed him. Kyle watched in horror as first one, then a second, and then a flood of warning messages scrolled across his cockpit computer screen. The afterburners shut off, followed less than a second later by the main engines, throwing Kyle forward against the cockpit restraints.

Oh God.... not again!

* * * *

Vala once again announced the countdown. "Thirty-seven... thirty-six...." Once again, she gave a part of her attention to that small extra window open on her console. Blast it! Can't he do anything right? Is he trying to get killed?!

"Twenty-three... twenty-two... twenty-one...."

The pirated telemetry from Knight-1 showed that he was still drifting. Vala was definitely getting pissed off at him for doing this to her, not only for putting himself at risk in a way she no longer could, but mainly because she knew, deep down, that he was doing it in part for her.

* * * *

Kyle wanted to pound on the cockpit in front of him in frustration, but he knew it would do no good. Instead, he kept his eyes focused on the repair displays. With some luck, he might get some thrust back before the time was up. He quickly re-ordered the repair priorities, putting everything except the throttle controls low on the list.

The seconds passed. He could hear Vala's voice, speaking numbers across the fleet comm frequency. It was probably just his imagination, but her voice sounded a bit ragged. He wondered what she would think if she knew she was counting down his death.

At sixteen seconds left, several of the warning banners on his console flickered. At fifteen seconds, the main engines kicked in, skewing the Veritech around as Kyle got control of his ship. He floored the throttle, but a glance told him he wouldn't be clear in time. With no choices left, he once again hit the afterburners. Then the countdown reached zero, and he didn't have time to hope that the repairs would hold.

* * * *

Vala heard her own voice finish the countdown, and then heard Hunter give the order to fire. Kyle was close, but he still wasn't clear.

With a sense of unreality, Vala watched the main viewscreen showing the energy crackling across the huge beams of the main cannon at the front of the ship. The room lit up... a massive bolt of reflex energy flung itself forward. Then, with a strange shudder, all the lights and gravity went out.

* * * *

Kyle squeezed his eyes shut as the universe filled with light. Then a massive fist hit him, and everything went black.

* * * *

Kyle woke up. At first, he just lay there, trying to grab the sleeping fragments of himself together. He felt like hell. He slowly opened his eyes... from the equipment hanging above, he was obviously in a hospital bed.

He slowly turned his head on the pillow. The view out his window at first confused him... it was on a scale far beyond any expectation. The window faced a massive, brightly lit organic-like cavity. In the foreground, the entire two and a half kilometers of the SDF-3 floated. As Kyle's brain woke up a bit more, he knew where he was... there was only one place in the Solar System for a view like the one out his window. He was looking out over the seven kilometer wide enclosed shipyard of the Factory Satellite. After more than two weeks of testing far more rigorous than planned, the SDF-3 had come home. Kyle tried to sit up to get a better look, but a sharp pain stabbed him in the chest, and he fell back onto the bed.

He tried to piece together his past... he remembered the throttle controls going live again, and the count reaching zero. Then nothing... until now.

A nurse came in, obviously pleased that he was awake. From her he learned that the SDF-3 had indeed fired for part of a second, but something blew out before the entire shot was completed. The blast was enough to destroy one enemy Command ship and one of the destroyers, however, and the remaining ships had folded back to Saturn. The RDF had won the battle.

Thirty-two technicians in Engineering had been killed, though, when a power coupling burned through and exploded. The nurse was thrilled to tell him that she had been charged with treating some mild burns on Doctor Lang himself. There were a number of other injuries from the following losses of power and gravity, but nothing serious.

On a more personal scale, Kyle had a couple of cracked ribs, a mild concussion, and some nasty bruises. He'd been unconscious for almost a day. He would be here another day or so, and wouldn't be able to fly for a week.

The nurse finished up, promising to return later. Kyle found the viewscreen remote and searched for news of the battle. MBS was talking about little else, and Kyle was surprised, and a bit irritated, to watch his own footage of the Zaketech-Quo breaking up. Hunter had kept his word... the RDF found all his combat footage and sent it to MBS. They had even found the shoulder mini-cam... over the course of the news stories he saw several scenes from his time in the Situation Room with the Vice-Admiral.

The damage from the battle had been major. The RDF had lost three capital ships, including the Zaketech-Quo, one of only two captured Zentraedi Quiltra Queleual class ships in the RDF fleet. Charger and Jaguar Squadrons had been decimated, and even the Skulls had taken half a dozen casualties. Nearly eight thousand humans and four and a half thousand allied Zentraedi had lost their lives during the battle.

The final important piece of news was that nearly six hundred enemy pods had been left behind by the enemy capital ships when they folded back to Saturn. A third had been killed in a furious clean-up battle, but the rest had scattered. Already, several RDF convoys had been attacked... Earth orbit was going to be a lot more dangerous now.

Later, Kyle saw movement at the hallway windows. He turned his head and saw Vala staring at him from the other side of the glass. Her expression was completely bland as she turned around and walked away.

* * * *

Three days later, Kyle was summoned aboard the SDF-3. He was at least out of bed by then, though if he moved to quickly, he would get a sharp shock of pain. He had spent the past day narrating his own version of the battle's events... according to a message from his editor at MBS, the reports had been very well received by the public. This morning he had even watched one of his own reports from the temporary quarters he had been assigned on the human scaled portion of the Factory Satellite.

As he flew over to the SDF-3 on one of the FactSat shuttle pods, Kyle wondered what he was being called for. Despite repeated questions about his Veritech, he still didn't know if it had survived. Perhaps the repair shop needed his authorization to begin repairs.

Once he checked in after landing, though, the ensign checking badges made a whispered call, and then handed Kyle a special pass. "Insert this into the elevator panel slot. It will only work once, for security reasons." Kyle was then pointed towards the hanger bay elevators. He still had no clue what was at the other end of the card he now held, however.

Kyle stepped into the elevator. The card was pulled from his hand when he slipped it into the panel, and then the doors shut and the elevator began to move. Ten seconds later, the elevator car slowed. When the doors opened, Kyle was stunned to find himself looking out across the SDF-3 bridge.

Admiral Hayes' voice floated back to him. "Come on in, Mr. Bartley."

As the chair turned to face him, Kyle found himself face-to-face with the head of the Robotech Defense Force. Though she was only five or six years older than Kyle, he could feel the weight of her experiences in her gaze. Then Vice-Admiral Hunter turned around from a nearby workstation. Kyle began to feel nervous.

