Somehow I never thought I'd be here. I knew we were good, but if you had told me a year ago that the EDTO would even want a school band to play at the launch of their prized Macross, let alone that it would be mine that won the priveledge!
I remember reading once that the planes that carried out the atomic bomb attacks at the end of the second World War had launched from Tinian - which means that this island has ended two wars, one then and another later, by catching the Macross.
Speaking of which, I had to yell at Clara today - even if it does rhyme with a sport, Macross is a good name! The last survivor of her crew, alone, guides her shattered ship in to a safe landing, only living long enough to gasp out her own name to the first exploration team to reach her, and with her last breath, yet... I mean, how much more appropriate can you expect to be? It's romantic, dammit!
So, anyway, when we got off the plane at the runway, the ship was the first thing you noticed. I could go on and on about what its numbers are like - it's so famous I can't think of anyone who couldn't - and I've seen pictures, of course, but until you can actually see what an artificial mountain a kilometer tall and nine long looks like, there's nothing that can really bring home the way it dominates the landscape. A couple of the flutes got all vapory about how it made them feel like it was looming over them and about to fall, but they were those same two who always kept having student-teacher fantasies about Mr. Ramius, so I don't think even he took them seriously.
Then we suffered through customs - and honestly, does anyone really believe that some whacko would try and smuggle a bomb in in a tuba case at this late date? - and then got stuffed into our hotel. There must be at least five times as many people crammed onto Tinian as the island's usually got, and boy is it showing in the quality of the accommodations! Once we got over fighting about who slept where, the rest of the clarinets were all set to leave and go shopping and I had a hell of a time convincing them to learn the local shelters. I know I'm a little paranoid about that, maybe, but after the tanks blew don't I have a right? {Ed. Note: A reference to the Dec. 9, 2049 OTO cruise missile strike against the Singapore Fleet Base's fuel depot.}
And then we went shopping and it was impossibly crowded and tiring, so I'm going to leave you here and cover that in the morning.
-From the Diary of Shui Jialan, August 27, 2057
* * * * *
OPENING THEME
* * * * *
COMMERCIAL BREAK
* * * * *
"" Estevan Frade yelped in the Mexico City gutter-spanish of his childhood as nineteen tons of speeding, heavily armed metal roared past barely ten feet above the cockpit bubble of his stuntplane.
The jet that had buzzed him was an obvious fighter plane, twin-engined with a broad fuselage and variable geometry wings, almost like a narrower version of the American F-14 from the last century save for its V-pattern tail. By the time Estevan had pulled his heart out of his mouth and restrained himself from jerking his plane out of the sky, the imposing warbird was well into the beginning of a picture-perfect recreation of the acrobatic routine he had finished just a few moments earlier.
He recognized the type, of course - the hybrid air-space fighter the EDTO governments had produced using the Macross's technology was quite well known, at least in its broad strokes, and from what Baron had told him, the squadrons on Tinian and its protecting fleet had been the first to receive the new machines.
His eyes narrowed. He -also- knew that showing off the plane's capabilities by setting it up to outperform an opponent designed for agility above all else would be -just- the sort of thing that would appeal to his adoptive big brother's sense of humor. Never mind that the routine his boss had talked him into was one that'd be relatively easy for any jet with a pair of seperate vectored engines to duplicate...
And okay, yeah, maybe it was funny. But damned if he'd let it be -him- that the joke was on at the end!
On the other hand, he'd been hired to put on a show, so he'd have to come up with something that was both flashier than the original plan -and- within his 'opponent's' capabilities, to stretch the performance out before he -really- cut loose.
He found himself starting to smile as he tugged his small biplane into a low orbit around the air show's cleared flight zone. Baron'd -never- live this down.
* * * * *
The screams around her hurt Jialan's ears, but she was on her feet and yelling anyway, just like everyone else on the temporary bleachers set up along the old airstrip's runway, as two planes came in for a landing in unison just as perfect as if the brightly painted little biplane had been attached to its larger military counterpart's wingtip with a steel bar. Whether the aireal game of challenge-counterchallenge had been genuinly impromptu or not, it had still been a hell of a show, as either pilot put their machine through contortions that she, for one, would have declared flatly impossible if she hadn't just seen them with her own eyes, growing closer and closer to the ground and a dangerous crash with every iteration they did.
