Macross Fan Fiction ❯ Legend of Megaroad -- Book One ❯ On the Planet Gallaron ( Chapter 14 )

Chapter 14: On the Planet Gallaron...

--April 28, 2016--

--12:42--

The alarm they had brought with them was beeping again, and Richard reached across Minmei's body to turn it off. The time was a little after noon, but on the planet Gallaron it was only just dawn. Richard stood up and poked his head out of the tent they had set up at a campsite near the lake and yawned. The scenery was fantastic from this spot on to of the hill. The trees around them, some of them almost 500 meters high, reached up from the ancient forest at the base of the hill all around them. The tops of the trees just barely passed the top of the hill where their camp was set up, but he could still see lake further down the hull with crystal clear waters, the ancient city on the other side, and the makeshift airstrip the fighter groups had set up near the ruins for their planes. He started to wonder if there was any reason to go back to the ship at all.

Two small hands slipped in under his arms and locked around his stomach. Richard took one of her hands and kissed it while Minmei rested her head on the back of his shoulder. "Oh Rich. It's so beautiful."

"I could spend a thousand eternities here with you, just you an me, and this lake."

Minmei came around in front of him and sat down on a tree stump. "You might get that chance. Misa said when we left that she will probably move the city down to the planet."

Richard squatted down next to her and kissed the back of her neck. "She should. This planet is incredible! There aren't many insects or pests around, and all the animals here are totally harmless, hell most of them don't even have teeth!"

"And they sure are tasty." Minmei added. "And I could get used to these 33 hour days."

"Oh GOD yes!" Richard straitened up and started to message her shoulders. "The shuttle leaves in ten hours. Think we should start packing?"

Minmei shook her head. "We should try to enjoy it while we still can." She looked around the hill for a moment. "Rich, let's build a house here. Right up on this hill."

Richard smiled. "That's a great idea. Little house on the hill, two kids, and a... whatever that thing was that kinda looked like a dog."

"And a boat, Rich! Don't forget the boat!"

"Ah, the boat!" He kissed her neck again. "A little family yacht we'd use to go fishing. And in the summer, if this planet HAS a summer, I'd cook breakfast for you and we'd go swimming, and then we'd come home and you'd handle dinner..." He kissed her neck one more time, and felt her body almost melt into hid hands.

"Don't forget, it's a 33 hour day. That's almost 10 extra hours, and we can't spend it all swimming. What would we do with all that extra time?"

Richard turned her to face him and kissed her. "10 hours huh?" he said coyly. "Well, we've got about 10 hours to kill right now." He pulled her to her feet with an effort, feeling sluggish in this planet's gravity. "Come back to the tent with me and I'll show you..."

"Why go back to the tent? There's nobody watching, show me right here."

Richard turned around with a devious smile. "Right here? Outdoors?"

Minmei smiled at him. "It'll give the squirrels something to look at."

"That might not be safe. We're in about twice normal gravity, I might hurt you."

"Then I'll be on top until you get your courage back." she teased.

Richard laughed and kissed his wife again, and at the same time she started to take off her clothes.

Even if the two of them had been paying very close attention to their surroundings, they probably would not have noticed that they were surrounded by people who could just vaguely understand their words. All around the newlyweds, in every direction for 5 kilometers, there were hundreds of eyes on them, watching their every move from concealment so thick that even the Megaroad's sensor array could not detect them. They watched with a certain fascination as they became gradually more and more convinced that the new visitors were clearly not Zentradi, though also clearly not one of them. They recognized Minmei and Richard to be something new, perhaps some distant relation to them, not of the same race but mostly likely genetically similar. The fact that these two also seemed to be husband and wife confirmed their suspicions, and the word was passed on quietly on the lips of thousands of passive observers. "They are just like us. They are proto-culture."

--21:30--

Hikaru and Misa were sitting at the dinner table at King Lao's, tearing into a carton of shrimp fried rice and wonton noodles. Misa's eyes were still sparkling from her emotional episode at the wedding, and Hikaru couldn't help but laugh. "And I thought you were nervous at OUR wedding." He said.

