Macross: Love and War in the age of J-Pop (Zentradi SI)

[Vaermina]

Chapter 1​

The loud and insistent banging of a fist on metal finally penetrated deep enough to wake me from my slumber. Slapping the lighting pannel by the side of my bed, I winced as the lights went all the way to their daytime setting instead of the lower nighttime one I had expected. Checking the chronometer by the side of my bed, I was somewhat relieved to see my sense of time hadn't abandoned me and only about an hour had passed since I had passed out.

"Because of course." I muttered as I pulled myself out of bed.

Grabbing a fresh uniform coat from the small cubical by the side of my bed. I pulled it on as I made my way to the still thumping door. Somewhat impressed by the tenacity of whichever newly promoted junior officer had been given the sacrificial duty of waking me from the first bit of sleep I had had in nearly three days.

Making sure to stand slightly off to the side so I wouldn't get hit by a suddenly unobstructed fist. I slapped the wallpannel that would open the door, watching with some bemusement as it slid open and a short, blue haired, Meltrandi tumbled forward.

"Regult?" I ask after taking a moment to confirm the poor officers rank as she pulled herself up off the floor. "I was very clear that, barring all but the most dire of circumstances, I should not be disturbed. So I do hope that you have a good reason for waking me."

"Surpreme Commander Raj Gotta Sha!" She snapped, standing ramrod straight and saluting in the pre-programed way I had long come to universally assosiate with those recently decanted from their cloning pod. "I have an urgent message for you from Sub Commander Taliya Nayea Fariz."

I waited for a moment for her to continue before mentally facepalming as I realized what she was waiting for.

"Proceed Regult." I prodded levelly trying not to let my inpatients show.

"A massive fold wave was detected emanating from the one hundred eighteenth's," She began, only to trail off mid sentence as I broke into a dead sprint down the passage that lead to the Fulbtzs-Berrentzs class vessels command center.

"Fleet readiness status!" I snapped the moment the door slid open, silently thanking whichever nameless protoculture designer had placed the command staff's quarters within walking distance of their expected posts.

A dozen pairs of eyes snapped to me on entrance, and then in a show of well drilled professionalism, all but those of Sub Commander Fariz went back to the various command and control consoles situated around the room that made up their own work.

Standing at nearly ten meters in height, with bright red hair that was a stark contrast to the much more common blues and greens that dotted the room. The Meltrandi Taliya Nayea Fariz, was pretty much everything I could ever ask for in a second in command. A fact which made the worried look she shot me all the more concerning.

"The losses from the most recent assault on the Supervision Army remnants were somewhat worse then initial reports indicated." She put forward after a brief moments hesitation. "At best we are looking at sixty-seven percent of the fleet at any sort of combat readiness. With an additional four percent capable of being repaired to that level within the next ninety cycles."

I did my best to outwardly hide my wince, that was a good deal worse then the eighty-three percent I had gone to sleep too.

"And the fold wave." I asked, switching to the issue that had instigated my dash to command. "What was the delay, and were you able to project a likely defold point?"

"Twelve to eighteen hours delay at best." Fariz responded after a moment of mental calculation. "And we've been able to narrow the likely defold point to an area of space encompassing around ten-thousand systems at the outer edge of the fourth galactic arm."

I frowned at that, mentally estimating the length of time needed to break up the fleet and have them search an area of space that large. Only to come up with a number a good deal longer then we likely had, assuming at least that this was the event I feared.

"Were any of those flagged with a prime classification on the old protoculture star-maps?" I asked hoping to either narrow things down, or at least put my fears to rest.

"Apologies Surpreme Commander, but I didn't think to check that information." Fariz replied, embarrassment momentarily flushing the bronze colored skin of her cheaks.

"No apologies necessary Sub Commander." I waved off, as I made my way over to the central control station so I could bring up the information myself. "You can't be expected to know everything, and those particular star-maps were last relevant hundreds of thousands of taarms before either of us were decanted."

"Lets see." I muttered, as my fingers tap danced across the input. "No reds, which isn't surprising since those were almost universally clustered around the core." And which, lacking any sort of map key, I highly suspected was the color the Protoculture had assigned to Vajra holdings.

"A handful of blues, but we can rules those out since the fold faults make it near impossible for even a single one of our ships to get through, let alone a fleet the size of the hundred eighteenth." A fact that had been continually reinforced over the years, since the more advanced Supervision army vessels liked to use those area's to lose our hunter fleets. "And twenty seven greens."

"You think it might be one of the greens?" Fariz questioned from the position she had taken slightly behind my left shoulder. No doubt picking up on the consideration I was giving the last, from the way I had trailed off without further expounding on the option.

"I have reason to suspect it." I distractedly answered, flicking through each of the systems on the list. With the feeling of dread in the bottom of my stomach growing with each passing stellar cluster. Until finally it hardened into a certainty as an obviously out of date, but still somewhat recognizable, ten planet star system appeared on the screen.

"You recognize it?" Fariz asked, studying the visual on screen with an intensity normally unseen on her face outside of battle conditions.

"A protoculture refuge." I answered with a partial truth after a brief moments consideration.

"Deculture!" Fariz exclaimed, her shock at my pronouncement made all the more clear by her use of the, forbidden in my presence, slang term. "Golg Boddole Zer may be a stubborn old fool, but even he wouldn't dare attack one of the forbidden worlds."

"Would he?" She trailed off, sudden uncertainty underlying her previously firm pronouncement.

"You know his obsession with the Protoculutre. Can you think of anything else that would allow him to justify pulling his fleet from it's patrol duties to preform the full, fleet level response, indicated by the size of the detected fold wave?" I questioned, giving her a look I hope conveyed just how serious an issue I considered this.

"Yes!" She snapped, returning my look with one of her own. "Maybe they finally located that Supervision Army facility they have been trying to track down since before we came out of our tubes. Or maybe there was rebellion and he wanted to put on a show by bringing the full force of his fleet down on it."

"True." I admitted, giving an internal sigh, as the downside to pushing my officers towards a greater ability to think outside the stratified rules and regulations of regular Zentradi doctrine, once more bit me in the ass.

"But this is the way the galactic well is pulling me." I finished in a low tone, before turning back towards the image still displayed on my screen.

You're sure?" Fariz, having picked up the hidden meaning to what was being said, asked in a near silent whisper of her own.

"Absolutely." I admitted, turning back to look Fariz in the eyes.

Weighing what she saw there for a moment, I could see the moment a decision was reached, and her response just confirmed it. "Then we go."

"Inform the fleet to ready itself for a long range fold!" I called out to the rest of the command staff, before turning back to my command station and entering the necessary code strings that would bring the massive fold engines of the Fulbtzs-Berrentzs class vessel to life.

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Watching the Macross descend, Captain Misa Hayase, felt the illusive flame of hope for the future, that she had thought extinguished along side most of the life on Earths surface, flare back into existance.

"Come on, lets go." Hikaru's voice brought her out of the brief revere, and she turned to give him a smile.

"Do you think any others made it?" She asked, as they settled back into the, admittedly cozy, confines of the Valkyrie's single person cockpit.

"Probably." Hikaru admitted, putting his arm around her shoulder in a way that made a, small and treacherous part of her mind, admit felt pretty nice.

"From orbit." He continued, voice turning sad at the recollection. "It looked like the Zentradi were focusing their attacks on land based population centers and active military targets. So there's a good chance at least some of those out at sea survived."

"That's something at least." She returned, watching intently as Hikaru finished going through the various system checks.

"Hold on tight." He cautioned with a smile, after the last of the lights turned green. "It's sure to get a bit windy without the canopy."

He pushed the throttle forward and they were off, the fighters gerwalk mode boosting towards the recently landed form of the SDF Macross. It thankfully wasn't a long trip, the ship having landed less then a hundred kilometers away. But by the time they arrived at the still cooling crater, she could see people already beginning to disembark, from where the Prometheus and Daedalus were resting up against the craters inner lip.

Doing a loop around the main canon, they angled towards a flare outlined bit of land, before settling down onto a recently flattened bit of land to the south of the Prometheus's bow, which looked like it was being set up as a temporary landing zone. Looking around, she was relieved to see a handful of non-military aircraft, along side the more numerous Valkyries, suggesting at least a trickle of other survivors having decided to head towards the Macross the same as them.

"Huh." Hikaru commented in bemusement, his eyes fixed on a shockingly familiar red and white aircraft frame. "That brings me back."

"Is that?" Misa asked, eyes widening in disbelief.

"A Fan racer? Yup." He finished for her, mirth coloring his voice.

"Do you know the chances?" She barely got out as laughter started to bubble it's way past her lips.

"It" Began Hikaru, as he started laughing along side her. "It was a limited production run."

They must have stayed like that, laughing at the sheer absurdity of the situation, for a good five minutes. And likely would have gone on longer, had an impatient arresting gear officer not interrupted.

"I said move it or lose it you two." The man, whom, a quick glace at his uniform patch reveled to be Lieutenant Junior Grade Milan Sokoll, repeated once it became clear they had missed him the first time. "We got a heavily damaged Tunny comeing in with survivors from the thirty fifth."

"Sorry!" Hikaru apologized. "Anywhere specific you want us?"

"Macross assigned forces over by the Daedalus." Lieutenant Sokoll answered, gesturing to the north with jerk of his thumb over his shoulder.

"And keep it on the ground!" He finished a moment later, almost perfectly in time with Hikaru reaching for the thrust controls. "We got things packed down pretty tight here. But anywhere else you're going to kick up a dust cloud like you wouldn't believe."

"Got it!" Hikaru called out, as he began walking the Valkyrie towards the indicated area.

"Looks like you're the last of skull squadron to show up." Misa commented, spotting an unmistakable pair of red and blue battroids, helping to direct a small exodus of vehicles from the Daedalus's lowered boarding ramp.