On the podium set up just short of the apron, she could see Colonel Korbinian snatch the microphone away from the spluttering Master of Ceremonies and step forward with a wave and a movie star's polished grin. "That went even better than I though," he said in a confidential tone. "Did you all enjoy yourselves?"
The crowd roared as individual replies were swallowed in a rush of other voices, but the tone was positive.
"Great! That might let me survive once Captain Trivedi catches up to me for staging this. In the meantime, since you already know Mister Frade, why don't I introduce you to the other star of our show?"
Roar.
Miranda - the girl who had taken over the First Chair position in the flute section from Jialan when she transferred from New Zealand - leaned over and shouted past the din. "i hope he's as cute as the first one! i love a man in a uniform!"
The shorter girl poked her friend in the arm. "i think he's talking about the plane!"
It's hard to whine at the top of your lungs, but somehow Miranda managed it. "that's no fun..."
"Great!" the famous ace enthused from the stage. "Ladies and gentlement, I give you: The Vee Eff One VALKYRIE!"
By this time, the stubby little stuntplane had taxied off out of sight, and an airport firetruck was towing its sleek 'nemesis' back to where the crowds could see it easily.
Korbinian opened his mouth to continue his speech, but was cut off by the sudden and all-too-familiar rising howl of an air raid siren.
Jialan swallowed, mouth dry. Not -again-!
* * * * *
COMMERCIAL BREAK
* * * * *
Kitinoja Joukahainen stood on the main floor of his flagship, leaning against the pillar supporting his command station with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed in thought. The cruiser sent to scout after the Enemy's 417th squadron had returned undamaged and unmolested - a rarity. The sensor data it had gathered indicated that they had cannabalized the smaller vessels of their fleet to gather sufficient parts to attempt to return the squadron's remaining battleship to full function. The fact that the vessel's rip-wake terminated was a good suggestion that the effort had failed, but equally possible was that the Enemy had placed a service base in the final system - the single golden star's entry in their navagation charts bore only one cryptic line of glyphs, dating back to the Makers themselves: 'Restricted for research use.'
Save for that - nothing. Not a single visit by Zentradi vessels in all the thousands of years from this moment back to the arrival of the Others.
"The fleet reports ready in all respects, Commander."
Joukahainen gave an internal sigh - never external, he was a man who was neither loquacious nor demonstrative - and cleared his face before issuing a single order. "Fold."
The technicians manning the control stations along the perimeter of the bullet-shaped flag bridge began to read off the final checklist:
"Rip-points charged!"
"Power feeds preheated!"
"Capacitors ready!"
"Coordinates loaded!"
"Initializing flotilla synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing squadron synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing wing synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing fleet synchronization!"
"Complete! All units sychronized!"
"Coordinates accurized!"
"Rip-point discharge in five..."
"Four..."
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One..."
"Ze-"
--
"-ro! Fold successful! Standing down to general quarters!"
There was a pause in the flow of talk, then a solemn announcement. "Cruiser 2901304 acoherent on arrival. No survivors."
Dissapointing, but not truly a surprise. The '1304's stabalization field generator had been showing signs of failure for years, and with no replacement parts arriving from the Fleet Depot to replace those lost to wear and tear, it was only the first such loss the Second Division's Ninth Fleet had suffered - and would not be the last.
"Navigation?" Joukahainen rumbled, eyes fixed on the tactical display across the front of the compartment.
"Emission spectrum and inner planet seperation matches target system. Reference pulsar locations also match. Transit location was ten lightsecond outside the third planet, four ahead local relative, three positive galactic relative. We are on target. Velocity match maneuvers underway. Estimate another three hours to locate a moon suitable for reaction mass refinement; tankers are standing by."
"Battle scan?"
"Seven vessels estimated as one-half megaton under atomic drive between the third world's local system and various other locations. All other contacts are within the third planetary subsystem. Seventeen more of half-megaton class beginning maneuvers within local area, also three more seventy-five percent larger. One seven megaton contact in high planetary orbit. One five-hundred megaton contact at planetary-companion Lagrange Point One. Three five-hundred megaton contacts in low planetary orbit."
The commander raised his eyebrows slightly at that. Those largest four contacts each had a displacement fifty percent greater than his own cruisers, and nearly a third that of his battleships - an unheard of scale of construction and operations to see in an isolate Micronian or corrupted world.