"I wanted to ask you some questions, Mr. Bartley." Her voice was smooth, calm.

Kyle gave the only answer he could. "Ask away, Admiral."

"How to you feel this conflict is going, Bartley? Where does the RDF stand right now?"

Kyle thought for a moment, trying to judge whether to speak his mind or not. He decided to go ahead... the RDF leaders seemed to be interested.

"The RDF has a major problem. We still have no idea how big the enemy fleet is... there could be thousands of cruisers at Saturn right now. As far as I know, we don't even know what their goals are. Finally, the most devastating weapon we have against uncontaminated Zentraedi just failed in a big way. We won only by surprising them with the power of a currently unreliable weapon, the SDF-3 main cannon. They will be more cautious in the future."

Hayes spoke up. "We've watched your news reports over the past day or so. As a reporter, I'm surprised you haven't mentioned much of this in your stories."

Kyle took a breath. "If the public realized how desperate the situation is, we would have panic. I don't think its proper to hide the truth, but in a situation like this you have to give people something to hope for. I didn't hide our situation in my reports... I just put a positive spin on it."

Lisa Hayes stared at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then turned to Hunter for a few whispered words. She then turned back to Kyle.

"You have been very helpful to the RDF, Mr. Bartley. In recognition of your services, I have authorized you to be upgraded to a VF-1J Veritech. Your old MBS plane was heavily damaged... we are giving you a brand new J to compensate."

It was such an unexpected gift, it took Kyle a moment to force words out of his mouth. "Tha... uh, thank you, Admiral!"

"There's something else you should know." Kyle turned to look at Rick Hunter, as the Vice-Admiral continued. "While we were cleaning up from the battle, there were so many RDF casualties that none of us would have remembered to look for you. If it wasn't for Lieutenant Norri, you might still be floating out there. She not only made sure we looked for you... she even managed to give us approximate coordinates. I just thought you might find that interesting." Kyle Bartley indeed found that unexpected.

Lisa Hayes then dismissed him. With a nod from Rick Hunter, Kyle turned back to the elevator, and was soon alone with his swirling thoughts. Though he was still bruised and sore, he couldn't leave the ship until the shop-master showed him his new Valkyrie.

Chapter 4 - Cold Interlude

Adventure and Excitement in Outer Space... First class accommodations on the only hotel off the planet, and a view unparalleled anywhere on Earth.

- from a travel brochure for the Royal Ten Hotel

"Indigo Leader, this is Seven. I'm getting a few glitches all the sudden."

"Roger, Seven... anything serious?"

"Not so far, but I think its getting worse."

Sam, listening to the comm chatter of his escort Veritechs, hit a couple of controls on the panel in front of him. Indigo Seven popped up on the radar display, a small dot fifteen kilometers above and behind his shuttle. Sam was on his twelfth flight since the beginning of the war... so far without incident. This was the first time the RDF had assigned an entire half-wing of eight Veritechs as escort, though. Sam couldn't decide if that made him feel safer or more worried.

Sam Wellington ran through a quick check of all the ship's systems he could access from the cockpit, and then called back to Moyo in the weapons pod for a status update. Moyo reported that the two laser cannons the Jackalope class shuttle was armed with were charged and ready.

Sam had been flying cargo planes (both in and above the atmosphere) since before the Zentraedi first appeared over a decade ago. He knew that he was just a career cargo pilot, forever separated from the elite fighter jocks, but Sam was satisfied with his place in the RDF. The adrenaline of Earth launch and the majesty of the view from orbit were more than reward enough... at least until recently. The last few weeks had introduced a level of tension to his flight time that he hadn't felt since the Zen War.

He listened to the radio chatter carefully, hoping that the problem was just a maintenance issue on the trailing Veritech. As if the scattered enemy pods weren't bad enough, a couple of convoys had gone silent over the past several days, only to be found drifting hours later, the crews dead and frozen. Their on-board systems, from the smallest emergency life-support battery up to the Protoculture cells, were completely devoid of energy.

Over the next two minutes, several more of the outer Veritechs reported glitches. Then Indigo Seven's transponder went dead.

Sam let go of the flight stick, briefly wiping his sweating hand on his leg before once again taking control. Seconds later, several of the displays on his console flickered unexpectedly... Sam's heart sped up yet again.

"Moyo... I'm getting some glitching up here. You seeing any problems?" He was a little surprised his voice sounded steady.

Before Moyo could respond, space far ahead lit up with a single Veritech's laser fire. The calm comm chatter of Indigo Squad erupted into a frenzy of questions and reports. Indigo Three, the Veritech out on point that had been firing, vanished from Sam's console. He heard Indigo Leader say something about crystals, and space all around erupted in distant flashes of light. It was all coming from the Veritechs, though... whatever they were firing at, it wasn't returning the favor. There weren't even any explosions....

Another Veritech went dead, then another. He tried to call Indigo Leader, but communications had degraded to mostly static. Several minor console systems crashed. Sam quickly tried to bypass the problems, but another, then another system went down... he could only stay a step behind the disintegrating electronics.

"Oh hell." Moyo's voice had been quiet, but the tone brought Sam's head up from the mess on his cockpit displays. Out the front window, he could see hundreds of distant stars moving out the window, all pulsing through several colors in time with each other. It was beautiful... like a dance of ethereal fireflies, twisting and reacting in unity. They were getting brighter.

Then Sam felt the unique vibration that accompanies the firing of a laser cannon. Moyo had gone live.

Sam's thoughts reoriented... They're getting closer! Within seconds he could see them clearly, a swarm of crystalline diamonds, each about four meters long and banded in hot colors that raced down its length. Though they were all moving independently, every crystal pulsed in time, giving the swarm a menacing sense of organization.

Sam tried to evade, while the cannons behind him continued to shake the cabin every time they fired. The crystals didn't show up on radar, and every direction he turned he saw more... they were completely surrounded. He watched as a laser bolt flashed out over his cockpit, striking a crystal that was getting too close for comfort. It shattered into dust, only to be replaced by dozens more behind it.

Sam's entire cockpit went dark, as if someone had just flicked the "off" switch. He watched crystals take up station around the shuttle, a faint flicker of purple lightening connecting each one to his ship. Every mechanical sound in the cabin disappeared... every ship system shut down from lack of power.

A couple of minutes later, in perfect synchronization, every crystal surrounding the shuttle flew away.

