robotech@worf.infonet.net (Robotech_Master) ROBOTECH: THE MISFOLD Part 4 Written by Many; Edited by Chris Meadows This is part 4 of the Robotech: The Misfold, a collaborative work of fiction written by several authors at once and edited by me. If you would like the previous segments (listed below), and/or would like to write a contribution for the story, please e-mail me at chm173s@nic.smsu.edu or cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu. SECTION NUMBERING AND AVAILABILITY: These are the current section numbers. They are available for anonymous FTP from wpi.wpi.edu, located in the /FanFiction directory. PART 1 The ROOSEVELT misfolds into the wrong earthspace. Lt. Joe Walker is sent out, makes contact with General Mitchell of the U.S.A.F. Asuka Suzuki and Ivory Tanaka prepare to send up a VR-controlled scout drone to recon the ROOSEVELT. Lt. Stefan Anderson wipes out the record of the erroneous misfold coordinates. Lt. Walker's Veritech is attacked by a mysterious Stealth fighter and loses contact with the ROOSEVELT. It lands at Langley. Captain Kranz sends out Commander Carter to find Walker, then the ROOSEVELT moves to a higher orbit. PART 2 Lieutenant Walker meets with President Bush, then returns to Langley to meet Commander Carter. They find that a mysterious team of technicians accompanied by a strange form of power armor have been attempting to dismantle Walker's Veritech for study. Two Pentagon officers deliver stolen flight log tapes of the UFO to an agent of ELITE, who was behind the stealth plane. Ivory Tanaka's recon drone is destroyed and she is shocked into unconsciousness during the recon run on the ROOSEVELT. PART 3 The government sends takes more reconnaissance footage of the ROOSEVELT. Ivory Tanaka regains consciousness to find herself INSIDE the ROOSEVELT's computer. At Langley, General Mitchell discovers that weapons and ammunition used by the mysterious technicians were reported "missing" from government warehouses, giving rise to speculation that there could be many more powerful weapons in their hands. This seems to be proved by the ELITE attack that comes as Commander Carter and Lieutenant Walker prepare to take off. They are forced to take General Mitchell with them. Ivory Tanaka meets several students from Worchester Polytechnic Institute in Worchester, Massachusetts, likes them, and sets up high-level computer accounts for them. Meanwhile, Carl Morgan, an operative from ELITE, pilots a primitive transforming robot to filch a top-secret component from an unnamed university. And the real life Ivory Tanaka wakes up in a hospital bed and finds out what happened to the probe. EDITOR'S NOTES: I'm sorry this is so late; I've gotten several queries about it. I've been working as fast as I could on it, trying to get it into shape to send out as soon as possible. I can't help but feel that the quality of the writing is deteriorating markedly with each new character who comes in. I'll admit, I have not been entirely innocent in that respect myself. Therefore, I would like to ask the other authors to start eliminating miscellaneous characters in your next segments. Not necessarily killing them off, but just moving them out of the spotlight. I'd like to try to focus primarily on the command staff, Lieutenant Walker, General Mitchell, and Carl Morgan, with kind of a sidelight on the WPI WedgeRats and the rest of ELITE and the world. I haven't moved the time frame forward several months in this segment as I had previously intended. The reason is that, well, I just found so much to write about that I felt it would look extremely contrived just to choose a point at which to end the paragraph and then say, "Several months later..." I didn't even get to it in part 5, like I'd originally intended. However, I know for a FACT that the timeframe will move forward in early Part 6, because I have most of that one written already. I would like to focus on current events--the battles in Somalia and Iraq for example. But PLEASE--keep new characters to a minimum, okay? I guess that's everything I have to get off my chest. Okay, on with the show! megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU (B Bikowicz): Ben and Zoner sat hunched over Ziggy, Ben's PC. "We have to figure out a better set-up," Zoner commented. "Like what?" Ben asked. "What's the problem, Zoner?" Ivory asked from the screen. "Well, we can see and hear you. But you can only hear us. That's not very fair. And talking to a CRT is kind of creepy, I don't even know why I bother. I could stare at the ceiling and it wouldn't make a bit of difference to you." "What do you propose?" Ivory inquired. "ear." "What?" Ben and Ivory chorused. "ear. I want to talk to ear. If he can't kludge something, no one can." "Duh!" Ben slapped his forehead, "Of course. Do you mind, Ivory?" "If you trust this 'ear' then I have no objections." "Null perspiration. ear is a true gweep through and through." Zoner bounded out of the room to grab ear from the living room where he was talking to Cheryl.Z. "hey...what...why...," ear stammered as Zoner led him into Ben's room. "Gryph, what's up with him?," Eric asked, gesturing toward Zoner. "Something I think you'll find quite interesting. ear, meet Ivory, Ivory ear." "Pleased to meet you, ear," Ivory's voice lilted from the stereo. "Um...hi...What is this guys? Some sort of voice-recognition program or something?" "BUZZ! Thank you for playing," Gryphon chided, "Ivory is a full-fledged artificial intelligence." "I don't follow." "You'd better sit down, this is a long, strange story," Zoner said, gesturing to a chair. "Ivory, it's your show." "I can't believe this." "Believe it Eric, she's real," Zoner said from the corner. "So, what did you want me for anyway?" "We thought you'd never ask. Zoner, if you would." "Thank you, Ben. See, the problem is communication. We can see her, and hear her. Yet she can only hear us. We want you to help us kludge up a camera system. Something so she can see us, control the camera via the PC, etc...Think you can handle that?" "Yeah, I think so. I think I have the parts I'll need kicking around. Is it ok if I talk to Larry about this?" "Hmmm, what do you think? Entropy cleared for this?" Zoner asked. "Certainly, we owe him that much after the way we portrayed him," Ben replied. "True...Yeah, ok, you can fill him in. You going to need anything to pull this off?" Zoner asked ear. "Well, I don't have a camera, and I don't think Larry does. Can you get one?" "Hmmm...Bingo! Yeah, drop by tomorrow. Maybe you should go back to the living room, I think Cheryl is wondering what's up," Zoner suggested. "What's your plan?" Ivory asked. "I'm going to 'borrow' a camera tonight." "And where do you plan to get one, hmmm?" Ben taunted. "Why, the mailroom of course." "Bah? The security camera?" "Of course." "Isn't that illegal?" Ivory asked. "Most definitely," Zoner answered. "Of course," Ben quipped. "Won't you get in trouble?" Ivory asked, concerned. "Only if I get caught. Which I won't. Besides, they haven't used the camera for quite some time. It's still in the ceiling as a deterrent since most people don't know that it isn't connected. And we can always give it back later." "Are you sure?" "Trust me, I know what I'm doing." "I've got some time to kill before I go grab the camera, let's see what the REF has to offer," Zoner suggested. "Ok, what do you suggest?" Gryph asked as he logged into his account on the ROOSEVELT. "Oh...I dunno. Let's check the tech files, blueprints, stats, that type of thing." "What good will that do?" Ben asked, doing it anyway. "Well, we can always use them for something in a story, or maybe we could build something ourselves." "Yahright, like how?" "Well...The simple stuff we can do over in the machine shops. Joe, the head over there, is a cool guy. I'm sure he'd let us use the machines in Washburn. I did great in grunge lab. And it's not like we don't know anyone who had electronics experience." "Ok...Say how's this look?" "Energy weapons? Niiiice...You have the hard disk room for this stuff?" "Yep." "Grab what you can. Sheesh...CAD files and everything. I bet we can transfer these to the CAD/CAM system and mill the parts ourselves." "Could be. We still have to pay for the material?" "Yeah, but that isn't too bad. I can probably get some raw stock from home. And aluminum isn't too expensive, we can cast parts with EPC." "EPC?" "Expanded Polystyrene Casting, sorry." "And what might that be?" "You cut the part out of Styrofoam with a hot wire, coat it in some stuff, and than put in in a sandbox. You pour the metal into the foam and it melts as the metal fills the form. You still need to machine the finish though." "Neeaat...How much should I grab?" "As many complete sets as you can fit on the drive." "Ok. I wonder if we could sell this stuff?" "Like what?" "Well...They have a lot of nice aircraft designs..." Zoner took a look at the screen. "Wow, you're right. What is this, variable geometry?" "More than that--it's variable configuration. Transforming aircraft!" "Amazing. What's on your mind Ben?" "You know anyone in aerospace companies?" "A few people on the nets with NASA, and a scattering from Lockheed, Boeing, and the like. What's your plan?" "Well...." "Hi guys," Zoner greeted Eric, Ben, and Larry as he entered the room. "Yo, got the camera?" Ben asked from in front of the computer. "Of