SHELTER

The blast shelter was airtight.

Ranma was very glad of this fact.

There had been considerable noise outside the shelter, until about six hours ago. Then, all noise had ceased. Not even the sound of wind, or the omnipresent hum of the generators reached inside the shelter.

The power had gone out, and the shelter had gone completely dark. Eventually, someone had tried putting the shelter's backup generator online, but had had no luck. The generator turned over, but refused to start.

The generator was located outside the shelter.

There was a tertiary power supply, a set of Reflex energy cells. Ranma had brought these online, and that gave them limited lights in the shelter. It also brought the external viewers online.

All the viewers showed was the star-studded blackness of space, the frozen land all around them, and the Macross hanging over them.

Ranma paced nervously. With the Reflex cells powering life support, they could survive in here for quite some time. There was enough food for a thousand people for six months. With only four hundred or so in the shelter, that would last much longer than the best projected time for the air purifiers.

Now all they had to do was to hope that the Macross could launch some sort of rescue operation.

A rather large, heavyset man in a Hawaiian T-shirt drifted up to Ranma.

"Hey, Lieutenant. You're the ranking officer here, right?"

"Uh, I guess so. Only other U.N. Spacy personnel here are enlisteds."

"Good. Listen, this sort of situation, the military's supposed to be in control."

Ranma remembered who the man was. "Uh. Mr. Mayor, I think you give the orders in this situation. I mean, I'm just a Lieutenant, and most of these people are civilians."

"Maybe so. But look." The Mayor waved a hand across the crowd. "These people are worried. I mean, we're stranded in space. We know we'll be rescued. But waiting is gonna drive them nuts. So we need to do something--anything--to keep them occupied."

"Uh, okay. What do you suggest?"

"I recommend we take a head count. Get names, too. It'll be sure to help whoever's coordinating the rescue mission. I imagine the other shelters are thinking of this as well, especially any of your boys among them."

Ranma considered this. It did make a fair bit of sense. "I think you've got a good idea, Mr. Mayor." Ranma grinned at the thought of something useful to do. He grabbed a clipboard that was floating nearby and drifted towards the crowd.

"Okay, listen up. We're going to do a quick tally and get everyone's name. I'm gonna write these down here, and when we're rescued, we'll, uh, have a list of names for them." He repeated himself in English, jotted down his own name, then turned to the mayor. "Uh, sir, what's your name?"

"Thomas Luan."

He wrote it down and proceeded to the next person.

* * * * *

"Negative, Skull Leader. We need you for the rescue operation."

"Damnit, my friend is somewhere out there. I got him into this, and I gotta pull him out of it."

"I say again, Skull Leader. Negative. You can look for your friend on your own time."

"Yes, SIR!"

"Don't worry, Fokker. He's probably in one of the bomb shelters. We'll bring him in."

* * * * *

"Name?"

He glanced up from his clipboard, and into the face of his mystery girl. She looked trapped, and was glancing about her, as though searching for an escape. Another girl floating next to her, a very tall girl with long hair bound into a ponytail, put her hand on the smaller girl's shoulder, as if to offer support.

"Uh, your name is...?"

She sighed, as though in resignation.

"Tendo Akane."

* * * * *

Ranma set his clipboard on the desk and sighed.

And then grabbed the clipboard as it started to float away. Glancing around, he found a clamp, and secured the clipboard.

"Hi."

He glanced over at Akane. She was drifting slowly towards him, her skirt billowing out behind her. She put out a hand to stop herself as she reached the desk, then spent a couple of seconds trying to stop her spin.

"Uh, hi, Akane."

"Um..."

"Ah...I guess we're engaged, huh?"

She scowled. "It wasn't my choice."

"Mine either. But Pop and your father decided to make that choice for us, didn't they?"

"I guess."

They floated for a second, neither looking at the other.

"So...how do you feel about it?"

He shrugged. "It's gotta be done. Family honour, and all that."

"Honour? Is that why you tried to break the engagement?"

"Huh?"

"Damnit, Ranma, you didn't even try to contact me or Dad! Your father came to tell us about your decision. Dad was heartbroken! He nearly had an emotional breakdown!"

"The Colonel? Emotions? Feh."

"You idiot! You think he goes around putting his feelings on display for the whole world to see? Do you know why he retired?"

"Not offhand."

She quieted her voice. "When Mom died, Dad nearly died with her. He left the base on Grievance Leave, and didn't go back. They sent MPs around looking for him, and they had to pry him from his room to court martial. They gave him a medical discharge, with option to re-up if he wanted to.

"For the last five years, he's been in emotional shock. The only thing that kept him going was the fact that before Mom died, she had agreed to our betrothal. But he wouldn't run the dojo. We had to rent the space out to another master, just to keep the bills paid. Kasumi kept us all going, and Nabiki kept the books balanced, but it was hard."

Ranma scowled. "Thought you didn't want this."

