REUNION

Ranma sat in the dining room of the White Dragon.

The entire town of Macross was being rebuilt inside the Super Dimensional Fortress. Many of the buildings had been undamaged by their little jaunt through space. It was simply a matter of pulling them into a cargo bay, repressurizing the bay, and moving them to their destination inside the ship. Sometimes, thawing the buildings would damage them to the point of irrepair. Then, the building was torn down and rebuilt.

The White Dragon had survived mostly intact, save for one corner where a Valkyrie had crashed into it. But the owner was not himself.

"You were always her best friend, Ranma. I mean, you were always kind to her, and you never hit on her. She liked the attention she got from the pilots, but she always wanted someone just to be her friend."

"I know, Max-san. I miss her, too."

"Miss who?"

Ranma looked up to see Akane walk in. "Oh, Max-san and I were talking about his niece. Lin Minmei."

"Oh? A girlfriend of yours?"

"WHAT? No way! Minmei and I were just friends!"

"Please. Don't be jealous of Minmei." Lin-san smiled. "Saotome-san never did anything inappropriate to her. He was just her friend."

"Well..."

"Akane..." Ranma stared at his plate. "Minmei is missing. She and Rick Hunter were never found."

"Oh...I'm sorry, Lin-san."

He bowed to her, and moved towards the kitchen.

The door opened again, and Roy Fokker walked in. He collapsed into his customary seat and glared at Ranma.

"You're out of uniform."

"Huh?"

Roy pulled a small cardboard chit from his breast pocket and tossed it to Ranma. "This is only a field brevet; it won't be official until we hit dirtside again, so you won't get any more pay. But it IS for real. Congratulations, First Looie."

"Hey, thanks, Roy!" Ranma wasted no time pinning the silver bars on his lapels.

"Hey, you earned it, kid. All I did was point that out to old man Tendo. Oh, and more good news, Saotome. We're both on duty at seventeen hundred. Construction work, oh joy, oh joy."

Ranma frowned. "A Valkyrie for construction work?"

"Nope. We'll both be in Spartans. You might not believe it, but the Crow Hands on the Spartan are actually better for this sort of job."

"Oh, I believe it. I mean, the Spartan can rip zortrium armour plating like tissue paper."

"In this case, it's a combination of the strength and accuracy. Valkyrie hands are too clumsy, and the little manipulators built into the arm are too flimsy."

Max returned from the kitchen with three menus and three glasses of water on his tray. He set the tray on the table and began handing out the menus. Unfortunately, he hit the glasses.

-SPLASH-

Where Ranma had been sitting, there was now a petite redhead, the U.N. Spacy uniform hanging off of her.

"Oh, damn..."

"What the bloody hell?" Roy sat bolt upright in his seat. Akane stared at the girl in shock.

"Well, I suppose you had to find out sometime."

"Ranma...is that you?"

She scowled, and started to wring out the uniform. "Yeah. It's me."

Max beat a hasty retreat to the kitchen.

"Lemme explain here. About three years ago, me and Pop went to this place called Jushenkyo. It's supposed to be a training ground. In fact, it's a cursed training ground. Anyone who falls into one of the pools takes the body of whatever drowned there. I fell in Nian-ni-chuan. Spring of Drowned Girl."

Ranma reached for the small teakettle on the table. She upended it over her head, changing back to male, then set it down.

"As you can see, hot water reverses the effect, but only until next time I come into contact with cold water."

Roy frowned. "How much cold water?"

"I think it's a matter of how much of my skin is contacted." He picked up the third glass, and poured it over his hand. "As you can see, this isn't enough. If I dumped it over my head, it would be."

Akane was still staring at him, her mouth hanging open.

Roy rubbed his chin. "How the hell did you survive boot camp? I mean, the first time you had to shower--"

"Ever been to the boot camp at Macross?"

"Ah...no. I was already commissioned by the time the Visitor arrived."

"It's the only boot camp with partitioned showers. And at Kadena, we actually had heated showers." He grinned. "It was almost civilized. And of course, the Macross BOQ had a shower for each room. It was just a matter of not letting Ben in while I was showering."