course." Zoner pulled the camera from a duffel bag and handed it to Larry and Eric. "Well...It isn't the best, but it'll do I guess," Eric commented. "Hey, don't blame me, I just stole it," MegaZone quipped. "Beggars can't be choosers," Gryphon added. "Yep. So, what's up?" "Well, Eric and I managed to put this together," Larry gestured to a very kludged-looking circuit board with cables running to the back of Ziggy. "It should serve as a video digitizer and control relay. We'll need a little bit to adjust it for the camera." "And I lashed this up from parts I scrounged from the robotics lab. It's a simple three-axis mount, but it should do the trick," ear added as he mounted the camera. "Ok, looks like we're in business. How long until you're ready?" Eric and Larry conferred for a moment, then entropy answered, "Say about 2 hours." "Fair enough. Ben, Theo's?" "Sounds good." "You guys want us to bring something back?" Zoner asked the already-engrossed pair. Both declined. "Very well," then to Gryph, "Let's go." Ben and Zoner sat in the corner of Theo's diner, talking as they worked on their meals. "She's not your type?" "What?" Zoner asked, surprised. "You're staring at the waitress again." "Sorry, can't help it. Kim is beautiful though." "That she is, but we have more important things to think about at the moment?" "More important? Where are your priorities, man?" Ben just scowled. "Ok...Geez, can't take a joke. Now what?" "Did you get the address?" "Yeah, Al sent me the address for Lockheed's business office." "Why Lockheed?" "Because, A, they have a lot of experience with exotic aircraft, and, B, it's my way of saying thanks for making an aircraft like the Blackbird." "Whatever...So what do you want to send?" "I say we send a letter explaining our intent and the files for the Valkyrie." "Why not the Legios?" "The Valkyrie is a bit more conventional, and more believable. The Legios is too weird. Besides, working plans for a fusion turbine have got to be worth something." "I thought they used that protoculture stuff," Ben commented between sips of Coke. "Well, they do, for the most part. But remember they first flew with fusion turbines. They were designed before protoculture was fully understood." "Oh.. yeah, right." "Not to mention the sensory helmets. Damn, a VR system using that tech would be the balls. I wonder..." "What?" "How hard would it be to build something like that. Say for a car. Listen, we could..." "You guys about done?" Ben asked as they returned to his room. "Just a few more adjustments," Larry answered without looking up. "Cool, I'll power Ziggy up then." "Whatever," ear mumbled from behind a soldiering iron. "Get Ivory online," MegaZone suggested. "Will do." "Done," Eric announced. "You ready, Ivory?" Gryph asked. "As I'll ever be." "Let's do it then." Ben flipped the Aux1 and Aux2 toggles on his power supply. Ivory blinked a few times and then the camera began scanning the room. Zoner noticed that its movements matched those of Ivory's head. "Seems like it works," Zoner commented. "Yes. It's nice to see you all at last." "Well, so you have faces for the names, I'm MegaZone, this is Gryphon, ear, and entropy." He gestured to each in turn as the camera tracked. Ivory turned the camera toward Ziggy. "So, that's how you see me. Fairly limited." "Well, we have some thoughts on that," Ben commented. "Yes?" Ivory looked curious. "Zoner, your show." "Thanks Gryph...Anyway, we grabbed some files from the Ikazuchi and I had an idea. There were several plans for sensor systems, mostly for fighter pilots, in helmets. I think we could kludge a similar system here, only go farther, make gloves, and maybe a suit. I want to go for full VR integration. VR goggles would be easy, and air bladders for sensory feedback, maybe mild electrical stimulation. I think we can do it." "I don't know...VR can be dangerous..." "Ivory, we know what happened to you, but this isn't the same. There would be no direct mental linkup. And we'll need your help." "For what?" "The hardware is simple...well, not simple, but not totally impossible to do. The problem is interface software. That's where you come in. We'd like you to write the interface once we have the hardware." CHM173S@SMSVMA (Chris Meadows): "I'm sorry, boys, but I can't do that," Ivory said, quite surprising Gryphon and Zoner. "But why?" MegaZone asked. "VR is my company's newest technological advancement," the digitized Oriental beauty explained. "It is a very highly-classified secret. I shouldn't even have explained this much to you, but I like American college students. To help you further...that would be treason." Zoner shrugged, disappointment visible on his face. "I had expected you to help us, but if you won't, I guess we'll just have to have Entropy do it. Hey, Eric, Larry...if you want to discuss anything with Ivory, go ahead. Ben and I will be in the living room." He placed his arm on Ben's shoulder and they left the room. "Now, about the CAD/CAM system..." Inside the ROOSEVELT'S computer, Ivory Tanaka sighed. She'd just succeeded in alienating one of her only friends since the incident of her entrapment here. -You couldn't let him have the VR secrets,- she told herself. -The company is more important.- But deep inside, she wondered if she was really right. Pieter Thomassen : -Days ago the USA was the world's premier power,- George Bush thought, -and now there are extraterres--er, extradimensionals--literally on top of Washington, and high-tech terrorists jumping out of the woodwork like reporters who smell Pulitzers-. Reporters. Why did he have to think about them? Probably because they had seen photos of the kilometer-long spaceship above the capitol, photos made by amateur and professional astronomers, and heard reports of air attacks and weird ground attacks on Langley AFB, and were screaming for answers. Screaming at HIM for answers. Of course, the photos and explosions and dogfighting planes and all the ambulances made government denials that there was nothing going on a bit hard to believe, and as a consequence the media were at about the same temperature as his military and the Congress--boiling hot. And after them, there were foreign leaders who wanted answers--the stories had scared them "somewhat" as well--either the USA had some new military hardware that changed the balance of power in the world, or someone else had the hardware to attack the USA on its own ground, and that someone might visit them next, the thoughts went. -What a mess,- the President thought for the umpteenth time. The President had been in almost constant meetings with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and key members of his cabinet from the time the ROOSEVELT had appeared, and now they listened to a harassed-looking colonel who was briefing them on the fight at Langley a few hours before. "So, sirs, after the, ah, 'Looking Glass' plane landed at Langley, we put up some cameras at the control tower, to gather as much infomation as possible about the, uh, Valkyrie aircraft. We also got some pictures of the 'Angel Flight' plane that landed at Langley later, the one that was made up of two separate craft, and which General Mitchell claimed were called 'Alpha' and 'Beta' fighters when he came in to use the computer to run some inventory checks." "Has General Mitchell been found yet?," a JCS general asked. "No sir, but he was last seen near the larger of the two alien planes, and we have an unconfirmed report from an MP that Mitchell took shelter in it when the shooting started." "Very well, go on." "The cameras got a good picture of the ground fighting, and some fascinating parts of the aerial fighting that occured later. We will run the footage now, and afterwards give you the preliminary analysis of the weapons involved." In stunned silence, the group watched the ELITE attack on the Langley installations, but the silence turned into a surprised mumbling when the Valkyrie rose up from the smokescreen that had enveloped the REF planes. Especially the Air Force officers present couldn't resist suprised sotto voce exclamations. "A VTOL design !" "It looked almost like legs--and were those hands?" But the footage of Lieutenant Walker going to Battle Armor mode with his Cyclone caused a real uproar. "Did you see--did you see that?!" "I don't believe it!" "It's a hoax--it's got to be." The briefing colonel paused the picture and said, "We had to look at it half a dozen times before we believed it ourselves, but we have checked and it is not a hoax, nor is the following footage." That caused some flabbergasted glances, but the colonel restarted the tape and the audience was immediately captivated by the fighting on the screen. Pointed skyward, the high-resolution cameras had managed to capture the combat between the Veritechs and the ELITE fighters in its full glory, from beginning to end. After the tape had run to its end, the meeting sat in stunned silence. -Jeez--those planes TRANSFORMED!