Macross Fan Fiction ❯ Robotech: Beneath a steel sky ❯ Chapter 15 - Come back in one piece ( Chapter 15 )

---- Chapter 15 ---- "Come back in one piece..."

Somewhere in a mysterious world... In a mysterious - but familiar - place at the same time ...

*Standing well dressed up, Mick wonders why he is standing in his own quarters...*

"""Something is not right here... I am in my quarters at the barracks... Everything looks just like the way I left it... but something new that didn't belong here was somewhere around here - I can feel it..."""

Looking around, Mick finds a piece of paper with some handwritten words on it... He picks it up and reads it... The letters have nice curves and a neat handwriting...

FoxyRoxy's voice spoke in his mind as he read the letter: """You are in a Fan Fiction, Mick... """ ... """At first I didn't understand what she meant...""", Mick thinks, """But then... as if lighting stuck my brain... I new what she meant... I felt as if I never existed... as if all that is happening on the SDF-1 is neither reality nor happening... What everything is and what is happening is all explained in letters... based on a story made from some person... someone who is a fan of a special 'anime' thing or something... besides that, I have the paranoid feeling as if that someone was precisely reading and writing each step, each thought and each thing I did... watching what I am doing ....

I AM IN A FAN FICTION... The thought about it was crazy... I need a doctor... I have to get out of here... """

Mick lays down the letter... then hears his room-communication phone ringing... He walks over to the phone and picks it up...

""" I wonder who this could be..."""

Hearing the voice of Maj. Bronco shouting into his ear as if he is making an advertise - Although the voice was familiar, Mick did not recognize who it truely is,

"""Visit www.robotech.com , the best site to learn more about...""", Bronco's voice says and keeps talking further and further without stop. Suddenly, Bronco's voice fades away and Mick is holding a laughing Minmei-Doll. He puts it down, wondering what is happing...

"""That was some strange guy on the line...""", Mick thinks, """... blabbering about some weird stuff... I don't know if that was a commercial gag... but nevertheless his voice sounded dreaded familiar... Something strange is going on... I've gotta get out of here..."""

Suddenly lifting her upper self from the bed, FoxyRoxy woke up with a short scream and was totally disorientated... Her sudden movement also made a first aid kit, which was lying next to her, fall over the edge of the bed - Unfortunetely, Mick was laying right next to the bed on the floor. The kit fell right on his forehead... The sudden jolt also made him wake up as well - with pain on his head... FoxyRoxy had sweat over her face and was breathing loudly - as if she had a very strange dream.

She felt around her face with her hands and looked around. Confused by her surroundings, she said "Whe - Where am I?...", as she slowly calmed herself down. Lifting himself up slowly, Mick held his hand over his foreheard, right on the spot where the kit fell onto. His head throbbed painfully as he rubbed his head.

"Aww man... What a bad dream...", Mick said as he looked over towards FoxyRoxy, noticing her conciousness "... Hey, you're finally awake..."

"Wha - What happened?", she asked again with a shaky voice, " I - I was in the cockpit... Everything crushed suddenly... when that car..."

"It's ok...", he replied and pushed her back gently onto the bed by her shoulder. "We slammed pretty hard against that car... and you slammed your head really bad as well..."

Mick was right as she felt a slight dizzyness and laid her hand against her head - "Not again... The whole room is turning..."

"Roxanne...", Mick said with a serious voice. For sure, FoxyRoxy looked over towards him as he called her by her true name, "- I just wanted to say that I am sorry... for..."

She looked at him with a wondered face, not really understanding his words.

"Sorry for what, Mick? Why are you apologizing?"

"After that crashlanding...", Mick explained and sat down next to the bed once again, "I went over to you and felt no pulse... I thought you were dead... It was my fault... I didn't listen to your advice... I flew in fighter mode... although you said it was more likely suicidal... It was a mistake - and I will never forget it... I am a dangerous pilot for the people around me..."

"What... ?"

"I thought you were dead", he said -a tear showed up in his left eye- , "... if you were dead, I would have never laid another hand on a Valkyrie..."

"But Mick..." , she grabbed him by the hands and looked deeply into his eyes.

"..."

"Don't you see? - I am alive - ", she said and smiled, "I feel a little wozy... but I've been like this for a while... If you haven't flown... we would have never made into safety... "

"But..."

"Mick, I trust you all the way... and I trust you my life...", she laid her hand softly against his face, "if anything should happen to me, I will never give up the hope that you will do everything that is needed to be done to save me... How could I deny that?"

Her words made sense... She felt Mick's hand shaking...

Mick shook his head, "I - I can't fly without endangering your life... "

"Man, there is no way to please you...", she hesitated... then gave him a kiss on the cheek.

"Wha - What was that for?"

She smiled and lifted her shoulders...

"Mick, I'm fine... I'm ok, really! Maybe I can't move around yet, but I'm fine - really - Look at me!"

He remained silent... Observing her beautiful formed body, he noticed her red suit slightly damaged, scratches here and there - along with some dirt and a bruise on the side of her forehead. Mick blushed slightly after staring a little too long.

"It's ok, Mick -", FoxyRoxy looked around in the room and asked, "Mick - Where are we, anyways?"

"This is an apartment from somebody or - dunno actually - Seems abandoned... Like the rest of this place... This place is right near our Valk'... I decided to get you somewhere to rest..."

"We are still somewhere in 'Diamond Cross' in safety?"

"We were close to making it... but I stayed... I couldn't leave you behind..."

"I'm glad you stayed... I was alive after all... but how come you said 'I was dead' - I didn't get that part?"

"I tried feeling your pulse, but you were breathing low... and you had low pulse rate too... I was stupid enough to keep me gloves on... feeling practically nothing..."

"Oh...", she said - slightly surprised, "but I'm still here" - For sure, she did not loose her humor...

"And now... We're stuck here... somewhere between 'Diamond Cross' and 'Macy's Valley' - Can't tell where exactly - I never really looked at the City-Maps or visited these areas - Wished I did it before ... Hey, here - Take this - I managed to get some stuff... some food... "

"Wow, some food... I haven't eaten anything in a decade" - She smiled and opened up one of the rations.As she tore the packs of rations, she accidently busted everything over the bed - but none the less, she picked up the pieces of the cracker-like ration and started eating. Besides the guilty feeling Mick still had, he felt a lot better seeing FoxyRoxy in good shape...

----

"Majestica" - Oberth-Class - Destroyer... maintaining it's position very high above SDF-1. Perhaps the pride and only way of the SDF-1 to uphold their upper perimeter. Constantly ready for any situation, this unique destroyer awaits orders from Bridge Command.

"Valkyrie Combat Space Patrol", one of the flight operations that many pilots must resolve from time to time. Normally, while the SDF-1 is on course back to Earth, Valkyries and other Veritech units remain at constant speed near the Space Fortress, always ready to engage into combat.

Usually, it takes a few hours, before the squadrons are replaced, shiftwise. But ever since the "Invid Exodus" attacked the SDF-1 and invaded it's frontal region, the SDF-1 remained at it's position. The "Majestica" Destoyer, one of the largest and most unique ships the SDF-1 still had, still held it's position high above the the Fortress along with two ARMD carriers further away.

Unlike the SDF-1's total population, the "Majestica" mainly had military personnel of the RDF and a small number of civilians who took care of the engineering sections of the ship. Acting as mix between a mobile base and a highly effective battleship, the "Majestica" has proven itself many times during the last few months in combat. Although the SDF-1 possesses the pure strike-force of any type of Veritechs, deployment is a factor the SDF-1 can not compete with versus this special destroyer. Fitted with a row of special deployment possibilities, the "Majestica" can deploy swarms of squadrons within minutes. Having large maintenance halls for Veritechs or other vehicles to walk or hover through, this destroyer is able to store hundreds of combat units. Due to the recent circumstances, mainly VF-1s have been called aboard the "Majestica" since many lauching bays of the SDF-1 were needed to be evacuated.

Under the hundreds and thousands of pilots, Lt. Chris Caldwell is momentarily stationed on the "Majestica" Destroyer. After boarding the destroyer, he did not have the time to call Sammie Porter, since is schedule did not give him the time at all. Walking a long way through the whole ship from one end to the other, Chris made his way to the Veritech Launching Bay. Having a short conversation with the commanding officer of the ship, Lt. Caldwell has learned that the last battle between the RDF forces and the "Invid-swarms", although successful, was costly and frustrating and the fleet command has decided to alter the usual grid of commanding officers in order to improve the effectiveness in battle. Due to the circumstances, Chris received orders to take command of a small group from the "Vasall Knights/Vallery Hunter" Rookie Squadron, as well from to other two other Rookie Squadrons that use the VF-1D Valley-Cat as their primary Veritech - Since Maj. Bronco was needed to take part on the 2nd important Conference of Defense, as well as taking command of Chris' former Squadron - the "Spector-Rangers", the commander has heard of Lt. Caldwell's positive leadership, as well as the outstanding performance of the Rookie Squadrons.

Having a short flashback upon the first contact and battle with the "Invid-swarms", he remembered how two of unusual VF-1D Valley-Cats appeared on both sides of his Valkyrie and provided him with vital cover as best they could. The young Lieutenant smiled as he looked forward into meeting this squadron.

After having the recent conversation and ordered to meet his new squadmates, Chris needed a while until he understood the orientation system of the ship. Just as he decided to take a ride with the usual all-purpose service jeeps through the maintenance halls of the "Majestica", he noticed that he just ran into a new difficulty. The ship was on a constant alert and practically every corner of the ship seemed like the typical rushhour in Macross City. To his surprise, the quartermaster of one of the many rear maintenance sectors told him not even one jeep was availible. Another group of pilots jog past him, as three tall VF-1 Battleroids walked by, each of their steps making the non-forgetable stomp, along with the typical vibration through the ground.

Even more announcements and voices hollowed through the gigantic halls and hangars connected throughout the whole ship.

Talking a look at one of the hangars, Chris saw hundreds of pilots in HEC-suits even sitting on maintenance vehicles and Veritechs, either hopping on for a ride or jumping off when their destination was reached. Due to the constant pain in his leg, there was no chance Chris could just jump on top of a moving transport without hurting himself even more. Instead of waiting for a possibility of transport, he decided to head on foot - For sure, the internal transport system inside the destroyer would be just as over-occupied like the vehicles here.

