Disclaimer

I don't own Macross. If I did, I would be far too rich to be bothered writing fan fiction.

01: Situation

Major Brian Sutton, U.N. Spacy, Base Commander of the Haiphong Firebase code-named Ghost Lodge, raised his binoculars and watched as Seraph 209 began its final approach to the small airfield.

Major Sutton was not a happy man. He had twenty-four Variable Fighters at his disposal, most of them Valkyries, and eighteen pilots. The loss of even a single aircraft was a very bad thing, and the loss of a pilot nearly catastrophic. Lieutenant Black had reported the loss of Seraph 210 as soon as he entered radio range, but had also reported the successful rescue of its pilot, Warrant Officer Hasukawa. It was the one bright spot in the morning thus far.

He had also reported contact with Variable Fighters of an unknown type. The very idea was enough to put a curl in Sutton's mustaches, regardless of the wax he used to hold them straight.

Seraph 209 had shifted to its hybrid form, referred to in the manuals as Gerwalk Mode, and dropped cleanly onto the landing field, and Black proceeded to walk the fighter into the hanger. Sutton noted some superficial damage on the aircraft, and nodded to himself as Black backed the bird into the secondary hanger and onto a service elevator. The fighter knelt, the cockpit opened, and Black and Hasukawa jumped out.

Black waved to the plane captain. "She's got three breaches, and some electronics systems damage, Corporal."

The plane captain nodded. "I'll get on it, sir." He touched a control, and the aircraft began to descend into the facility.

Black and Hasukawa walked over to the Major and saluted. Sutton returned the salute, and glanced over at Hasukawa. The Japanese woman's face was damaged and both temples showed feedback burns from the Thinking Cap. Lord only knew what injuries her flight suit concealed.

"Lieutenant, I'll need to see you in my office in one hour. Scratch out a preliminary report if you have time. Warrant, get down to sickbay and get the doc to check you over. Then report to my office one hour from now."

"Yes, sir."

"Sir."

"Any chance of recovering Seraph 210?"

Black answered the question. "Not unless you got a magnet and a lot of time to spend, sir. I recovered the Flight Data Recorder when I picked up Hasukawa."

"Hasukawa, are you currently in hack?"

She winced; he doubted that it had anything to do with her injuries. "Not right at the moment, sir."

"Good thing; I think you'll be buying some drinks later on." He waved them away. "Dismissed."

Both saluted, then turned and walked over to the elevator that would take them down to the personnel level. Sutton turned and yelled across the hanger.

"Chief Ford!"

Ford was the chief of maintenance, and one of only two Chief Warrant Officers on base. He turned and ran over to the Major, snapped to attention, and saluted.

Sutton sighed, and returned the salute. "Ford, I need readiness reports for all the unassigned Seraphs on my desk in forty minutes."

"Yes, sir."

"Also, Warrant Pawlak has dropped six complaints on my desk about the size of Barak 104's gripe list. Has it got any down gripes against it?"

Ford pulled out his notebook and flipped through it. "No, sir, but it has been a problem plane for a while. Six down gripes in as many months."

"I want as many gripes as you can fixed on Barak 104. I'm getting tired of having to initial her friggin' complaints."

"Sir."

"And if you can spare anyone, get 'em to run down Captain Roberts and Lieutenant Gorilla. They're probably in rec, makin' out or something."

* * * * *

"Now this piece," said Lieutenant Borela, "comes from the mid-to-late twentieth century, and has been labelled jazz, alternative and several other names. While not strictly jazz, it has a good beat and nice vocal work. It is more mellow than true jazz. It has been redone a couple of times since its original publication, including by Sade, the band that published it originally, but none of the remakes have ever done justice to the original."

Cindy shook her head. "I wish I had your passion for music, Borela."

He looked puzzled. "I though all intelligent beings had a passion for music."

She smiled. "Maybe one in ten of us put as much energy as you do into it. You'll listen to anything, and then compare it to jazz."

Borela nodded. "True...true." He sipped his coffee, and smacked his lips appreciatively. "Jazz is just one of those things that I have discovered I can not live without. Espresso is another." He lifted his cup in salute.

"Well, I may not have your passion for jazz, but I know a good thing when I hear it. You always have the best tunes playing." She glanced at her watch. "Not even ten, and you've got jazz playing."

"I don not appear to be disturbing anyone."

Indeed, the large rec room was mostly deserted. Two other soldiers had taken seats at the far end of the room, near the massive picture windows, playing cards. Thursday morning happened to be down time for the two officers, but eighty percent of the base was still on duty.

"It is not like we're in here every morning, raising a ruckus," continued Borela. "In fact, you can hardly hear the music outside of the pit. I have arranged the acoustics to make sure of that."

"I know, Borela." Cindy set down her own coffee. "But you know that the Major has it in for you. Why give him an excuse?"

"I disagree with that." Borela shook his head. "Sutton may have a problem with my people, and who can blame him for that? He lost a lot of family in the war. But he treats me no differently than he does any other member of my race."