- was about all that not a few of those present could think. "Was that more or less than FIFTY missiles that one robot fired in one salvo?!" "What was that with the death-ray?" At last the President asked the briefing officer, who had waited patiently till his superiors had taken hold of themselves, for the analysis of the weapons. "Yes sir. The assault force used stealth fighters of an unknown design. Examination of the wreckage does however indicate an Earthly origin; all of its systems are copies of or developments from systems we know of, or have. The same goes for the powered armor suits. The unarmored soldiers used standard gear. "The, uh, REF 'airplanes' however, or the motorcycle/wraparound armor one of the pilots used, are completely unknown to us, and we cannot even begin to guess as to how they work. The reconfiguring shape doesn't present the problem--after all, if you've bought your grandkids Christmas presents over the last few years, you probably know that even kiddie toys can do it." There were a few grunts of assent from knowing grandparents who had bought as gifts and been fascinated by the "Go-Bots" or "Transformers" of years gone by. The colonel went on. "The problem is that there's no way to maneuver such a system as fluidly as that pilot does." He rewound the tape to where the Alpha robot nimbly ducked a salvo of missiles, then turned around to return fire with its rifle/cannon. "It would take a whole battery of computers to calculate that maneuver alone, and to pull it off as smoothly as that pilot did--They've got some sort of system we can only dream about." "Can we duplicate it?" the Marine general asked. "Or at least understand it and apply it to our present machines?" The colonel shook his head. "We'd need to have some examples first, and they didn't leave anything behind when they left. All we have is some data on the effects of the weapons, and some tentative guesses as to their cause." The officer manipulated his remote control and called up a freeze-frame of the rifleman sitting atop the motorcycle and firing a blast at a suit of ELITE power armor. "In chronological order, we think the 'rifle' the motorcyclist was using is some sort of very powerful laser or particle beam." The picture changed to the Cyclone as power armor, as one of the enemy exploded from one of the Cyclone's forearm minimissiles. "The forearm missiles seem to generate a plasma cloud on impact, for the remains of their targets showed traces of superheat. The chest missiles seem to have augmented armor piercing warheads." With another click of the remote, a picture of the Beta fighter rising out of the smoke cloud in Guardian mode was revealed. "The larger, or hindmost of the, uh, planes, for lack of a better term, shot missiles with much the same characteristics as the bike, though much more powerful. The directed energy weapons in the arms--we aren't sure of those yet, but there are ionic anomalies present in the planes that were shot down with those." CLICK! The Alpha battloid now came up on screen, about half a second after firing the missile salvo. All the missile compartments hung open and all the missiles were in the process of flying outward, leaving smoke trails behind. "The other fighter used some sort of a high-powered gatling cannon. Recovered shell fragments seem to indicate a depleted uranium slug, similar to that currently used in the A-10 Warthog's anti-tank gun, about thirty to forty millimeters in diameter. As for the missiles, we estimate that it launched about sixty of them after it became a robot." The Cyclone power armor appeared on the screen in profile, as it was slamming its fist into one of several of the big black armor units. "The lack of controls in the armor form of the motorcycle, and the deftness with which it moved--it runs rings around those black armor units, as you've seen--led one of the civilian scientists we're working with on the UFO, a Dr. Emil Lang, to theorize it has some form of thought-control. We find it a bit far-fetched, but then, so are kilometer-long starships and transforming aircraft and motorcycles." This took some time to sink in. But George Bush had a question to put to one of his subordinates. "You couldn't predict the REF," he said to the CIA chief, "but those terrorists are from Earth, and they managed to design, build, and operate entire squadrons of fighters, to say nothing from the power armor, without even the slightest hint from you guys. How?" The director squirmed a bit in his seat. "We don't know yet, sir, but there seems to be a massive penetration of our services--the black boxes of that first stealth fighter that was shot down by the Valkyrie have disappeared. Also, the prisoners we took at Langley refuse to talk, and behave as if they are about to be freed. I have ordered triple security." The President nodded, and the CIA chief continued. "However, to set up such a powerful attack so fast, the hardware must have been in the country already, and so much hardware, of such a quality, suggests to my analysts that they were probaly planning a takeover of this country, at least." This caused unpleasant looks in his direction. "Yes, those fighters and that armor are far more advanced than anything we have at the present, except possibly the new F-23 Advanced Tactical Fighter, and they seem to have a large supply of them, too," the Air Force general said, "so conquest is the goal that comes immediately to mind. And they have the advantage on us--we'd need an entire F-15 wing to defeat one small squadron of those stealth craft, and that only during daylight. At night they'd flatten us!" "They didn't do well against our, uh, visitors " someone else pointed out. "All the more reason to open diplomatic relations with them," Bush added. "If those terrorists do indeed try a take-over, we might need their...assistance...to come out on top. What measures have been taken in that direction?," he asked. "We have set up a microwave transmitter on the roof, and are sending requests up that they inform us as to what happened to General Mitchell," a foreign affairs aide said. "The link is connected to the secure phone system of the White House, so in theory we should be able simply to pick up a phone and talk to them, when they have set things up on their end. Provided, of course, that they are in a mood to talk, and don't think it was our people in that armor assault group." That caused more uncomfortable glances around the table. "Well they shouldn't think so," the Army general muttered. "We lost over eighty men at Langley!" "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, General," the President said. "If General Mitchell is with them and in good health, he will undoubtedly assure them that those forces had nothing to do with us. Meanwhile, let's assume that they want to talk, and meet with us. Can we offer anything more secure than Langley?" he asked drily. "A carrier, in broad daylight, seems a good candidate. We'd see the terrorists coming, and they can't deploy their ground forces at sea," the Navy admiral said. "The LINCOLN is on maneuvers in the Atlantic, and can be cruising of the Virginia coast in hours. It shouldn't be a problem for those spacers; their craft have VTOL capabilities, as we all saw." "That solves the security problem, but what should we tell them? Please hand over your technological secrets? I doubt THAT would work," the Secretary of Defense said drily. "One step at a time," was the answer. "We could suggest that Mitchell, if he is on board, stay there as liaison, and try to get an aide to help him out up there," was the President's answer. "Preferably an aide who knows something about engineering" the CIA director said, anxious to contribute something useful. "A female preferably. After all, they are soldiers a long way from home, and a pretty face will get more cooperation than a male." "Don't bet on it--one of their techs was female," someone countered. "It sounds like a good idea," the President decided. "Select a qualified officer, and depending on how the discussion goes I may or may not bring it up." The meeting broke up after that, but as President Bush was walking back to the Oval Office, a terrible thought occurred to him. -What if the terrorists obtain that robotics technology the people from that ship displayed?- He shuddered, and hoped it wouldn't happen during his administration. In the Atlantic, Captain Hayes looked up from the photo of his young daughter Lisa with his wife, and read the message he just had received. He was to take his carrier to a position off the coast of Virginia, then stay there and await further orders. "I wonder if this has something to do with that alleged alien ship the media is going wild over," he wondered before going to the bridge to carry out his orders. In the White House, several hours later, the President was meeting with his press secretary in the Oval Office. As they were discussing what to do with the media and the rest of the world, the telephone rang. Bush picked it up. "Yes?" "Mr. President, it's General Mitchell--from the ROOSEVELT," a duly impressed aide said. Then the line was transferred with a CLICK, and President Bush awaited the first words from the Air Force general on board the alien ship. CHM173S@SMSVMA (Chris Meadows): During the two days General Mitchell had been on the ROOSEVELT, he had learned a great deal about it, and its crew. Captain Kranz had ordered that he be shown whatever he wanted to see within the ship with the exception of top-secret areas, and so he had been. He had taken in the bridge deck, the military command levels, engineering, numerous hangars and storage bays, and crew quarters. What had impressed him the most was the tiny Cyclone motorcycle, which could change from a motorcycle to a powered