It quickly became obvious that every ounce of power had been drained from the cargo ship, even down to the batteries in the emergency flashlights. Moyo joined him in the living cabin behind the cockpit... it was the most insulated part of the ship. The most serious problem they faced was not lack of oxygen... unlike a Veritech, the shuttle had plenty of air in its cabins and cargo hold to last the two people for several days. By that time they would be dead anyway... the heat inside the shuttle was already bleeding out into space. The emergency systems on the ship assumed that there would be battery power to run the backup heaters... without them, it was going to be getting cold very soon.

* * * *

Kyle started the day in a small sleeping cubical, a coffin-shaped tube with soft padding on the sides, a small cabinet on the end opposite the door, and a viewscreen set into the ceiling. It was one of dozens in an automated hostel on Armor Ten, the only civilian port in orbit.

Kyle grabbed a towel from his flight bag and slid out of the sleep-pod, though not without a twinge from his mostly healed ribs. He headed towards the hostel showers, noticing that all except a couple of the other sleeping tubes were empty. This war wasn't helping Armor Ten's tourist business any, but at least it meant that Kyle had the showers to himself.

Unlike the quarters on the military ships, where most of the crew usually took quick sponge baths, the bathroom here had a bank of five full-sized showers. Kyle luxuriated in the hot spray of water and steam. As long as MBS is paying the tab, I better enjoy it!

Yesterday, Kyle had met an MBS shuttle heading up out of planetary gravity well, escorting it to the civilian platform where the reporters on board could base themselves. MBS was then kind enough to spring for a night in the hostel, rather than forcing him into the cheap barracks. Though a long ways from the luxuries of a typical hotel room on Earth, it was still the best sleep Kyle Bartley had enjoyed in the five weeks since he launched from the RDF base at New Albuquerque.

After reluctantly finishing his shower, Kyle dressed in a freshly cleaned flightsuit (another service provided by the hostel), and checked out. A short walk took him up to the Promenade, a small group of shops and restaurants that catered to the tourists. He bought food (a breakfast burrito and something rather unlike orange-juice), eating and watching Earth slowly turn outside the restaurant windows.

Armor Ten began its life as the last of the original ten A.R.M.D. Platforms to roll off the production line before the Zentraedi arrived. It had then become the first major casualty in the conflict, holed by dozens of Zentraedi plasma cannons in the opening shots of the war.

For the next four years, the hulk had floated in Earth orbit, a derelict with most of its living spaces opened to the vacumn of space. Though the damaged platform's structural backbone was still sound, it was deemed too expensive to repair by the military.

Then, the RDF found the Factory Satellite, with its massive enclosed repair bays. A consortium of Macross City businessmen took a chance. Ever since the SDF-1 returned to Earth after the Rain of Death, the rest of the world had absorbed the stories of the Macross City survivors, all wanting a taste of the adventures those few had lived aboard the alien fortress. The businessmen decided to give those who could pay for a trip off the planet a chance to experience the excitement (for a price, of course). They bought the orbiting wreak, paying to have it towed to an auxiliary bay in the FactSat where it was then repaired and modified.

Since the damaged platform didn't need reflex engines or weapons for its new role as an orbiting tourist attraction, they managed to make it spaceworthy for much less than the RDF cost estimates. They concentrated on modifying the interior, turning the functional layout of repair bays and crew quarters into a couple of hotels and a shopping promenade. When completed, Armor Ten was then towed into a stable low orbit that gave it constantly changing views of the planet below.

In the few years since, the refurbished platform had struggled to make a profit, occasionally becoming a fad location for the idle rich, but most of the time never coming close to breaking even.

There was one service the civilian port provided for the orbiting military forces, though a highly unofficial one... the Black Market. Like all the major structures above the Earth, Armor Ten had a shop, where people could buy anything from cigarettes to Veritech upgrades. Unlike the official military shops, however, the civilian-run stores on Ten were not obligated to sell RDF approved items. As a consequence, you could find luxury items not available anywhere else in orbit, as well as used or modified equipment that wouldn't necessarily pass military specifications. Though there was (almost) nothing illegal about the Armor Ten Promenade, it had quickly been dubbed "The Black Market" by the military forces in orbit.

Kyle thought about researching a story on Armor Ten and how it had been affected by the conflict, but with a full team of MBS reporters now stationed here, it hardly seemed necessary. As the cloud-covered continents majestically passed beneath the viewport next to his table, Kyle's thoughts once again turned to Vala Norri. It had been two weeks since the RDF handed him a new Veritech, but it was Rick Hunter's comments about Vala that continued to echo in his mind. Without her, he would probably be a frozen corpse right now.

After breakfast, Kyle walked to the repair shop, checking on the progress of his VF-1J. Since it came from the RDF, his new Valkyrie had the standard tan and white colors. The Black Market was the one place in orbit you could get a custom paint job. Kyle had selected a purple color scheme with (of course) his trademark chess knight on the tail. Knight-One was planning on flying in style....

The call came in while he was examining the completed work on his ship. Kyle was as surprised as the civilian tech who forwarded the call to him... you don't tend to expect to get a direct call from someone as powerful as General Leonard.

"Um, General.... what can I do for you?"

"Mister Bartley, I was hoping you could do a small favor for me. We have a transport coming up from Earth in about two hours, near Armor Ten. I was hoping that you could join the escort."

Kyle thought for a moment before replying. "Why me? The Southern Cross has plenty of qualified pilots. You don't need me to protect the convoy."

The beefy face on the viewscreen produced a small smile. "The shuttle is carrying the final pieces for a new Veritech weapon Professor Zand has been working on. I don't want to take any chances with this shipment. Over the past few weeks, you have proven yourself to be very adept at surviving... whatever appears." Leonard appeared thoughtful for a brief moment, before his smile grew a bit. "As a more personal incentive, I'll also offer you one of the first units to roll on to the shop shelves."

Kyle didn't need to think about it... if nothing else, this would make an interesting story. In fact, Kyle suspected that the story was the real reason Leonard called. "Send me the coordinates, General. I'll be there."

* * * *

Two hours and seven minutes later, Kyle made comm contact with the shuttle and its four escort Veritechs. He was in his newly painted Valkyrie, and feeling good. It took another ten minutes for them to climb up to his orbit. Kyle then matched speeds as he exchanged pleasantries with the Southern Cross pilots, setting the autopilot to keep him stationed two kilometers above the transport craft. As expected, the shuttle set a minimum burn course towards Armor Thirteen.