Misa giggled. "I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself. It was just..." She caught herself before she started crying again. "Damn. I guess I just can't handle weddings."

"You didn't do any of this at Max's wedding. What's wrong with you now?"

Misa thought about it. "I don't have a clue. I guess... maybe it's that Minmei's been so depressed lately, and then she met this Richard character and all of a sudden she was so happy... you know, how come you never made ME that happy?"

"I don't make you happy? Shit, I better buy you some earrings."

"Diamond earrings." Misa added. "And a gold necklace, and a pair of glass slippers..."

Hikaru rolled his eyes. "I'm getting you a plastic ring and some tennis shoes."

Misa laughed and scooped some of the rice into her bowl. "Speaking of which, you know they're coming back today."

"I know. I sent the boys to pick her up."

"The boys?"

Hikaru grinned. "I assigned them a squad of marines as an entourage."

Misa squinted at him. "Can you DO that?"

"Why not? At least it'll give the grunts something to do. The Valkyrie pilots handle most of the hand-to-hand combat these days."

"I guess so..." Misa poked at her food for a moment, trying to move on to another subject. "By the way, Varcus did a head count. He says this planet has at least 50 ships on its surface that are definitely salvageable, and maybe a 100 others that will need alot of work. Of course, there aren't that many Macross class ships, but there are plenty of smaller vessels that the Zentradi never modified for their own use. With a quick reprogramming job and a refit of the primary systems like the bridge and the command towers, we could get some of those things up and running within a week or two."

Hikaru started to serve his own plate from the rice carton. "That would be a big help. Anyway, we still have the question of what to do with those ships when we're done with them." For several minutes, neither of them spoke. They sat quietly, eating dinner like a married couple for once, but the moment ended as Misa reached for the last wonton. "What are you going to tell Earth?"

"Everything. I've already written up a full report and I plan to send it in if we EVER get that relay network operational."

"Well re-write it. We need to leave this out of the reports for a little while."

Misa was shocked, and Hikaru took that opportunity to seize the last wonton before she could grab it. "What the hell for?! This is big news! They'd go crazy if they knew we'd found a place like..."

"What exactly do you think they'll say when you tell them about it?"

Misa thought about it for a second. "I suppose they'll tell us to send some of the technology back to Earth. And they'll want to send a research team and a small fleet to help defend the planet."

"That's exactly right. But you know we can't let them do that."

"Why not?"

"Earth doesn't have the resources to commit to something like that. We'd be dragging them into another war they just can't handle."

Hikaru crunched into the wonton, and only now did Misa realize he had taken it. But for now, she had bigger concerns. "Oh really? And just what makes you think WE have the resources for something like that?"

"Well, we have not one, but TWO factory satellites that could be fully operational again within the next two weeks. Once all the Zentradi ships are repaired and their crews replaced, we can mass produce Macross class battle cruisers and build up our defenses. Earth is in enough trouble as it is. We can't afford to dump something this big one them."

"That's ridiculous! We're a lone colony that only JUST STARTED it's settlement! There's no way we could do this without support from Earth, and you know that! What the hell are you thinking?!"

Hikaru looked away. Misa noticed a strange glint in his eye she had never seen before. "I can see history repeating itself, and so do the rest of us. A few years ago we made a horrible mistake, and 6 billion died because of it..."

Misa did not understand at all what he was hinting at, but she never got the chance to ask. All over the ship, and in the factory satellite, the air raid siren started to wail. Hikaru and Misa were both out the door before either of them could say another word to each other.

--21:32--

As the sirens wailed through the ship, a squad of armed marines rushed the shuttle and threw the doors open, quickly unloading the 12 passengers into smaller transport vehilces that would take them into the shelter capsules of Megaroad city. One of the soldiers quickly located his objective, the two civilians in the hiking clothes near the back of the shuttle. "Mr. Powel, follow me. We have a transport waiting to take you home."