The corridors were quite active, a lot of officers, crewmen and pilots hasted past him as he walked ahead - Much talking, others making check ups on internal systems of the ship. As Chris continued, he pulled out his hand-held mission briefing pad, which gave him an update of his upcoming missions. He checked the pilot-roster of the Rookies:

(MIA=Missing in acton, KIA=Killed in action)

Handheld pad:

""start....""

==== Group 1 ====

Vasall Knight Pilot - Vallery Hunter RW Co-Pilot...

VF-1D tandem cockpit

Madison, Niel "Rixler" VT-pilot On-Duty

Calahan, Jenna "Genesis" RW-co-pilot On-Duty

Fernandos, Carlos Honduras "The Pres" VT-pilot On-Duty

Nueveux, Desireé "Syrie" RW-co-pilot On-Duty

Idaho, Roger "Badger" Vt-pilot - heavily wounded

Helixa, Svetlana "Lana" RW-co-pilot -heavily wounded

-both pilots not capable of flight

Hassan, Jamir El "Helios" VT-pilot -slightly wounded

Quamar, Nalia "Vinshesca" RW-co-pilot -wounded

-both pilots capable of flight

Gregory, Vincent "Wiseguy" VT-pilot On-Duty

Dominga-Sanchez, Esmeralda "Hornet" On-Duty

Lenards, Spence "Spencer"VT-pilot - On-Duty

Charming, Val "Triss" RW-co-pilot On-Duty

Williams, James "Sqype" VT-pilot -wounded,

Brannigan, Carla "Needles" RW-co-pilot -slightly wounded

-both pilots capable of flight

Rookers, Dennis "Rooks" VT-pilot On-Duty

Blossom, Faye "Cherry" RW-co-pilot On-Duty

Jester, Frederick "The Jester" VT-pilot On-Duty

Freeman, Cassandra "Sparrow" RW-co-pilot On-Duty

Mickerson, Lars "Mick" VT-pilot -MIA...pressumed KIA...

Keldon, Roxanne "Foxy-Roxy" RW-co-pilot -MIA...pressumed KIA...

-both pilot and co-pilot are missing in action...

Gibbs, Elroy "Monk" VT-pilot On-Duty

Mackencie, Sara "Spades" RW-co-pilot KIA

-new RW co-pilot Assadi, Chandra "Chessna"

end of list

===== end of Group 1 =====

Chris pressed a few keys, skipping the second group und his command, since he was on his way to them at the launching bay anyways. Instead, he checked the new upgrades for their Valkyries.

===== Valkyrie Upgrades =====

Due to the multiple number of enemy units, it was vital to improve targeting systems of each defending unit to target multiple hostilities. Arms Development for Veritech Combat units Department (short A.D.V.C.-Dept. or A.D.Dept.) has completed it's research:

MTAS - Multiple Targeting Acquisition System

RW Co-pilots are now capable of targeting hostile units, despiting the angle of attack.

Missles of type H4 can only be fired, no matter if the targets are in front or behind. Targeting due to angle-restrictions has been solved.

All RW Co-pilots have learned the use of this new system.

As result for type H4 missiles only, the A.D.V.C.-Dept. has also revised construction research for type H4 missle.

H4-MSM "Hokum" 110mm

MSM - multi-swarm-missile

This type of missile uses special manuevering thrusters to reach superb high-ratio G-curves, making it one of the most manueverable of it's kind.It's capability of targeting anything from nearly any possible angle - One vital upgrade for combat against the "Invid".

The major drawback of this missile, due to it's size and rather small fuel-source, is that it can only follow it's target for a short period of time, making it rather for short-range usage only. The warhead is only fitted with high-explosive-splitter-fragmentation (HESF) submunition - while it's impact is not quite explosive, it's intelligent proximity/vicinity sensor can activate the detonation-fuse of the warhead, making collateral damage and increase hit accuracy, since the "Invid" are mainly biologial.

For full efficiency, H4-MSMs are loaded in a chain of three, packed side by side, and loaded in flat launchers. One launcher carries 15 "Hokum" missiles. One VF-1D can carry four launchers, two on the top, two on the bottom. The firing options can be set from single-fire, tripple-ripple-fire, to full-auto-firing modes.

--- Chris smiled happily, seeing that he could use the new weaponary

He read further: The MTAS and H4-MSM "Hokum" missiles are only available for VF-1D units...

--- Chris' smile disappeared in dissapointment, since he flies a VF-1J...

Grumbling to himself, he said, "Hrmpf! Those are neat things for the kids, but what about us?"

As he walked ahead with his eyes on the pad, he accidently bumped into someone.

"Whoa, sorry!", he said to the person, holding him from falling.

"It's ok, I'm fine pal", the man with a baseball cap said back to him and went on.

The pad in his hand started beeping... He lifted it up and read it's message:

""Start""

A computer voice spoke:

""Mission information downloaded... Message from CAG commander... Your flight-group is awaiting you in briefing room #4 Deck F. due to circumstances of an unscheduled meeting. End of message....""

""end""

"Great...", Chris sighed, "Now I have to head back the other way..."

-----

SDF-1 Conferance room.

Admiral Gloval has ordered another conferance with all commanding officers to receive an update and progress of the situation on board. Two guards guarded the door as the round-table conversation took place. Inside, three of the seven generals seemed disappointed of the way how the situation was developing.

General McHeralds spoke in a loud and angry voice, "This is an embarrassment!", threw his hands slightly at the ceiling, then dropped them upon the table again, "our troops are getting suppressed by the enemy forces and we don't even stand a chance..."

"Admiral Gloval", General Hemshire called out, "I was at the front during the battles... The creatures have slaughtered everything that tried to stop them. He shortly cleared his voice and shook his head, "these - these 'bugs' are still advancing, even though the terminal entrances were closed down..."

The man slammed his fist on the table, making his glass with mineral water shake.

"This MUST stop!", he added angrily, "the casualty reports are unbelievable! 27 battalions demolished! Over 5000 wounded soldiers! And 55 battalions MISSING IN ACTION? HOW CAN THIS BE...?! - and that's not all - We've haven't even managed to stop counting non-combatant losses..."

Admiral Gloval remained silent...

Commander Roy Fokker decided to speak, trying to keep the situation under control, "Calm down, gentlemen. I am sure Admiral Gloval as well as our troops are doing their best!"

Commander Lisa Hayes noticed something...

"General Hemshire... Sir?", she asked. The old man turned his head over and nodded slightly, showing that she had his attention. "Sir... You just said that "Invids" are still advancing? Even though the terminal entrances around "Parisa Square", "Diamond Cross" and "Macy's Valley - nothern section" Districts have been closed?"

McHerald nodded, answering her question positively, "that's what he said, Commander Hayes."

General Reynolds lifted a small package from his side, opened it and threw some photos on the table... A few of them slid like a small pile of playings cards.

"I was also in combat against the" Invid"... North-western Districts...", Reynolds explained as he sat back down. As he sat back down, he shortly rubbed his forehead - For sure, many already noticed his slight exaustion, "... as my troops pulled back from combat, we still received reports from units still fighting - although Bridge-Command gave confirmation of the terminals closed-down. A few civilians made these photos... These photos are the explanation for the enemy's advancing.

Pressing a few keys to his side on the table, this caused a large screen on the wall to show the pictures. Astonishment went through the large room.

The first image shown was made at the terminal entrance between the North-Western and "Parisa Square" Districts. The large terminal door however was not closed as expected. A gigantic "Invid" creature, with the size of nearly 57 feet and many very thick tentacle arms, was crushed by the door, causing it to be seize it's closing operation. It seemed dead, it's "blood" pouring out of many cracks from it's shell. The second image showed many "Invid-Shardling" along with small three-feat tall creatures moving past the large dead creature.

Apparently, it was clear that the large "Invid" creature 'sacraficed' itself to keep the entrance to the next districts open.

"These guys are getting smarter and smarter...", Major Bronco said as he recognized this insane attempt.

"Ladies and gentlemen...", Dr. Vanderman called out for everyones attention, "This large creature here is proof that the "Invid" do have far more dangerous species of their own. For sure, it is impossible to retrieve this type of kadaver in order to study more... but we have managed to salvage one of the smaller ones on the screen." He walked over to the large screen and pointed at the smallest creature, "This one here ... but..."

"But?", somebody asked from the group.

"Alive."

Commander Fokker eyes went wide open, "You managed to catch one of those things - alive -?" Surprised by the scientist's words, he shook his head and took a sip from his glass of mineral water.

"Now that's remarkable, how did you manage to catch it?", Bronco asked with full attention.

"Not me, exactly. A soldier unwantingly had to perform hand-to-hand combat against this creature... although he received a lot of scratches, he managed to overwelm the creature..."

"I shall read the soldier's report when he leaves medical attention...", Admiral Gloval added.

Dr. Vanderman continued to speak, "Since we have a live being of this type of "Invid" now, we honored the soldier's deed by letting him classify the creature..."

"How did he call it?", one of the Generals asked...

"'Scavenger'... since it was a quite hedious and coward attacker... that was his words..."

"Very well", the Admiral said, "This creature shall be classified as "Invid Scavenger"..."

"Yes, Admiral..."

" Hmm, this is the first actual good news to hear...", Gloval said, "Are there any other? Major Bronco, how are the rookies teams doing?"

"Well, although they had to go through tough dogfights, they seem to manage well... All pilots seem to have teamed up very well with their co-pilots and other way around. At the moment, my squadrons are about to head on a partol sortie around the "Majestica"... Lt. Caldwell has taken command of the group while I take part here in this conferance... They sure do learn fast, sir.", taking a short look on his cronometer, multifuntional watch with micro-intercom systems, he added,"They should be flying out soon..."

----

As the conferance in the SDF-1 went on, Lt. Chris Caldwell stood alone in an elevator, heading downwards towards the designated deck. As he rode down, he remembered the charming moments with his beloved Sammie Porter last night... Her soft body on him, her eyes... He felt revived... practically new born... Even his usual morning headaches seemed to have disappeared ever since. Chris shortly remembered his hand softly sliding over her side - Gently over the most smoothest skin he has ever felt in his life. *Bump* He woke up from daydreaming as the elevator suddenly stopped.

As Chris made his way to the briefing room, the rookie pilots were waiting there. Most of them sat together, talking as if they were in a elementary class room - joking around... forgetting about the past few days from training and their first two combat flights. Just as they heard Chris entering, the room went silent - as if the 'big boss' just came in. Everybody got up and saluted. Chris felt surprised.