"Yeah." Hikaru agreed somewhat sadly, an awkward and somewhat depressive silence settling down between the two.

"Hikaru!?" The speaker enhanced voice of Max Jenius jerked them both back to the present.

"Max!" Hikaru tried to wave, before realizing their position and catching himself just short of smacking Misa in the face.

"Er, sorry." He apologized somewhat abashedly.

"I should probably." Misa started, face turning red in embarrassment as she suddenly remembered the position they were in.

"Don't want anyone getting the wrong idea." Hikaru agreed with her unspoken comment, his face turning an almost brighter shade of red then her own, as he set the Valkyrie into a low crouch so she could get out.

Misa tried to watch her footing as she pulled herself out of the cockpit, but the limited movement afforded by her skirt made that a much more difficult task then anticipated, and she ended up stepping on various parts of Hikaru at least twice in her climb down.

"Misa!" She heard a familiar voice call out, and braced herself, turning just in time, as the tiny missile that was a sobbing Shammy Milliome shot out from one of the groups of exiting people and slammed into her with a death hug. "We..." She stammered out in between sobs. "We thought you were dead."

"Hikaru was able to get me out a few minutes before the grand canon's power core overloaded." Misa explained, somewhat awkwardly returning the young woman's hug, while shooting one of her patented, get back to work, glares at the small crowed that was gathering to watch the show.

"We would have called." Hikaru added in, as he began to make his own way down. "But the radio was one of the systems that came out somewhat the worse for wear on our way out."

"Figured it was something like that after seeing." The voice of Max broke in, only to pause mid sentence in a way she had come to associate with someone getting a message on a second channel. "Sorry, would love to stay and hear what happened, but I really gotta get back to work. The gravity systems took a pretty heavy beating, and the engineers say we only have a couple hours at most before it fails entirely. So there's something of a rush to get the city evacuated."

"Oh, right!" Shammy exclaimed, pulling back from the hug and drying her eyes with a sleeve. "I need to..." She tried to finish before embarrassment caused her to trail off awkwardly.

"Go?" Misa finished for her, trying not to giggle at the all to familiar situation.

"Yeah." Shammy nodded in agreement, before turning around and starting to head towards a small group of tents Misa could make out near the boarding ramp. Only to pause after a few steps to add in a last parting comment. "The bridge is a bit of a mess, but I am sure the Captain would welcome your help coordinating everything with the surviving brass."

Misa pushed down the tears that threatened to leak out at the reminder that she still had a place with the Macross crew. When the reality of what Max had said before finally sunk in.

Turning to Hikaru, and seeing him with a look of quiet concern almost identical to her own. She gave a nod, before breaking off into a run towards one of the nearby transport jeeps that looked like it was about to head back in for another load of passangers.

"Hold up!" She shouted, as the vehicle started to pull out.

"Sorry! Can't..." The driver started, then trailed off as he turned his head and noticed just who was yelling. "Lieutenant!?"

"It's Captain now Donovan." Misa corrected, using the Ensigns hesitation to slip into the front passenger seat.

"Get this vehicle moving ensign." She ordered after a moment, when it became clear he wasn't going to go without some additional prompting.

"Of course Captain." He agreed, and Misa breathed a sigh of relief as the vehicle accelerated up the boarding ramp and into the belly of the Daedalus.

The trip to the bridge felt longer then Misa remembered. And by the time she arrived at the metal door, the sheer anxiety over what she would say, was enough to keep her standing there, hand poised over the door control, for good five a minutes.

Finally biting the bullet, she pressed on and entered to a scene of moderately controlled chaos. A medical officer was fussing over a somewhat battered looking Captain Global. While both he and the Zentradi officer Exsedol tried to play video call peacemaker between an angry group of UN Spacy and Zentradi officers.

"Captain Misa Hayase, reporting for duty sir!" She announced, breaking into a salute and hoping Captain Global caught the distraction for what it was meant as.

Twisting his chair to face her, she caught a brief flash of surprised relief that quickly morphed into a sly smile she had come to know well over her years serving under him.

"Thank you for arriving so promptly Captain Hayase." He began, turning back to face the divided screen with the indignant, but now thankfully quiet, parties on them. "As I was just explaining to our Zentradi allies. While we would more then welcome their help with recovery efforts, given the circumstances, we heavily prefer limiting that only those Zentradi or Meltrandi willing to undergo the micronization process."

"A completely reasonable request all things considered." Exsedol quickly agreed before any of the others could derail things back into a shouting match.

"My men won't be happy about this." One of the Zentradi officers added, cutting the transmission in a move that was quickly followed by the others.

"Perfect timing as always Hayase." Captain Global commented, giving a sigh of relief as the medical officer finished whatever they were doing and moved off.

"Indeed, the timing of your entrance was quite fortuitous." Exsedol concurred with a nod.

"Anything I can help with?" Misa asked, worry gnawing at her as she noticed more then just Shammy's station sitting dead and empty.

"Internal communications are down, so we sent everyone we could spare out to coordinate the evac with radios." Captain Global reassured her, noticing where Misa's gaze was lingering.

"Do you need me to?" She started, only to stop as a wide eyed look of panic made it's way onto Global's face.

"No!" He all but shouted, pausing to give an embarrassed cough into his fist at the uncharacteristic outburst. "I mean, we could very much use your expertise here to help deal with the wider scale issue."

"Of course Captain." Misa yielded, trying to hide an amused smile.

I should be." She began, only to be interrupted by the wailing of a familiar alarm that sent her into a sprint towards the abandoned long range radar station.

"Report!" Global snapped, former joviality gone in an instant.

"Massive defold!" Misa returned, eyes widening in despair as she counted out the climbing number of signatures. "Ten thousand, a hundred thousand, a million, three point three million and a large signature matching that of the Golg Boddole mothership."

"Deculture." Exsedol uttered, disbelief and shock mingling together in his voice. "The only other Zentradi fleet in range is the two thousand first, and their supreme commander would never follow Golg Boddole Zer."

"I am picking up communications between the new fleet and the surviving Zentradi vessels." Vanessa added, speaking up for the first time since Misa had returned to the bridge.

"Nothing directed towards us?" Global inquired, pipe clutched thoughtfully in his hands.

"Negative." Vanessa confirmed, eyes never looking up from her screen.

"If I may?" Exsedol offered, previous uncertainty all but gone as he made his way over to the communications station.

"Go ahead." Global allowed.

Exsedol bent down, entering a long sting of commands into the computer faster then Misa could make out.

"All communication ceased." Vanessa announced, giving a confused look to the now smug looking Zentradi making his way back to the captains side. "Incoming signal from the mothership class vessel."

"Put them on." Global commanded, subtly straightening out his shirt and adjusting his hat.

The face that appeared on screen was younger then Misa expected, looking more like a human in their early thirties, instead of the fifty plus she had seen of every other high ranking Zentradi officer so far. More surprising then his age however, was the fact she could spot both Zentradi and Meltrandi working together in the background.

"Supreme Commander Raj Gotta Sha." Exsedol began, in a tone Misa had come to associate with own dealings with much higher ranked brass. "Thank you for responding."

"Of course Archivist Exsedol." He acknowledged with a slight nod, before taking a moment to look over as much of the bridge as the camera's would allow. "The priority communication codes you used are still good for another thirty seven point four Taarms. And I assume if anyone would have a good explanation for what's going on in this system, it would be you."

"I can of course." Exsedol agreed, motioning to the captain. "But first may I introduce Brigadier General Bruno Jay Global of the United Nations Spacy."

"Supreme Commander." Captain Global greeted, putting on his best diplomatic face once it became clear things might not devolve into a shooting match. "Welcome to the solar system."

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Trying to get back into writing now that I have some free time. So enjoy the read everyone.

 

[Vaermina]

Chapter 2​

Fariz and I listened intently, as Exsedol wove a story that was both vaguely familiar to me, and yet almost completely alien to what little I could remember after all this time.

"What do you think Fariz?" I asked, turning off the communications link and turning to her.

"Could it be the Supervision?" She wondered, focusing on the visual of the transformed Macross being emitted by the primary holographic projector.

"When have you known the Supervision Army to be anywhere near this creative or subtle?" I returned, trying not to break into a chuckle at the remembrance of their past conversion attempts.

"Fair point." She admitted, brow furrowing in thought. "But still, for him to think those micronians are the Protoculture?"

"It's not impossible." I admitted, not even bothering to hide my derision at the idea. "Though I don't put much stock in Archivist Exsedol's theory given the state of the micronians planet."

"Should we prepare the fleet for fold out then?" Fariz inquired, giving a somewhat skeptical look towards the blasted ruins of the planetary surface being shown on a number of additional smaller projections.

"No." I disagreed, after taking a moment to give the suggestion some actual thought. "Short of finishing what Golg Boddole Zer started, it's far too late to put the Phesnoit back in the cargo container."

"And like a stowaway Phesnoit." Fariz mused to herself, so silently I almost didn't hear. "A couple of off duty Regult's have even started feeding them."

Holding back a chuckle at the amusing mental picture that conjured up, I turned my mind back to the issue at hand. Mentally going over and discarding various options as the slow realization that I had absolutely no idea where to go from this point forward set in.

"We need to locate Commander Britai." I muttered, my mind going to the Zentradi commander who had featured so prevalently in Exsedol's retelling.

"Sir?" Fariz questioned, somewhat confused by the non-sequitur.

"With Boddole and his command crew dead, protocol dictates the remains of the hundred eighteenth, including matters pertaining to it's area of operations, would fall under the purview of that fleets most senior surviving officer." I reminded her.

"Which as far as we know is Commander Britai." Fariz finished, understanding and embarrassment clashing on her face.