"That's the problem, Borela. He should treat you better. You're an officer."

Again he shook his head. "Sutton is a young officer, and this is his first command. He's only been here two months. At Everglades, there was no Zentraedi contingent. He simply does not know how to deal with my people. He will learn. It is, after all, something you Micronians have a knack for. You can get along with anyone."

An enlisted man, a specialist from the motor pool, had walked up to the pit and come to attention. Borela stood up and walked over to the soldier, and even though the floor of the pit was two feet below that of the rest of the rec room, he was eye to eye with the specialist. The specialist saluted, and said, "Major wants to see you, sir, and Captain Roberts."

"Thank you, Specialist." He turned back to Cindy. "Duty calls."

"At least he didn't send for 'Lieutenant Gorilla' this time," muttered the Security Officer.

* * * * *

"Lieutenant, can you tell me anything about the aliens in this sector?"

Borela cleared his throat. "Well, sir, I have as yet been unable to make contact with any independant Zentraedi factions within the area. Five Zentraedi vessels crashed into southeast Asia, numbering one Command Cruiser, two Troop Transports and two Destroyers. Those last are what you used to call Scout Cruisers. The Command Cruiser was a Meltraedi vessel, attached to the Sixth Tagoma Battalion; the other vessels were attached to the Fourth Nagazi Battalion.

"Many of the Zentraedi in the area made use of the Protoculture resizing chambers within their ships for as long as their power supplies lasted. I have checked out each one, and all of them are drained. Given the likely number of Zentraedi survivors from the crashes, and the lifespan of a Protoculture resizing chamber, I would estimate that eighty-five percent of the Zentraedi within the area have been Micronized. Among the Meltraedi, the number is certainly closer to one hundred percent."

"Why a higher ratio for the females?"

"The Meltraedi do not have a seperate Officer Caste; every one of their warriors is as well designed as a Zentraedi Officer. They would be more likely to realize that their chances of survival are higher if they are Micronized."

"Mmf." Sutton shuffled some papers on his desk, then looked back up. "How many of these aliens would be capable of designing a new mech?"

"Sir?" Borela frowned. "You mean, a completely new design, from thin air?" He shook his head. "Not a single one. Innovation was not part of our design specifications. Even learning to repair mecha is something that only the most gifted Zentraedi are capable of."

"What if they had a plan, or a prototype?"

"The possibility is slight, but an Officer or a Meltraedi might be capable of re-creating a design from a prototype."

Sutton considered the alien Lieutenant's words. "All right. Fair enough. What if said Zentraedi had help from a local?"

"You mean the native population of this area?" He shook his head. "The local people seem to be somewhat xenophobic, sir. A Soldier-caste Zentraedi might be accepted, but an Officer would certainly not be. And a Zentraedi Soldier would not have the required skills, even with local help."

"So if the local Malcontents suddenly had a new Variable Fighter, they would certainly have to've had human help, and not local human at that. Right?"

Borela blinked. "The Malcontents have a Variable Fighter?"

"Someone has a Variable Fighter. Two of them. Or had, I should say. Black shot them both down three hours ago, and one of them chewed up Hasukawa pretty bad. She had to jettison the airplane."

"I am surprised."

"Yeah, well, so were they." He turned to Roberts. "Captain. Do you have any new intelligence on anti-Unification terrorist forces in the area?"

"Yes, sir. Intel has developed one cell, located in Phnom Penh, and at least two other cells are known to exist in the sector. Intel has not managed to penetrate the Phnom Penh cell. There are two anti-Unification groups that have no armed troops and have been infiltrated, one in Hong Kong and one in Mandalay; mostly, civil disobedience and protests are their weapons of choice. In addition, there is an anti-Zentraedi organization located in Haikou, but they are thoroughly infiltrated and have yet to do anything illegal."

"Can you get me a list of prominent members in the organizations that have been penetrated?"

"I can, sir, but it will take a few days."

"Get on it." He turned back to Borela. "I'm sending out a lance of Destroids to investigate Crash Site 1137E, at Ban Me Thuot. Pick three of your men and go with them."

"Yes, sir. How will we be transferred, sir?"

"We have no Tunnies; they'll be walking. Where's Scutum 303?" He turned and checked the Table of Organization and Equipment. "All right. You'll be travelling with Third Lance. You depart tomorrow. Oh-eight-hundred hours."

"Yes, sir. I shall take Nikada, Wog and Saro in an AAR-2." He glanced over at the TOE. "What is the distance to our destination?"

"About twelve hundred miles."

"Say about twenty-seven hours travel. Three days to get there. I will take Corporal Roph instead of Nikada. We will also need extra fuel cells for the vehicle."

Sutton scrawled his signature on a requisition form. "Blank check. Get on it now, so you can get back to your day off."

* * * * *

There was a knock at the door, and Miriya Jenius looked up from her papers. "Come."

The door opened, and an aide stepped in. "Flash traffic from intel in SEA, General."

"Thank you." She took the document, and scanned it rapidly. Her eyes widened in surprise, and she looked back up at her aide. "Can you confirm this?"

