Macross Fan Fiction ❯ Underground Down Under ❯ Once More... ( Chapter 7 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Robotech: Underground Down Under

Chapter VII: Once more...

---

"Rise and shine, Mr. Sa-" Owens started to call as he entered the darkened bunk room, then jumped back as he realized Sabol was already standing next to him, slipping a Badger pistol the ACIF's armory had issued him into its holster. Even the shabbiest resistance fighter learned to sleep lightly after enough months on the run. Owens' steps in the corridor outside had been enough to wake him. Activating toggling on the luminescent face on his watch, Sabol discovered it was 230 hrs.

"Jeez," Owens added, scratching his head. "Um, Mr. Barker wanted to introduce you to the Veritech pilots before we depart. Did you want to get something to eat first?"

"No thanks," Sabol answered. Adrenaline tended to cancel out hunger. "Ok, let's go."

The relaxed looking sentries standing near the entrance of the hanger nodded to them. The hanger itself was bathed in floodlights as crews made last minute checks on the group's mecha and loaded the pair of trucks with extra Protoculture canisters and missiles. From the looks of their capacity, Sabol figured the vehicles could carry one reload for each of the Veritechs; at least depending on whether Barker was planning to take along infantry.

"Sabol, Owens. Over here," Barker called out. The nine additional pilots were gathered in a semi-circle around him wearing a motley assortment of Southern Cross and REF-styled CVR armors sans helmets.

"Well, you certainly know me already," Barker said lightly. "And it appears you are already familiar with Miss Radice here." The woman, wearing a shapely set of sandy colored REF armor, stepped forward and extended her hand.

"Her voice anyway. Pleased to meet you," Sabol replied as he took her hand. "I didn't realize you were a pilot, though. I thought Owens said you were a runner of some sort."

"I'm not exactly," Radice responded softly with a wistful smile.

Barker gestured to a VF-1D two-seater parked nearby. "I was just coming to that. Jen serves as a navigator and coordinates the flight from the backseat," he explained. "It prevents us from having to transmit back to base for guidance and potentially giving our position away to the Invid."

Another pilot in Southern Cross NCO-rank armor stepped forward. He looked to be of Chinese or Japanese decent, though his accent was crisp Australian. "Hi. I'm Mike Chen. That's my Valk," he said, pointing to a VF-1J with the name "Digger" painted just below the canopy in large, cartoonish letters, accompanied by nose art of a shovel stuck into the ground. Sabol opened his mouth to ask for an explanation, but thought better of it. Better not to give the Aussies fodder for more jokes.

The next pilot to step forward wasn't wearing any armor per se. After a moment, Sabol recognized the first-generation Veritech flight suit. "Glad to meet 'ya, cobber. My name's Zackery Smith." Smith's Veritech was a VF-1A with the word "ANZAC" stenciled on the nose.

"Oh, AN-ZAC," Sabol told him. "I get it."

"And here's our Alpha Triumvirate," Barker continued. The three pilots nodded at him together. Sabol did a double take. No, it was clear they weren't clones. Barker probably didn't even know about the Tiresian society makeup. Sabol shuddered just thinking about the triumvirated orange Bioroids which descended on practically helpless ALUCE-1 during the final battle of the Second Robotech War. He shook off the image and offered his hand to the three pilots in turn.

There was Sunil Advandi, a tan-skinned man with an unnamed VF-6I with a tiny running Kangaroo painted on the nose. At least that was something he could understand. Irene Jacka flew a VF-6Z which it appeared had only reluctantly been camouflage painted. A distinctly red cast remained, however. Finally, there was Peter Halprin. His VF-6I was named "Bridge Too Far", and naturally was decorated with a causeway spanning two landscapes.

"Ok, what does that mean?" Sabol finally blurted out.

Halprin gave him a toothy uncomfortable grin. "Well, we're in Arnhem Land, you see. And um, During World War II, in Holland- that's Europe, you know- there was this city named Arnhem where the Allies attempted an airborne seizure of a bridge into Germany," he explained. "It was the last bridge in a string, and it was the only one not captured. So it was "A Bridge Too Far"- there was a book, and movie, you know."