"So until such a time as Commander Britai is located." I continued, perfectly aware that I was just postponing dealing with the larger issue. "Tell the fleet to maintain a communications blackout with the planet and proceed as if this were a standard after battle rescue and recovery operation."

"Of course Supreme Commander." Fariz agreed, turning to issue the order, only to pause and turn back as something occurred to her. "What of any micronian survivors?"

"Apply standard protoculture rescue and quarantine protocols." I replied after a moments consideration.

Accepting Fariz's lack of further response for the tact admittance that she could handle things from here that it no doubt was. I left the command center and made my way back to my quarters, only to pause at the sight of a familiar mop of blue hair leaning up against the wall next to my doorway.

"Regult." I sighed, suspecting what the problem was, but hoping none the less that I was wrong. "Please tell me you haven't been waiting here for the last seven hours?"

"Regult?" I repeated, somewhat confused when, after a moment, it became clear no reply was forthcoming from the young woman.

Frowning as a light snore clued me in to the problem, I briefly debated just leaving the sleeping woman where she was, before my long cultivated sense of responsibility got the better of me.

"Stand to attention Regult!" I snapped out, taking some brief, and wholly inappropriate, enjoyment at the way she fumbled to stay standing at the sudden shock back to wakefulness.

"Sir." She struggled to pull off a salute. "I was just."

"Sleeping." I finished for her, my tone turning from strict to amused in an instant. "Yes I gathered. But that's what your quarters are for."

"I wasn't dismiss sir." She explained, confirming my earlier suspicion.

"You are dismissed Regult." I sighed, moving to enter my quarters only to pause as one last bit of mischief occurred to me. "General facilities are through the yellow marked door at the end of the hall."

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"It never ends." Misa moaned tiredly, resting her head on the flat plane of her empty breakfast tray.

"I'm sure it'll be okay." Kim tried to console her with a couple pitying pats on the backs.

"A week!" Misa deadpanned. "They have been sitting up there without a word of response for nearly a week."

"Look on the bright side Misa." Vanessa chimed in from across the table. "At least they aren't shooting us."

"It's getting to the point I almost wish they would." Misa halfheartedly muttered. "If only so I wouldn't have to deal with the constant string of people demanding we do something about them."

"Come on Misa." Claudia said, rolling her eyes at her friends antics. "How bad could it really be?"

Pulling her head off the table, Misa looked Claudia straight in the eyes, hoping the dead look in her own would convey just what level of stress she had been under since returning to the Macross.

"Okay. Okay." Claudia admitted a moment later, holding her hands up in surrender. "Maybe it is that bad."

"What do you think they are doing up there anyways?" Vanessa asked, poking at her rehydrated eggs with a fork.

"I asked Milia about that." Kim spoke up. "And she thinks they might be waiting for the new Fleet Commander to contact them."

"That's." Misa was about to say silly, but then paused as she actually stopped to consider the issue through the lens of what she knew about the Zentradi. "Not impossible, but given everything Exsedol has said about the two thousand first's fleet commander, exceedingly unlikely."

"Oh? What has he said?" Kim asked in interest, a sudden look not unlike a shark scenting blood in the water coming over her features.

"You know that's classified." Misa answered with sigh.

"Aww. Come on Misa" Kim pouted at her. "There's gotta be something you can tell us."

"You're right" Mise answered after a moment, turning her head away from Kim to hide the small smile that made it's way onto her face as she let the anticipation build. "He has green hair."

"Something we didn't already know." Kim added, sagging somewhat in her seat.

"Sorry Kim." Misa answered, giving the woman an amused look. "Almost everything Exsedol could tell us about the man had to do with various Zentradi military campaigns. And you know Captain Global doesn't want to risk any of that information getting out to the public right now."

"Yea, I get it." Kim waved her off, before getting a puckish grin on her face and switching tracks completely. "So how are things going between you and Hikaru?"

"What!?" Misa sputtered in shock.

"Don't try to hide it." Kim grinned. "We heard all about the daring rescue from Shammy."

"That wasn't." Misa began, still reeling at the abrupt change of topic. "Hikaru and I are just friends."

"Besides." She continued with an embarrassed blush and low mumble. "He's with Minmay."

"Oh please." Kim waved off Misa's halfhearted protest. "Everyone knows that's not going anywhere."

"Hikaru's caught the fleet bug hard, and has even been bugging the Captain to let him pull in survivors from other bases to bring Skull Squadron up to full strength. While Minmay's getting ready to ship out to the worst hit regions for a world wide charity tour. And that's not even counting how her cousin feels about those in the military."

Misa tried not to cringe at the remembrance, having been witness to more then one of Kaifun's rants herself.

"Still." She waffled, turning to Claudia in hopes of rescue, only to see the woman had abandoned her to get another cup of coffee.

"Oh! I know." Vanessa interjected in sudden excitement. "What about a double date?"

"Eu tu Brute." Misa muttered, shooting Vanessa a look of betrayal.

"One of the Zentradi asked me out before the whole thing with Boddole." Vanessa explained, giving an embarrassed shrug when everyone at the table turned to stare at her.

"Which one?" Misa asked, morbidly curious despite her normal reticence towards such gossip.

"Rori." Vanessa answered, then clarified when Kim shot her a look of confusion. "The one with."

Whatever else Vanessa was going to say was lost, as the mess hall's speaker system crackled to life and the voice of May Passley began speaking.

"Will Captain Misa Hayes, First Lieutenant Hikaru Ichijyo, Second Lieutenant Maximilian Jenius, Provisional Officer Milia Fallyna Jenius, and Archivist Exsedol please report to briefing room one."

Misa was up and excusing herself before the young woman could finish the announcement.

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Entering the briefing room, Misa was relieved to see she was the first of those called to arrive. The only other people in the room a pair of busy junior officers and a silently seated Captain Global who was engrossed in fiddling with his pipe.

"Captain." She greeted, walking around the edge of the U shaped table to her usual seat and giving the man a small smile.

"Captain." Global replied, looking up to give her a nod and smile in return.

"Another end of the world emergency?" Misa joked, sliding into her chair.

"Eh." Global grunted, seemingly pondering her question before returning her joke with one of his own. "Could go either way."

"I assume you're still up to date with your diplomatic training?" He asked, expression suddenly turning serious.

"Yes?" She answered after a moment, uncertainty at the odd change of topic coloring her response.

"Good. Good." Global approved, pocketing his pipe and looking through some of the paperwork neatly piled on the table.

Misa sat their blinking into space, as her mind nervously went over the various possibilities connected to the captains question. Only coming out of her contemplation when the door swished open, admitting the three current members of Skull Squadron, and a pair of security guards escorting a somewhat animated Exsedol.

"Archivist." Global turned to address the micronized Zentradi once everyone had taken their seats. "Before we begin, I have some good news for you. We have finally been able to get in contact with Captain Britai."

"That is excellent news!" Exsedol exclaimed, a happy smile gracing his face at the news that his long time friend was okay.

"His ship was heavily damaged in the fighting, and he was forced to bring it down near Apollo Base." Global continued, pausing and clarifying as he remembered that Exsedol would have no idea where that was. "That's a shipyard on the surface of the Earth's moon."

"That much damage." Exsedol murmured almost to himself. "I'm surprised he was able to contact you so soon Captain."

"He had some help." Global stated, sounding for some reason less then thrilled with the admittance. "His crash site was located by one of Supreme Commander Gotta's search and rescue vessels."

"Quite fortuitous." Exsedol concurred, seemingly missing the Captain Global's subtext. "Though I am surprised the Supreme Commander still follows such outdated military procedures."

"Outdated?" Hikaru questioned, getting a mildly reprimanding stare from both Misa and Captain Global at the interruption.

"Oh yes, rescue operations were" Exsedol began, only for Captain Global to give a fake cough in a clear call to attention. "Oh, right, my apologies Captain."

"As I was about to say." Global continued. "Supreme Commander Gotta had apparently been searching for Captain Britai in particular, since he was the highest ranking surviving officer in the Golg Boddole fleet."

Pausing in his account, Captain Global turned to Exsedol as if asking for confirmation.

"It's highly likely." Exsedol confirmed, after taking a moment to consider the issue. "We specifically targeted the other Belnar class vessels during the battle for that very reason."

"Than we apparently lucked out." Global went on. "Because with no other Golg Boddole Fleet Captains around to object. Commander Britai was able to convince Supreme Commander Gotta, that it could be beneficial to everyone involved, if he were to enter into negotiations with us."

"I assume there were some restrictions?" Misa asked, a sinking feeling settling in the pit of her stomach as Captain Global paused to let his statement sink in.

"Rather strict and non-negotiable ones at that." Global confirmed with an unhappy sigh. "Following the way the Zentradi do things, Supreme Commander Gotta is only willing to negotiate face to face on his command vessel with either me or my second in command."

"Hmm." Exsedol reflected holding his chin in thought. "That's a potential way of handling the issue I never really considered."

"You're planning to send me?" Misa inquired, his earlier question about her diplomatic training finally clicking into place.

"I wish I could go myself." Global admitted, his eyes softening as he looked at her.

"But you're needed here." Misa finished for him, returning his look with an understanding one of her own.

"Unfortunately accurate." Global affirmed, slumping slightly in his seat for a moment before catching himself and straightening up.

"If that is the way Supreme Commander Raj Gotta has decided to handling things, then I would surmise the other three are here to be her pilot and escorts?" Exsedol put forward, seemingly having caught on to what was happening.

"Yes." Global once more confirmed. "And I was hoping you could go with to assist them."

"No." Exsedol immediately refused to the shock of all but one other person in the room.