A bit less than three hours later, the small convoy was finally getting near its destination. The transponder signal of the SC platform was about a half-hour away at the cruising speed of the Jackalope class shuttle.

The new signal first showed up as a faint blip at the very edge of his radar. His flight computer immediately signaled a warning, though... an automatic response to a distress beacon.

Kyle immediately called up positional information, his hands dancing across the console controls while he also called Armor 13 over the radio. From the reply, he learned that a small RDF convoy was supposed to be passing through the area on its way to Armor Seven, but the Southern Cross had not received the scheduled radio contact.

Kyle knew it might ruin his chances at the SC story, but his reporter instinct was calling him. He made sure the escorting Veritechs on the Southern Cross transport could get it home, and then hit the afterburners. He rocketed at full throttle towards the blinking signal of the distress beacon.

It took half an hour to reach the missile-sized drone. When he reached it, though, Kyle discovered the beacon was alone. There were no ship transponders within several hundred kilometers. After a couple of minutes of thought, Kyle decided to take a chance. He sent out an single active radar pulse... if there were any enemy ships nearby, he had just announced his presence.

The return signals showed ten contacts within a thousand kilometers of the beacon. It took Kyle another ten minutes to reach the nearest, which turned out to be a VF-1A Veritech, cold and drifting in a lonely orbit. Though he couldn't get any readings from the fighter's flight computer, a quick pass ten meters from the cockpit proved that the pilot was quite dead.

Over the next thirty minutes, Kyle found three more Valkyries, all completely drained of power. All had continued to float along the paths they had been travelling at when their systems were drained, their trajectories slowly curving due to the gravity of the planet below. He eventually ended up at the center of the expanding globe of drifting ships, where two Jackalope shuttles floated, still nearly in formation with each other.

One of the transports was obviously dead... Kyle could see the pilot in the cockpit, covered in frost from now frozen air. The other shuttle, however, was a bit surprising. Every window on the craft was covered in reflective surfaces.

* * * *

The first indication Sam and Moyo had that someone had found them was when the shuttle rocked from a small impact. Sam Wellington clutched his electric blanket around him as he floated into the cold cockpit. His heart leaped when he saw several emergency systems responding to an influx of power.

Once Sam and Moyo had realized that every ounce of juice had been drained from their ship, they had started a panicked search of the cargo bay, looking for anything they could use to stave off the cold seeping into the living cabin. It was complete luck that they happened to be carrying a shipment of small solar panels. It took them an hour to paste the square tiles across every window in the shuttle, starting with the portals that were facing the sun. Tiny wires crossed the shuttle interior, hooked to a small electric heater and two powered blankets.

Though it was only a temporary solution, it managed to generate enough power to keep them from freezing for a few more hours. Sam peeled off a couple of the solar panels from the cockpit windows, finding a lone Veritech with a repair line connecting it to the shuttle.

* * * *

It had only taken Kyle a minute to decide to connect to the shuttle. Even if the crew was dead, a power transfer might get the transport's computer on-line... any information would be useful right now.

He was thrilled when someone replied to his comm signal. The reporter in him wanted to dance when Sam Wellington gave him an quick overview of what happened to the convoy. The opportunity to learn about the rarely seen crystals was a reporter's dream.

It took nearly two hours to tow the shuttle to Armor 13... by the time he was a hundred kilometers from the platform, he had picked up an escort of two Ghost Squadron Valkyries, while dozens more headed past to bring back the rest of the dead convoy. By the time Kyle landed in the Southern Cross port, he had used most of the Protoculture fuel from his tanks, but the story told by the crew of Omega One more than made up for the cost.

"You do seem to have a knack for finding the unexpected, Mr. Bartley." Kyle, standing in the Southern Cross shop after spending over an hour talking to Lieutenant Wellington, turned around with a start. Behind him he found the disconcerting figure of T. R. Edwards.

Kyle forced a smile on his face. "I try, Commander."

"You didn't escort our transport all the way here, but you left for a good reason." There seemed to be a touch of sarcasm underneath the faint smile, but Kyle figured he was imagining it. "I think it is reasonable to keep our end of the bargain."

The half-metal face turned to the shopkeeper, who looked nervous under the single-eyed gaze. "Set Mister Bartley up with the new disc cannon. Make sure it gets installed ASAP... I expect he will need to be chasing his next story soon." Edwards turned towards the door, though he glanced back before walking out. "Enjoy our new toy, Bartley... come back to visit us anytime."

Kyle turned back to the shopkeeper. The two of them shared a brief look, both obviously uncomfortable around the Southern Cross Squadron Leader. Then it was back to business as usual, as Kyle returned to his shopping.

Chapter 5 - Crystal Dreams

- MBS archive photo, showing part of the Ebolian Zentraedi Fleet at Saturn.

Taken by Kyle Bartley, net reference [/com.MBS.net/KBart041419/0034.pic]

"It's all right here, Admiral. You'll find it interesting." Kyle handed the data card to Hunter. "That contains all the Veritech and shuttle sensor data, as well as the raw footage from my interviews with the shuttle's crew. I've also attached something else... I'll be writing a story about the Southern Cross's latest toy in the next day or two, but I thought you'd like to see the unedited video first."

Vala Norri, sitting at her station several meters away, grimaced. What is he up to? She forced her gaze back down to her displays, though only briefly.

After a short pause, a slight smile appeared on Rick Hunter's face. "Be careful, Mr. Bartley. If you keep giving me more than I expect, I'll have to revise my opinion of you."

Vala's scowl deepened.

With a smile, Kyle turned around and headed towards the War Room balcony exit, giving Vala a sarcastically jaunty wave as he passed her station. By the time Rick Hunter arrived at her side seconds later, her face was flushed with fury.

"Something wrong, Lieutenant?"

With a start, Vala spun around to find herself facing her superior officer. "Ah... no sir! A momentary technical frustration, sir!" Damn that human! He's embarrassed me again! "I apologize for..."

The Admiral cut her off. "No harm done, Ms. Norri." Vala forced herself to shut up. "Could you scan the contents of this disc for me? The RDF will have its own reports about the Omega convoy soon, but I'd like to know if there is anything useful here."

Vala took Kyle's data disc reluctantly. "Uh... sir? Are you sure you want me for this?"

The Admiral gave her a slight smile. "You're perfect for the job, Lieutenant."