"General fleet is to assume combat formation. Cruiser '1303 is to probe the contact at Lagrange Point One. '1301, the high orbital contact. '1302, one of the monitors under way. '1305, assist '1303."
There was a short pause while the order was relayed, then the communications technician reported, "Fleet forming up. Thirteenth flotilla acknowledges recipt of orders and is executing."
* * * * *
Zentradi Loyalist Cruiser 2901301 folded out less than a hundred kilometers from a gangly, awkward tangle of girders, struts, cylindrical pods and acre upon acre of photoelectric paneling. As always in a potential combat situation, the men of its marine legion were already waiting in their bays, fully armored and ready to launch at only a moment's notice, but except for the men who had folded themselves into the cramped cockpits of their recon pods, none expected that they might die that day.
For a while, when their recon pods were allowed to close with the station unmolested and without comment past a transmitted series of nonsensical bleeps, it seemed that they might be correct.
Any station on which Extra-Vehicular Activities are a regular occurance will inevitably pick up a halo of junk - loose rivets, lost tools, even things as simple as a sock accidentally left out in the airlock - and Internation Space Station Guardian was no exception. If allowed to grow dense enough - or if the luck was bad - these debris could easily prove a fatal hazard to navigation to and from the station. To prevent such an accident, EDTO Skywatch had a policy of halting travel every six months to allow station-based work pods equipped with very short wave radars to go over the immediate area and police any such hazards.
Last time through, they had missed a single large piece, and it was that which struck the lead craft of the '1301's scout flight, destroying it utterly.
The late officer's men, however, were experienced and well trained, and responded to the danger with a counterattack upon the only threat detectable - the station itself.
There were no survivors.
* * * * *
ENDING THEME
* * * * *
"Yo, folks! Estevan here, and boy, am I having a day. First there's Baron's idea of a joke, then I get insulted by the prettiest girl I've ever met, and now there's some old hag yelling at me about an invasion of space aliens!"
"Drop the attitude, mister, and do your job!"
"What are you smoking, lady? I didn't sign nothing!"
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."
I remember reading once that the planes that carried out the atomic bomb attacks at the end of the second World War had launched from Tinian - which means that this island has ended two wars, one then and another later, by catching the Macross.
Speaking of which, I had to yell at Clara today - even if it does rhyme with a sport, Macross is a good name! The last survivor of her crew, alone, guides her shattered ship in to a safe landing, only living long enough to gasp out her own name to the first exploration team to reach her, and with her last breath, yet... I mean, how much more appropriate can you expect to be? It's romantic, dammit!
So, anyway, when we got off the plane at the runway, the ship was the first thing you noticed. I could go on and on about what its numbers are like - it's so famous I can't think of anyone who couldn't - and I've seen pictures, of course, but until you can actually see what an artificial mountain a kilometer tall and nine long looks like, there's nothing that can really bring home the way it dominates the landscape. A couple of the flutes got all vapory about how it made them feel like it was looming over them and about to fall, but they were those same two who always kept having student-teacher fantasies about Mr. Ramius, so I don't think even he took them seriously.
Then we suffered through customs - and honestly, does anyone really believe that some whacko would try and smuggle a bomb in in a tuba case at this late date? - and then got stuffed into our hotel. There must be at least five times as many people crammed onto Tinian as the island's usually got, and boy is it showing in the quality of the accommodations! Once we got over fighting about who slept where, the rest of the clarinets were all set to leave and go shopping and I had a hell of a time convincing them to learn the local shelters. I know I'm a little paranoid about that, maybe, but after the tanks blew don't I have a right? {Ed. Note: A reference to the Dec. 9, 2049 OTO cruise missile strike against the Singapore Fleet Base's fuel depot.}
And then we went shopping and it was impossibly crowded and tiring, so I'm going to leave you here and cover that in the morning.
-From the Diary of Shui Jialan, August 27, 2057
* * * * *
OPENING THEME
* * * * *
COMMERCIAL BREAK
* * * * *
"" Estevan Frade yelped in the Mexico City gutter-spanish of his childhood as nineteen tons of speeding, heavily armed metal roared past barely ten feet above the cockpit bubble of his stuntplane.