"Whoa - whoa, easy, people", Chris said towards them and moved his right hand downwards, showing them to take it easy,"Sit down, sit down - I'm just your flight commander for this sortie as far as I know, nothing special really".

He overviewed the 'class'.

Many men and women - The men were wearing their squadron jackets, vests or uniforms, the women as well - Their seat order was a total mix up, they probably grabbed themselves a spot to sit when Chris came in. The others were confused... and sat down.

"Nevermind", he said, "Is this your first patrol?"

"Yeah, erm, yes sir. It is", one of the rookies stuttered.

"Well, kids... This flight is definitely not going to be that exciting like the others... since we are supposed to fly a large circle around the "Majestica"- and believe it or not - It could get boring like hell... I just want you people to keep your eyes open and to be ready for anything that could happen", Chris said, looking over the heads, "Don't forget, we might be the first to response to any type of enemy activity."

"Hoo boy...", Rooks sighed, leaning back with his chair, then spoke to himself, "This could get boring... " - then felt a soft smack on his head from behind - "- ouch -"

Faye "Cherry" Blossom, his RW co-pilot, was sitting behind him and told him to be quiet. He grumbled...

Chris activated a large screen, showing the patrol area of the flight groups. The "classroom" listened further to Chris' instructions and orders.

----

Conferance room. SDF-1...

A.D.Dept.- Greg Madison was explaining some of the newest developments in Veritech Technology - also explaining images shown on a screen:

"- As you can see here, the VF-1 version "G", for 'Ground', units can now be used for combat inside the SDF-1, but due to it's rather 'young' systems, the Valkyries are restricted to Battleroid-mode until we have manage to fully compensate the gravimetric messures on board. We removed the standard manuevering drives for aerospace combat and added systems for balance control... These systems are still at basic levels, making the Valkrie also restricted to staying on the ground. The Battleroids should be able to walk or run through the city deck... Using thrusters would be too dangerous, but still could act as a last resort for trained pilots to take cover... Further more, we have downgraded the reactor cores to standard ones, in order to compensate and increase the production speed of better defensive units for combat."

"I am glad to hear that...", Admiral Gloval said quietly.

Madison spoke further, "Our ground troops will find them useful as support units since the VF-1G's are capable of using high-caliber weapons... The downside is only that transport of their arraments is restricted to their hardpoints... The standard 55mm combat-rifle of Battleroids can only be transported by themselves, if needed at the frontlines. Including ammunition. We have decided to add hardpoints for carrying ammunition-pods inside the arms and reduced the numbers of missiles carried, since missile normally would do a high amount of destruction."

"Officer Madison", Dr.Vanderman asked, raising his hand, "What about the armor capabity? The shards of the creatures can easily pierce right through the Valkyries... making it dangerous for pilots..."

"Yes, that was the first thing we are aware of ...", Madison replied, "In order to increase armor without having the manueverablility penalty, we have added a double-plated armor around the whole torso area and reinforced armor around the cockpit area..."

Major Bronco smiled, "...Hmm - a 'bullet-proof vest' for Valkyries?"

"'Shard-proof vest' would be more precise..", Vanderman added.

"Due to the situation that could happen such as the pilot's Battleroid sustaining too much damage and are forced to leave the cockpit, we have ordered all pilots to carry sidearms..."

Major Bronco rose his hand, having a question, "Aren't experianced commanding pilots normally the only ones to have a handgun?"

"It is likely that whenever the pilot must leave his Battleroid, he'll be quite defenseless without a sidearm..."

The conversation continued...

-----

"Majestica" Destroyer - Somewhere within one of the many Veritech Deployment Hangars. The hangars inside this special Oberth-class destroyers was built differently then those throughout the SDF-1. The "Majestica" destroyer had special lauching bays, for catapulting Valkyries at high-speed into the deep of space, usually to intercept hostile Zentraedi units before they reach the vicinity of SDF-1.

Since Chris' flight patrol group, callsign "Bravo group", are supposed to patrol near the "Oblivion", their Valkyries are deployed differently than those on board the SDF-1. While the SDF-1 Lauching Bays use long trenches and corridors where Valkries blaze into space, the "Oblivion" deploys it's Valkyries via "Revolver Deployment" and "Stacker Deployment".

Imagining the drum of a revolver gun, the "drum" contains six or seven chambers (depending on size and type) for carrying it's "bullets", referring "bullets" as the Valkyries that are carried in these chambers. The "drum" carries the Valkries to the outer space - out of the hull sides of the "Oblivion".

Valkries are then deployed either by being let loose from it's docking clams all at once or by being "thrown" one by one with movement. This type of deployment is referred as the "Revolver Deployment".

The "Stacker Deployment" is used only for fast reaction and deployment of Valkyrie units into combat. Valkries are "stacked" into holding chambers of six. Since these are special deployment stations, Valkries need only seven seconds to be deployed, since the "Stack chambers" actually 'drops' the Valkrie unit at high-speed into space. The Valkyries are already let loose from their docking clams, making them fall in a row out of the "Oblivion"...

Chris and another mechanic handed out special belts to each pilot. The belt had a special issue 10mm handgun - A special handgun, designed and needed for the capability of firing recoiless in outer space, in a holster, four "pockets" holding 12-bullet clips each and a combat knife... Most of the pilots were astonished...

The mechanic laid one of the guns on her hands... "Hey?", Cherry asked, surprised as a belt was given in her hands, along with the gun, "What is this for?"

"New orders straight from the top, kids...", Chris said, just finishing the handing-out, "Just in case you guys have to get out of the cockpit and are somewhere on top of the hull on the SDF-1 or somewhere else, these things could save your life. Ok, listen up - all of you. Using this handgun is simple", Chris pulled out his sidearm and explained each step in using this handgun."Insert the clip", as soon as he pushed the clip inside, the rear side of the gun automatically moved towards the outside and back to it's first position, "...auto-loading clip ... specially made for use in outer space - and recoiless", he then aimed the gun upwards, "...pull the trigger and the gun will unsafety it's secondary unit and will fire simultaneously...", he explained and pulled the trigger.

Everybody besides Chris did a scared movement when he pulled the trigger, one of the female pilots screamed when they heard a loud *click*. Right after he pulled the trigger, the clip was ejected out from the top of the gun while a clip-like chamber was ejected downward to a certain point from where he inserted the clip.

Chris smiled a little as he saw half of the rookies holding their hands in front of their face, covering their ears - or even holding each other. The empty clip landed on the ground, clanking a few times. The rookies stood up straight, looking rather surprised.

Still smiling, he added, "As if I was going to fire a gun here, heh-heh. When the ammunition clip is shot empty, the empty clip will eject from the top, the primary and additional chamber will ejected from the bottom as well, ready to have the next clip loaded. The additional chamber is only there if you have loose 10mm bullets, making it possible to load 12 single bullets into the gun's own clip. When done, just push the clip-chamber back in. Reloading with standard clips is just the same as usual, just push the clip in the empty clip-chamber."

"Damn...", Jester said, sounding slightly angry, "Why do we get special issue 10mms and not some protoculture-charged stuff - Like a .07er Briston - or yeah, a .09er Brogan. I'm sure they got spare stuff for us..."

Looking over to Jester, Chris replied, "Don't forget that you are going to be more likely in space - Using such a gun would make you fly off your feet - Not even magnet boots or the SDF-1's artificial hull gravity would keep hold of you - and let's not forget that you are a pilot - not a soldier, understood?"

"Yes sir...", Jester grumbled towards himself...

"Ok, that's all, rookies. Get to your Valkyries, we've got a job to do."

"Yes sir!", they shouted back...

The rookie pilots strapped on their belts and helmets, then ran to their Valkyries. The deck was full of mechanics and deck-instructors. This time, instead of being carried by mag-rails, the Valkyries used their own thrustpower to move slowly into the carrier-chambers. Since there was no full-alert going on, they were set up for "Revolver Deployment".

As the Valkyrie were being carried to outer space, Chris took these few seconds to think about Sammie... Most of the rookies were anxious and uncalm.

----

Conferance room - SDF-1...

Macross City Mayor Cathrina Baker Ferris is in charge of the civilian government inside the ship and gave her report about the morale of the civilians:

"... As I said, due to the situation on board, it seems that the people are constantly loosing faith and hope. The attacking creatures are bringing more and more fear upon all. This not the only problem. I've received word of small groups of revolting civilians throughout the lost north-western sectors - I cannot understand how they can be revolting at a time like this."

"This is not good...", General Hemshire said, "We are loosing districts like as if we were doing nothing against them."

"I have come to a conclusion, ladies and gentlemen...", Gloval announced, "- since this enemy is too strong to defeat, at the moment, I suggest we fortify our lines..."

The group of officers seem astonished.

"Sir?", Lisa asked, awaiting his answer.

The Admiral continued, "I believe it is possible to evacuate almost all civilians away from the frontal half of the city deck to the southern half and start to fortify our combat units exactly at the half..."

"Are - Are you sure, Gloval?", one of the generals asked, "This is going to be a major operation..."

"Admiral Gloval - I am very sure that most the civilians will deny such an operation", Mayor Ferris reminded, "disregarding that this is for their own safety-", she said, just as she was interrupted by General Hemshire, "The problem we have against "Invid" on board is that it goes beyond our strength to protect them, they will have to face this fact..."

"... I know I have asked the civilians already too much", Gloval said, "but I am responsible for all that what is happening on this Space Fortress... and I am not willing to give up on them, nor am I willing to give up this ship."

Dr. Vanderman rose his voice, "I see that it is true that we will have to fight with all messures... Admiral Gloval, with your military authorization and confirmation, I will order the Research Dept. to start researching on biological warfare... This is a choice I will definitely hate, but I am afraid we have no choice..."

"All combatants of our forces will be needing more efficient equipment and hardware... Let's not forget that we are fighting against killing-machines...", General McHeralds added. His face seemed very serious.

For the moment, the room was silent...

Madison looked over towards the general, "Don't worry about this, General. The Defence Dept. is researching day and night, non-stop."

Gloval took a deep breath... "Dr. Vanderman, you have full confirmation. You may proceed with research on biological warfare", he added and looked over towards Madison, "Do not forget, weaponary gear will not save us from this menace... Concentrate and combine your reseach with the Research Dept."

Madison nodded positively.

"Commander Hayes, Mayor Ferris. I would like that the orders are brought as soon as possible. I would also like that both of you plan the operation on how to bring the civilians into safety without hindering military movement..."

Both women replied, "Yes sir..."