Minmei stood up from her seat and followed Richard and the 7 marines out of the shuttle to an APC at the other end of the landing bay. As soon as they were inside, the vehicle surged ahead, screaming down the access tunnels towards Megaroad city. "Do you know what's going on?" Minmei said, listening to the air-raid sirens outside.

"No idea. Something to do with renegade Zentradi." Said the Lieutenant.

Richard snorted. "Who else would it be?"

"Why are you taking home like this? All the others are..."

"Colonel's orders." The Lieutenant said, grinning slightly at Minmei. "There must be something pretty special about you."

Minmei shot him a strange look. "You've never seen me before?"

"He said you were some kind of VIP, but he didn't give me details. Grunts like us don't exactly follow the papers if you know what I mean. Hell, I haven't seen a real movie in over 3 years."

Minmei chuckled. "I'm no one special, just a good friend of the colonel."

"He seems to place a high value on you. And unless this truck's got really bad lighting it's easy to see why." He winked at her and Minmei blushed.

"Well, thank you."

At that moment, the vehicle slowed in the tunnel and pulled into an airlock set into the bulkhead. A large metal door closed behind them, sealing them off from the environment of the ship. If there was a hull breach in that area, the people in the APC would have enough air and water to survive for several days. The Lieutenant waited for the driver to kill the engine and change over to battery power, then stowed his rifle and gear in the compartment over his head. "So, you two are newly weds?"

"That's right." Richard said. "Just came back from our honeymoon."

"Congratulations." Said the private next to the Lieutenant, a woman who easily could have been in grade school. "You two make a great couple you know. It'll be a pleasure looking after you."

"Huh?" Said Richard, sharing in Minmei's confusion.

The Lieutenant scratched the back of his head. "I guess the colonel never told you. He assigned my squad as your bodyguards. Whenever you leave the ship or get into any trouble, we're your all purpose problem solvers."

Richard squinted at him, then glanced around the APC at the grinning faces of the other 7 marines. "Is that legal?"

"Probably not, but what else are we supposed to do? Zentradi grunts are 50 feet tall. All we could do is give them indigestion."

"Point taken." Minmei said, grimacing. "I'm sorry, but I didn't catch your name..."

"Oh that's right. Just call me Lieutenant Chan."

--21:42--

Misa burst onto the bridge of the Megaroad and ran to the front. "What's going on?" She said over the alarms.

Corina looked puzzled. "Several Zentradi vessels just folded into low orbit, headed for Gallaron City."

"Did you warn the survey team?"

"Yes sir, but they're not typical Zentradi. Captain Gouraz has identified them as the Shiar Nation."

"The who?"

"Just a sec...." Corina said. "All fighter units standing by Skull and Vermillion Squadrons are in hot, Voodoo, Fish and Black Lion squadrons are holding in low orbit."

"What's the word from Iron Chiefs?"

"They're having a lot of trouble sir… Captain, we just regained radio contact with Hikaru's wing. They must be out of re-entry sir."

"Uh huh…" Misa had a very bad feeling all of a sudden, and she did not know why. This was no different from any of the other scramble missions in the past month, and she tried to assure herself that everything was normal, but the more she tried to calm herself the more agitated she became. "Who's the Shiar Nation anyway?"

"According to Varcus, the Zentradi came across an open society alot like ours about 3000 years ago and it made their soldiers refuse to fight. There were alot of desertions and some internal fighting and the Zentradi decided to just quarantine the system and keep their distance. The alien culture went extinct, and the Zentradi who stayed behind inherited their planet for their own, and almost immediately started fighting over it. Karga says they drop by every once in a while just to stir up trouble for no apparent reason, but this is the first time they've ever attacked the surface."

"Hmmmm..." Misa felt better about the idea that there were just renegade Zentradi, but she still had the feeling that there was something terribly wrong, something out of place about this incident. "Be careful Hikaru..." She said under her breath. And the she remembered Minmei. "Are we expecting any shuttles from the surface?"

"The last one just docked a minute ago sir. Cargo shuttle with 12 passengers."