suit of battle armor in the space of a few seconds. He estimated that one Cyclone had enough power to take out at least three M-1 Abrams tanks, probably without being hit by their weapons. Now General Mitchell was summoned to the Captain's office. Captain Kranz and Commander Carter were there, as was Commander Richard Anders, the acting Veritech CAG. They saluted, and Mitchell returned it, then Kranz invited Mitchell to sit down. "Good morning, General," Captain Kranz began. "I understand you've been touring the ROOSEVELT. What do you think?" Mitchell shook his head. "It's difficult to take it all in. To see all this--do you know that with the arsenal you have here, you could in all probability take over a large part of our world, if you so desired?" Commander Carter nodded. "However, that is not our desire. Our mission is to defend Earth, not to conquer it. And all we're interested in right now is getting back to our OWN Earth, which may be desperately in need of us right now." "An aim which may not be possible, I'm afraid," Eddings spoke up. "I've analyzed the fold coordinates again and again, with every program and technician in my division, and have found no errors at all. According to the coordinate file, we SHOULD be orbiting our Earth, in the year 2032. But we're not. This leads me to believe that the file has been tampered with." Mitchell had been told something about the fold navigation system, and the chance accident that had caused the ROOSEVELT to end up here. He looked at Eddings, keeping his poker face. "How? By whom?" Eddings shook his head. "I do not know, but that is not the important thing right now. What IS the important thing is that we may be stranded here for a good long time, and we are going to have to find a way to fit into your society." Kranz nodded. "We've discussed this already with the rest of the ROOSEVELT's tactical staff, and have come to that conclusion. And we have just now received a radio transmission from your White House suggesting a meeting. This could not have come at a better time." Mitchell's heart skipped a beat. "A meeting? Where? When?" "They've suggested the U.S.S. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, an aircraft carrier currently off the coast of Virginia, and a time approximately 24 hours from now." Kranz looked at Mitchell. "What do you think, General?" Mitchell considered it. An aircraft carrier, eh? "It sounds good...out in the water, we'd be able to see them coming if they tried anything..." "By 'them,' I assume you mean the mysterious terrorist group?" Carter asked. Mitchell nodded. "Yes, I think the meeting is a good idea." "All the same, we should never assume," Commander Anders said, speaking for the first time. "I'll deploy a squadron of Shadow Fighters and Vindicators around the area. And the General and whatever staff the Captain assigns will ride down in a Horizont, and be ferried to the carrier by a Legios," he said, to no one in particular. "Then when the talk is over, the Vindicators will ride back up in the Horizont...Yeah, I can do it." "Then do it," Kranz said. "Carter, let's get on the radio and tell Washington their meeting is go." "What are Shadow Fighters?" Mitchell asked. "Our version of Stealth aircraft," Kranz said. "Top secret." Carter picked up a telephone handset from Kranz's desk, and punched in a four-digit number. "This is Commander Carter. Patch me through to the White House microwave transciever." He handed the phone to Mitchell. "You're on. Tell the President the good news." Mitchell took the receiver. "Hello, this is General Mitchell, clearance Delta. Patch me through to the Oval Office, will you? Thanks." He waited. "Ah, hello, Mr. President. Yessir, this is Mitchell...I couldn't begin to tell you, sir. I can say that I'm safe, in no danger, and, if I may say so, having the time of my life up here...Yessir...yes, I can confirm that the meeting is go. Yes, we'll be flying in." He filled the President in on the security precautions, then hung up the phone. "Anders, get the fighter squadrons ready," Kranz ordered. "Load two Vindicators into the S.S. ELEANOR, and prep it for lift-off in eighteen hours. And put six VF-1 standard-model Veritechs in the S.S. DELANO--they'll probably be more comfortable if we show up with planes that closely resemble one of their own. Also, I want two squadrons of Cyclone Riders in as an honor guard." -I suspect they'll be guarding a bit more than just "honor,"- General Mitchell thought. "Oh, and I'd like to make a suggestion?" Mitchell spoke up. "Get Lieutenant Joe Walker in one of those fighters. I'd feel most confident knowing he was out there. He is one of your best, isn't he?" "Excellent idea," Anders said. "I'll get right on it. Sir!" He saluted, then left the room. Ivory Tanaka floated in infinite space within the ROOSEVELT's main computer. She was finally beginning to come to terms with her new existance inside the computer of a starship, and learning to master her new abilities. It seemed as though it was becoming much easier now to manipulate the computer directly, without relying on visual icons. Ivory reached out and tapped into the ROOSEVELT's sensory system, calling up a view of the planet Earth from an external camera. Beautiful. Then she had an idea. She extended her perception and tapped into the Internet uplink. Maybe she could connect to the Company computers and see what was going on! "Hey, Lieutenant, we're reading increased run-time use in the main computer." "What?" Lieutenant Stefan Anderson sat down at one of the computer lab's terminals and logged in. "Show me." The lab tech banged away at his keyboard for about ten seconds, then turned to look at Anderson. "I've got a lock on where it's coming from. Let me show you." Graphic figures that would have been impossible for any layman to interpret showed up on Anderson's screen. "I see, I see...and there's no signs of increased activity outside that sector?" "That's right. The only place that program's located is right there." Anderson checked over the program list one last time. "Definitely an unauthorized program. Okay, lock it out and shut it down." "You got it, Lieutenant." The lab tech rubbed his hands together and grinned savagely, then bent to his work. As Ivory tried to open the Internet connection, she suddenly became aware that something was wrong with her environment. As she looked up, she realized that glowing blue bars had just slid across the exits to this node. As she watched, a glowing white square appeared on the "ceiling" of the area, and it started moving down. -They're wiping the memory!- she realized. -They must have detected me somehow.- As the panel came down, Ivory moved over to the barred exit. -They can't keep me in here,- she thought. She concentrated, and made herself two-dimensional. In this form, she slipped between two of the glowing bars just as the descending panel behind her slammed down to the floor. Ivory Tanaka's temper flared. -No one does that to me,- she thought in ire. -NO ONE!- She reached out, searching for the terminal that had executed the node wipe command. Almost got it...closer, closer...THERE! She sent a burst of raw electricity racing through the wires toward the offending terminal... "It's wiped, Lieutenant," the tech said proudly. He was facing away from the terminal, so he didn't see what Lieutenant Anderson did. The terminal screen was glowing whiter and whiter--it was going to blow! "Look out!" Anderson tackled the technician away from the terminal just as it shorted out and exploded. Of course, being composed mostly of plastic rather than glass as had older terminals, the shrapnel wasn't likely to cause much damage, but having anything blow up in your face was darned unhealthy. "What the hell?" The tech picked himself back up and logged in on another terminal. Which promptly began to glow in the same fashion the previous one had. The technician once again got friendly with the floor tiles. Anderson went to the terminal where he was logged in and ran a check. "Hmmm...looks like someone's set up a rather nasty little program here that detects your logon and automatically fries the logged-in terminal." He entered a command to wipe the program. It didn't work. "And it's got command-level priority, too." -But there are ways AROUND command-level priority,- he reminded himself. "Looks like you aren't going to be logging any work for the next few days. Not under that account, anyway..." The tech went to a third terminal and logged in under another account. "Can you run a trace on that program?" he asked Anderson. "Sure thing...here's the subprocessor it's operating in." "Can you shut it down?" "Not with that command-level program running in it." "Then we'll have to run the anti-virus routines," the tech said. "Authorization?" Anderson checked his memory for the current clearance code. The anti-viral programs were powerful anti-program utilities, and if misused could wipe out many vital subroutines, including life-support, weapons, sensors, and navigation. Thus authorization was placed in the hands of the computer department chiefs. "Authorization Code Cryptic Thunder," Anderson said. "Don't look at me, I don't write them." "Right, Lieutenant. Excuting anti-viral...now." Ivory Tanaka floated in a different node, watching the activity of the program she had set up. She found it amusing to think of the