Admiral Gloval paused... He seemed as if he was thinking of something... His face said nothing that could show what he was thinking about... then he spoke:

"There is one more objective...", and threw a serious look towards his generals, "Military operation. We still know little about this enemy... I have come to the conclusion of gathering information of the enemy... We will be needing specialists who are experianced in covert operations... They will infiltrate the lost sectors, which are in the hands of the "Invid"... under extreme caution. The sense of these covert operation is to gather information, not to engage the enemy. The specialists shall also must be equiped with sophisticated gear... protoculture technology..."

Admiral Gloval spoke further...

----

Outer space...

The Valkyries have departed from the "Majestica". The group flew their patrol route at cruise speed. Since space itself practically had no resistance, the Valkyries could thrust up to 300km/h, then power down their thrusters, letting them float towards their waypoints... Although it is advised to always stay alert, there is a little moment of silence.

It was a large group of VF-1D Valley-Cats along with a single VF-1J at the lead - Lt. Caldwell's Valkyrie. Chris flown often on such missions and seldomly something happening. Although having his hands all the time on his Valkyrie-controls, his mind was somewhere else.

Chris was daydreaming...

He could see Sammie, not far away from where he stood-

They were on a grassy park somewhere in Macross City, many trees and bushes ... She was smiling at him. He smiled back... then started to walk towards her... but something was not right. Although he was walking towards her direction, he was not getting closer to her... He stopped... He tried to say something, but his lips only moved, his voice remained silent.

All the sudden, a strange body came fast up from the ground...

It was a creature... Six to seven-feet tall, with two thick tentacles coming from it's shoulder, moving around like whips... The creature had no legs... instead, it was standing on a thick tail... It was like a snake standing straight... It turned around... looking at him...

He could see one red gem-like "eye" and did not possess a mouth or anything alike... Chris could not believe his eyes... The creature turned around again, looking at Sammie... She was frightened... She screamed, falling back to the ground, being overwhelmed by the size of the creature... Chris tried to run to her, but was still remaining at the same distance, not getting closer at all as he ran...

The creature was indeed an "Invid"... It's shoulders opened up... then shot out two thick spiked-like tentacles, flying directly to Sammie... both tentacles pierced into her body... She could not move... She was paralized by fear... Inside the tentacles, a flow of a familiar thick fluid started... blood... It was sucking blood from Sammie...

Chris was astonished, he tried to run... Hopeless.

Sammie tried to move back, but she felt that she was getting weaker and weaker, the tentacles still stuck on her chest... She fell to back, livelessly... The "Invid" retrieved it's tentacles... leaving a trace of blood as it slowly pulled it's tentacles back. Sammie's clothes were sucking her own blood... It turned around to Chris... It's tentacles went back inside the shoulders, then closed...

He fell to his knees... He could not believe what the creature has done... Something was behind him, he turned around... another "Invid" creature was standing... He had no time to identify how it looked like, since it was about to slash him with it's claw-like arms... He closed his eyes and cover his face, right before it's claws were about to hit him...

A few seconds passed...

He was sure he about to get hit... but somehow - nothing happened... He opened his eyes... humming sound... then looked around... He was in his cockpit... He blinked eyes a few times. A few seconds ago, he stood in a grassy park - then in his Valkyrie cockpit... He looked to his back, seeing many other Valkyries, VF-1Ds, in a stacked echelon formation.

Chris looked back towards the front... remembering. It was all coming back to him - Standard vicinity patrol... "It was a dream..." He grabbed his cockpit controls. It was going to be a long flight until he would finally be able to call Sammie. His right hand shook as his flight continued.

----

Meanwhile, somewhere at the southern border of the "Diamond Cross" District...

Mick was gathering all the things he found...

"Hey Mick? Are you going somewhere?", Foxy-Roxy asked, wondering what he was doing.

"We can't stay here, Foxy. We will be sitting ducks if we stay... and besides... I've got a bad feeling about what's going on... We better get out of here."

Taking the leftover rations, he pushed a few in his integrated suit-backpack, as well as a few in FoxyRoxy's, then sealed up both backpacks.

"I guess you're right... but is it a good idea to leave?", she asked, "But - Where shall we go?"

He just finished packing the equipment and stopped for a second., "Good question... but getting out of here is the first thing we should do..."

She seemed unsure about leaving... but then followed him. As she lifted herself up from the bed, her head and neck still felt sore... even a purple-red bruise was visible on the side of her forehead. They left the appartment and walked down stairs... When they exited the building, they passed the crashed Valkyrie and followed the street towards their right. Indeed, the Valkyrie left two ugly trails of black poly-asphalt behind. It did not take long until they reached a crossroad.

Allthough they were alone, they could hear sounds... The sounds were very far away, but could still be heard. They could not distinguish what these sounds were, but they were definitely from the same district they were currently at...

"Can you hear that?", she asked, "Sounds like it's coming from that direction ", as she pointed her finger towards the direction where the sounds were coming from.

"I can't tell what it is..."

"Do you think that maybe they are still fighting?", FoxyRoxy guessed.

"Could be...", Mick answered, not really sounding sure, "The way out has been shut down quite fast... and I'm sure that a lot of people never made it out on time... "

They walked further...

----

One hour later... Back in outer space...

The patroling Valkyrie groups were still flying their partol route... Rooks was looking around. As he scanned their surroundings, he only spotted stars... even more stars... Just the looks of seeing nothing else than a billion stars glowing all around them from afar annoyed him. Nothing special was happening... Just flying straight into nowhere, just to reach a spot and turn around to do the same again.

Flashing holo-lights, cockpit panals, consoles showing nothing special and a constant humming sound coming from the Valkyrie's thrusters were the only things which could be heard.

"This is getting boring...", Rooks said in a bored voice.

Cherry was checking up all her screens, seeing nothing but allied green dots on her display.

"It'll be over in half an hour...", Cherry told him as she checked her suit-cronometer, a type of watch which followed the time of the SDF-1.

"Half an hour?!", he asked grumbling, "Greeeat... I should have square butt by then..."

"Cheer up... It's not that long..."

"I'm getting sleepy just sitting here...", he said and yawned.

"Well... What cha want to do?", Cherry asked in a harsh voice, "Head over to that 'Invid-thing' which is sucking the SDF-1?", speaking in an ironical voice.

Rooks felt as if a light bulb flashed over his head, coming up with a flash idea ... and slammed the control stick to the right, making the Valkyrie do a barrel roll - "Good idea! Haha!"

The Valkyrie made a hard roll to right side. The sudden jolt pressed Cherry hard into her seat...

"Rooooks! What are you doing???!", she screamed, holding her seat handles on her sides.

"Wooooohooooo!", he shouted joyfully, as the Valkyrie spun rolls.

He stopped the roll and went flew into formation with the others...

"Haha, I was just kidding...", he said, smiling, "I hope that woke you up back there?"

The surprising roll made her indeed wake up. She could feel her pulse pulsing throughout her whole body... "Don't do that again!", Cherry shouted back.

He chuckled happily...

""Hey what was that?!"", Jester's voice asked over a direct-commline.

"Ah, nothing", Rooks said, "Just that my co-pilot wanted to make a roll", and laughed shortly.

Chris suddenly showed up on his right screen which caused him to swallow his laugh just before Chris heard him.

""What was that? Everything ok?"", his flight-commander asked.

"Uuhh, Umm, Uhh...", Rooks tried to look for an excuse - "Erm - we had, umm, manuevering thruster problems... Yeah, hehe, now it's ok, sir... Everything is under control"

"Roger... but if you have the same problem again, report immediately. I don't want anyone in danger..."

"Yes sir, Yes sir!", Rooks said and saluted nervously to the screen. His flight-commander disappeared then, "Whew, that was a close one...". He laid his hand on the left side of his helmet and repeated, "-damn close..."

"Damn it, Rooks!", Cherry said cheerfully, "You wanna get us court-martial'ed?", and shook her head a few times. Ever since she met Rooks, she knew he was a wild rookie, but she never expected him to do such a stunt - especially when it was ordered to keep formation at all times.

Chris looked around into the deep of space and calmed down. He could see millions of stars... on his right side, he could see the sun of the solar system. It was a small but bright yellow dot. He felt alone in his cockpit...

"Sammie... if you were only here...", he whispered. Chris felt miserabel by the seconds as he missed the chance to call Sammie.

Suddenly, he heard a familiar female voice coming from his screen. It was one of the bridge officers from the "Majestica" destroyer, shouting over their broadband channel:

"Attention patrol 'Bravo'! Multiple objects have dispatched from the 'Invid-Mothership'! Bogeys are definitely hostile and are on a direct course to the "Majestica"! You are to immediatly disengage from the patrol route and await reinforcements for engaging the enemy! Caution is advised: One of the objects has been identified as Centurion-class! Addition combat squadrons will combine to your wing to engage the enemy. 'Majestica Sensory' out!" - The voice shortly fuzzed, then went silent.

Just like a wake-call, the young Lieutenant lifted his head as if a flash caught his attention.

Sparrow, Jester's RW co-pilot, showed up on the screen, and slowly spoke, "" ...'Centurion-class size'?..""

""Engage"?..."", Rixler repeated...

""Aw great, looks like there's gonna be some action after all... "", Jester added, as his grip around his Veritech-controls tightened up.

Rooks did not seem happy at all, ""Damn... and I was hoping to get back to base... Not good... not good...""

""What size is 'Centurion-class'?"", one of the sqaudmates asked.

""Umm, I think it's like two classes or three under Oberth-class... I think..."", Sqype answered, who did not sound sure.

""That would that it's a bit smaller than ...""

""...The "Majestica"..."", Cherry added... Indeed, it was not really great news.

Chris' voice spoke, ""This not good news, rookies. But we have the orders to engage soon... So listen up! Group leaders two and three- You two stick together, try to cover us as good as possible. - To all groups, you are clear to fire at will! We better be flexible, so if you need to break formation, do it. Arm weapon systems!""

He did the same. This was it... Feeling unlucky that he is going to have to head into combat again, it was his job to make sure his squadrons stay alert...

----

Conferance room - SDF-1...

General Hemshire wove his hand slightly and said, "...Admiral Gloval, I remember a report of saying that we have lost total contact to our colony bases down under the main deck... You have once mentioned that we still have contact to one surivor?"

"Yes, General Hemshire", the Admiral replied, "The survivor you are talking about is Robert Jackson, a civilian servo-technician who managed to survive - However, he does not belong to the colonists of the Under-Deck at all... A man who also encountered and obliberated 'Invid Shardlings' on his own..."