"I'm Boddole fleet." He explained once it became clear nobody other then Milia was able to follow the logic of his refusal. "But this is a negotiation between your Earth fleet and his Gotta fleet."

"What about Milia?" Misa inquired, following what she could of the odd cultural logic Exsedol had just introduced.

"She would be of your fleet now." Exsedol waved off Misa's concern. "While rare, such transfers of personal have been known to happen, and so there are procedures in place for when they do."

"That's something at least." Global sighed, clearly not having expected Exsedol's staunch refusal coming into this. "Can you at least give us a breakdown of what to expect at this meeting?"

"Of course." Exsedol agreed, tilting his head in confusion over the idea that he wouldn't.

"In general, such negotiations have been known to last anywhere from thirty cycles to an entire taarm. Which roughly translates to somewhere between forty to four-hundred and fifty of your planets days."

"Arranging long term joint fleet operations is tricky at the best of times." He continued, mulling over the issue to the stunned silence to the rest of the room. "So I would expect these negotiations to reach around the upper end of that."

"Supplies and lodgings are of course to be provided by the hosting commander. And priority communications channels will be set aside so they can stay in contact with their own fleet."

"Are there any armament restrictions for the escorts?" Global questioned, his pipe back out and clutched tensely in his hands.

Exsedol put a hand to his chin in thought and considered the question for a moment.

"Your Valkyrie's Battroid mode's should be close enough to the standard Ger battle suit that they would be considered acceptable." He finally acknowledged. "However I would caution against arming them with any of your reaction weaponry."

"That's honestly more then I expected." Global admitted, putting a voice to Misa's own thoughts on the matter.

"The Zentradi are a martial people captain." Exsedol returned with a wry smile. "Showing up to a negotiation unarmed, even among allies, would be considered quite foolhardy."

"Er." Hikaru spoke up, sounding a bit uncertain after the earlier chastening, but pushing forward with his concern all the same. "I know you said supplies and lodging would be provided by them. But we aren't exactly Zentradi sized, so will they actually be able to provide those things for us?"

"It's their." Exsedol began, only to cut his instinctive rebuttal short as he actually considered the question. "Hmm, that might actually be an issue, since it would show a lack of trust for your people to provide their own."

"How would your people feel about undergoing the Miclone process?" He asked, turning to give the four of them a speculative look that sent shivers down Misa's spine.

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I had been hoping to get this out last week, but there was a bit of a delay due to other things taking up my time and some research to find out whether certain things were actually possible withing the universe.

That said I hope you all enjoy, it's a bit info dumpy, but I had to do some world-building and setup for future chapters.

 

[Vaermina]

Chapter 3​

Misa's legs felt like jelly, and she braced herself on the tanks hatch to stay standing as the semi-transparent purple fluid finished draining out of the miclone tank. That support was short lived however, as the hatch she was using for support swung open sending her sprawling forward into the arms of a ready and waiting Milia.

She tried to speak, only to gag as something other then words came out and she found herself throwing up what felt like a truly ludicrous amount of the purple liquid onto the floor of the crashed Zentradi vessel's medical bay.

"That was horrible." Misa croaked out, once she cleared her lungs and was finally able to speak.

"It is somewhat uncomfortable." Milia agreed, with a contemplative look. "I believe my Max described it as feeling like a millions ants were crawling around your insides."

"Quite an odd description if I do say so myself." A soft male voice chimed, directing Misa's shock widening eyes to the doll sized form of Exsodel staring up at her from the rooms raised walkway.

"Get out!" Misa screamed, crouching down and trying to hide behind Milia's own Meltrandi flight-suit clad form in a vein attempt to cover up her less then clothed state.

"How odd." Exsedol commented, seemingly more concerned with her reaction then state of undress. "The other two showed no concern for my presence when they exited the chamber, yet you do."

"I am not them." Misa mumbled, hugging her chest to her knees as the adrenaline spike of being seen in a less then clothed state wore off. And the realization that Exsedol was basically the closest thing she had available to a qualified medical professional for this set in.

"Archivist." Milia cut in, finally realizing what the problem likely was. "Since you can see there were no complications with the process, perhaps you can step out so Captain Hayes can get dressed."

"Oh." Exsedol exclaimed in sudden realization. "Of course, my apologies for keeping you Captain."

Misa sat there in silent embarrassment, staring at her knees, till the sound of the door opening and closing informed her of Exsedol's exit.

"Thanks." She muttered, picking herself up and trying not to look selfconsciously towards the confident green haired Zentradi.

"Yes." Milia agreed with a frown towards where Exsedos had exited. "It was very rude of the Archivist to hold us up like that."

"That's not what I." Misa began, only to pause and then let out a long sigh, as she remembered just who she was talking to. "Never mind, you said something about getting dressed? I take it that means our engineers were able to modify one of the ships uniform production machines?"

"Not entirely, they said something about a problem with the." Whatever else Milia was going to say was cut off, as the rooms primary hatch slid open. Admitting a colorfully painted Battroid, carrying comparably giant sized roll's of white, yellow, and blue cloth.

"Oh, Miss Milia!" A somewhat effeminate male voice called out from the battroids speakers. "Sorry about the delay, this place is a maze, and then I got talking with this nice Zentradi boy who was..."

"You're already out!" The Battroid blurted out in surprise, as the person inside suddenly noticed Milia wasn't alone in the room.

"Yes." Misa affirmed with a resigned nod, her single syllable utterance carrying all the physical and emotional tiredness she was currently feeling.

"Excellent!" He exclaimed, and she swore she could all but hear him clapping his hand together in joy. "This makes things so much easier."

"They wanted me to make you an outfit without measuring first." He stage whispered, setting down the rolls of cloth and walking a circle around her.

"Nine hundred and seventy three centimeters." He finally declared with a self satisfied huff. "I warned them it would be a bad idea to go off of Miss Milia here, and it looks like I was right."

"What do you mean?" Milia inquired, sounding somewhat perplexed by the man's comment.

"No offense intended dear." He reassured her, his voicing giving such a strong impression of a smile that she could almost see it through the cockpit. "But the Captain here came out nearly a meter taller then you. So if I had done that, she would be going to meet the Zentradi in a mini-skirt, instead of the tasteful pencil the normal dress uniform uses."

"There are different types of skirts?" Milia asked tilting her head slightly in confusion at his words.

"Oh, oh you poor girl, I almost forgot." He answered sounding truly sorry for her. "Tell you what, when your assignment is over we have to go shopping together. With that hair color of yours, mmh, I bet we could find some killer outfits to make that Max of yours smile."

Milia looked thoughtful at that, before giving a hesitant nod of agreement.

"Excuse me." Misa interrupted in her best command voice, shooting a halfhearted glare of outrage at the battroid. "But who are you?"

"Technical Sergent Killian Reed, USAF reserve out of Anchorage Ma'am." He replied, the man's earlier confidence and exuberance waning, as the sudden realization that he was in the room with a naked superior officer finally set in.

"I thought." Misa trailed off, trying, and failing to think of a kind way to say to say that Anchorage was no more then a smoking crater.

"My unit was out on operation Arctic Care when it happened." Killian acknowledged, sounding both relieved and ashamed at the admittance. "It's why Admiral Global called me in for this."

Something about the name and unit description finally jiggled something loose in Misa's memory.

"The battroid snow-boots." She blurted out, flushing in embarrassment the moment the words left her lips.

"That was me." He affirmed, a hint of pride creeping back into his voice. "You wouldn't believe what it took to get authorization, but after the twelfth time we."

"Sergent" Misa interrupted before he could start going down another tangent.

"Right, sorry Captain." Killian sheepishly apologized. "I have up sized patterns for everything in the standard dress uniforms, so anything specific you would like me to start with?"

"A bra and panties would be appreciated." Misa deadpanned, crossing her arms over her chest and tapping her foot in irritation.

"Now lets see." Killian muttered to himself, clearly forgetting the mic was in his helmet and picking up everything he might say no matter the volume. "Should we go with balcony or plunge."

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Subtly adjusting a bra strap as she made her way from the elevator to the small Zentradi vessel's flight deck. Misa gave a prayer of silent thanks to whatever divine entity arranged for a man of Killian Reed's odd skill set to survive the orbital bombardment that had killed so much of Earth's population.

"He seemed quite competent." Milia commented, matching step with Misa as she guided her through the vessel's twisting corridors. "Do you think he would have time to make me something before we leave for the negotiations?"

"it can't hurt to ask." Misa answered, mentally parsing out the near six hours of work it had taken the man's Battroid to finish her own outfit into the four days they had left before the agreed upon date. "And he should have the time necessary to make one or two extra things once he finishes backups for the rest of us."

"Good." Milia replied with a firm nod. "Max was hesitant to culture with me in my macronized form, and the, how to keep your man happy, magazine suggested proper undergarments can help with that sort of thing."

Having gotten somewhat used to Milia's blunt nature over the past few weeks of working together on and off the Macross, Misa only stumbled a little at Milia's frank admittance.

"That's." Misa trailed off, not entirely sure what to say in concerns to the odd turn the conversation had taken.

"Just, don't break anything." She finally settled on.

"Do not worry." Milia reassured her as they entered the launch bay. "Our bodies are much more study in this form."

"I didn't mean." Misa began, only to go silent and blink mouth agape at the sight of a macronized Max, chatting with an increasingly uncomfortable looking, and similarly macronized, Hikaru.

"What is he wearing?" She finally blurted out, the sheer absurdity of seeing Max in a well fitted Meltrandi flight suit completely shorting out anything else that may have been on her mind.

"Max wished for me to teach him how to pilot one of the recovered Queadluun-Rau." Milia explained, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"But why the female flight suit?" Misa reiterated.

Milia looked at her in confusion for a moment before realization set in. "The flight suit interfaces with the battle suit to increase responsivity."