technician who had tried to destroy her finding that any terminal he logged onto shorted out instantly. Then Ivory noticed the glowing spheres racing toward her. They appeared to be some sort of program. Curious, she stayed put to see what they did. Which turned out to be a mistake, she realized, as the first one grew larger and larger as it got closer, and finally opened up to englobe her. Waves of pain similar to those she had felt when she'd been ripped from the VR system shot through her body. "NO!!!" Ivory screamed as she began to dissolve. She channelled all her dwindling energy together and attempted to break through--and the orb exploded around her! But she barely had time to pull herself back together before the next orb was upon her. This time Ivory managed (barely) to dodge out of the way. But more and more of the spheres were coming in, and it looked as if she would be devoured rapidly unless she found an escape. What was that, there? An opening to another node--better take it. Ivory zoomed up into the virtual sky, where an exit looked promising. Her last conscious recollection was of passing through, then there was nothing. "I think we got it!" the tech crowed. "The computer's running 18% faster now, and no traces of it are left online." "Excellent," Anderson said. "With all the other problems plaguing this ship, it's good that we were at least able to take care of THAT." "Yessir." Commander Richard Anders, CAG of the S.S. ROOSEVELT, met the jet jocks of the 112th Tactical Space Corps at 0900 hours, ROOSEVELT standard time, in the conference room/observation deck above the bridge. Normally the pilots met in their own briefing room on deck ten, and these surroundings, normally reserved for the ship's highest-ranking officers, served to impress upon them the importance of their mission. It also subdued the Tactical Space Corps personnel--exactly the effect Anders had hoped to achieve. "I'm not going to beat around the bush," Anders said. "This could be the most important mission you, or any pilot on this ship, has ever flown. You've already received the details of who you'll be escorting, and where to, so I'll just touch upon it briefly. "You'll be flying Shadow and Valkyrie escort duty for the S.S. ELEANOR and S.S. DELANO, the current on-duty Horizont dive shuttles. Upon re-entry, you will split off from the Horizont and enforce a defensive perimeter, allowing nothing to get in without authorization. You have been warned that the enemy has stealth aircraft almost as effective as our own, so you will rely on optical systems to make the checks. Additionally, all your flight computers are being configured to include direct access to all of the ROOSEVELT's optical scanning systems. Don't abuse it." The pilots nodded; Anders continued. "You've all received recognition silhouettes for all United States aircraft, and the enemy stealth birds. I hope you've taken the time to study them, but remember, no matter WHAT they are, they're not to enter the defensive perimeter without authorization. In case of belligerance, shoot to kill. I guess that's about all; you've received your respective assignments, now get outta here!" The pilots stood, saluted, and rushed for the elevator. Anders scrambled with them as well; he would be on board the S.S. ELEANOR and would be flying the Legios carrying General Mitchell and Captain Kranz. The flight was to leave within the hour, carrying them to a revolutionary meeting, which could decide the future of the entire human race. Of this dimension, at least... Thirty minutes later, Lieutenant Joe Walker walked up the ramp into the hexagonal cargo bunker mounted under the S.S. ELEANOR's right wing. One hundred and thirty feet long, thirty-three feet high and thirty-four wide, it was designed to hold up to three hundred tons of cargo. And there was another pod just like it sitting beneath the left wing. For this mission, the pods would be carrying additional support mecha, including two Vindicators--Alpha-styled Shadow fighters the size of a Valkyrie--and some Destroid mecha. Walker doubted the Destroids would be needed for this mission--it was at SEA, for heaven's sake--but he was the first to admit that he was no high-ranking strategist. They would be carried because the Vindicators and, obviously, the Destroids were incapable of the Mach 8 rate of speed which was the maximum attainable by a Legios. As Walker climbed into the cockpit of the Vindicator, he sighed. "Why couldn't it have been my own plane?" he wondered out loud. "We've been in this dimension for about a week so far, but I haven't yet gotten to fly my own plane!" His "own plane" was the specially-assigned VF-1S Super Valkyrie Veritech fighter, with the red stripe on the tail to honor a deceased ancester who had also been named Joe Walker. It was Joe's special assignment, as no one else on the ROOSEVELT had specialized in the Valkyrie to the extent he had. But Joe knew that, logically, the Vindicator was the best choice for the current mission. And actually, it was his second-favorite plane, after the Valkyrie. After all, it was a Shadow fighter! Joe activated the controls and began the standard pre-flight checks. As he did, an eerie sound came out of his headphones. If he hadn't known better, he'd have sworn it sounded like a woman moaning. However, nothing showed up on diagnostic, so he let it pass. Walker climbed out of the cockpit and began snapping on his CVR-3 carbon-ceramic body armor. As he did this and listened to the distant intercom announcements telling Lieutenant Something-or-other to get to his plane, and Corporal So-and-so that he was wanted on the intercom, he thought about the unique properties of the Shadow Fighter. During the Sentinels conflict, against the forces of the Invid Regent, the REF had discovered that the Invid could actually sense the bio-electronic energy that powered their fighters. In order to strike effectively at the Regent, it was necessary to develop a system to shield the Protoculture emanations from detection by the Invid. This became possible when the leading Robotech scientist, Dr. Emil Lang, discovered a way to incorporate a 4th-dimensional configuration into the Protoculture engines. Along with unique radar-absorbing polymers and other systems, this enabled the creation of the Shadow Fighter, a plane completely invunerable to detection by any type of sensor system except optical. This breakthrough enabled the REF to win, albeit at great cost, against the Regent. Lieutenant Walker pulled on his helmet and climbed back into the cockpit. "Well, it looks like we're about ready to move out." Commander Anders strapped himself into a seat in the hind section of the Horizont's cockpit, next to General Mitchell and across from Captain Kranz. Just a few yards away, the pilots and flight technicians who were responsible for seeing the Horizont safely to the mother planet were finishing up their pre-launch checks. "We'll be taking off in just under ten minutes," Anders said. "Enter the atmosphere of Earth about four hours after that, deploy the fighters, and touch down near the Abraham Lincoln." Mitchell nodded. "Good, good. I've prepared my reports on your ship and what we know about the terrorists, and will be more than ready to hand them over when we land." Anders chuckled. "And I think you're going to have quite a bit to say, and they're going to have a few dozen questions about our aircraft, especially if anyone caught the battle at Langley on film." Mitchell nodded. "After I tell them everything, there will be some excitement in the Pentagon, to be sure." He chuckled at the idea. Kranz nodded. "And I've shown you what I've shown you because I believe that if we can ally ourselves with the United States, the 'last superpower,' as one of your TV news reports has called it, it might be best for us and the world in the event that we should end up stuck here. I have no illusions about our chances of getting back. It all depends upon a spacefold coordinate log that may or may not have been altered by parties unknown. It may be that we'll be stuck here forever. I'd like you both to keep that in mind during our talks with the President." The engines of the Horizont shuttle and the accompanying Shadow Legios fighters began to warm up. At last, clearance for departure was received from flight control and the Horizont lifted off, bound at Mach 8 for the mother planet. Meanwhile, an awareness was stirring deep inside the flight computer of Lieutenant Walker's Vindicator. As she gradually pulled herself back together for the second time, Ivory Tanaka sluggishly wondered where she was and just what the hell she was doing there. ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu (Richard Pieri): "You'd better be enjoying your leave, Goose," he said to his gunner's empty bunk. The U.S.S. Lincoln felt empty with his RIO away on leave. Lt. Carl Sanders, the new flight leader of Dagger Squadron, pulled himself up from his bunk, his green eyes focusing on the wall over Goose's bunk, the photo of Goose--Lt. Brian Ryan--his wife Peggy, and their little daughter Susan. "Because it's Grade-A boring here." The corridors echoed hollowly as he wandered towards the ready room, stopping by the mess hall to pick up a cup of coffee. Salutes from Dagger Squadron greeted him as he made his way to the ready room's "simulators," a row of sit-down arcade games the flight groups had acquired over the years. He chose the one on the left, his favorite and source of his call sign: Firefox. Razor, his temporary Radar Intercept Officer, called over, "The XO was down earlier." Sure enough, there were the Executive Officer's initials in the number 1 slot, just above his own "CAS." Carl put down his coffee, slid into the game's simulated cockpit, and pushed the START button. He was just beginning to loosen up as the XO's voice rang from the intercom. "Attention all hands! Attention all hands! Dagger Squadron scramble for immediate takeoff; all other hands report to duty stations. Repeat..." but the ready room was already empty, Sanders' boredom left behind with his untouched coffee. CHM173S@SMSVMA (Chris Meadows): "ELEANOR control to RTC, ELEANOR control to RTC. We have entered the atmosphere; altitude is 140,000 feet above sea level. Standing by to deploy Vindicators, over." "ROOSEVELT Tactical Control here, you are go to deploy Vindicators, over." "Thank you, RTC. ELEANOR control out." Inside the right cargo pod, Lieutenant Walker was sitting against the Vindicator's front landing gear, sipping a styrofoam cup of coffee and trading remarks with one of the Destroid pilots. Then Walker's wrist-comm beeped, nearly causing him to spill the coffee. Instead, he reached over to the 'comm, tapped the "Speak" bar on the face, and said, "Walker here." It was the Horizont pilot. "Lieutenant Walker, stand by for Vindicator deployment in two minutes." "Uh, roger. Walker out." He stood up, sloshed the coffee out onto the floor, and crushed the cup in his hand. He let the cup drop, then ascended the ladder to the cockpit. Pulling his CVR helmet on, he thumbed the button to close the canopy and activate the instrument panel and avionics. The "Secure against vacuum" warning lights began to flash, and the klaxons to sound. In front of the plane, the great hexagonal doors that sealed the cargo bunker began to slide open, the lower half hinging outward and down; the upper half hinging outward and up. Blue sky was revealed beyond, always a beautiful sight to Lieutenant Walker. The troop debarkment ramp did not deploy; it would only have gotten in the way. All the air in the compartment exited with a WHOOSH, sucking out the mangled coffee cup and other bits of debris. Joe Walker flipped the switch to engage the engines, shoved the throttle to full forward, and took a firm grip on the flight controls as the plane began to slide ahead. By the time the Vindicator was out of the bunker, the engines had reached full thrust. "This is Lieutenant Walker to ELEANOR control and RTC. Deployment of Vindicator 2 has been successful." "This is Lieutenant Carson to ELEANOR control and RTC," another voice came over the radio. "Vindicator 1 has also deployed successfully." "Roger, Vindicator 1 and 2. Stand by to depart for defensive perimeter." "I copy, ELEANOR control. Vindicator 2 out." At the same time, the cargo pods on the S.S. DELANO, the other shuttle on the mission, had opened to allow six VF-1 Valkyrie Veritechs, the ones resembling a miniature F-14, to launch in the same way that the Vindicators had. Like the Vindicators, the Valkyries had not been equipped to keep up with the high speeds the Legios guard units were capable of. For a moment, Walker envied the Valk pilots, but only a moment. His was a different mission than escort duty, and the Vindicator fit it better. As the two Vindicators accompanied the Horizont shuttle and Shadow Legios units through the upper atmosphere, some red lights on Lieutenant Walker's instrument panel blinked on. It was the flight computer--it seemed to have a core memory overload, or something. "Vindicator 2 to ELEANOR control. Uh, ELEANOR control, I have a problem," Joe said, unknowingly almost duplicating a transmission from a SNAFU-plagued Apollo mission. "My flight computer has some sort of a memory overload." "Have you tried a memory dump?" Joe tapped out the series of keys to wipe the computer's main memory. "Uh, negative response from memory dump. I'm locked out." "What about the backup processors?" Joe tried them. "Negative from them, too. Same problem." "Uh, Vindicator 2, is your problem critical?" "Negative, negative. I can just fly it on manual. I've done it before." "Good. Shadow Flight, stand by to break formation to form defensive perimeter." The planes were descending rapidly now, at a shallow enough angle of descent to avoid damage to the shuttles. Altitude was currently 70,000 feet, and they were passing over the eastern United States, bound for the Atlantic Ocean. At 55,000 feet, the Vindicators and some of the Shadow Legioses split off from the shuttles to take up their fifty mile wide defensive perimeter. Inside the S.S. ELEANOR, Commander Anders stood. "Well, gentlemen, it's time to board." "By all means, let's go." General Mitchell stood and stretched. Though outwardly he seemed calm and relaxed, inwardly General Mitchell was a live wire. He couldn't wait to be on the deck of the U.S.S. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, talking to President Bush and giving his report. Anders led Mitchell and Captain Kranz back through the Horizont's central corridor, past the troop transport compartment in the neck where one of the 12-man Cyclone squadrons was riding down. They saluted as well as they could from their reclining positions, and the three officers returned the salutes. At the end of the corridor was a flight of stairs which led down to a small room where the fuselage of an Alpha fighter stuck up through the floor, with all manner of hoses and robotic arms connected to various ports and performing various services. Commander Anders climbed into the cockpit, and Captain Kranz and General Mitchell continued down the corridor to the next room, which afforded similar access to a Beta fighter. After requesting confirmation over the radio, Anders pressed the buttons to seal the cockpit, and lower the fighter out of the bay where it rested underneath the Horizont. Then the engines fired...separation! "The ABRAHAM LINCOLN is approximately 57.3 miles north-northeast of our present location," Anders reported cooly. "Valkyrie flight, Shadow Primary Flight, form up on my flanks and let's head in. Shadow cloaking devices set to OFF. ELEANOR, DELANO, close to within 40 miles and await further confirmation." "ELEANOR control, roger." "DELANO control, roger." "Valk leader, roger." "Primary leader, roger." About twenty miles northeast of the LINCOLN's location, SOMETHING began rising up from the ocean floor. The fish in the area scattered at the loud noise, a sound of mighty engines straining to lift a gigantic metal plate five hundred feet from the ocean's floor. The metal plate broke surface, sending water cascading off of it as though from a dolphin's back. It was only a hundred feet long, but it was not actually meant to be a runway. More of a takeoff platform for VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) aircraft. It was painted a deep blue, for camouflage from anyone who happened to be passing overhead. As the plate stopped rising and locked in place, a panel in the center slid open, and a night black jet fighter airplane rose out of it on an aircraft elevator. Thrusters fired beneath this evil-looking bird, lifting it into the air. Soon another fighter emerged from the elevator to join it, then another, and another. After six of the aircraft had emerged, the panel closed again. The aircraft accelerated to catch up with the radar blips that had just entered the atmosphere and were closing on the ABRAHAM LINCOLN. ratinox@meceng.coe.northeastern.edu (Richard Pieri): Lt. Carl Sanders glanced at the other F-14D Tomcats of Dagger Flight as they spread out into an intercept formation. His radar painted the incoming, unidentified aircraft at just outside the Lincoln's airspace. He flipped a switch and began transmitting, "This is Dagger Leader calling unidentified aircraft heading zero-niner-four. You are about to enter restricted airspace. Transmit identification immediately or we will be forced to engage." The reply came back immediately, "Dagger Leader this is General Mitchell, US Air Force. I assume you are from the ABRAHAM LINCOLN?" "Yessir, General Mitchell. What can I do for you, sir?" "Inform your commanding officer that we require immediate landing clearance, and I request his presence on the landing deck. Our aircraft are capable of carrier landing without nets." "Yessir. One moment, sir." Carl switched over to the Lincoln's frequency. "Dagger Leader to ABRAHAM LINCOLN, do you copy?" It was not the radio operator who responded, but the XO himself, "Go ahead Dagger Leader." "Sir, General Mitchell is being transported by the incoming flight. He requests landing clearance for his flight, and the Captain's presence on the deck. He said his aircraft are capable of carrier landing without crash nets." The brief delay before the return transmission felt like a century. "Landing clearance granted. Dagger Leader, escort the general in. Come to heading one-zero-one. Lincoln out." "Dagger Leader to General Mitchell, you are cleared to land on ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Come to heading one-zero-one and we'll escort you in. Dagger Leader out." He switched to the squadron frequency, checking his radar. "Dagger Leader to Dagger