"A civilian... who defeated 'Invid-Shardlings'? That's unbelievable... How could he possibly manage to fight against them?"

"Corp. Capricorn, CDS Operative, was in contact with Major Carl Goodings of the 423rd 'Pershing Rifles' Brigade. He was ordered to escort civilian-evacuation aircrafts from the combat zones in the "Sterntaler" District. Unfortunately, Maj. Goodings was killed in action... Before he passed away, he gave all his equipment to Mr. Jackson, whom he rescued from the first 'Invid-attack'."

Commander Lisa Hayes decided to ask something, "But Admiral, how did he get into the Under Deck? "

"As the way I understood Corp. Carpicorn's report, he fell from one of the aircrafts, into a pool of water, which was actually a crater, made by a Veritech aircraft, which crashed... It's arrament exploded... ripping a large hole into the ground. Somehow, he was...", Gloval shortly thought back, then remembered certain words of the report,"... "flushed" into the deep... After a few hours, Corp. Capricorn managed to contact him again..."

"Admiral...", Hemshire asked, speaking with an ironic voice, "Are you saying that 'this civilian' is the only person we have contact to?"

"Yes, General - I'm afraid so... He is our only person and contactman down there... and he is willing to investigate the situation down there... He has already managed to reach one of the outpost-stations... "

"Well I hope this -", the general said, but was suddenly interupted by a loud disturbing alarm.

A sirene sounded loud out of the speakers of the conferance room. It was the standard alert sound for a combat situation...

Recognizing the sound, "Alert status?!", Lisa said surprised.

"Ladies and gentlemen, report to your battlestations. This conferance is over- for now. We shall meet again..."

Everybody stood up, saluted towards Admiral Gloval, then left the room. As everybody left, the alarms slowly changed their rhythm into a repeating tone. The old man remained at his place. It was the akward strategy the enemy was performing that disturbed him deeply.

----

The Valkyries flew at full speed towards the enemy units...

As they flew, Sparrow and Cherry managed to identify the incoming groups of enemy units.

""To all units"", Sparrow said, ""Cherry and I have managed to filter out some of the incoming bogeys! Most of them are 'Invid-Arc-Shardlings' ... along with two new version... and that 'Centurion'! So better stick to the new weapon-systems, over""

""What?"", Chris asked - His voice sounded surprised, ""How did you two manage to find out? We can normally only identify by visual contact!""

Both Cherry and Sparrow appeared each on the left and right screens of Chris' main displays.

""Sparrow and I teamworked scaning their silhouette, sir "", Cherry replied. Sparrow did not answer, instead, she winked her eye and nodded her head shortly.

The Lieutenant leaned back into his seat again, more comfortablely. Although they were about to fly into battle again, he did seem more confident than usual.

""Good job, you two - Ok groups, stay away from the 'Centurion'! We have all confronted the "Arc-Shardling" versions once, so you will know how to confront them this time""

""Ha!"", said Pres, ""Shouldn't have a problem this time - especially when we use new swarm-missles...""

Piranja, who was already hoping for something to happen, already studied how to use the swarm-missiles to their maximum effectiveness. As for Wiseguy, he sometimes wonders how she could ever get such a rage, when it comes to combat - especially when she is impatient.

"" Groups two and three - Perform Volley-2, target the incoming with long range missiles!""

""Affimative...""- ""Roger.. ""- That's a roger, sir!""

Various VF-1D Valkyries of groups two and three were fitted with long range AA-9E "Suspender" missles. Although rather out-of-date, this very large type of missile is more likely seen as a torpedo for long range attacks. Due to their large size and heavy warheads, these missiles were specially developed for long distance targets and exploding violently in a massive area of destruction.

After a few seconds, they have confirmed targetting. Chris gave the order to fire.

He could see multiple volleys of missile flying past him... The barrage flew ahead at a high speed... a few seconds passed again...

Mutliple flashes occurred ahead, along with many round explosions that immediately vanished due to the effects of space. It did not take long at all until they could see "Invid-Arc-Shardlings" flying through the explosions, some burning instantly or taking streams of fire with them.

""Here THEY COME!"", Monk shouted - ready for the next reaction.

From what the Lieutenant could see, the "Invids" were coming in for them - heading straight through the burning zone as if it were nothing.

""All units! Break away!"", Chris shouted as he did a barrel roll, along with a high G kurve towards his right. The group splitted up like a group of birds flying individually their own way.

A stream of shards flew past...

Chris stabalized his Valkyrie. As he was pulling up, he could see a large group of "Invid-Arc-Shardlings" flying past from above.

"This is gonna be a tough fight..."

----

Somewhere in the "Diamond Cross" District...

Mick and FoxyRoxy just walked passed a large crossroad as they continued on the mainstreet.

The streets were very wide, having 12 lanes, six on each side. These type of streets were the main streets of the city deck. Usually, besides all the traffic, it was used for transporting large objects... As Noticing rather high buildings surrounding them, practically every single one of them seemed abandoned. After a few steps, Mick stopped.

Looking back to him, FoxyRoxy asked, "Is something wrong?"

A slight draft drew past them...

Mick had a confused looking face - Trying to listen to his surroundings, he asked her, "Did you hear that?"

"What?", she asked again and looked around, "I didn't hear anything..."

He stood still... Concentrated on his surroundings.

"I could have sworn I heard something..."

Silence...

"Are you sure?", she asked one more time, feeling pain on her forehead and laid her hand on the spot she bumped her head , "... ouch... - actually I should be the one hearing things, since I am the one who slammed the head, hehe - ouch!... Feels like a headache..."

He smiled at her and shook his head, guessing it was just his imagination.

"Yeah... maybe you're right... I think I am hearing things...", he said to her and continued walking...

They started to walk further... Mick stopped suddenly...

He turned around, "I heard it again... I heard it again!"

"Really... but", FoxyRoxy said, but then was interrupted by Mick, his hand over her mouth, "Wha - Mrmrrh?!"

"SSShhhh... Just listen... "

It seemed quiet... silence... They could only hear themselves breathing... but then... they could start to hear hear something... coming closer.

"Nhmm I hrr it...", Foxy-Roxy tried to say.

It was getting louder... The sound was coming from the crossroad, from the street to the right... A constant roaring sound, getting louder and louder... Mick removed his hand slowly from Foxy's mouth.

"What ever is coming... it must me damn large..."

"Uh-oh..."

The sound was loud, coming around the corner... It was too late to hide... FoxyRoxy grabbed Mick's arm. Lifting up the sub-machine gun, Mick nervously lifted his arms, aiming the gun at the corner, while using his arm to keep FoxyRoxy behind himself.

"Damn... "

Luckily, the object coming was made out of a familiar steel-alloy...

"What the..."

It was a large vehicle, almost about four and a half meters high... moving on two large chains... It seemed like a tank - a very large tank indeed. The tank came around the corner, moving towards them. They were surprised as the gigant hulk on tracks rolled around the corner, then stopped suddenly.

"It looks like a tank...", FoxyRoxy whispered.

"Yeah... Look! There's somebody coming out."

A hatch on the top of the tank's turret opened, along with a soldier who came up, looking down at them. He waved at them... Mick waved back. Shouting down, with an australian accent, he shouted, "What are you two doing out here?!"

As Mick shouted back up, he laid both hands around his mouth and said, "We crash-landed not far away from here!"

"You two crash-landed?!", the soldier high above them replied.

"Yeah! We're Veritech pilots - and crash-landed!"

"Well. It's better you two get in with us!", the soldier shouted down and wove his hand, making a 'get over here' gesture, "It's too dangerous for a couple like you two to be wandering around here!"

Saying to herself, "Couple"? - she rubbed her forehead...

Saying to himself, "'Couple'?!" - Mick rubbed his head as well.

They looked at each other, then looked back to the tank. It was sure that it would be the best for them to board the tank.

"Looks like we're lucky after...", Mick said and smiled, then grabbed FoxyRoxy by her arm, pulling her with him, "Well, com'on, Honey! Let's get out of here!"

"Huh -?", she replied as she was dragged by Mick who pulled her arm.

The tank soldier shouted down, saying something to the crew inside. Shortly after, two men came from the rear side of the tank, waving to them to get in from their point. Both pilots jogged ahead in order get in. After boarding, the crew shut the rear boarding door and the tank started to move.

Inside, the tank seemed even larger than it was from the outside, with lots of sophisticated consoles, instruments, panels and small compartments. As expected, the tank soldier from the top was not the only person in the truck. There were a few armed soldiers inside, who greeted the pilots, but Mick has noticed that miltary people were not only ones inside. There were also a group of civilians as well, sitting in the middle of the tank's compartment... A man with a helmet and an military uniform climbed down from the top.

"Greetings, you two. I'm Corporal Calvin Briggs, 45th tank brigade - and tank commander, for now..."

Mick saluted and said, "Pvt. Lars Mickerson, sir - Veritech rookie pilot of the 40th "Vasall Knights" Squadron. And this is..."

Saluting as well, his red-haired co-pilot saluted as well and replied, "Pvt. Roxanne Keldon, VT rookie 'Radar-Weaponary' co-pilot of the 3rd "Vallery Hunters" Squadron, sir"...

"At ease, squaddies", Corp. Briggs said and rubbed his chin. "I am just a Corporal, y'know...", and leaned himself against one of the seats. Both Mick and Foxy-Roxy looked at each other - a little confused, "What are you two doing out here, by the way?"

Both pilots looked at each other again.

"Well, umm..."

"It's actually a long story, Corporal...", Foxy-Roxy said quietly...

"To make it a little short", Mick added, "We were in our Valkyrie trying to make our way out of here, since we were under fire from those 'things' or how ever you call them... We crash-landed, just close to the terminal entrance to the next district, but the door shut before us... and we got stuck here..."

"Ah, I understand", Briggs said, nodding his head, sounding as if he heard of this once before.

Looking around, Foxy-Roxy asked, "Why are so many people inside here?"

"Well... Our story is also quite long... We are tank recruits ourselves, actually... and we were right in the middle of training. We were off-duty, until we received an order of deployment for our first real combat mission... I was ordered to command this tank and follow the orders of our tank-commander. After a few heavy battles, we were ordered to leave the combat zone and return to base in this district. Unfortunetely, the base was evacuated by then, since Bridge Command ordered to shut down the districts - We departed far too late since we did not even expect to head out so soon. Hehe, we didn't know what the hell to do..."