"No, ma'am. Not at this time."

"Who's commanding Ghost Lodge?"

"Major Brian Sutton, ma'am. Destroid pilot, originally. Good, solid reputation."

"What assets do we have in the area?"

"Four agents, ma'am, not counting our agent in place at Ghost Lodge." The aide handed her a second sheet.

"You read my mind." She read the names on the second document, then tapped the third on the list. "Activate STELLAR, and send him to Ghost Lodge." She hesitated, then tapped the second name. "And VOLUME; send him to 1137E. I want as much detail as he can get, and I want it yesterday. I need confirmation on this sighting, I need personnel briefings, I need...hell, you know what I need."

"Yes, ma'am." The aide withdrew, and Miriya leaned back in her chair. She briefly contemplated kicking this upstairs to Admiral Hayes, but decided against it. After the various fiascos centered around the Malcontent Uprising, the last thing that CINC-SPACY needed was more headaches.

She should be able to deal with the problem easily enough.

* * * * *

"Warrant Officer Hasukawa reporting as ordered, sir."

"Good." Major Sutton took the medical report from the young woman and started reading it. "How are you feeling, Warrant?"

She kept her eyes on the back wall. "Very stupid, sir."

He glanced up from the report. "Why?"

"For losing my airplane, sir. I was taken down by a simple maneuver, the first we are taught to avoid when facing Variable Fighters. I should have anticipated the maneuver."

"Warrant Officer, did you at that time suspect that the aircraft you were facing was a Variable Fighter?"

"No, sir."

There was a knock at the door, and Sutton dropped the medical report on his desk. "Come."

The door opened, and Lieutenant Black stepped in. "Reporting as ordered, sir."

"Thank you, Lieutenant."

Black dropped a sheaf of papers on the desk. "My written report, sir."

"Summarize, please."

"Yes, sir. At oh-seven-forty, Raptor Two - Warrant Hasukawa - reported two unidentified airborne contacts. We closed to investigate, and at first believed we were tracking VF-1 Valkyries. On closer inspection, we concluded that the aircraft were conventional fighters bearing a resemblance to the VF-1. One of the aircraft fired a missile at Raptor Two, which she destroyed, and I authorized her to return fire. She did so, but the unidentified aircraft converted to Soldier Mode and shot her down. I destroyed one of the aircraft with a missile, and the other with gunfire.

"We had not considered that the aircraft might actually be a new form of Variable Fighter. Neither aircraft had any markings indicating point of origin."

Sutton nodded. "I was speaking with Lieutenant Borela. He assured me that the odds of a Malcontent building and flying a Variable Fighter are about a million to one. You happened to hit that one, but I think you can be forgiven for not expecting it." He glanced down at the medical report. "Multiple contusions, mild concussion, feedback burns. Doc recommends that Warrant Officer Hasukawa be taken off the flight roster for two weeks, and her reinstatement subject to his approval." He picked up a pen, made a mark on the sheet. "I can't spare a pilot for two full weeks. You've got a week off. Spend it healing."

"Yes, sir."

"Now, as for your replacement ride."

"Barak 107 is unassigned, sir." There was hope in the young officer's voice.

"Hasukawa, I want you to take a close look at the chart hanging on the wall to your left. Do you see it?"

"Yes, sir."

"And do you see your name on it?"

"Yes, sir."

"And where is your name, Warrant Officer?"

She sighed. "Second Flight, sir."

"Exactly. Second Flight drives Valkyries. Seraph 224 is unassigned, and has the least number of gripes against it. Talk to the plane captain..." He flipped through the readiness report. "...Lance Corporal McCoy. Get some gripes worked out of the airplane, and get your name and stars put on the cockpit."

"Yes, sir."

"Thank you for the report, Lieutenant. Dismissed."

"Yes, sir." Black saluted, turned, and left the office.

"Hasukawa."

"Sir?"

"If you lose Seraph 224, I will take a giant shit on you. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, sir."

"I mean it. I don't care if you fly it into the Macross Cannon on a mission to save all mankind. If you lose that bird, you will be in a world of hurt. Got it?"

"Yes, sir."

"Dismissed."

* * * * *

"Officer on deck!"

Sutton stepped into the rec room, and glanced around quickly. "Borela, turn that crap off."

"Yes, sir."

"Hasukawa. Front and center."

Hasukawa gulped, and stepped up to the Major.

"By order of the Commander in Chief, Southeast Asia, Warrant Officer Hasukawa Sora, Serial Number JP-335234-95, is hereby awarded the Purple Heart, for wounds sustained in battle. Said decoration to carry with it three points on her advancement record." He pinned the medal on the lapel of her uniform. "Traditionally, I'm supposed to pin this on your pillow, but the U.N. Spacy takes a rather dim view of male officers entering female subordinates' quarters." A chuckle ran around the room at this, and Hasukawa blushed.

"As you were." Sutton leveled a finger at Hasukawa. "Except for you, young lady. You owe me, and everyone else in the room, a drink."