Misa opened her mouth to protest that that didn't explain anything, before closing it with a snap, as she remembered just what kind of lengths Max and Milia would drive themselves too when competing in a thing.

"Misa!" Hikaru called out, quickly excusing himself from Max and running over towards them.

"Hikaru." She returned, giving him a smile, only to pause and tilt her head as she compared his current form to the one in her memories.

"Did you get taller?" She finally asked once she finally confirmed that yes, they actually were eye level to each other now.

"By a couple of dozen feet at least." Hikaru joked, rubbing the back of his neck in embarrassment at the scrutiny.

"I was talking about compared to our usual respective heights." Misa restated, holding in a giggle at the joke.

"I hadn't noticed." Hikaru answered, taking a moment to compare their eye levels. "I guess, maybe?"

"Oh! I know this." Milia interjected. "The maconization process is not an exact one to one conversion."

She frowned, putting a finger to the corner of her mouth in thought before continuing. "There were even rumors of the occasional Zentradi coming out of the process looking much younger then their actual age."

"That's a risk?" Misa asked, the sudden fear that she would transform back, only to find herself stuck looking like a small child for the rest of her life forming in the pit of her stomach.

"I have never heard any first hand accounts of it having happened." Milia reassured her. "So it was likely just a rumor."

A loud crash broke the uncomfortable silence, and Milia looked over with a frown, to where Max had fallen off the large crate of aerospace paint he had been attempting to use as a step stool in an attempt to get into one of the bay's two Queadluun-Rau suits.

"Forgive me." Milia excused herself. "I believe Max could use a remedial lesson in proper battlesuit boarding procedures."

"Those two really are made for each other." Hikaru commented as they watched Milia stalk over and begin to lecture an awkwardly smiling Max.

"Yes." Misa agreed, watching the two for a moment before turning back to Hikaru and giving his very standard Macross uniform a once over. "No pilots suit for you?"

"Rori said it wasn't needed for piloting one of their scout ship's." Hikaru explained, shooting a relieved look towards the small ship taking up most of the bay.

"Pity." She said, turning her head to hide the teasing smile. "I'm sure you would have cut quite the formidable figure."

"I really hope not." Hikaru muttered, tossing a somewhat queasy look over towards Max.

"Do you really think this will work?" He asked after a moment.

"I honestly don't know." She admitted with a sigh, a number of too horrible to think scenarios coming to mind. "But worst comes to worst, this is still giving the Macross more time to work on repairs it wouldn't have otherwise had."

"Guess I never thought of it like that." He conceded, giving a look of newfound consideration towards the ship that was to be their transport.

Finally seeming to come to a decision, Hikaru grabbed one of her hands, and tried to drag her over towards the small ships lowered boarding ramp.

"I. What?" Misa stammered out as she followed along without resistance, the sudden and unexpected physical contact effectively blue screening her thought process.

"You should know the controls just in case something happens." He explained, letting go of her hand and ducking down slightly as he made his way inside so as to avoid hitting his head on the vessels hull. "It will be a bit tight with two of us up there, but the controls themselves aren't that different from that battlepod we stole when escaping from Britai's ship. So it shouldn't take too long for me to show you enough to be able to fly the ship."

"But I have." She tried to think of some excuse, mind going over the various things she might have to do, and coming up blank as she remembered that Captain Global had relieved them from their other duties. "Things." She finished lamely.

The silence and skeptical look Hikaru gave at her objection was telling, so with a sigh and silent reiteration to herself that he was off limits. She followed him up for a, hopefully quick, lesson in piloting the Zentradi vessel.

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This was originally going to be just the first part of chapter three, but then it kept ballooning, and there was a natural cut off point that was a couple day time skip, so I decided to separate it into two different chapters. The second of which I will hopefully have out in the next couple weeks.

 

[Vaermina]

Chapter 4​

This was it, in just a few hours they would be aboard the Zentradi mothership, and there negotiating for what might very well be the fate of the human race. Misa wanted to pace to relieve the nervousness that was eating her up inside, but the tight confines of the vessel's secondary stations prevented it. So she once more resorted to fiddling with the metal clasps on her uniform, as Hikaru finished the last of their pre-launch checks.

"Everything looks good on the board, and the launch window is as clear as it's going to get given all the wreckage up there." Hikaru finally confirmed, pushing the throttle forward and accelerating the vessel out of the hanger they had spent the past four days using as a makeshift staging ground.

A ping from her left called attention to one of the many monitors lining the wall. And she turned her head just in time to catch the pair of freshly painted Red and Blue Queadluun-Rau suits, as they moved into the inverted wedge that Exsedol had described to them as the proper diplomatic escort formation.

"Hold on." Hikaru called out, just as she felt the telltale prickle of not really there ghost like acceleration, that indicated their vessel was now on it's way to exiting the earths atmosphere.

When the Macross had launched while under attack by the Zentradi, even with the vessels experimental inertial store converters, it had taken them nearly four minutes to make it into orbit. So she was amazed when their borrowed vessel made the same journey in less then half that time.

A loud beeping drew Misa's attention away from monitor panels and back to Hikaru, who had switched his focus from the main holographic view screen to the communications panel.

"We're being challenged." He explained, catching her inquiring look from the corner of his eye. "I sent the codes Exsedol gave us, so hopefully we're just waiting for the all clear."

"And there it is." He continued after a moment of somewhat tense silence. "We've been assigned a flight corridor that will take us to docking port forty two on the motherships north-western quadrant."

"How long will that take us?" She asked, less because she wanted to know, and more to fill the silence that felt like it was about to settle between them.

"Given they parked a bit outside lunar orbit?" Hikaru put forward in a way that told her he was mentally running the numbers. "Maybe thirty five to forty minutes at our current acceleration."

With a quite sigh, she turned back to the monitors and accepted the inevitable silence as Hikaru focused entirely on the piloting.

Watching the wreckage of so many Zentradi vessels pass by as their ship accelerated towards it's destination. She felt a familiar pang of sadness in her chest, but one that this time extended itself to the billions of lives that must have been lost on both sides of their two people's senseless conflict.

A far off flash drew her attention, and a few touches to the monitoring station's control panel pulled in the center screen's focus to a pair of Nousjadeul-Ger's giving chase to a rapidly dodging Gnerl that looked to be pushing at full burn towards one of the more intact looking Zentradi wrecks.

The odd yet familiar nature of the spectacle pulled her in, and before long she found herself rooting for the small fighter as it stymied it's pursuers attempts to disable it.

A hand on her shoulder broke her out of her engrossment, and she turned to ask what Hikaru wanted only to blink as she caught view of a slowly opening wall of metal on the pilot stations view screen. "Oh."

"Sorry." Hikaru apologized, looking oddly embarrassed at having interrupted her focus. "Just wanted to make sure you knew we're almost there."

"Thank you." She acknowledged, covering her own embarrassment with a wane smile. He gave an awkward smile and nod in return, before making his way back to the controls, and taking their ship into the winding docking port. That eventually delivered them to a well lit dome shaped docking bay.

The ship shuddered slightly as Hikaru set it down, and she used the few moments between then and the docking ramp being lowered to brush the wrinkles out of her uniform.

Stepping down the ramp, she was surprised to see that the bay was completely empty. And while there hadn't been the expectation of being welcomed with the same level of pomp and circumstance that the Macross had greeted Exsedol with. She had at least expected someone to be there to great them, even if only for just security reasons.

"This can't be normal." She muttered, head swiveling from side to side in suspicion as she attempted to take in the entirety of the moderately sized, and other then them, completely empty, landing bay.

"It's not." Milia agreed, pulling herself up out of her queadluun-rau's cockpit.

"There should be." She paused to do a complicated acrobatic maneuver that left her standing flat on the ground and Misa more then a bit impressed at the flexibility needed to pull something like that off. "Hundred's of battlepods lined up ready for deployment in a hanger this size."

"Maybe they moved everything out for our arrival?" Hikaru asked as he made his way out of their transport.

"I don't think so." Max commented, scrutinizing the hanger with an intensity he usually reserved for the battlefield. "Look at the floor, now compare that to what we saw on Britai's ship, or even our own hangers."

"There's no damage. "Hikaru remarked, the sudden realization causing him to look over the hanger with a new eye.

"Not even a boot scuff on the floor." Max agreed with a contemplative look.

"Are you sure you got the right bay?" Misa half jokingly asked, as she turned a questioning look to Hikaru.

"The autopilot took over the moment we passed through the outer docking port." He confessed, eyes doing their own circle of the bay in hopes of picking up something the rest of them had missed.

"Do you hear that?" Max interrupted, holding up a hand in the commonly accept signal for silence.

"Hear what?" Milia asked, tilting her head at her husband, who was himself staring intently towards one of the closed doors strategically placed around the hanger.

Misa stayed silent for a moment, ears straining to make out anything odd over the omnipresent sounds of an operational starship.

"Sorry Max." Misa apologized after a minute passed with no success picking up anything out of the ordinary. "I don't."

A loud bang from the area around the closed doors Max was focused on interrupted her before she could finish her statement. And she stared dumbly, as the ever stoic Milia seemed to have a realization that sent into giggling into her closed fist.

"I believe." Milia started, then broke into giggles again before cutting herself off with a fake cough. "As I was about to say. I believe our escort may be the unfortunate victim of a minor equipment malfunction."

"You mean." Hikaru began, pointing towards the set of doors with an incredulous look. "They're stuck in the elevator?"

"Yes." Milia affirmed with a nod, as she made her way over to the doorway and began fiddling with one of the wall panels. "If I remember right there should be an emergency release around." She trailed off as the panel popped off revealing an almost recognizable hydraulic release handle

"Here." She finished, giving the release a downward yank, that caused the doors to open with a hiss. And a young blue headed Meltrandi, who looked to have been in the midst of trying to force open the doors, to tumble forward onto the floor.