Misa gave a sigh of relief. "That's good. Keep me informed of the situation on the ground."

--21:50--

"This is Skull Zero to fighter group, we've cleared the atmosphere. All fighters switch to flight mode."

Behind him, Voodoo and Vermillion squadron opened their canopy shields and swept their wings forward. They were now flying over the planet Gallaron, and Hikaru couldn't help but stop to look at it. It was exactly the way Earth used to be, only much bigger. There were trees hundreds of meters high and fields of flowers so radiant he almost had to squint at them. "Welcome home fellas." Said Lieutenant Harper over the radio.

"Harper, where are you?"

"Three clicks west of your position. Enemy ships have made planet fall and they're moving along a canyon so our gunners can't pick them off from orbit."

"Clever." Hikaru said, changing course to join Iron Chiefs Squadron. "How many?"

"I'd say three or four cap ships and at least a thousand Regults."

"That's all?" Hikaru said plainly. "I thought this would be hard!"

"Yeah, well there's a problem. We can't use reflex missiles here. The old city is too close to the blast radius."

Hikaru passed over Harper's Lightning and landed a few dozen meters in front of it in battloid mode. He could see flashes of explosions where the Zentradi pods were fighting the enemies, and but the forest was too thick for him to make out the details. "When did they arrive?"

"They came out of the atmosphere almost the same time you guys launched. Captain Gouraz pegged one from orbit, but the others started running the canyon. We tried a run on them about 20 minutes ago, but the canyon covers them too well. I've already lost half my squadron."

Hikaru checked his radar and made sure the last of the fighter wing had set down before issuing more orders. "Okay people, we're gonna take down those warships. Switch to gerwalk configuration and stay low. We'll try and use the canyon to our advantage."

With a bizarre combination of speed and patience, the 42 fighters of Hikaru's attack wing circled around the battle zone where the two groups of Regults were fighting each other. They descended into a massive canyon almost 2 kilometers wide, and as planned they were far behind the enemy ships. "Move it people! Remember, hug the ground, make them change the angles. Go airborne and you're dead!"

"Yes sir!" They all replied.

It only took them all 5 minutes to catch up the Zentradi ships, and Hikaru was surprised to see that all three of the ships had been painted jet black. As soon as they rounded the bend and came within sight of the warships they started taking fire from the enemy guns. Fortunately, a destroyer was taking up the rear and Voodoo squadron managed to destroy its rear defense turrets, but the battleship was further ahead and they could not get past the shielding hull of the first destroyer. Eventually, the Valkyrie unit landed on the hull of the destroyer and fired on the battleship from there, but the great battlewagon simply demolished the destroyer with a barrage from its rear guns, forcing the fighters to fall back once again. The fighters trailed the ship from a distance of 6 kilometers as it moved along the canyon towards the ancient proto-culture city, but the barrage it set forth in front of them was too thick for them to advance. At one point Vermillion Squadron made a desperate charge and started firing missiles, but each of them was hit as they got closer and in under a minute all 12 fighters were smoldering in heaps on the ground.

"We don't have time for this boss!" Harper shouted on the com. "They'll be in range of the city soon!'

Hikaru could see on the map that in only a matter on minutes the ships would be too close for the defense grid around the city to be able to pick off the enemy missiles. The only way to win now was extremely risky, but it was better than nothing. "Harper, can we get a missile bombardment in this canyon?"

"The destroids aren't operational yet sir!" He answered.

Hikaru knew now he had no choice. The Zentradi ships now rounded another bend in the canyon, and they only had a few minutes, if not seconds, to stop the enemy ships. "All fighters, prepare to charge! Voodoo Squadron stay in gerwalk and get in low. Skull squadron, get in above them and dive bomb from the rear quarters. Harper, up the pipe!"

"Roger!"