Flight, General Mitchell's flight will be in visual range in...5 seconds. We'll be escorting his flight back to the LINC--What in the name of God is that!" He could see the incoming aircraft clearly now. It wasn't the leading wing of aircraft--the ones that resembled smaller versions of his own fighter--that surprised him. It was the larger fighters, the bulky ones that looked like flying bricks with a conical nose. Then the General's voice came over the squadron frequency, "General Mitchell to Dagger Flight, you are not to deviate from your given instructions. Is that understood?" Carl looked pained as he realized he had been transmitting, and took a moment to collect himself. "Understood, sir. We are to escort you to the ABRAHAM LINC--Evasive, Dagger Flight!" This over the sound of his own detection gear--he had picked up a missile search radar. Even as he began to slide his throttle forward, Razor was initiating countermeasures. "We've got company. They don't show up on radar, use visual and IR." He quickly scanned his airspace, finding Dagger 3 had already been shot down. The strange aircraft in General Mitchell's flight were responding faster then his own men, a combination of real combat training and superior equipment. Carl could see the new bogies--six of them, black, long and narrow with delta wings, resembling his own call sign. "They look like Firefoxes, stealth fighters of some kind. Take them with guns." He pulled into one of the bogies' six just like he had done so many times before at Top Gun, and squeezed off a burst from his Vulcan cannon. The 20mm slugs ripped into the black fighter's wing, radically altering the airflow over the supercritical surface. Carl was pulling out, looking for another target as the wounded fighter's wing tore itself apart. At higher and higher speeds, air begins to act more like a liquid; at sonic and supersonic speeds it acts more like a solid. Any deformation of an aircraft's surface at that speed will literally rip it apart. As the pilot of the black fighter learned the hard way. The strange fighters in General Mitchell's flight, four Valkyries and four Alpha-Beta combinations, had done their share, taking down four of the other fighters. Carl's wingman dropped a Sidewinder and a few hundred pounds of lead into the last stealth fighter's engine, even before Dagger 3's wreckage hit the water. "Dagger Leader to ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Have been attacked by 6 stealth fighters, designation unknown. Assisted General Mitchell's flight in destroying same. Dagger 3, 5, and 8 are down, request search and rescue." He was amazed at himself for being so cool about it. "General Mitchell's flight is undamaged. Requesting further orders." They were not long in coming, "Continue your previous mission. Heading one-zero-fiver, descend to 5,000 feet." "Roger, Lincoln." Lt. Carl Sanders realized that he wouldn't be bored for a good, long time. CHM173S@SMSVMA (Chris Meadows): The Shadow Legios carrying Kranz and Mitchell touched down first, hovering over the carrier deck and gently settling to the surface on its VTOL thrusters. The Valkyries touched down next, switching to Guardian mode for its innate VTOL capability, and Carl Sanders nearly lost control of his Tomcat when he saw the LEGS extend from those airplanes. But what he saw next REALLY surprised him--the mini-F-14s turned into giant robots! Carl looked over his shoulder at his RIO. "Did you see that, Razor?" "I did, Firefox, I did, but I'm still having trouble believing it." "Let's see if we can hurry up and get down there before we miss all the--" His voice trailed off at seeing the larger planes, the "flying bricks," split into two planes, each of which changed completely into a robot and took up a position in the air around the Lincoln. "I think I've died and gone to Transformers heaven," Firefox gasped. Commander Anders, Captain Kranz, and General Mitchell climbed out of the planes. All three were wearing the spacesuit-like CVR-3 body armor, and were carrying the helmets under their arms. President Bush, the captain of the LINCOLN, another man, and some Secret Service agents were there to greet them. Bush was wearing the Navy jacket he'd been given earlier, and his hair and the jacket collar were being whipped around by the 20-knot winds that had come up in the last hour or so. The captain of the LINCOLN had on a similar jacket, but also wore the cap that came with his office. The other man was wearing a heavy coat, his hands stuck in his pockets. His features had a slightly German cast, and he seemed to have a white lab coat on underneath the outer coat. Strangely enough, both the captain and the other man looked familiar to him, but he couldn't put his finger on a reason why. "Hello again, General Mitchell!" Bush yelled over the wind, sticking out his gloved hand for Mitchell to shake. "Good to have you back!" "It's good to be back, Mr. President!" Mitchell replied. "This is Captain Kranz, the captain of the S.S. ROOSEVELT. And this is Commander Richard Anders, the ROOSEVELT's CAG." "Nice to meet you." The President shook hands with them both. "Why don't we come inside, where we can talk without this interference?" "First I need permission to debark the Cyclone guards," Anders said. "They'll guard our mecha and make sure that no harm comes to it." "By all means," Bush said. "I'm interested in seeing your Cyclones up close. From the footage I've seen, they must be quite remarkable." "Thank you, sir," Anders said. "If you'll excuse me..." Without waiting for an answer, he vaulted back into the cockpit and got on the radio. Five minutes later, the two Horizont shuttles arrived, eliciting gasps from many of those present on the deck. They hovered about a thousand feet off the LINCOLN's bow, three hundred feet in the air, and two rows of figures emerged from the underside of the nose of each. They flew over to the aircraft carrier, and as they got closer it became apparent that they were Cyclone-armored individuals, people in what appeared to be reinforced CVR-3 armor, wearing jetpacks with a wheel on either side. They touched down on deck, causing some worry to the Marines present, who raised their M-16s cautiously. The Cyclone riders ignored them, running over to take up positions around each landed mecha. President Bush looked at them for a minute or so, then said, "Well, it's about 20 degrees out here. I think, under the circumstances, the best thing would be to retire to the conference room, where it's warm and we can talk in comfort." "Agreed," Captain Kranz said. "Lead the way, Mr. President." Ivory Tanaka slowly became conscious of her current state. She was cramped, squashed down as if she was inside a half-size phone booth. She felt like she was going to explode--there was just no room! Ivory tried to get a hold on herself, stop panicking. Out of desperation, she tried expanding her senses, to see just what this box was that held her. By "feeling" along its walls, she realized that there were thousands of pin-sized holes in it. Only a millimeter thick in comparison to her, nonetheless they were something. Ivory expanded, letting herself flow into each of the individual holes as if she were water in a sieve. At the same time, her awareness expanded with herself. Then there was a CLICK that she felt rather than heard, and reality suddenly settled into place. Several red lights on Lieutenant Joe Walker's control panel went out. "Huh?" Joe grunted, tapping the panel with his fingers in much the same way one might tap a stuck guage. The lights stayed off. "Hmmm. The flight computer's come back on-line. All of them." He considered radioing ELEANOR control with the news, but decided against it; the problem had evidently fixed itself; why bother them with the details? Walker idly wondered how the carrier landing had gone. He punched up a display on the central nav/comm screen and selected an item from the menu. Now that the comp was back up, he could check the datalink to the ROOSEVELT's optic sensors to check. Ivory opened her eyes, and saw that she was flying along over a wind-chopped ocean at just under Mach 1. She gasped, then realized that she was seeing through an external camera mounted on an airplane. Then she got another shock--she WAS the airplane! It didn't take her long to adjust, of course. Hadn't she been an expert VR pilot? The sensations were the same, it was just the reality that was different. With the Virtual Reality system, she had been controlling the plane by remote, whereas now, she was controlling the plane from within. But other than that, it was much the same. From feeling her way around the plane, Ivory surmised that this seemed to be a larger version of the fighter that had been hors de combat with her VR drone. It was armed with...