Years of training had Misa rushing forward to check on the downed woman before her brain remembered that macronized Zentradi were a lot more sturdy then their human form would lead credence to. So instead, she tried to avoid a gaffe by offering a hand to help the woman back to her feet.

"You don't have to." The woman started, aggressively brushing off Misa's extended hand as she picked herself up, only to pause as she finally got a look at the person she was addressing.

"Sir. I mean, Ma'am. I mean, Commander." She began to stutter, in a way that reminded Misa of her own bumbling encounters with high level brass just a few years ago.

"Commander is fine." Misa acceded, the Zentradi equivalent to her actual rank an acceptable concession to prevent any further embarrassment to the young woman.

"I assume you are to be our escort, Regult." She finished, eyes quickly darting to confirm the rank stripes on the woman's uniform.

"Nelia Yaseia" The young woman confirmed with a nod, her earlier anxiety seeming to melt away into a regimented stiffness that left her standing almost ramrod straight. "My apologies for not being here to great you on arrival. But there was a problem with the transport tube that delayed me for a number of hours."

"Now if you will follow me." She continued, motioning back towards the elevator she had just exited with a wave of her hand. "Sub Commander Fariz has instructed that you are to be escorted to her as soon as you arrived."

"In the inoperative transport capsule?" Milia questioningly proded.

"Oh. Ah. Yes. Right." Nelia mumbled, looking suddenly abashed as her eyes darted to the various other doors in the bay before settling on one large pair in particular.

"This way if you would." She continued, moving on towards her newly decided destination without missing more then a beat.

An incredulous look over to Milia got Misa a confirming nod. So with a small sigh she motioned for everyone to follow along, and just hoped they wouldn't end up spending the next few days completely lost.

The doors opened with a swish on their approach, revealing a somewhat larger, but otherwise identical elevator to the one from before. Following Nelia inside, they waited silently as she fiddled with the twin joystick that served as the elevators controls.

"I was wondering Regult Yaseia." Milia interjected into the silence as they began to descend. "How long has it been since you were decanted?"

Misa blinked at the odd question, before frowing as she mentally translated it to the request for the woman's age that it actually was.

"A little over two taarms aviatrix." Nelia answered without pause, seemingly unperturbed by being suddenly asked what, to a human, would be a rather familiar question.

"And you already caught the attention of your fleets Sub Commander?" Milia noted, looking over the woman with new eyes. "Impressive."

"It is not what you might think." Nelia confessed after a moment. "I was the only survivor of my squadron from the last Supervision engagement. And manpower shortages were such that the Sub Commander was forced to bring me in as a replacement after having to reassign her normal assistant."

Misa's sudden urge to ask about their fleet's battle with the Supervision, in the hopes of filling in at least a few of the many holes in the UN Spacy's knowledge of the illusive builders of the Macross. Was dampened by the obvious, if somewhat muted, sadness radiating off the woman at her remembrance of the events.

"I'm sorry to hear that." Hikaru put forward, only to be immediately taken aback when both Nelia and Milia shot him an angry look at the professed sympathy.

"No pity is needed." Milia corrected once Hikaru looked suitably rebuked. "I am sure she destroyed many enemy vessels in their names."

"Two for each member of my squadron slain." Nelia concurred with a nod of respect to Milia.

"Keep that in mind if I am ever slain in battle." Milia remarked, turning to Max, who had a sudden deer in the headlights look at the turn the conversation was taking. "Though be aware, since we are culturing and not just squad-mates, I will accept nothing less then a gun destroyer."

"Are those stars?" Max asked pointing out one of the elevators strategically placed transparent wall panels, in a desperate attempt to shift the subject away from the possibility of his wife's death.

Misa's eyes followed to where Max was pointing, and the sight of the star filled panorama that greeted her vision, nearly caused a double take.

"We are passing through the vessels park deck." Milia explained, as if that answer was enough to clarify the issue. And given the nod of agreement Nelia gave, Misa supposed for a Zentradi it would be.

"It's huge." Hikaru mumbled in awe, no doubt like her, comparing it to the small city they had been forced to build inside the Macross.

"Is that a city?" Misa asked, spotting a slowly approaching arrangement of lights, on what she guessed to be the floor.

"Yes." Nelia confirmed as she followed Misa's gaze. "It's mostly used for hosting the various inter-ship tournaments. Though with the number of soldiers recovered from the Boddole fleet, the Surpreme Commander decided to repurpose it for use as temporary berthing for them."

"And you of course." She finished quickly, as if to re-assure them of something they might otherwise take offence to.

"We're to stay in the city?" Misa probed.

"You are." Nelia affirmed after a moment, sounding oddly ashamed at the admittance. "The Sub Commander was originally planning to house you with the rest of your people in the old protoculture facilities by the lake. But then Archivest Exsedol informed us of your macronization, so we had to change the arrangements."

"I can assure you though." She continued, seemingly mistaking the reason for the shocked look that had made it's way onto Misa's face, for concern over their accomidations. "Your delegation is being assigned the best quarters we have avilable."

The capsules doors opening with an audible swish, signaled their arrival at the selected destination. But before Nelia could move to exit, Misa reached out and took a hold of the shorter womans shoulder.

"What do you mean the rest of our people?" Misa demanded, wincing internally to herself as the tone of her question ended up coming out somewhat more forcefully then she intended.

"The one's picked up during orbital recovery." Nelia acknowledged, unconcernedly shrugging off Misa's grip and continuing out.

Eyebrow twitching, Misa stalked out after their guide, only to come to an almost immediate halt at the sight of the partially luminescent, somewhat alien looking forest that greated her.

"Were you not taking us to the city Regult?" Milia questioned, as she followed the others out and looked around the small elevator station they had just exited from.

"It was supposed to be." Nelia admitted uncertainly. "From transport tube forty eight, it should have been down down left down left up left again and then down. I made sure to memorize the route from that exact landing bay to the city and everything."

"This was tube forty six." Max corrected, pointing a thumb over his shoulder at one of the stations external wall's, that had the still clearly legible Zentradi numbers four and six on them.

"But we... Oh..." Nelia uttered, slumping in on herself as the remembrance that they had switched transport tubes set in.

"Does this mean we're lost?" Hikaru side whispered, looking around at the odd scale of the alien plant-life that surrounded them in bemusement.

"I doubt it." Max reassured him, doing his own survey of the area. "Worst comes to worst we can just..."

"Wait, where did Milia go?" He finished, looking around for his wife.

"She right..." Misa began, only to pause when, after looking over to where Milia had previously been standing, she saw only boot prints and empty space.

"Regult Yaseia?"

"Regult Yaseia!?" She repeated, somewhat louder, after the first call failed to get the womans attention.

"Oh, yes sorry." Nelia finally replied, looking back towards them as she finally seemed to snap out whatever thought had gripped her. "I was trying to..."

Her explanation was cut off, as a large humanoid form burst out of the forest in a flying tackle aimed at her midsection.

To the Meltrandi's credit, she was at least able to brace herself in the split second before the impact. Though it did little good, as the larger size of the attacking Zentradi sent her tumbling to the ground anyways.

"Ha! Finally caught you, you little..." The Zentradi trailed off, seemingly surprised by the angry struggling form he had pinned beneath him. "You're not Rasil."

"You think?" Nelia snarled up at him, still trying, to no avail, to push him off.

"Yea he's,"

A knife flew out from behind one of the trees, missing the Zentradi's nose by mere inches and landing with a thunk in the ground a few feet away from where Max had defensively positioned himself.

Seizing the moment of surprise, Nelia was able to pull one of her arm's free. Which she quickly used to send a haymaker into the man's lower jay, the force of which was enough to knock him flat onto his back.

"Not bad." He said, pushing himself back up with one hand while rubbing his jaw with the other. "Not sure what team you all are with, but Yarl will..."

The recognizable sound of splintering wood interrupted him, drawing everybody's attention to the bush-like tree's of the forest. Right as the large unconscious body of a Zentradi was tossed out, and landed with a thud, a dozen or so meters from the circular clearing's edge.

A moment of shocked silence went by, and then Milia limped out, her left shoulder covered in blood and clutching a strange looking rifle to her chest.

"Milia!" Max cried out, charging towards his wife in frantic concern.

"You're arm it's... Paint?" He asked lamely, his confusion echoing what Misa was feeling, as her own rush forward brought her close enough to confirm that yes, it was paint and not blood coloring the shoulder of Milia's flight suit.

"Grenades!" Hikaru suddenly screamed out, the familiar call sending Misa into an almost instinctive dive to the ground just as a small tapered metal cylinder, bounced to a stop a mere half dozen meters away from her head.

She had just enough time to blink, the sudden realization that this was how she was going to die briefly flitting across her mind. Before a surprisingly sedate pop sounded, and everything turned blue.

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​

Okay, I was a bit off in my prediction of the backstory bits being this chapter, world building set up kind of snuck up on me, but assuming things cooperate it really should be next chapter since I have half of it written and the rest pretty much planned out from start to finish.

That said, enjoy.

 

[Vaermina]

Chapter 5​

Making her way out of the elevator, and into a short corridor with only a single one of the standardized sliding doors bracketing each side. Misa tried not to let her annoyance at the last few hours show, a feat made that much easier by the thin layer of sticky blue paint covering most of her face and body.

"These will be your quarters." Nelia stated, the fragile smile on her face at odds with the almost practiced formality of her tone. "The dispensers are all unlimited access, and the comm-panels were set up with a priority channel through the main communications array."

"Thank you." Misa ground out, purposefully not looking back at the completely paint free Regult lest she say something she might regret.