"Yeah, that was crap... Pretty chaotic, I must say", one of the soldiers said from behind...

"First combat... full of action... sound familiar...", FoxyRoxy said, smiling to Mick - who knew what

she meant...

Corp. Briggs continued, "So... now I'm a tank commander... with a handfull of privates under my command... We've received radio signals from a few combat units, not far from here - but they are in deep trouble, and they've got a very large number of civilians with them... We grabbed a lot of people on the way there", and slowly swung his hand across the area they were standing at, refering to the other civilians and ground-soldiers.

Looking over to FoxyRoxy, Mick said quietly towards her, "This sure is a hell of a job, huh?"

"Yeah", she said back to him quietly, "but I am glad to be in it - actually", she smiled shortly.

"You two better take a break, since it'll be a long ride until we get there..."

"This is a large tank...", FoxyRoxy noticed as she slowly observed the small room they stood in again.

"Yeah... BT-7A Iron-Struggler. Ancestor of the old M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank and the ancient soviet tank known as the T-80. This baby's skin is made out of a Carbonite armor and some Hyper-Carbonite platings, capable of advacing through ABC enviroments, specially made for heavy combat support and troop transport/evacuations. Armed with a 147mm smoothbore cannon, which is capable of blasting ammunition of standard HE shells and special energetic bolts - You know - protoculture stuff. "

The 'driver' suddenly shouted, "Hell yeah! And it's capable of driving at speed of 80 km/h!"

"Wow...", FoxyRoxy said quietly. For sure, their words sounded very interesting within her ears.Briggs sat down... then took a deep sigh, "Yeah... but we still don't stand a real chance against those sliming spikers!"

"Spikers, sir?", she asked him, as she looked down at him.

"The 'Invid-Shardies'... and stop calling me 'Sir'. I'm just a Corp., y'know...", his voice went down slightly. Indeed, Briggs did not feel really satisfied of being the 'boss', although he was in the middle of learning to become a commanding unit for this tank.

"Uhh, yeah..."

"Either call me 'Briggs' or 'Cal' or 'Buster' - Nevermind. 'Invids' is the name they've classified the enemy. Dunno why myself."

Foxy-Roxy smiled back to him, "Ok, Briggs."

"So you guys are just as stuck as we are...", Mick proposed.

"Yeah, but I think it's best we link up with those who are stuck here as well... but nevermind that, you two take a rest. I gotta a tank to command, hehe."

"Roger... ", Mick replied. He climbed back to the frontal part of the compartment. Some of the civilians had headbands and bandages, some even seemed wounded from shards... The fear of the "Invids" was written in their face... They definitely need professional medical attention as soon as possible.

"Well, Foxy... what you think of all this?"

"I guess we're lucky. Who know's what would happen if we were jeopardized..."

----

Outer space, vicinity of the "Majestic".

45 minutes have past already - Ever since the beginning of this time, the silent peace within space was broken once again as the fierce battle evolved. Various numbers of Valkyries and "Invids-creatures" fought each other like bees trying to defend their hive from hornets.

"Aww crap!", Rooks shouted - making the Valkyrie bank right, then left, dodging shard-fire from behind, "We've got four 'Shardlings' on our tail!"

More blue lines struck by in an instant. Indeed, it was unbelievable for him how fast those creatures could fire. It was not easy dodging their attackers and evading other objects in space while flying at high-speed. Trying to target the objects behind them, Cherry fought against the stress of the intense G's made by their manuevers. Showing the view of rear, a sharp holographic picture revealed their followers who where shooting upon them. Although being shaked around, she managed to get both triangle and square targetting rings onto their attackers.

"I got two of them!", she shouted, right after she obtained the targets.

"Could ya try to get one more!", he demanded back, then felt the Valkyrie shaking - perhaps another few hits from shards, "Damn it! Can't they bug somebody else?!"

"Almost...!", she added as she fought trying to get one more target.

"Com' on, Cherry!", Rooks shouted, We ain't got that much time!" - Their possibilties of evading the rain of shards was getting lower by the second, since their attacks already began adapting to each move they made. He turned the Valkrie to it's back, the deck of the SDF-1 above them - although far away, it could be seen. Rooks had no other choice but to pull upwards, "Nggh!", he said as he could feel the high G's pressing him deeper into his seat.

As he pulled upwards, the Valkyrie flew past a few explosions, luckily far away enough not to get hit by it's area of effect. Other Valkyries flew by, along with other "Invids". He could see that his monitor instrument were flashing in red letters "Warning: High G"... but he ignored it. He had no choice - if he wanted to escape and buy some time for Cherry to target them, he would need to reach some more free space between them.

He pushed his throttle nearly to the maximum, causing the thrusters to blast more power. It was very hard for him to stay sharp, he could see that they were starting to get close to the deck of the SDF-1 as they darted straight for it. Bitting his teeth together as the Valkyrie gained speed and pulling upwards he shouted, "Th-this isss gonna be it!"

Another pack of dark-blue lines flashed past his left side... He then heard a "target acquired" sound...

Shouting out loud, "Locked all damn bugs! ... FIRE!" - then coughed, since she started to have breathing problems.

Not thinking twice, he clipped the "fire mode switch" of his control stick, causing the hud to show "tripple-ripple fire mode", then pressed top button of the stick. At the same moment, the upper launchers released small objects, which then thrusted off towards the back, heading towards their followers.

Bright explosions... The missiles exploded, making two of them receiving direct hits. The last "Invid-Arc-Shardling" received fatal sharpnels which tore it's side apart. Getting dangerous close to the deck of the SDF-1, Rooks immediately slammed the control-stick towards the left again, then stablized their Valkyrie just barely over the hull. He immediately threw himself back on his seat as they glided over the hull...

"Looks like we got 'em!", she said, as her console did not show any targets behind them.

"Crap", he sighed, "They nearly had us on tha one, huh?!", he said back to her as he stabilized the Valkyrie once again, bringing it to a complete stop with the help of the Guardian-mode.

"You bet! They nearly had us alright!"

"Yeah... Geez, that's like the second time we nearly bit dust" - Rooks lifted his head and spotted the battle at least four kilometers above them, "Well -Here we go again!", he said loudly and made their Veritech lift off from the hull again.

--

Somewhere else, during the battle in space...

Chris has already shot down various numbers of the attacking "Invids". After flying past a batch of them, he changed into Battleroid-mode, then started firing his main cannon behind them. Not normal for a single pilot to do such a stunt, but accuracy was skill that he knew very well. Although the shards were fired at blinding speed, Lt. Caldwell knew how to evade - One rule he always followed within battles was to react unexpectingly.

He flew wildly, dodging shard-fire... After shooting down the batch, he noticed that five more "Invid-Arc-Shardlings" were coming in. Now he had a problem... He had no time to react and fire... Instead, he rechanged to Fighter-mode, then blazed away.

"Hot Damn! They in for me!", he shouted, as he noticed that the creatures were indeed on a hot persuit. As he flew downwards, in order to dodge debris in the middle of space, he noticed that his threat indicator blinked constantly, showing "warning". He did not know why, until he did a barrel roll, seeing a very large biological object. It was the "Centurion-Class Invid" ship, at least two kilometers away.

Something was coming... A purple object... which then exploded, not far from him... Now multiple purple object showed up... It seemed as if the "Centurion Invid" ship was shooting flak-like shots, definately trying to shoot him down. He dodged, but started to receive hits from the shards which were constantly incoming from his rear.

Chris was in great danger... due to the skirmish from before, he must have overseen his current position and drifted away from the battle... He was getting closer and closer to the "Centurion Invid" ship. The Valkyrie angled it's wings more towards it's body as it did many barrel-rolls - dodging all enemy-fire - or least the best it could. He managed to pull away. Looking to his side, he could see that he was very far away from the main battle - This was not good. Even worse, he did not have any friendly units on his screens... Either his avionics were malfunctioning or he was really beyond his allies.

As if he did not have enough bad luck, ten more "Invid-Arc-Shardlings" showed up on his radar screen, definitely coming in for him... He was as good as dead... His death-bringers were right behind him, and although he was keeping up the pace, just a few minutes ahead was another small group of them.

Thinking about Sammie... He knew he was not going to survive this... This was definitely going to be his last flight... No way out, if he would turn, he would be sliced to dead meat by his followers, if he would keep straight, he would be sliced as well... Chris still had little time... Last thoughts...

----

Main Bridge, SDF-1...

Observing the development of the ongoing battle, both Claudia Grant and Vanessa Leeds kept the deployed squadrons up-to-date with the their survey-information. As they took care of the units defending the "Majestica", Lisa, Kim and Sammie Porter concentrated themselves on the situation going on inside. As Sammie Porter maintained her console, a disturbing feeling went through her - as if something went through her soul. It was an usual feeling, but none the less, she did not feel alright at this moment. Noticing her astonished face, Officer Kim Young shortly mentioned towards of conversation partner to stand-by and went over to her.

Looking over towards her, she asked, "Sammie? Is everything alright? You look like as if you seen a ghost...". She walked over and laid her hand on her shoulder. Just as she laid her hand upon her shoulder, she immediately dropped it as she saw Sammie's face full of fear.

"S-Something is not right... Something is not right...", Sammie replied quietly, shaking her head... then turned over, looking towards the frontal part of the bridge, seeing far away flashes, explosions from the battle.She stared at the flashes... then her eye suddenly went wide -

"Chris... Something is not right with Chris...", she repeated her words a few times.

"Hey - Hey Sammie what do you -", Kim wanted to ask, but went quiet as a rather absent-minded Sammie Porter lifted herself from her console station, leaving it unattended.

"Chris...", she said quietly, still looking at the far-away flashes and slowly walked forward. Noticing one of his officers leaving their station, Admiral Gloval followed Sammie's walk past him.

"Officer Porter, what are you doing?", the Admiral asked, awaiting an immediate answer, "Return to your station." Sammie, however, did not even respond to the demand of her commander. She walked between Lisa Hayes' and Claudia Grant's consoles. Both Lisa and Claudia took of their headsets as they looked upon the young disorientated officer.

"Chris...", Sammie's eyes went wide open again, "He is in danger..."

"What do you mean?", Lisa said... " How can you know? He is way beyond...!"

"I - I can feel it...", Sammie replied and grabbed Claudia's arm, "Believe me! I can feel that he is in danger!"

"But that's non-sense...", Lisa added as she watched Sammie staring at the screen ahead.

Sammie shook her head again, "... Lisa, I must talk to him! Please!"