"I don't. I just wanted you to..." She sighed. "Ranma...I'm not gonna ask you to marry me, or anything. But you told my Dad that you didn't break the engagement, just...put it on hold. Did you mean that? I mean, I'm not going to break off the engagement unless you want to. Do you want to end it?"

Ranma considered it. "No."

She nodded. "All right. We'll keep on as we are now."

They floated in silence. Akane realized she was still turning very slightly on spot. She cursed quietly, and struggled to stop her spin.

Unfortunately, Akane was not at all experienced with zero-gee activity. The more she struggled to stop, the faster she ended up spinning.

"Want a hand?"

She glared at him. "No, thank you. I can manage."

"Are you sure? I mean, a skirt's not the best thing for zero-gee..."

"What are you talking about?"

"I mean, the whole shelter must know about those polka-dotted--"

"HENTAI!"

He wasn't sure where she got the mallet. But it connected with the side of his head with all the power of a Valkyrie's punch, and he found himself sailing through the air until he collided with the bulkhead.

"Hey! I stopped spinning!"

She quickly adjusted her skirt.

* * * * *

Ranma drifted back to consciousness to find himself face down on the floor. There was a light pressure on his back, that he was guessing was a hand. He rolled over, and felt the hand leave his back.

"Oh, good, he's waking up."

Ranma blinked, and managed to focus on the speaker. It was a girl, with short hair and a healthy build.

"We were starting to wonder if maybe Akane'd hit you too hard."

"Does she do that a lot?"

"Only to guys." The girl handed Ranma a bottle. "Here. Tylenol. Fifty yen each, please."

Ranma scowled at her, then reached into his pocket and flipped her a hundred yen coin. He swallowed two of the Tylenol dry, then looked around for a drinking bulb.

Another girl floated over, a bulb in her hand. Ranma recognized her as the girl he'd seen with Akane earlier. She handed the bulb to Ranma. "Here. Drink this."

Ranma looked at her suspiciously. "What's it gonna cost me?"

"Oh, no, no charge."

Ranma accepted the bulb and drank deeply.

"I hope you won't think less of Akane. She's really a very sweet girl. It's just that she has an uncontrollable temper."

"I'm pretty sure he's figured that out already, Sis."

"Yeah." Ranma rubbed his head. "Man, try to help someone out, and this is what I get?" His fingers encountered cloth. "Hey, who bandaged my head?"

"Oh, that was me. There was a small cut that was bleeding, and I thought it would be best to bind it."

"Thanks." He blinked. "Nabiki and Kasumi, right?"

"Yep." The short-haired girl grinned. "Who told?"

"Nobody. Just sorta figured it out." He didn't mention that he couldn't remember which was which. "Where's Akane?"

The short-haired girl jerked a thumb over her shoulder. "Over at the other end of the shelter. Probably still sulking. Something else she does a lot."

Ranma nodded. "So she's down on guys, eh? Why?"

The girl shrugged. "I'm not really sure. I think she mentioned once that one of the pilots on base was...pushy."

Ranma gulped. Hopefully, it was one of the other pilots on base that she'd been complaining about...

* * * * *

*THUMP*

Ranma had been stretched out on a desk, trying to sleep. They'd been locked inside the shelter for almost a week, and many of the civilians were starting to go stir crazy. Like most soldiers, Ranma coped by catching up on his back log of sleep. Now, he jerked awake and looked around, surprised by the sudden noise.

*THUMP*

"Docking rig...Everyone!" He struggled ot a more upright position. "Everyone, get towards the floor. We're gonna--"

Gravity returned. Ranma crashed down, stumbled, and fell onto his side. All around him, people dropped like stones. There were cries of pain as some people landed badly. Ranma stood up, rubbing his shoulder.

There was another *THUMP*, and a clanking groan as the massive cams that operated the doors began to turn. Cheers arose throughout the shelter as the doors opened into the light.

Colonel Tendo strode into the shelter and raised his voice. "You are the last shelter in. Congratulations are in order to civil powers. Not a single life was lost during the mis-fold. Everyone on the island made it to a bomb shelter on time."

Saotome stepped up to the Colonel. "Sir. Here is a list and count of every person in this shelter. Sorted by name, family then given."

"Thank you, Captain." Tendo quickly flipped through the list. He grinned. "Thank you very much. I was hoping to find them here. Kasumi! Nabiki! Akane!" He handed Ranma the clipboard and waded into the crowd.

Roy pushed his way into the shelter. "Ranma! Thank God you're here. I was starting to get worried."

"Hey, no problems, Captain!"

"Have you seen Rick?"

"Who? Oh, Rick Hunter! No, he wasn't here. Maybe one of the other--"

Ranma stopped, remembering that this was the last shelter to be brought in. Roy was flipping through the clipboard.

"Looks like Tendo's little speech was premature. We found no bodies on the remains of the island." Roy's voice was bitter. "But it looks like both Rick and Minmei were out there."