As soon as they rounded the corner behind the Zentradi, they split up into their groups and swarmed the battleship. As expected, the ship divided its defensive fire between the two groups high and low, leaving Harper just a moment's opening to fly between the two lines of fire. He slammed his throttles forward and fired his proton missiles up the ship's tailpipe shouting, "Bombs away!" When he got too close, he pulled up to avoid a collision at close to 700 knots. His wingmen did the same, banking high and right just as a series of explosions thundered behind them as the missiles exploded in the Zentradi's impulse drives. The ships lost maneuvering power but not energy, and its defensive batteries avenged her wounded engines by shooting down two of Harper's wingmen. "Boss, we took his legs but we're getting pasted up here!"

"Hold on Harper! I'll be right there…" Hikaru banked to avoid some of the defense fire, and then launched the last of his own missiles at the battleship. They exploded in her hull just behind the bridge, knocking out some of the defense guns, and the others now searched the sky for a new target. The battleship was crippled now, its only means of escape being its fold system, but for the Valkyrie pilots the job was not done yet. "Get in closer and take out their gravity control!" He almost seemed to follow his own orders as he dove in again to get to his target, and the rest of Skull Squadron moved to follow. He scanned for a moment and picked up the energy signature where the gravity control systems held the ship aloft and fired several bursts from his beam guns into the hull. The shots did some damage and loosened the hull enough for him to punch through, but the battleship answered back with its guns and struck down two of Hikaru's fighters. "Keep firing!" He yelled over the roar of his jets. "Keep the pressure on! We've almost got…"

Hikaru never did notice that the destroyer, seeing the peril of its command ship, had turned around in the canyon to cover it until they could power up for a refold. One opportunistic gunner on the ship took aim at the diving squadron at an altitude of 2000 feet and fired, striking Skull Zero directly through the fuselage between the engines. At that high speed, the plane quickly disintegrated into a spray of flaming, twisted metal that scattered into the air and drifted lazily to the ground like so many dandelion seeds.

The rest of Skull Squadron transformed just before they hit the ship and smashed through the hull, crashing through three decks before coming to a halt near the main reflex furnace. A short burst from several gunpods and 200 rounds later, the battleship was completely out of power, and collapsed useless to the floor of the canyon.

--22:25--

"Skull Leader to Delta Control, mission accomplished. Requesting emergency medical teams and search parties to be sent down to the surface. We will remain on station, over." The call came in from Skull Leader, but the voice was Lieutenant Harper's. The rest of his squadron had been shot down, and being the next highest rank from Colonel Ichijo, he assumed command of the squadron and lead the counter attack that eventually disabled the last destroyer. Mustang squadron had managed to arrive from the temporary airstrip near the secondary excavation site in time to help the Zentradi finish off the Shiar battle pods, and now they were assisting the Zentran ground troops with rounding up the Shiar crew on the battleship and the destroyer.

Misa heard Harper's voice on the radio and started to crumble. "Corina, send the recovery teams down there as soon as we can." She said quietly.

"Already on route sir." Corina said. She glanced over at Misa and saw a spaced out, frightened look in her eyes as if she were afraid to blink but afraid to keep her eyes open. "Captain, the situation is all under control here. If... if you want to go down to the planet…"

"That won't be necessary Commander." Misa knew better than to get her hopes up, and to go down to the planet to look for him was to run the risk of coming across his broken remains dangling from a tree somewhere. "Have Lieutenant Harper stay in touch. I'll be in my quarters."

"Aye Captain."

Misa returned that evening to an empty house, with Miko already fast asleep and the sitter was long gone. She was not especially surprised to see that the babysitter had "accidentally" left a notebook of poetry and essays written by some of her classmates on the subject of independence from the UN, and for some reason this made her think of Hikaru. One of the essays sounded like what he had said before the scramble about "history repeating itself", but it didn't seem to relate to what he had been talking about then. In any case, it occurred to her that she probably would not get a chance to ask him.

As Hikaru often did, she climbed out the window of their bedroom and sat down on the little pad he had nailed to the roof. For the rest of the night and well into the following morning, she stared through the transparent hull of the ship at the stars beyond, wondering what, if anything, she would do without him.