* * * *

Twenty minutes later, Vala was feeling disturbed. After studying the raw data from the Omega shuttle's computer and the interviews with the pilot and gunner, Vala realized that the story Kyle planned to publish could have been much more sensational. Some of the raw data was terrifying... the entire convoy was out of action within ten minutes. Yet Kyle's story kept a calm tone... though it certainly warned of a new threat to Earth, it maintained a positive outlook by focusing on the heroic survival of the Omega crew. It just didn't fit with the kind of hack reporter she assumed Kyle must be.

To make matters worse, Kyle had indeed included some extra info. She found a bunch of footage, taken from a Veritech turret camera, of several target drones being blasted out of existence by a weapon spitting out spinning discs of plasma. The new Southern Cross fighter gun instantly reminded Vala of long ago battles against the alien Invid... their Shock Trooper mechs fired something similar.

The alarms went off. She immediately scanned her boards, her previous frustrations wiped from her mind as she saw two Zentraedi capital ships thirty kilometers ahead of the SDF-3, flickers from the spacefold still dancing across their surface. One was a common destroyer, but directly ahead was a Zen Command Ship, a four kilometer long Queadol Magnomilla, half again as long as the SDF-3.

By the time Admiral Hunter gave the Veritech scramble order, the enemy ships were already firing.

* * * *

There must have been a thousand enemy pods in the space between the SDF-3 and the Zen capital ships. Against them were less than two hundred RDF ships, including both the Skulls and an allied female Zentraedi Squadron. Leading Qalliph Squad was Rodila Nifi, who had miraculously survived the destruction of the Zakatech-Quo a couple of weeks before. In one of the RDF's only remaining Female Power Armor suits, she ravaged through the battle like an avenging demon.

The battle was terrifying. The communications channels were filled with the forced calm chatter of combat pilots doing their jobs, frequently punctuated by sudden, cut off screams. Kyle just left his turret camera running, far to busy trying to survive to concentrate on picking up specific images of the battle for MBS.

He had managed to stay close to the Skulls, working as an outrider to Max Sterling's squadron. It had been a very rough fight so far... they were massively outnumbered, and any ship that drifted between the capital ships was almost certain to be incinerated by heavy cannon fire. The SDF-3, at the focus of the enemy cruisers, was taking a major pounding.

It was with a stressed sense of relief that the Skulls received the call from Admiral Hayes. "Attention all fighters! Clear the area! Repeat, clear the area immediately! Main gun will fire in thirty seconds!"

The countdown hit zero, and a burst of searing light flashed out of the Fortress. The Command ship, hit dead on, ceased to exist; it became little more than free-roaming molecules in less than a second. The destroyer came through a bit luckier... one side of the craft was pealing away, small explosions popping across the surface, but it continued to maneuver.

Speaking in a slightly irreverent tone, Max Sterling appeared on Kyle's console. "That second cruiser was just winged. We'd better go take it out. Are you with me?" Kyle's first thought was that it was suicide... the two kilometer long destroyer was still spitting out cannon shots across half its surface, and enemy fighters were all around them.

"All fighters, focus your firepower on that cruiser. We can't let it escape!" Lisa Hayes' voice made it an order, however, so Kyle dived in with the Skulls, launching a bank of cluster swarmers towards a flight of incoming tri-thrusters before diving towards the massive ship and switching over to his heavier missiles.

Seconds later they realized their mistake. One last time Lisa Hayes' voice sounded from their consoles. "All fighters! Retreat! We're detecting signs of an energy buildup in the Destroyer's fold engines! Clear the area! Clear...."

A glowing ball of blue light erupted out of the destroyer, a spinning egg of indigo energy that quickly enveloped the capital ship and anything near it. As the expanding wavefront flashed across Kyle's fighter, the light turned golden, creating a twisting shell enclosing the entire area. Before Kyle could fully register the image, there was a moment of extreme motion, and the shell collapsed.

A huge explosion erupted through the un-damaged side of the destroyer, but Kyle didn't notice. The Earth was gone.

* * * *

Vala watched helplessly as it happened. The destroyer was now somewhere else. It had taken with it thirty-two RDF fighters, including most of Skull Squadron... and one MBS reporter. Anger at herself warred with an inexplicable tightening of her stomach. Damn him.

* * * *

"Wow. That was some trip." Kyle tried to keep his voice casual. "Any idea where we are? My long-range sensors seem to have taken a hit back there."

Max Sterling's visage appeared on the right side of his console. "Look's like Saturn's orbit." As Kyle pitched down to form up on Skull Leader, their position became obvious. Kyle found himself staring in awe at one of the most magnificent sights in the Solar System. Stretching across half the universe were the rings of the massive planet, banded and glittering in the distant sunlight.

Another explosion burst from the ruined Zen ship, dragging Kyle's gaze away from the view. Max spoke again, an edge to his voice. "No time to look around - that cruiser's going to go! That fold must have been too much for it!"

Kyle's hands were reacting even before his thoughts caught up. His Valkyrie spun around, afterburners burning to life. Bare seconds later, the mauled Thuveral Salon Destroyer gave up its existence in an orgy of fire.

* * * *

Nobody had time to dwell on the disaster. There were still hundreds of enemy fighters out there, and they no longer had anywhere to land. The Admirals knew as well as Vala the consequences of that... the SDF-3 was now facing nearly seven hundred Kamikazes.

Vala noticed that one of her console screens was still showing data from Kyle's disc. She paused a second before wiping the display, bringing up more vital status reports in its place. She had no time for personal confusions now.

* * * *

Four pilots died in the explosion, including two Skulls. A multi-ton slice of hull-metal had plowed into Skull Three, clipping his wing-partner as it flashed past. Max Sterling had just lost one of his top men.

Kyle could hear the pain in Max Sterling's voice, buried beneath the needs of the moment. "Kyle... what are your sensors showing?"

Kyle took a moment to take a close look at the Veritech displays. What he saw chilled him, destroying the illusion of beauty Saturn presented before his canopy. "I'm picking up more than thirty Zentraedi capital ships, most less than a hundred kilometers away." A frown flickered across his face as he studied the display closer. "I'm also picking up something else... the Veritech sensors can't resolve it, but its big."

"You have a high resolution MBS camera aboard your ship, don't you Kyle? If we make it back to the SDF-3, we'll need some video of this."

A quick glance showed that the turret cam was already recording... Kyle had instinctively focused it while scanning the displays moments before. "I'm already ahead of you, Skull Leader." Kyle watched the console for a moment before continuing. "There's something huge in the middle of the fleet... I can't get a good reading without getting closer."