Roy rubbed his chin. "This is too weird. As your commanding officer, I should report this. But first off, no-one would ever believe me. And second, I think we could turn this to an advantage."

"Whaddaya mean?"

"Well, it's been known for about twenty years now that women make better fighter pilots than men. And I'm sure the same goes for Valkyries."

"Hey, I'm a guy, got it?"

"But only part time! So you just take a canteen of cold water and a thermos of hot into the cockpit with you..."

"Forget it!"

"For now, I will."

Akane closed her mouth with a snap. "I was right the first time. You ARE a pervert."

"WHAT?"

She turned to Fokker. "Women make better fighter pilots?"

"Whaddaya mean, I'm a pervert?"

Roy shrugged. "Yep. Higher pain threshold, higher G-force threshold, better spatial sense and situational awareness."

"I ain't a pervert!"

"Not to mention better padding, and they look much better in these skin-tight uniforms than us men do."

Akane stood, and picked up the glass of water. "I stand corrected. All men are perverts." She dumped the glass over Ranma's head, then turned and walked out of the restaurant.

Roy watched her go. "Y'know, Saotome, you could do a lot worse. As I said, she does have a nice--"

"Ya tryin' to prove her right?"

"--personality." He tried his best to look innocent. "What?"

* * * * *

"Keep it going, Saotome."

Ranma was strapped into the Spartan Destroid. The machine's weapons bays were empty, as it had been pressed into duty in construction. Opposite him was an ADR Defender, its anti-aircraft gun arms dismounted and replaced with twin boom-cranes. The cranes were hoisting a two-storey house. Ranma's job was to align the house with its new foundations.

"All right...stop there. Bring it a little to the left. Your OTHER left, shithead! All right. Bring it down...There. Okay boys, back off. Smith, unhook. Looks good." The construction boss, an RDF Gunnery Sergeant, took off his helmet and mopped his brow. "There's one more family able to sleep at home tonight."

-GROAN-

"Aw, fuck! Smith, hook back up!" The boss jammed his helmet back on as the ADR stepped forward to re-engage the crane. Unfortunately the added strain on the floor caused it to buckle.

"Jesus Christ! Get out of there, Smith. Saotome, back as well. Thirty meters, minimum."

The Mecha and humans scrambled away from the building as the deckplates slowly caved in. The ADR pilot slung a hook onto the building, keeping it from falling in. The deckplates came completely loose, cascading down into the bowels of the ship.

"Fucking great! Just fucking perfect! Saotome! Have you got a floodlight on that thing?"

Ranma clicked on the externals. "Sorry, Gunny. It's blown. Smith has a pair."

"Smith! Light up those floods and give us a look-see down there."

"Sure, Gunny. Gimme a second..." Smith brought the ADR's boom-crane around, and dragged the house to a more stable location. He then walked up to the hole in the deck, and swivelled both searchlights down into the hole. The Sergeant walked up to the hole.

"Yeah, looks like a bad support gave out here...fairly contained, we can work around it until we can fix it."

"Hey, Gunny? I've got two small heat signatures down below. Human, I'd guess."

"Human? What the fuck? Saotome! Get a lift platform over here!"

Ranma marched his Mecha over to the supply truck, got a lift cage, and connected it to the Defender's free boom-crane. Over the Tac Net, he heard Smith calling for a medevac team.

Then Smith lowered the cage into the hole.

"They're moving away from the drop point...okay, they've stopped. I guess they were just getting to a safe distance. Cage is down. They're getting into it. I'm bringing them up slowly..."

Ranma fiddled with the Destroid's optic systems and zoomed in on the rising cage. As it entered the flood's range, he gasped in recognition.

"Saotome to Fokker."

"Huh? What's up, kid?"

"We just found Rick and Minmei. They're alive!"

* * * * *

"So, what did I miss?"