For a moment she wondered if Nelia might say more, but the swish of the elevator door closing told her the woman had chosen to retreat instead of stay and attempt to further smooth ruffled hackles.

"Still not the weirdest day I have had." Hikaru put forward after a moment, breaking the awkward silence that had settled between them at their guides departure.

"Launch day?" Max asked, his eyes on Milia, who was still gingerly favoring one foot over the other after twisting her ankle earlier.

"That and the time we were captured." Hikaru confirmed with a light chuckle.

"So, who wants to do the honors." He continued gesturing towards the two rooms.

"Max and I will take the room on the left." Milia interposed before Misa could nominate the obvious sex based pair ups.

"Maybe we should," Max began, catching the somewhat panicked look in both Misa and Hikaru's eyes.

"Come." Milia insisted, taking his hand in her own, and making her way to the indicated door, which opened for her with a twist of the nearby switch. "My ankle is still sore, and I wish for you to practice massage on it."

"But what about..." The rest of Max's question was cut off as the door closed behind them. Leaving Misa standing there blinking owlishly, as the odd feeling that Milia may have adapting to life among humans somewhat better then she thought briefly darted across her mind.

"I guess that leaves you and me." Hikaru threw out, sounding conflicted at the prospect in a way that made the small self-conscious part of Misa's brain want to reach out and slap him up side the head.

"Yes." She sighed, walking over and repeating the actions Milia took to open the door to their own.

The room that greeted her was, honestly more then she had hoped given the string of questionable luck that had plagued them since arriving. The single bed was almost expected given her mounting suspicion that they had been given the Zentradi equivalent of state rooms. Though she was relieved to see it was large enough that there would be more then enough room to share if no other option presented itself.

"Roomier then I thought it would be." Hikaru commented looking over her shoulder.

"What were you expecting?" Misa asked, her eyes zeroing in on a side door that she hoped contained a bathroom.

"Something less..."

"Hotel single?" She offered once it seemed like Hikaru wasn't sure what to continue with.

"Pretty much." He agreed with a laugh.

"So." He prompted, following her gaze to it's current subject of obsession. "I take it you want first dibs on the bathroom?"

"Gods yes." She admitted, breathing a silent sigh of relief at not having to voice it herself. "I know Nelia said the paint washes right off with warm water. But I really don't want it to end up turning my hair blue or something because I left it on there to long."

"I don't know." Hikaru remarked, seemingly picturing it. "You could probably pull off blue as well as Minmay."

"No thank you..." The somewhat chilly response seemed to clue Hikaru in to the fact that that particular comparison may not have been the most welcome.

"I didn't mean it like that Misa." He asserted with a sigh, turning his back on her to set down the small duffel bag containing their extra uniforms that he had been almost religiously protecting since they had left the the small scout ship.

"Of course not..." She muttered to herself, retreating into the bathroom with a swipe of her hand across the access plate.


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Taking a sip of coffee substitute, or as it was more coequally known in the fleet, morning energy drink number seven. I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes, taking a moment to enjoy the moment of all to brief silence.

"Done?" Fariz asked after a moment, her left eyebrow quirking in amusement at my dramatics.

"Yes." I confirmed with a sigh. "And thank you Taliya." I finished with a chuckle.

"Now, you were telling me about a problem with one of the com vessels?" I asked, referring to the small line of ships I had strung between our fleet and the factory satellite to act as mobile fold repeaters.

"Yes, CXTwelve." She answered giving a nod of agreement. "The captain has reported some sputtering on their long range sensors."

"Does he think it might be Supervision stragglers?" I inquired, mind going to the few hundred vessels that had escaped during our most recent battle with them.

"No, and none of the other vessels in the line have been able to corroborate anything so he thinks it's probably just a ghost issue, and is requesting permission to return to the satellite for parts replacement."

The mention of a ghost issue stoked my interest, and with a couple taps on the desk terminal I brought up the vessels service record to confirm my suspicion.

"CXTwelve is one of the originals." I stated, referring to the thousand or so already assembled vessels that had been stored in the factory satellites construction bays when we had finally tracked it down.

Fariz blinked at that, pulling out her computer pad to double check my findings.

"It appears so." She agreed after a moment. "I take it we will be granting the captains request then?"

"Of course." I acknowledged, shuddering slightly in remembrance of some of the other ghost issues from those particular vessels. "Really wish we could just scrap those cursed things."

"The fleet commanders would revolt." Fariz reminded, though her own look said she wouldn't be particularly bothered with it herself.

"I know. I know." I conceded, giving a wave to tell her it was only my normal half serious griping about the issue. "I just wish they would realize the ships surviving all those battles doesn't make them some gift from the protoculture."

"Indeed." Fariz concurred, the slight twitch at the corner of her lips highlighting her amusement.

"You can't delay the meeting with the Micronian Commander forever you know." She put forward after the silence started to drag on.

"I know..."

"Also Jazzel is on rotation, and you know what happened the last time we left him alone with a Meltrandi fleet commander." She continued.

"I... Wait, Jazzel is back on rotation?" I asked, thinking back to my trip through the bridge this morning. "Dammit... I swear if he wasn't so utterly competent at logistical organization."

"I know..." Fariz sighed, echoing my earlier declarations.

"Bring her in then." I ordered, following Fariz with my eyes as she gave a silent nod and walked out.

"Protoculture save me from Exsedol and his idea of helping." I muttered to myself once I was sure Fariz was out of ear shot.

A few key strokes readied the files I had prepared, and from there it was just a wait of minutes till Fariz returned with the macronized Misa Hayase in tow.

"To begin with." I started, giving a wave of dismissal to an understanding Fariz, and motioning for Misa to take a seat. "Can I just say how sorry I am about what happened yesterday. Recent battles with the Supervision have hit our fleets command staff particularly hard, and we are still working to train up replacements for them."

"That's all right." Captain Hayase responded, and I could see the brief flicker of surprise cross her face as she processed the apology. "Such things happen, though if anyone had told me the start of it, that this diplomatic mission would involve me being caught in a Zentradi paintball match, I wouldn't have believed them."

"Outgrowth of a training exercise I am afraid." I responded with a chuckle. "We Zentradi are a very competitive people, and well, one thing lead to another. And the next thing you know, ships are challenging each other to matches, forming teams, and creating rankings."

"That's..." She trailed off, seemingly uncertain of how to respond to the candidness. "Not something I expected."

"It is what it is." I answered with a shrug, before turning a much more serious look to her. "And of course something your people should be aware of, given their offer of refuge to the Zentradi of the Bodol fleet."

"Your not going to take them?" She asked, her eyes going wide in surprise.

"Those who wish to join my fleet are free to do so." I admitted with a sigh. "But your resonance wave was quite thorough in convincing them to join your people. Because of the near million Zentradi recovered so far, less then a thousand have shown any willingness to actually do so. And even those, I am afraid, are only choosing to join with us, out of a frankly amazing level of loyalty to their two commanders."

"A a million?" She stuttered in shock. "There's.. No way we could support that many of top of the one's already on the ground."

"We can provide your people with at least some assistance on that front." I offered waving off her concern. "It is, after all, the least we can do given what Bodol's fleet did to your planet."

"That would be, greatly appreciated." She confessed, letting out a sigh of relief. "And if you don't mind me saying, this isn't really going as Exsedol lead us to believe."

"I would expect not." I began, clasping my hands together and leaning back in my chair. "Tell me Captain Hayase, what do you know about the Zentradi's history with the Supervision Army and Protoculre?"

"Not much." She admitted after a moments consideration over the odd turn the answer my response was taking. "Exsedol told us about your war with the Supervision Army, and how your people were once almost destroyed by a group he called the Protoculture. But any time we asked about much past that, or even the reasoning behind your people's wars, he wasn't really able to tell us anything."

"An accurate, if overly brief summation." I acknowledged with a nod. "And given the difficulty even someone with my rank has had in accessing what little records remain, likely all Exsadol actually knows about those two particular subjects outside of park deck myths."

"To put things simply, the Zentradi you know are a race created for battle." I waited a moment for a frowning Captain Hayase to process that before continuing. "Roughly five hundred thousand of your years ago, a war broke out between two different factions of the Stellar Republic. One of these sides kept the species original name and are the one's Exsadol refers to as the Protoculture, while the other, became the Supervision Army."

"Now, if it was just the two sides of the Stellar Republic fighting, their war would have likely lasted a couple hundred years at most. But it wasn't, you see the the original unified Protoculture had built their Stellar Republic on the backs of a race of bio-engineered peacekeepers. And when the war began, both sides re-engineered these peacekeepers into warriors to fight their war for them."

"The Zentradi." Captain Hayase muttered in realization.

"The Zentradi." I agreed with a nod. "And they have continued fighting that war ever since, long after both sides of the protoculture were reduced to dust in the stellar wind."

"That's horrible." Captain Hayase remarked, a sad look that rapidly morphed into one of realization crossing her features. "Wait... Before you said the Zentradi we know?"

"Exactly Captain." I complimented her observation with a small smile. "Just like the Regult did not instantly become the much more capable Glaug, the Zentradi did not instantly go from the Protocultures peacekeeping force, to it's warriors."

"You're prototypes." Captain Hayase blurted out in sudden understanding.

"An apt description as any I suppose." I acknowledged with a sigh, folding my hands and slumping back into my chair. "The only reason we even exist as anything more then a few giants sleeping in their chambers. Was the base's automated systems activating us to fight off a chance discovery by forces of the Supervision Army a few hundred years back."

Why are you telling me all this?" Captain Hayase inquired, narrowing her eyes in suspicion.

"Because I want your people to know what they have gotten themselves in to." I confessed, straightening up and looking her straight in the eyes. "And more selfishly because I want your people's help in tracking down and destroying the remains of the Supervision Army."