"We'll cover you." What Max Sterling didn't voice was obvious to Kyle... they had nothing to lose. They were a billion kilometers from Earth, with no reasonable hope of getting back. They might as well try to get whatever information they could, because without a miracle, they were dead anyway. Kyle turned towards the enemy fleet.

Five minutes later, the first Enemy pods appeared on his scope. It was Skull Twelve, a female pilot Kyle had never met, that first noticed the pods were not alone. "What are those?" Once he knew where to look, Kyle immediately recognized them.

Crystals... just like the ones that drained the Omega convoy. He immediately reached for the communication controls. "Don't let them get close to you! They can drain your fighter in just a few seconds!"

Max's voice piped up across the comm frequency. "They seem to be coming from inside the Zen ship formation... can you get close enough to see their mothership?"

Kyle zoomed in with the turret camera. "I've got a visual. It's like some sort of giant crystal asteroid, at the center of the Zentraedi fleet!" The image showed an irregular shape... a central faceted object with massive crystalline spikes poking out at random. Three huge irregular spears hung down below the core, giving the entire structure a vague symmetry. Based on the camera scale, the structure read in at nearly fifteen kilometers long, making it nearly as large as a Zentraedi Factory Satellite.

A euphoric wave crossed over Kyle, his peripheral vision swimming away even as the crystal fortress seemed to grow in detail, glittering with internal light. A sudden burst of terrible color flashed outward, overwhelming his senses and flooding his nerves with agony. An immense time later, the light began to fade, leaving a dreamscape in its place. Kyle looked down on a small golden planet floating below him. His consciousness leapt forward, crossing below the atmosphere... he found himself among terrain filled with crystal formations the size of mountain ranges, massive geodes glinting in the sunlight of an orange sun. He floated above a surface evolved entirely from crystal... stark but intensely beautiful. One peak separated itself, slowly forcing itself up, moving majestically into space. Kyle somehow knew that he was witnessing the birth of that massive object at the heart of the Zentraedi fleet.

Something walked beneath his thoughts... an alien essence Kyle could barely comprehend. It tore through his mind, plundering it for information. And yet, at the same time, Kyle was sharing its memories... its desires. Above all else, Kyle got one single impression, one driving need... Energy... Protoculture.... Even as his own brain was laid wide open, a flood of impressions filled him.

And then, with a sudden wrenching of his mind, Kyle was somewhere else. Something fundamental changed. His mind felt empty, small... he was no longer connected to that intensely alien intelligence. With a sense of unreality, he saw himself once again floating above a world... this time a familiar world. He was seeing something else... something that might be. He was looking down at the Earth.

He saw that same crystal, a malevolent presence orbiting above his homeworld... he could feel its driving hunger, as if from a great distance. Energy erupted from the tips of the three massive spines of the crystal, from Eboliar, drilling through the atmosphere. A flash of red and yellow flickered around the beam, and then burst outward, quickly wrapping around the limb of the planet. Kyle watched in horror as the very atmosphere of Earth caught fire, as all life below perished in unimaginable conflagration.

"KYLE!" He suddenly broke out of the vision, hearing shouted questions pounding across his comm circuit. "Knight One! Damn it! Snap out of it!"

It took him a couple of seconds to orient himself, as if waking from an intense nightmare. "Ah... yeah... I'm here."

"We've got a way out of here, if you're back with us, Knight One!" Max's voice had a touch of panic under the calm tones of command... more than anything else, that acted like a splash of cold water to Kyle's thoughts. With a shock, Kyle noticed the chronometer on the Veritech console before him... nearly ten minutes had gone by.

Kyle did a quick scan of his monitors, immediately noticing the Tor Redir Scout Ship twenty kilometers away, most of the Veritechs already throttling towards it. With the garish blue and red paint scheme, it had to be an RDF ship... Admirals Hayes and Hunter must have sent it to Saturn in the hope of finding them. He also noticed the flood of pods and crystals bearing down on his Veritech, just moments away.

Kyle took a couple of quick breaths, finally pulling himself completely out of the dreamlike visions that had gripped him. "I'm with you, Skull One! Lets get out of here!" With a quick flip of the control stick, his Valkyrie was rocketing towards the friendly ship, Max and several other fighters following suit. He gave one last look over his shoulder at the distant crystal, a faint tugging of alien hunger lingering in his mind.

As the last stragglers pulled up beside the half-kilometer RDF capital ship, the commander of the Scout announced himself across the comm, and then the rolling plasma effect of a fold once again wrapped around Knight One. Against all expectations, Kyle was on his way home.

* * * *

A cheer rose up from the massive floor of the SDF-3 Situation Room when Max Sterling's voice crossed the comm channel. Against all expectations, the Scout ship had succeeded!

Vala had watched as Rick Hunter consulted with Admiral Hayes, and then called up John Stamper, the human captain of the Tor Redir Scout Tever-Duval. It was nearly an impossible mission... they could only guess at the exit coordinates of the fold. In all probability, the Scout would end up thousands of kilometers from the lost fighters, and the trip would require Protoculture reserves the human race could ill-afford to lose.

It was chance that had to be taken, however. The RDF couldn't afford to lose Max Sterling and the Skulls.

Meanwhile, the battle had continued to rage outside the SDF-3... despite the screen of fighters and cannon batteries, several of the enemy pods had gotten through, smashing into the ship with enough force to send a tremor through the floor-plates under her feet.

Twenty minutes after the Tever-Duval folded out, Crimson Squadron had arrived from Armor 7, taking some of the pressure off the beleaguered fighters. The tension level in the War Room continued to increase, though, as Stamper's ship remained missing.

Nearly forty minutes after being ordered to Saturn, a flash of light twenty kilometers to starboard of the SDF-3 resolved itself into the Tever-Duval. Seconds later, Vala founder herself cheering with the rest in a very un-Zentraedi display of emotion.

Even as her displays showed the Skulls throwing themselves back into the battle, Sterling's next words unknotted a tangle of anxiety Vala refused to acknowledge. "SDF-3... Knight One has some valuable information on his flight recorder... it's imperative he reaches the SDF intact!"

Lisa Hayes was the first to respond. "Roger that, Skull Leader. Knight One, head back towards the SDF-3 as fast as possible... Crimson Leader, detail some ships to cover Knight One."

The slightly indignant voice of Crimson Leader came back, causing Vala to faintly smile. "Bartley? But he...."