The jet that had buzzed him was an obvious fighter plane, twin-engined with a broad fuselage and variable geometry wings, almost like a narrower version of the American F-14 from the last century save for its V-pattern tail. By the time Estevan had pulled his heart out of his mouth and restrained himself from jerking his plane out of the sky, the imposing warbird was well into the beginning of a picture-perfect recreation of the acrobatic routine he had finished just a few moments earlier.
He recognized the type, of course - the hybrid air-space fighter the EDTO governments had produced using the Macross's technology was quite well known, at least in its broad strokes, and from what Baron had told him, the squadrons on Tinian and its protecting fleet had been the first to receive the new machines.
His eyes narrowed. He -also- knew that showing off the plane's capabilities by setting it up to outperform an opponent designed for agility above all else would be -just- the sort of thing that would appeal to his adoptive big brother's sense of humor. Never mind that the routine his boss had talked him into was one that'd be relatively easy for any jet with a pair of seperate vectored engines to duplicate...
And okay, yeah, maybe it was funny. But damned if he'd let it be -him- that the joke was on at the end!
On the other hand, he'd been hired to put on a show, so he'd have to come up with something that was both flashier than the original plan -and- within his 'opponent's' capabilities, to stretch the performance out before he -really- cut loose.
He found himself starting to smile as he tugged his small biplane into a low orbit around the air show's cleared flight zone. Baron'd -never- live this down.
* * * * *
The screams around her hurt Jialan's ears, but she was on her feet and yelling anyway, just like everyone else on the temporary bleachers set up along the old airstrip's runway, as two planes came in for a landing in unison just as perfect as if the brightly painted little biplane had been attached to its larger military counterpart's wingtip with a steel bar. Whether the aireal game of challenge-counterchallenge had been genuinly impromptu or not, it had still been a hell of a show, as either pilot put their machine through contortions that she, for one, would have declared flatly impossible if she hadn't just seen them with her own eyes, growing closer and closer to the ground and a dangerous crash with every iteration they did.
On the podium set up just short of the apron, she could see Colonel Korbinian snatch the microphone away from the spluttering Master of Ceremonies and step forward with a wave and a movie star's polished grin. "That went even better than I though," he said in a confidential tone. "Did you all enjoy yourselves?"
The crowd roared as individual replies were swallowed in a rush of other voices, but the tone was positive.
"Great! That might let me survive once Captain Trivedi catches up to me for staging this. In the meantime, since you already know Mister Frade, why don't I introduce you to the other star of our show?"
Roar.
Miranda - the girl who had taken over the First Chair position in the flute section from Jialan when she transferred from New Zealand - leaned over and shouted past the din. "i hope he's as cute as the first one! i love a man in a uniform!"
The shorter girl poked her friend in the arm. "i think he's talking about the plane!"
It's hard to whine at the top of your lungs, but somehow Miranda managed it. "that's no fun..."
"Great!" the famous ace enthused from the stage. "Ladies and gentlement, I give you: The Vee Eff One VALKYRIE!"
By this time, the stubby little stuntplane had taxied off out of sight, and an airport firetruck was towing its sleek 'nemesis' back to where the crowds could see it easily.
Korbinian opened his mouth to continue his speech, but was cut off by the sudden and all-too-familiar rising howl of an air raid siren.
Jialan swallowed, mouth dry. Not -again-!
* * * * *
COMMERCIAL BREAK
* * * * *
Kitinoja Joukahainen stood on the main floor of his flagship, leaning against the pillar supporting his command station with his arms crossed and his brow furrowed in thought. The cruiser sent to scout after the Enemy's 417th squadron had returned undamaged and unmolested - a rarity. The sensor data it had gathered indicated that they had cannabalized the smaller vessels of their fleet to gather sufficient parts to attempt to return the squadron's remaining battleship to full function. The fact that the vessel's rip-wake terminated was a good suggestion that the effort had failed, but equally possible was that the Enemy had placed a service base in the final system - the single golden star's entry in their navagation charts bore only one cryptic line of glyphs, dating back to the Makers themselves: 'Restricted for research use.'
Save for that - nothing. Not a single visit by Zentradi vessels in all the thousands of years from this moment back to the arrival of the Others.
"The fleet reports ready in all respects, Commander."