Admiral Gloval did not seem pleased, "That's enough, Officer Porter! You are an Officer of the SDF-1. Return to your station at once!"

"I mean it...", the young officer said softly as she looked into Claudia's eyes...

Indeed... Claudia could see it - as if it were written in her eyes... She really meant it.

Claudia took a deep breath, then said, "Admiral, sir... I think we should let her talk... She seems ...determined..."

The Admiral thought a long moment... not seeing any sense... but then decided to say, "I guess, you are right... This is something which should not be done for personal use... but I will give you permission to talk - only once... Make it short... Lisa, open a channel for her."

Pulling down the the microphone-transmitter from her upper console, Lisa shortly set it up and handed it over to Sammie, then explained,"I am afraid you will have to transmit over broadband channel if you want him to hear you... Everybody will hear it out there, so they might be distracted..."

"Thanks, Admiral... Lisa...", Sammie smiled..., "Claudia...", then took a deep breath...

Thankfully happy to have a short chance to call out for him, she lifted her head as each word left her lips.

---

Further away from the battle, a lonesome and slightly damaged Valkyrie floated by at a very low cruising speed. Chris did not move... His hands were still on the controls... but he did not move.

"""Well, looks like the creatures ahead noticed that I am coming for them... They've even stopped... maybe giving me more time to make my last testament...""", he thought.

He really had no idea what to do. Fighting against so many targets at the same time was an insane thought. Even one target was already a tough enemy to take down. As he thought, Chris suddenly heard a fuzz sound next to his ear.

"Huh?"

--

Somewhere in the battlezone around the "Majestica"...

"Hot hell! These guys are -", Rooks also suddenly heard a fuzz in helmet, "- Erm, Did you hear that?", Rooks asked as he pulled away slightly from incoming targets.

"Yeah - Hmm, it's 92.1kHz frequency - Beta bandwidth - Must be Bridge Command...", Cherry said, "Sounds like the bridge has something to say..."

"Greeeat... as if we haven't heard enough!"

--

Chris waited for a special transmission coming from the SDF-1... even though he did not really care since he was outnumbered... until a familiar female voice spoke:

""Chris?... I hope you can hear me... It's me, Sammie..."" - short fuzz -

He lifted his head - astonished by the voice.

"It... It can't be..."

""Chris, I don't if you can hear me... but I've decided to talk to you... I don't know why...""

--

"She doesn't mean 'our Lt. Chris Caldwell', does she?", Rooks wondered...

--

Just managing to have a moment of freedom from combat, Jester's Valkyrie blazed into the outer rim of the battle. As they heard the voice speaking over their commline, Sparrow noticed a blue signal far away from the actual combat zone.

"Speaking of Chris - ", Sparrow said to Jester, "he's pretty far away! He's about 16 klicks away - beyond the combat area."

"That's doesn't sound good - If ya ask me!", Jester replied to the back, "How's our Valk' doin'?"

Sparrow quickly used her left hand to type on the sensetive thin-glass touch pads and to active the status screen of the Valkyrie.

"We're a bit low on 'Swarmlings' - but we've got plenty ammo - Shouldn't be a problem for us to bust our way through to him", his RW co-pilot said loudly. With Lunatic like Jester, her suggestion did sound like a good idea to him.

"Aww-right! We'll go for him - I'm sure we can handle it ourselves-", he said and activated his commline, ""Hey Pres! Could ya watch my tail?"", he asked and made the Valkyrie bank hard to the left.

--

Chris could imagine Sammie speaking to him as she spoke over his speakers:

Speaking softly, she said, ""... but I wanted you to know something... I somehow feel that you are in danger... and I can't forget about you... I never will... I love you too much to forget about you... I can not forget your deepest fear... I can not live without you... I could not sleep last night, since I knew that you were going to risk your life for another day... I worry each time you leave this ship... I can't think clear anymore with you out there in space, fighting against the oppossing... I remember the very first day we met... the first day I saw you fly the Veritechs... the day I met you... crying... for the loss lives of your squadron and people... *pauses* ...Remember last night, we both together in bed, we loved each other like never before... I never felt so secure when I was with you...ever since this war started, I feared each morning, I felt that each day could be my last... but... ever since that night I came to you, I understood your misery, your fear... the loss of lives that you try to protect each time you risk your life... If you would fall, my life would never be the same... I feel happy , knowing you are in my arms, in safety... The world with you next to me seems to be a lot better... *paused and took a soft but deep breath* if you can hear me... you are my only sweatheart! We are in deep space - far away from home... fighting against a beast that kills anything that comes in it's way! I could never live on without you! Please... please come back to me... please come back to me in one piece... *frequency scratch...*""

Chris was amazed... She really must have felt that he was in danger... Her words seemed to have given him strength... and far more... hope... Her last words stayed in his mind...

"""Come back in one piece...""", kept repeating in his mind...

Now it was clear...

He could not die - not now - not yet... Although he was surrounded by his death-bringers, he just could not die yet... He had one more job to do. He definitely had one more life to protect. He must survive - just one more time - Sammie loved him so much that she would never understand her life anymore, if he were to die here. It was an urge that shivered down his spine as he suddenly understood what to do.

Survive... this word had a new meaning to Chris...

"... I can't fail now... "

His oppossers were now visible... They were slowly closing in on him... Like a group of predators, spreading fear upon their prey... showing that he was outnumbered...

No escape.

Chris' Valkyrie slowly drifted foward... He remained quiet as he thought about Sammie, then concentrated himself on his situation.

"I'm outnumbered... even worse... outgunned...", he said towards himself and took a short look towards the back, "and no way out... This could really be my last flight... and these guys want me dead... No backup, no cover... but I can't sit here and let myself get killed... especially not that easy..."

He kept opening and closing his hands around the controls - nervously.

Chris knew the high-manueverability of the "Invids" and he would need all the power he could get out of his Valkyrie, making it faster than normal... He deactivated systems he did not needed, such as long-range radar systems. He jettisoned his outer hardpoint missiles, which were practically useless for close combat and kept the short-range missiles. At last, he then rediverted the remaining power to all manuevering thrusters of his Valkyrie.

Just as he finished the settings, Chris turned his head over and spotted a certain small panel, which were the controls for his cockpit gravity-harness unit. He knew that deactivating this system would do a definate amount of damage to his health but would also give his Valkyrie maximum effectiveness in evasive manuevers. He made his choice and shut down the system. It did not take long until he could feel that his weight disappeared. If he were to do heavy evasive moves, he would be extremely vunerable to excessive G's - The main reason why he is forced to walk with crutches.

The G's that were about to be produced were going to be more painful than before. It wizkd be the pure torture... but it was his choice - A pure rip-off - His health for a little bit more manueverablity for combat, a deal with the devil.

He took a deep breath... then shouted: "COME AND GET ME!" and slammed full throttle.

The thrusters of the Valkyrie opened wide, then blasted two large and blight blue flashes of pure energy, catapulting the Valkyrie straight ahead. Chris could feel the immense power of his Valkyrie, being crushed more and more into his seat... He bit his teeth together as the flew ahead. The "Invids" noticed his sudden thrust, then started to accelerate to high speed within short seconds, going straight for him.

"Death is something that all of us can't escape - but I'm gonna make it hard for that bastard... "

Shard-fire... The hail of pure death. He dodged with an evasive barrel roll, effective but it was painful at the same time... The "Invids" flown past him. His Valkyrie kicked out arms and legs, turning into Battleroid-mode.

As his Battleroid grabbed it's cannon, he received a threat warning coming from above. Looking upwards, he spotted one "Invid-Arc-Shardling" diving in for him. He pulled the legs up, then full-thrusted away to his back, making the shots fired from the "Invid" miss. He aimed upwards and fired at his attacker. Luckily, his shot killed the creature instantly.

"One down...", he said to himself and looked at his short-range scanner, "and SEVENTEEN to go?!"

A batch of four "Invids" appeared out of nowhere... heading straight at him - then fired. The shards were coming in at blinding speed. Without thinking twice, his Battleroid did evasive manuevers and high speed turns, dodging nearly all shards, only a few scratching the armor.

Thanks to the fast-targeting "fire-and-forget" missiles he still had, he pulled the trigger, unleashing a few of them. Not having the chance for evading, the "Invid creatures" splattered violently as the missiles exploded upon them. His threat indicator started flashing, showing that various "Invids" were coming in from all sides... covering holes for him to escape.

Chris immediatly changed into Guardian-mode, then gathered his strength to do a high evasive manuever that would be more painful than ever. This was one of the moments he would be needing all the power of a Valkyrie to avoid getting hit... His helmet-glass flashed in the lower left corner "Incoming" in red letters.

That was his signal... He slammed his throttle, pushed both foot pedals and moved the control stick wildly in all directions. This caused his Valkyrie to fly in an unpredictable manor, making it possible to dodge nearly all shots again. The power that was nearly crushing him from all sides was remarkble - It was even more remarkble was that he was still alive.

All "Invids" were forced to fly by and try to get another possiblity to reach an attack position. Chris used this opportunity to follow two "Invids", by immediately changing back into Fighter-mode, then kicking in the afterburners... Both "Invids" splitted up.

Angrily, he said, "Damn, they're smart!" He barrel rolled to the one which banked right, "You're not getting away with that one, fool!"

Following the creature, he burst fired a few shots, which the creature dodged - "Damn it -hold still so I can get you...!"

He fired two missiles - and again - The creature dodged them with ease. Understanding the way how the creature reacted, he attacked the creature once more. Just as the creature evaded, it turned hard towards the left, right into the aim for his cannon.

"Chessmate!", he shouted and burst fired a few times again, then saw fragments and "bloody" body parts rip off - "Gotcha!"

He made a high power curve, "... What the ?!"

Chris could see the seven "Invids" were coming in from the front... impossible to dodge them now, since they were coming in fast... Chris was about to fire his cannon and missiles, when he notice something he was not aware of...

The ammunition-counter level stood in red numbers, "47"... definitely not enough to shoot all down... This was a serious problem... but not the only one... The damage he received before also knock out automatic targeting systems for the head cannons and he only had three short-range missiles left which also had slight malfunctions - lowering their chances to even hit the targets.

Chris was in trouble... He could avoid them, but without ammunition, it would be a matter of time until they would get him... He made one last thought about Sammie...

But then, all the sudden, coming from nowhere, numerous white lines past him... which then exploded near the incoming "Invids". The "Invids", however, received no damage, since they immediatly broke away from pursuing Chris.