"That's an order, Crimson!" Rick Hunter replied. "Just do it!"

"Yes, Admiral." Seconds later, half the Armor 7 Valkyries were arrowing towards Kyle, and ten minutes later, he was passing through one of the hanger bay tunnels.

* * * *

It took another half-hour to finish off the rest of the stranded enemy pods. By the time it was all finished, the RDF had lost nearly a hundred fighter pilots. In addition, the SDF-3 had taken heavy damage... just fixing the main cannon would take a week in the shipyard. The RDF could hardly afford to have the SDF-3 out of action for that time, but they needed the Fortress's Reflex Cannon functional, so they were already heading into a higher orbit, moving up towards the Factory Satellite.

Meanwhile, Kyle found himself facing several of the most important people in the RDF in a small conference room off the hallway to the War Room balcony. Admirals Hayes and Hunter, Dr. Lang, and Max Sterling were all staring at images captured from his MBS camera. It didn't help his nervous stomach any to have Vala Norri running the displays and throwing him occasional distasteful glances.

"My God." Lisa Hayes piped up. "According to the scale, that thing is almost the size of the FactSat!"

Kyle heard Rick mumbling under his breath. "Ever since the SDF-1 crashed on Earth, the universe keeps getting stranger." He turned to Vala, speaking louder. "Ms. Norri... have your people ever encountered anything like this?"

Kyle watched Vala consider the question a moment. "Not that I know of, Admiral. Of course, I was just a combat pilot. Exedore is the one to ask... as Domillan of our race, he was the holder of our history."

"Give him a call, Lieutenant. I believe he's on the Factory Satellite at the moment."

A minute later, Exedore Formo's slightly distorted face appeared on one of the wall-mounted displays. "What can I do for you, Admiral?"

"I'm sending some images to you." Rick motioned to Vala, who hit several keys on the small console in front of her. "Have the Zentraedi ever come across anything like this before?"

Exedore stared off-screen for a moment, his eyebrows rising in interest. "Hhhmm... interesting. I assume this object is related to the crystals that drained the shuttle convoy several days ago?"

Dr. Lang spoke up for the first time in his thick German accent. "That is our current assumption, though it is mostly a guess at this point."

Exedore watched his displays for a moment more. "No, Admiral. I have never seen anything quite like this. However, I was doing some research over the last couple of days... there are records from Zor's initial explorations of the Fourth Quadrant, before he discovered Optera and the Flower of Life. One of the records mentions encountering a planet filled with silicon-based crystalline lifeforms. They were small, primitive creatures, however...nothing like this object. This is something very different."

"I'd like to see those records, if I may," said Lang.

"There's very little in them... just a brief notation, but I'll send them to you."

Hunter once again turned to the wall display. "Thank you, Ambassador. If you come across anything else, please contact us." Exedore nodded, and the screen went blank. Rick then looked around the table. "Well, if there's nothing else, let's end this meeting."

Max gave Kyle a quick glance before speaking. "There is one question I'd like to ask. Kyle... what happened to you out there?" At the questioning glances that were turned on him, Max continued. "For about ten minutes while we were at Saturn, Mr. Bartley was out of communication."

At Max's first words, Kyle's stomach lurched. Here we go. He could handle the curious looks from most of those around the table, but the scowl coming from Vala was almost too much. He took a deep breath. "I've been a little afraid to talk about it... I know it's going to make me sound insane....

"I think that thing out there at Saturn was in my mind for a few minutes." Kyle stared at his lap, not allowing himself to see the looks of disbelief he knew must be on their faces. "It was like a nightmare... like something was plundering my memories for information. But it went both ways... I think I saw a little of its own thoughts as well."

Kyle looked up, instantly seeing exactly the look he expected in Vala's face. He then saw her look around the table, a flicker of surprise in her eyes. As he too glanced around, he noticed that everyone else in the room seemed to be taking him seriously.

"Please continue, Mr. Bartley," said Dr. Lang. "What did you see?"

"Uh... it's a bit of a jumble... like a dream. I saw a planet covered in crystal rock formations. It was beautiful.... I got an impression from it, a sense of its desires. I think it wants energy, specifically Protoculture."

Lisa Hayes interrupted him. "Are you saying that massive crystal is alive? It's intelligent?"

"Yes, Admiral... I think it is. I think I also got a name. I think it calls itself Eboliar."

There was a pause before Rick Hunter spoke. "That's... very interesting, Mr. Bartley."

Kyle took another deep breath... if they thought that was crazy, they would probably lock him up in a padded room for what he had to tell them next. "That's not all... something else happened. After it was finished probing me, I saw something more, a vision, if you will, that didn't come from the crystal. I think I saw the future, or at least a possible future.

"I think I saw Eboliar destroy all life on Earth."

Chapter 6 - Unexpected Discoveries

We can see everything around us, and yet be blind....

- Kyle Bartley, Crystal Memories

"I don't know, Max. It sounds insane." Rick and Max walked slowly down a passageway towards the Situation Room. Moments behind them was one of the strangest debriefings Rick had ever been in.

"I admit it sounds crazy, but I do know that something happened to Bartley out there." Kyle had spilled his entire vision to the RDF leaders, who listened with increasing anxiety.

"You know his reputation, Max. He's screwed up before... how can I believe any of this?"

"I got to know Kyle pretty well during the Uprisings, Rick. He was a natural pilot, if rather headstrong. He had a tendency to rush into situations, following his instincts rather than thinking things through." A small smirk flitted across Sterling's face. "Sound like anyone you know?"

A glance at Rick told Max that he was listening. "I'm not sure I can tell what kind of person he is now, but think about this... at a time when most people hated the Zentraedi, Kyle was falling in love with one." Max stopped walking, forcing Rick to check his own pace. "You and I both know he was railroaded out of the RDF for political reasons... he made a mistake any inexperienced pilot might have made, and paid a price he didn't deserve for it. A lot of people would be bitter about that... Kyle, though, has been doing everything he can to help you find out what's going on in this crazy war we've found ourselves in.

"Just something to think about," Max noted, before strolling off to rejoin the Skulls down in the hanger bay. Rick leaned against the corridor wall a moment more, before sighing and continuing on toward the Situation Room.

* * * *

Kyle sat in a small observation room several decks up from Max and Rick, staring out at the stars. He had come up here after the briefing, looking for a place to sit down alone for a few minutes... ever since Saturn he had felt a little off balance.