Sabol nodded. He had know idea what the man was talking about.

"Idiot," said Jacka, jabbing Halprin in the stomach.

The three Hovertank pilots were actually brothers: Craig, Jack, and Wallace Mallory. Sabol was somewhat uneasy about having three siblings in the same group. But as he shook their hands, it occurred to him the advantage of this true brotherhood in battle; each of them knew that that the others would never abandon him. Sabol again marveled at such an exception to the scattering pattern he had observed among the people he knew during the Second Robotech War. By the time of the Invid invasion, Sabol didn't have the faintest idea where a single member of his TASC squadron had gone to. Not as though that were any surprise…

"What kind of flight time and combat experience do you have?" Sabol asked them.

Chen answered for the group. "All of us participated in the assault on the Darwin hive," he explained. "But to avoid detection by the Invid and conserve our Protoculture supplies, none of us have really gotten that much flight time."

"I trained them the best I could on the ground," Barker added. "And we made short little jaunts in the air before the Invid could respond to our emissions. They are one and all proficient in level flight."

"Mr. Sabol, except for Commander Barker, none of us can really say we have actual battle experience," Jacka told him solemnly. "You see, we basically engaged the Invid from afar with the Darwin raid and tried to avoid dogfighting. Then when we had them drawn out, the commander blasted his way into the hive and destroyed their central core."

Sabol whistled with admiration. "How did you discover that the Invid tracked Protoculture? And bursting into the hive…that's no mean feat.

"It took a while," Barker admitted. "and a quite a few lives. We'd always assumed that they were using radar or something. Then we were camping one night. Somebody left a truck idling. It was camouflaged and everything. They scored a direct hit with their first stream of discs…"

Barker paused for a moment. "As for the hive…One of the slaves escaped the hive and located us. He had been in the central hive for processing when he first arrived. From what he could tell, the wall was thin enough in some areas to breech, and the interior was hollow enough for a Battloid to fit inside. With that in mind, I just let my energy sensors guide me to the power core."

Barker had done some impressive work, but Sabol was extremely worried about the pilots' inexperience if they ran into a patrol of Invid. Sabol had seen plenty of pilots torn apart for even a split second misjudgment. Even if he taught them Wolff's REF tactics, there was still the matter of lacking the ability to analyze and react to combat situations with the natural instinct that experience endowed.

"Mr. Sabol," the ACIF's maintenance engineer's voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Oh, hello Mr. Whitely," Sabol replied. "Are you coming along on our mission?"

"I wouldn't miss it," the old man beamed. "Uh, what I wanted to ask you was… I was about to remove the Southern Cross markings from your AGAC. But, then I thought maybe you'd like to go into battle with them instead."

"I'm really touched," Sabol told him sincerely. "But I'm not in the TASCs anymore. Why don't you paint it with that golden starburst insignia of yours? That is, if it's alright with you all."

Their nods told him it was.

---

Just before four in the morning, the Veritechs assembled outside the ACIF's concealed base. The VF-1s had been hoisted one by one high enough above the hanger floor to awkwardly transform them to Guardian. The three sat patiently, watching as the trucks and Hovertanks set out southward.

"All Veritechs, power up your engines," Barker ordered over the radio. A high pitched whine echoed across the landscape of Arnhem. All at once, the Alphas activated their VTOL thrusters and rose into the air. A blue glow appeared at the rear of their main engines, as the upward thrust died and the Veritechs began to creep forward. The VF-1s began to hover several feet above the ground and then, they too followed the trucks and Alphas.

Above Sabol's head, the AGAC's counter-rotating rotors had reached full power. Applying thrust from the main jet engines, the pride of the TASCs began to coast gently across the ground. Sabol accelerated into the air, reveling in the familiar feel of the coptor's controls as set off after the others. Once more into the breech, dear friends. Once more! Or else close up this wall with our…dead?

---