Joukahainen gave an internal sigh - never external, he was a man who was neither loquacious nor demonstrative - and cleared his face before issuing a single order. "Fold."
The technicians manning the control stations along the perimeter of the bullet-shaped flag bridge began to read off the final checklist:
"Rip-points charged!"
"Power feeds preheated!"
"Capacitors ready!"
"Coordinates loaded!"
"Initializing flotilla synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing squadron synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing wing synchronization!"
"Complete!"
"Initializing fleet synchronization!"
"Complete! All units sychronized!"
"Coordinates accurized!"
"Rip-point discharge in five..."
"Four..."
"Three..."
"Two..."
"One..."
"Ze-"
--
"-ro! Fold successful! Standing down to general quarters!"
There was a pause in the flow of talk, then a solemn announcement. "Cruiser 2901304 acoherent on arrival. No survivors."
Dissapointing, but not truly a surprise. The '1304's stabalization field generator had been showing signs of failure for years, and with no replacement parts arriving from the Fleet Depot to replace those lost to wear and tear, it was only the first such loss the Second Division's Ninth Fleet had suffered - and would not be the last.
"Navigation?" Joukahainen rumbled, eyes fixed on the tactical display across the front of the compartment.
"Emission spectrum and inner planet seperation matches target system. Reference pulsar locations also match. Transit location was ten lightsecond outside the third planet, four ahead local relative, three positive galactic relative. We are on target. Velocity match maneuvers underway. Estimate another three hours to locate a moon suitable for reaction mass refinement; tankers are standing by."
"Battle scan?"
"Seven vessels estimated as one-half megaton under atomic drive between the third world's local system and various other locations. All other contacts are within the third planetary subsystem. Seventeen more of half-megaton class beginning maneuvers within local area, also three more seventy-five percent larger. One seven megaton contact in high planetary orbit. One five-hundred megaton contact at planetary-companion Lagrange Point One. Three five-hundred megaton contacts in low planetary orbit."
The commander raised his eyebrows slightly at that. Those largest four contacts each had a displacement fifty percent greater than his own cruisers, and nearly a third that of his battleships - an unheard of scale of construction and operations to see in an isolate Micronian or corrupted world.
"General fleet is to assume combat formation. Cruiser '1303 is to probe the contact at Lagrange Point One. '1301, the high orbital contact. '1302, one of the monitors under way. '1305, assist '1303."
There was a short pause while the order was relayed, then the communications technician reported, "Fleet forming up. Thirteenth flotilla acknowledges recipt of orders and is executing."
* * * * *
Zentradi Loyalist Cruiser 2901301 folded out less than a hundred kilometers from a gangly, awkward tangle of girders, struts, cylindrical pods and acre upon acre of photoelectric paneling. As always in a potential combat situation, the men of its marine legion were already waiting in their bays, fully armored and ready to launch at only a moment's notice, but except for the men who had folded themselves into the cramped cockpits of their recon pods, none expected that they might die that day.
For a while, when their recon pods were allowed to close with the station unmolested and without comment past a transmitted series of nonsensical bleeps, it seemed that they might be correct.
Any station on which Extra-Vehicular Activities are a regular occurance will inevitably pick up a halo of junk - loose rivets, lost tools, even things as simple as a sock accidentally left out in the airlock - and Internation Space Station Guardian was no exception. If allowed to grow dense enough - or if the luck was bad - these debris could easily prove a fatal hazard to navigation to and from the station. To prevent such an accident, EDTO Skywatch had a policy of halting travel every six months to allow station-based work pods equipped with very short wave radars to go over the immediate area and police any such hazards.
Last time through, they had missed a single large piece, and it was that which struck the lead craft of the '1301's scout flight, destroying it utterly.
The late officer's men, however, were experienced and well trained, and responded to the danger with a counterattack upon the only threat detectable - the station itself.
There were no survivors.
* * * * *
ENDING THEME
* * * * *
"Yo, folks! Estevan here, and boy, am I having a day. First there's Baron's idea of a joke, then I get insulted by the prettiest girl I've ever met, and now there's some old hag yelling at me about an invasion of space aliens!"
"Drop the attitude, mister, and do your job!"
"What are you smoking, lady? I didn't sign nothing!"
===========
===============================================
"V, did you do something foolish?"
"Yes, and it was glorious."