The explosions seemed familiar... They seemed to spread a lot of shrapnel and flechette ammunitions like fireworks...

"Huh?! But those are...", he said, then noticed something coming in fast from his back.

A Valkyrie blazed at blinding speed past him... Chris was astonished as the lonesome Valkyrie flew past him... Coming just on time... rescueing his life, more likely. It made a strong curve... and as it flew it's curve, Chris could see two small launchers on the top of it's rear side.

"A VF-1D? With 'Hokum' launchers?"

His left and right screen fuzzed, reveiling two pilots, a young smiling man and a young woman who wove shortly.

""Pvt. Jester, sir! At your service! Hey, what's the big idea? You fightin' a private party against the slimebags?! Did they ask you for a duel?!""

""Sparrow here - Are you alright, sir? I hope you're ok!""

"I-I'm fine, but what're you two doing out here? Where are your wingmen? Didn't I give the advice to stay with your wingmen?!", he said back to them.

Jester leaned more to the back, ""Maybe that's a question you should answer yourself... Sir! After hearing a broadcast from some lady called 'Tammie' or 'Sammie' - or so - We noticed that you were way out of the combat zone. The others had no time to follow! And actually, if we weren't here, sir, you would've been sliced and diced by now!""

He was right... Chris flew into combat, knowing all the rules... but since he got carried away, he went alone, not even thinking about calling for reinforcements... that was a rather ignorant mistake... If they had not shown up, he would have been history.

""Well, now we're here, sir!"", Jester said happily (but in a smart-ass manor), "If ya wanna survive, then we're gonna have to fight side-by-side!""

""Jester. Sparrow. Than - "", Chris was about to say "thanks", but he got interrupted by Sparrow's shout, which was so loud, that it overtuned his words:

Shouting out loud, she said, ""Sir! Three bogeys! Coming in on your six!""

""Huh?"", Chris looked back, then looks foward again suddenly, ""Holy!"", and pushed his throttle to full power.

The rookie Valkyrie flew another sharp curve...

""Watch it! They're firing!"", speaking in pain, as he made another powerful barrel roll, dodging most of the shards, a few again slamming into his Valkyrie, ""Guys!"", Chris said as he bit his teeth together, ""I only got three missiles left and I am quite out of ammo! I could need..."

Jester flew with full afterburners, intercepting the "Invids" from the side... ""Roger, Sir! We're on it!""

Chris felt a little relieved... He was not alone anymore... He had two angels. One called "Jester" - The other "Sparrow"... His life-savers... He would have been dead by now if they had not shown up... Now they were here, rescuing him... He owed them his life.

"Target 'Shardlings', 12 o'clock!", Jester said.

"Targetting...", Sparrow said back to him. The fast targetting system for the "Hokum" missiles targetted the incomings within a short second, "Got 'em!"

"Firing 'Hokums'!", he said and pressed the trigger a few times.

The missiles flew ahead...

Sparrow spoke, ""Missiles on the way! Triggered to three seconds! Two... one...""

Explosions occurred... along with "Invid" fragments spreading into all directions...

""All three bogeys are history!""

""Woohooooo! Good job, sister!"", Jester shouted cheerfully...

""No problem!""

Jester pulled up, trying to get next to the wing of Chris...

""Damn, you guys learned well!"", Chris said, "" - But we should try to get out of here! Listen up! I want you two to target all bogeys, fire all swarm missiles to distract them, so we make out way out of here! You got me?""

""Hey"", Jester said, ""- shouldn't we waste 'em now?! Just give me a chance, sir, and I'll blast 'em off this galax -""

Chris shook his head and interupted his speech, ""- Jester, we got no time for heroic stunts! I can't afford to loose you two now! Stick to what I say! That's an order!""

He grumbled, ""Understood... Sir!"", then turned his head to the back, "Sparrow. Would you mind?"

"I'm on it, give me a little time!"

"Ok, then let's make some time!" Jester pushed his throttle to the maximum, "" I''m going for 'em!""

His Valkyrie blazed again in full afterburners... flying past Chris' Valkyrie, leaving wing-formation...

""Damn it, Jester! Are you crazy, you're gonna get yourselves killed!""

Sparrow whispering loud enough, so that Jester could only hear her, "What are you doing?! He gave us a direct order!"

""Huh... ? Sir... ?! Could you repeat that last transmission? We're gonna get ourselves thrilled?"", he makes artificial "Chrrfzzt" sounds with his voice - which sounded a little bit too 'artificial'... ""I can't read you, sir!""

"" Quit the fooling around! Get back here!"", Chris shouted back at him.

Jester ignored... He flew ahead... Chris could see that he pursued two "Invids"... His flying skills were remarkable for a rookie of his kind... For a moment, he noticed that the "Invids" were the ones being hunted down, they were the ones being chased. It did not take long at all until Jester blasted one of them away.

Shouting triumphly, Jester yelled, ""Yeeeeehaaaaaw!"", as he did another barrel-roll. As he did the rolls, Sparrow felt a short fear within her - it was short - but then again, it did start to affect her slightly. Forcing herself to ignore her feelings, she managed to do as Chris ordered and replied, ""I - I've targetted all bogeys!""

""About time, Sparrow, haha!"", Jester shouted again and resetted his firing-mode to"Full-auto", ""Get ready for fireworks, sir!"", the wild pilot said.

Chris shook his head a few times and said, "That kid is insane..."

""Here goes! Turn ..."", the trigger-happy pilot said as he pushed the missile-button on his controls, ""... and burn, baby!""

Chris could see multiple numbers white lines spreading into all directions... It was unbelievable...

""Ok, that'll keep them busy! Now, before those missiles explode, GET OUT OF HERE AND RETURN TO BASE, ASAP!"", Chris shouted.

""Roger that, heading back!""

The missiles flew on for another second... then exploded randomly...

When Jester warned about getting ready for 'fireworks', he surely meant it. The explosions shined so bright that Chris could hardly see as he kicked in afterburners.

"Damn, that light!"

As Chris' Valkyrie flew ahead, Sparrow checked her sensor screen... The explosions interferred a little with her scanners... After the "clouds" on the scanner disappeared, she could see that large "Invid" fragments were spreading everywhere, showing that the missiles did their job... but then... she noticed that one "blip" was moving in on Chris' position...

"Oh no! There is one more! Coming on Lt. Caldwell", she shouted.

"What?!", Jester said...

""Sir...!"", she shouted out loudly.

The light of explosions slowly suffocated in space, when he suddenly heard a sirene-alert.

"What the... collision alert?", Chris asked surprised, "From where?!"

""... Bogey! Coming in on twelve o'clock!"", Sparrow shouted...

"Twelve?!" Chris wondered and looked around - then spotted the target inboud.

A single "Invid-Arc-Shardling" was heading straight at him - diving in for him... It seemed 'wounded'... but was still alive. Chris spotted movemont among it's shoulders, knowing what was about to come next. This was not good, his Valkyrie could never dodge all shards at once, especially since it was heading straight at him at a super-high speed.

The "Invid" unleashed, as foreseen, a rain of deadly shards...

"Not again!" - He pushed his left foot-pedal upward, making his left thruster aim it's thrust upward, making it's right thruster aim downwards as well, while simultaneously slamming the control stick to the right.

His Valkyrie made many spirals... The G's which were produced were pressing him to his seat... He could pain in his whole body... He then suddenly felt multiple hits... Many shards have slammed his Valkyrie... Chris checked the damage indicator, as he heard a female computer voice.

"He's been hit! Looks really bad!", Sparrow shouted towards Jester.

"Damn it, I'm almost there! Can you manage to get an aim on that last slimebag, com' on!"

Her targetting console showed that both the "Invid" and their Valkyrie were too fast to make a hit - The hit accuracy was lower than 5 % .

"No chance! We could fire, but we might even hit Chris as well! Our angle is inappropiate!"

"Darn it!", Jester shouted, "He'll be dead-meat by the time I try to get to a better firing position..." For a short moment, he thought... then he overpowered the thrusters, making them fly even faster ahead- "Hold on! We can't let him get killed!"

The female computer-voice in Chris' Valkyrie spoke:

"...Warning...main communication array malfunctions... Port Thruster unit malfunction... auto-shutdown... auto-ejection of explosive ammunition... "", Chris could hear sounds - the last bit of ammunition and missiles were ejected, ""Manuevering thruster... malfunctioning... reducing main thrusters to support manuevering units... stabalizing..." - His Valkyrie stopped making spirals.

His engines deactivated as he heard the Valkyrie losing it's power... Now he was a "sitting duck", floating ahead at high-speed... Luckily he was on course back to the SDF-1's position.

Unfortunately, there was one more "Invid" in the way... and it was coming in fast. There was no way to avoid it... It seemed as if it wants to go head-on.head... kamikaze... Chris had so many wishes to survive... He thought he would make it... but now...

"... Sammie...What the... ?????!"

(>> In slow-motion <<) Chris suddenly saw a Valkyrie, coming in from his right side... He was astonished as it flew by... He did not know what they were up to, until he noticed that they crossed his path, blazing straight at the creature.

"Nooo, they are not going to... "

They did exactly what he would never expect them to do...

The Valkyrie smashed into "Invid-Arc-Shardling". The power of the impact was so strong, that both pilots were slammed into their own consoles, luckily, their helmet-glasses stayed intact... The cockpit-glass itself shattered into serveral pieces. Several parts of their Veritech crushed into themselves like a simple tin-can - A moment later, the Valkyrie and the "Invid" both were moving slowly away from each other... for sure, the creature was "dead".

""-Fsshrrt-...arrg... my head... - Mrrhsssst -""

The screen went fuzzy.

""Jester! Sparrow!"", Chris called out, ""Do you read me?! Answer me! Do you read me?!""

The signal was lost, perhaps that they lost power as well... Chris could do nothing as he floated past them... No chance of helping them... He tried to control his Valkrie, but he was still heading to the SDF-1... The SDF-1 was not far away... but until Chris would be in communication range, they would wander off into the deep of space.

""I've lost power and can't control my Valkyrie... ! If you can hear me, I'll come back! I promise! If you two can hear me, I will come back for you!!! I am not going to leave you two here... I will come back for you...""

Chris repeated himself again, hoping that they would understand his transmission... He floated on... He could still their Valkyrie... battered up, totally damaged, crushed at many spots and moving livelessly into the deep...

He spoke quietly, ""I will come back... I promise...""

His Valkyrie carried him on... heading to the SDF-1's position...

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