Hunter sat opposite Fokker and Saotome at the Skull's table of the White Dragon. Minmei, for the moment, was wrapped around him. Minutes before, she'd been wrapped around Ranma, much to his discontent. And Rick's.

"Well, the SDF-1 made an unscheduled jump from Earth to here. Last I heard, we're two and a half months from home on subluminal drive."

"Why can't we just 'jump' back?"

"I'm not sure. Something about some piece of machinery being destroyed down in the engine room. Also, we can't currently fire the main gun. Dr. Lang is working on a fix for that problem. Rumor has it he's solved it, but the Captain didn't like his answer, and sent him back to the drawing board."

"How many people are on board?"

"About sixty thousand. We're rebuilding the city, but we can't put too many of our raw resources into housing. So whenever a house can't be salvaged, we pull it apart and build a new one. Usually with more bedrooms."

"That's actually what I was doing when I punched a hole through the floor..."

"C'mon, Ranma, that wasn't your fault. I mean, the structure was probably weakened beforehand. That house probably weighed less than your Destroid or Smitty's, so it's just a matter of you reached that beam's limits."

"Yeah, well, now some of those raw resources that we have too little of now has to go to patching up that hole."

Rick stood and stretched. Minmei hopped up to allow him out of the booth. "Well, I gotta head. I'm still really tired from all that. I gotta see the quartermaster for a place to crash."

"Rick, why don't you join the U.N. Spacy? I mean, you're a natural pilot, even better than Saotome here."

"Yeah, right..."

Fokker slugged Ranma's shoulder. "Shut up, you." He turned back to his friend. "Listen, Rick. The Service is really hurting for pilots, and there's not too much call for non-military work around the ship right now. So right now you're supercargo; you're doin' nothing. If you sign up, at least you'll be working towards givin' everyone on board a ticket home."

The bell on the door rang as Akane entered. Unnoticed, she stood and watched the scene before her.

"Roy, you know how I hate the military--"

"Does that include me, little brother? Dammit, do you even know why I'm here in the first place?" Roy seemed genuinely angry.

"No, Roy, I don't. What happened? What made you willing to kill?"

"Damnit, Rick! I signed up because there was a cause to believe in. At first it was the damn Russkies bombing the eastern seaboard. Pop died there because he wouldn't fight. I wanted to make sure that didn't happen again. And I stayed in, and transferred to U.N. Spacy, because I saw what was in this ship. I saw the fucking Giants, and I knew they'd be coming for us. I knew they'd want this ship back. And I knew they weren't just going to ask." He waved his hand towards Sol. "They're still out there, and they're hostile, and I still have to protect the people here. Like it or not, little brother, I have to kill."

"Don't try to make me into a killer, Roy. I won't let it happen." Rick was standing, fists clenched, teeth bared.

Roy sighed. "Okay, Rick. Forget I mentioned it, okay?"

Rick stood stock-still, then slowly relaxed. "Okay, I will. I gotta go." He turned and left the building.

Akane walked over and sat down across from Ranma. "Who was that?"

"Hm? Oh, Rick Hunter. Roy's little brother."

"Really? No family resemblance."

"Well, it goes back to when he and I were in his pop's flying circus." Roy gulped his coffee. "We flew as a pair, and we understood each other pretty well. My parents had died ten years before the Global Civil War, so Pop Hunter kind of took me in."

"He's cute."

Akane realized that she was getting fishy stares from both Minmei and Ranma.

"What? He is!"

Ranma snorted. "He's lucky, too."

"Why's that?"

"He doesn't have an uncute tomboy for a fian--"

-WHACK-

"What was that, Ranma? Would you care to repeat that?"

Minmei blinked. "Oh, you must be Ranma's fiancee!"

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I'm Tendo Akane. Pleased to meet you." She bowed to the smaller girl.

"Lin Minmei. Pleased to meet you."

"Ranma's told me all about you."

Minmei began to sweat. "Nothing bad, I hope...?"

She grinned. "Don't worry. He told me you're one of his best friends on board. And nothing more." She glowered at Ranma. "Of course, he only saw fit to mention you yesterday..."