"What!" Captain Hayase exclaimed, clearly not expecting me to request their assistance in that particular matter. "But, you said yourself that the Protoculture are dead. So why do you need to keep fighting them?"

"On account of this." I revealed, tapping a few buttons on my desk to bring up the heavily degraded holographic image that was the only concrete evidence I had been able to locate about the subject. "The protoculture of the Supervision Army did not stop with their bio-enhancement project after creating the Zentradi. They continued, and eventually created something much much worse, the Protodevlin."

Captain Hayase stared silently, frowning in thought at the blurry image. "I think I have seen something like that before." She finally admitted. "A couple of years ago one of the U.N.S carrier fleets was wiped out. The few video's we were able to be recovered from the event, showed a white bio-mechanical construct quite similar to the one in your hologram."

I blinked at that, my mouth opening and closing in shock, as the sudden fear that my first real moment of rebellion, had once more come back to bite me in the ass. Only this time, instead of in the form of Supervision fleets, it could very well have been in the form of the Protodevlin's early resurgence.

"How did they?" I muttered my mind whirling a mile a minute. "No, that's not important. What happened to it?"

"It was destroyed with reaction warheads." She attempted to assure me.

"That's..." I wanted to say impossible, but from what I could recall, not even the Vajra themselves were completely immune to such weapons. "Not something I expected to hear. Your people were very lucky."

"If you don't mind me asking." She floated once she realized I wasn't going to say more on the issue. "What could my people possibly contribute that..."

Whatever else she was going to say was interrupted, by the sudden but brief doubling of reality, indicative of our ship initiating a long range fold.

"What!?" Misa started to demand, only to break off eyes going wide eyed as she recognized the genuine alarm on my face.

"Report!" I barked out as my hand slapped down on the com panel.

"Emergency distress signal from the Factory Satellite." Fariz voice came through after a moment. The slight edge of fear in her voice, setting off more alarm bells in my brain, then news of the signal itself. "Major assault by the Supervision. Defense vessels are attempting to hold, but they are outnumbered nearly five to one."

"That's nearly twice the size of the fleet we wiped out last month." I muttered, a sick feeling forming in the pit of my stomach at the pronouncement. "To get that number of ships so soon they would have had to..."

"It's a trap." I whispered, things clicking together with a grim horror.

"But sir." Fariz began. "Even if they depleted their entire defense fleet it wouldn't be enough to."

"They finally repaired the Zerus's fold engine." I interrupted, and I could hear her sharp inhalation of breath at my pronouncement through the com.

"But how could they..." Fariz murmured, as understanding slowly dawned on her. "The fleet we engaged."

"It was returning from the core." I confirmed.

"Please tell me you brought at least a few reaction weapons?" I asked, turning to Captain Hayase as I set the com channel to standby so Fariz wouldn't overhear.

"We." She started, only to break off, shaking her head in the negative. "No, of course not."

"Neither of us are idiots Captain." I said, shooting her a glare I hoped would illuminate just how far past the normal diplomatic niceties this situation was.

"Assuming negotiations fell through, taking out this command vessel would have been your people's only real hope of survival. And suicide mission or not, there's no way your leaders would have let the opportunity offered by your visit slip by them.

Her eyes darted to the side at that, telling me all I needed to know about my guess.

"Though my people might disapprove, I won't hold it against you, it's what I would do in your situation after all. And there's a reason I put your vessel in an unused docking bay, separated from the rest of the ship by the small ocean that is our water storage tanks."

She sat there staring silently for nearly a full minute before ultimately coming to decision.

"There, may be a couple of warheads aboard our ship." She admitted her eyes firming up in defiance. "But I am not going to use them to drag Humanity into a war with the Supervision Army."

"Unfortunately it's far too late for that." I lamented, giving a nod of understanding to her reasoning. "No matter what happens in the coming battle, sooner or later the Supervision will want to investigate what my fleet was doing in your solar system."

"And unlike my fleet, the crashed Zentradi vessels on your planets surface is all the reasoning they would need to finish what Bodel began."

"So you say." She countered, her tone voicing her clear skepticism. "But that's just it isn't it, I only have your word to go on about how the Supervision Army would react."

"And no offense Supreme Commander, but given the severity with which you are treating this offensive. It may very well be that you are exaggerating just how unreasonable the Supervision Army would be under these circumstances, in hopes of pressuring us into giving our assistance."

I held back a wince, lest it give away the fact that her accusation wasn't very far off the mark. "That's fair I suppose."

"So what will it take?"

"What?" She exclaimed, clearly not expecting the turn I was taking with this.

"Your people wouldn't have sent you here without at least some idea of what could be given and what you might ask for in return." I put forward. "So what will it take?"

"It's not... I can't..." She stumbled over her words in sudden uncertainty. "Something like that would require a military alliance..."

"Very well then, I accept." I interrupted before she could finish.

"You what!?" She blurted out, the gobsmacked look on her face at my pronouncement more satisfying then it had any right to be.

"I accept your people's offer of a military alliance." I repeated.

"But... That's..." Her eyes narrowed, shock giving way to suspicion much faster then I would have liked. "Why do you want this so badly?"

"And don't try to tell me this is about you needing our help against the Supervision, Protodevlin, or whatever this Zerus is." She continued, cutting me off before I could formulate an answer. "Because while it certainly would have helped my sleep the last few weeks to be so. I doubt either of us are under the illusion that what happened with Bretai's fleet, was anything but a fluke of monumental proportions."

I held in a flinch at the blunt accusation, knowing the truth would cost me one of my bigger cards, but seeing no way out of admitting it now that my bluff had been so thoroughly called.

"It wasn't culture, or tactics, or even luck that let your people stop Bretai's fleet Captain Hayase." I finally began, slumping back in my seat with a sigh. "It was fold resonance."

"Fold resonance?" She repeated, tilting her head slightly in confusion at the phrase.

"Think of it like a type of multi-dimensional energy that certain species generate to varying degrees when singing." I admitted, trying not to wince at just how unbelievable that sounded.

"Really?" She deadpanned, skepticism all but dripping from her voice.

"Really." I repeated with a shrug. "It has varying effects, and the singing aspect can be bypassed under certain engineered conditions. But stick someone with a high generation ability in front of a fold broadcast system, like say the communications technology used on that fixed up gunship of yours. And you get, well, what happened with Bretai's fleet."

"You want to use us as weapons then?" She all but spat.

"What? No!" My protest seemed to somewhat mollify her, and I held in a grimace knowing what I was about to say would likely not help matters. "I just don't want to have to kill you all..."

"Your people are part of the greater galaxy now, and you can't put the Protodevlin back in the sub-universe. Trust me, the Protoculture tried. And that means we either figure out how to live together as equals, or kill each other." I quickly explained, hoping to head off the look of horror that began to creep onto her features at my stark admittance.

"Which is the very basis of diplomacy." The captain muttered almost under her breath, as her look settled down to a more contemplative one.

"Assuming I believe you." She continued after a moment of silence. "Why the whole song and dance? Why not just come out and make the offer to us?"

"The politics of a grand fleet are..." I began, mentally searching for a word to best describe the sheer difficulty of herding billions of aggressive Zentradi. "Complicated."

"Your assistance in fighting the Supervision however would put me in a position to massively uncomplicate things. At least so far as my people gaining a grudging understanding of your people's worth is concerned."

"If it's anything like our United Nations, I can only imagine." She acknowledged in sympathy.

"But you still haven't explained how our reaction weapons would do that." She pushed with a look of annoyance, before turning to give a pointed look to the now active tactical hologram hovering over my desk. "Or how they would be any use at all, against something that looks to be the size of a small planet."

"Zerus generates a, well, I guess you would call it an shield of energy." I explained, tapping a few control's to bring up a holographical representation of the interlocking fields protecting the mobile planetoid.

"Normally the fields would be completely covering, resulting in us having to batter them down with sheer firepower. However due to a," I hesitated for a moment, unsure of how much I wanted to share about this particular event. "miscalculated fold jump a few centuries back. Part of the generating structure was effectively removed from existence."

"The system itself of course compensates as much as it is able to. But it's not perfect. And the result is a number of small moving windows, that a particularly compact and maneuverable vessel, could make it's way through to reach the less protected interior."

"So you want the warheads for use by a strike team then?" Captain Hayase asked, taking in as much as she could of the fields holographical movement.

"Yes." I confirmed with a nod. "Putting aside the tactical value of potentially disabling the Zerus without loosing most of our fleet. Using micronian weapons to do so would go long way to show some of the more vocal traditionalists the value your people could bring to a military alliance between our two peoples."

She silently considered the offered plan for a moment, before seemingly coming to some internal decision with a silent exhale.

"The Zentradi, in all my experience with them, it's always been personal skill and not the weapons wielded that most convinces them of a persons worth. And from what we experienced yesterday, I am guessing it's not that much different with those from your fleet."

I failed to hide a wince at the rather accusation summation.

"I thought as much." She continued. "Which means to really silence any sort of opposition, we would have to be the one's to fly our way through whatever defenses might be there to deliver the weapons."

The suggestion nearly left me in shock. She was right in her assumptions of course, but there was a better then average chance the people sent on that mission would end up dead. And the galaxy needed at least two of those four alive for it's future existence.

Something about my thoughts must have shown on my face however, because a look of grim determination settled across Captain Hayase features before I could put together a believable excuse why such a course of action would be unacceptable.

"Very well then, if you want our weapons for use in your fight, my people and I will be the one's to fly in to deliver them." She finished, her tone one of grim acceptance and determination.

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Not dead! I would like to say there was some profound excuse for the lateness of this particular chapter, but I just got really busy with other things.

Next chapter, flashback to the start of things.