As he sat in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, however, the stars slowly passing in front of the windows seemed to be increasing his disorientation.

He began to notice that he could see incredibly subtle variations in the colors of the stars... the heavens were filled with color he had never noticed before. Then, as the limb of the Earth slowly crossed into view, Kyle was hit by a sense of awe. As more of the planet slowly appeared, he felt a curious focusing of his mind... looking down on the devastated yet still beautiful homeworld of humanity, he could see minute details of color and texture, as if he could almost see individual houses, could barely perceive the tiny movements of vehicles and people far below. The whole of North America slowly passed beneith his view.

A connection, a sudden confluence of vision and memory: It was firing on the ruins of Macross City.... The thought swirled away, only one of many new perceptions dancing in his mind. Time seemed to stand still, and yet the world of man continued to rotate below him in its damaged yet still humbling depth.

Sometime later, the coming of the opposite edge of the planet slowly unveiled the stars again. Just a few degrees above the limb of the world, a single bright pinpoint of light drew his eye.

Saturn. His eyes were immediately drawn to its miniscule glare. He could see its rings, tiny but clearly visible to his unaided eyes. He felt a subtle pull from the far distant gas giant and the creature he knew waited there. The entire universe seemed to be trying to tell him things he couldn't quite hear.

Four hours after the end of the debriefing, Emil Lang found Kyle still sitting in front of the same window, his jaw hanging slightly open and his eyes glazed over. Lang already had some suspicions about what had happened out at Saturn, but one good look at Kyle at that moment all but confirmed his fears.

* * * *

Dr. Jean Grant peeled off the surgical gloves and gown, removing with them the bloody stains of the operation. The young pilot would live, though he would probably never walk again, much less pilot a combat craft. He had taken a glancing hit from a Zentraedi pod, driving a piece of shrapnel into his neck. His wingman had managed to slave the injured Veritech's controls to his own and limp it home, but the tiny sliver of plastic had cut the boy's spinal cord.

Another pilot on her operating table today had not been so lucky.

A quick glance around the SDF-3 medical bay assured Grant that everything was under control. For the moment, at least, all her surviving patients were stable and being attended to by her staff. As she headed for the sinks, she allowed her thoughts to turn to her son. Like the Sterlings' daughter, young Bowie was essentially trapped aboard the massive Factory Satellite. When the Zen ships appeared above Earth several weeks before, the kids had been visiting their parents during the on-going construction of the SDF-3. Jean was forced to leave her son on Little Luna when the SDF-3 set sail... it was the safest place for the children, given the risks of trying to fly them down to the planet through a war zone. That certainly didn't stop her from worrying about Bowie, though.

She was still running cold water over her hands when Dr. Emil Lang walked through the med-bay entrance, guiding a drunkenly shuffling pilot. She watched the Robotech wizard's eerie eyes glance around the bay, eventually fixing on her. Lang dragged the scruffy looking pilot over.

Given what Jean knew about Lang, she expected this was going to be interesting. "Can I help you, Doctor?"

Lang pushed the pilot forward as he spoke. "I'd like to have Mr. Bartley here examined. I think you will find trace amounts of Protoculture residue in his bloodstream."

I was right... this is definitely interesting. "All right. Let's take a look." She took control of Mr. Bartley, steering him into a nearby examination chair. There was something mildly disturbing about him... something elusive. It wasn't until a minute or so later, as she shined a light into the pilot's eyes, that she realized what had been bothering her. The iris and pupil at the center of his eyes were the same inky, fathomless black that totally filled Dr. Lang's gaze. When Lang suddenly spoke from beside her, she gave a little start.

"Four hours ago, his eyes were an unremarkable brown, as I'm sure his RDF files will show."

She glanced at the monitors. "Well, his vital signs seem to be good, though a couple of readings are a little off. Normally, I'd say he's probably mildly drugged." Jean reached for a small blood monitor. "What happened to him?" she asked, as she hooked it up to Kyle's finger.

"Apparently, he had some form of mental contact with an intelligence at Saturn. We believe that it is related to the crystals that have been attacking some of our transport convoys."

Jean's eyebrows went up. Ask a simple question, get a wacko answer.

A glance at the medical console beside the chair confirmed Dr. Lang's assertion... there were traces of Protoculture in Mr. Bartley's blood. Jean glanced up at Lang, and then typed in some commands on the console... within seconds, she was comparing her readings to the Robotech scientist's own medical records.

"My God... he's taken a mind boost!"

* * * *

Admiral Lisa Hayes sat at the small table in her quarters, her gaze lingering on the majestic planet spinning below her. In theory, both she and Rick finished their shifts at the same time. It never worked out that way, though... with a war on, her rare moments of free time between duty and sleep never seemed to match up with his.

Damn it. It had been a very rough day. Lisa wanted a few minutes of sympathy management with her fiance.

The quarters door swooshed open. Lisa grinned... for once, the grumbling had worked. Rick stepped through the entry, walked to the bed and toppled in to it, bouncing twice before coming to a rest.

Lisa stared for a moment. "Hard day at the office?"

Muffled in the bedcovers, she heard Rick reply "Weird day. Damn weird day." She heard him sigh, and then he pushed himself up into a sitting posture. Lisa stood up and walked over to him, flopping down beside him on the bed. He put his arms around her, resting his head on her shoulder. They both needed sleep.

The com chimed.

There was a pause... neither one wanted to move, to acknowledge the intrusion that would undoubtedly break their time together. The com chimed again.

They both sighed and reached for the communication controls at the same moment... with a laugh, Rick motioned her to get the call.

"Admirals? This is Doctor Grant. I think there is something you should see."

Lisa looked over at Rick, who gave her a resigned look. Damn it..

* * * *

Once again today, Vala Norri found herself in a small conference room down the hall from the War Room balcony. Once again, to her annoyance, the focus of the meeting was Kyle Bartley.

She noticed that both Admiral Hayes and Vice-Admiral Hunter looked tired as they sat down. Professor Lang and Doctor Grant were already seated, both looking intense and worried.

After a brief pause, Admiral Hayes broke the silence. "How did this happen, Doctor."

Jean Grant blinked at her. "I have no idea, Admiral. All I can tell you is that the readings I'm seeing are similar to those of Dr. Lang. Kyle Bartley has undergone some form of Protoculture induced alteration, similar to what we have seen with Dr. Lang and Professor Zand, though at a smaller scale."

Vala sat in her chair, a boil of confusion.