(Ivory accessed the flight computer)...70 short-range missiles and an energy cannon of some kind. Along with the thrill of discovery, Ivory received a bit of a shock--if that other plane had carried seventy short-range missiles, or even thirty, she had been a fool to think that she could hold her own against it with just FOUR missiles. And there was something else--a "shadow" system. What was that? She accessed further. It seemed to be some kind of stealth device. Interesting...interesting indeed. Ivory took a look at the pilot, through the integral video communication pickups. A young man, a kid, really. He wore the same suit of armor that she had seen on security guards around the ROOSEVELT, and he looked a little bit handsome. There was something about him...Ivory couldn't quite pick it up, so she ignored it. It was time to see what this bird could do, Ivory decided, locking out the manual controls and taking over completely. Joe Walker's first hint that something was wrong was the gasp. It was a feminine gasp, and it sounded in his helmet 'phones as plain as day. "What?" He checked the 'com channel, but it was on standby--only messages with the proper transponder code could get through, and no such code had been sent. He shrugged it off as just his imagination. Then data on the fighter's armament and Shadow device started scrolling up on screen, almost as if it was being read by another computer. "Huh?" Was another computer tapped into his Veritech's flight computer, despite the techs' claims that such a thing was impossible? Was his computer malfunctioning again? Then the manual controls failed to function, and the Vindicator went into a sweeping bank and climb. Joe jiggled the stick uselessly, then punched for communications. "ELEANOR control, this is--" The screen blanked; the comm system shut completely down. "Well, I'll be da--uh, guess I better punch out, then..." He jerked the lever. Nothing. The "ready" light on the ejector system was off. "I guess this means I'm stuck here." -Maybe if I took my Gallant...- Lieutenant Walker considered. He pulled the gun out, but a sudden hi-gee maneuver threw his hand against the canopy. The hand wasn't hurt due to the armored gauntlet surrounding it, but the Gallant H-90's magazine receiver shattered. With nothing to hold it in, the rectangular energy clip fell out of the gun and was lost somewhere between the ejector seat and the cockpit wall. "What did I do to deserve this?" Walker moaned. Fifteen minutes after the landing, Captain Kranz, General Mitchell, Commander Anders, and the President's men all took their seats in a nicely-heated conference room below-decks. There was a large television display at one end of the long room, and a set of controls at the seat on the opposite end of the table. It was a nice, mahogony-finished room, but Captain Kranz couldn't help comparing it to the ROOSEVELT's gleaming metal, high-technology conference areas and finding it a bit primitive. After going into his stateroom to change out of the heavy winter gear, the President had rejoined the group clad in slacks and a blue T-shirt with the Presidential Seal on it. The captain of the LINCOLN had returned to the bridge, and the other man was clad in his lab coat. Also present at the table were several middle-aged men wearing highly-decorated uniforms of the United States armed forces of this era, and some others in civilian clothes. Mitchell whispered, "They're the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and some members of the President's cabinet!" to Kranz. "They're the President's top military advisors, and they're sure to have many questions about your ship." Kranz nodded. "I'm looking forward to this..." George Bush took his seat at the head of the table. "Good afternoon, everybody. Captain Kranz, Commander...Anders, is it?" Anders nodded. "...and General Mitchell, welcome to Earth. Sorry about the weather." He chuckled. "You sort of picked a bad time to come, if you were hoping to experience the best climate we have to offer." "It's good to be here, Mr. President." Kranz looked back at the Chief Executive, whose face he'd only seen in the history books before now. It was a strong face, though it was showing the effects of age and of a cutthroat race for the next term in office. "I'm sorry if our arrival has inconvenienced you or your people in any way; it sure has inconvenienced us." He grinned. "Well, these are my Joint Chiefs of Staff," Bush continued, introducing each by name, "and this is the civilian scientist who is the head of our scientific research group on your technology, Dr. Emil Lang." Anders and Kranz were thunderstruck, and an electric glance passed between them. Bush observed the two, puzzled, then decided that if they cared to explain, it was their business. "Our briefing officer on the Langley battle will arrive shortly with our taped footage of the battle. We were hoping that you would be able to, uh, clear up a few things for us." "My reports explain a great deal of what you may have seen, sir," General Mitchell said. "As well as some guesses about the attacking force of terrorists." Several Joint Chiefs looked up at that. Since the meeting in which they'd been briefed on the Langley battle, the mysterious terrorists, and ways to defend against their war machines, had been a primary concern of theirs, and all four major branches had been running research operations around the clock. President Bush nodded. "The terrorists. Now that all the formalities are out of the way, I think we need to hear your conclusions on these mysterious terrorists first of all. They seem to pose the more immediate threat to this country, and since you've spent more time with Captain Kranz's ship than you have with the terrorists, your remarks will tend to be a bit shorter." He grinned. Mitchell stood up. "Well, sir, I ran some inventory checks on a rifle and ammunition captured from the terrorists, and found that they had been reported lost through a 'sorting error,' years ago. Exact dates are in my report." He pointed at the folder. "Also in my report are the results of the other inventory searches I ran. Hundreds of shipments of weapons, ammunition, electronics, vehicles, and other miscellaneous equipment have been lost due to 'sorting errors' alone, not to mention the other disappearances, or even similar disappearances from other nations' arsenals. And how much of that has been showing up on the black market?" He paused. "Maybe ten percent. Maybe twenty. But the vast majority of it remains missing. Therefore, sir, I think that they have more than just robots and submachine guns. We may be looking at a high-tech army with equivalent strength to our own. And the aim for such an advanced army could only be world domination." As some of those officers present paled and the President rested his chin in his left hand introspectively, Captain Kranz spoke up. "Since these unknown terrorists' attacks have been largely concentrated on US--" he tapped his chest emphatically "--how about sharing whatever data you've come up with? It could be vital to our welfare, as well as yours, that we share this information." Several of the military officers looked at President Bush for permission; he nodded. "As I recall, this was scheduled to come out at a meeting tomorrow anyway. I think we all should hear it." The Army chief began to speak. "Well, in a nutshell, their aircraft seem to be ten years ahead of our most-advanced jet; their power armor is at least twenty. But the remarkable thing is, we have examined every piece, every component of those armor suits, and have found that not a one of them is anything unheard of. No, everything..." He paused to emphasize his words. "EVERYTHING in those robots was invented more than six months ago." He waggled his finger. "Admittedly, many of the microchips and power storage systems had not been released to the general public--heaven's sake, 90% of them were classified top secret by government or civilian research branches! But they still managed to get them. "And get this." He leaned over the table. "Some of those components were not taken through industrial espionage--they were out-and-out STOLEN. I'm talking armed burglary, here. And in at least five known cases, there was some sort of GIANT ROBOT involved." All except two or three of those around the table gasped. "What?" Bush asked. "How can this be?" He turned to the CIA director. "I don't know, sir," he admitted. "I can't see why we wouldn't have heard about it." "I'll tell you why," the army general said. "They were written off as hallucinations." The disgust he felt was evident in his tone. "So, apparently they've had these things for at least three years, perhaps longer." "If they have only 1992 vintage parts, how can they be twenty years ahead of their time?" the CIA chief asked. He hated to seem stupid, especially after the fiasco of not knowing about the tech terrorists until they nearly destroyed Langley, but really needed to know. "Because, it's not the PARTS that make the technology," the Air Force chief spoke up. "It's the SYNTHESIS." "Huh?" the CIA chief asked. "What do you mean?" "To use an analogy, we must have had the parts necessary to make the automobile for years before it was actually tried. We had the fuel, we had good enough metal, we had rubber--it's just that it wasn't done before around the turn of the century," the Air Force general explained. "It would have taken twenty years for US to get those components put together because we have such hassles as companies that refuse to let go of any new design they've manufactured because they want exclusive rights to it, and budget hassles over appropriations for research, and years of design and testing before it could be approved for deployment, and so on. Apparently, this mysterious group of terrorists was able to cut through all the red tape by simply stealing what they needed and putting it together." The President sat there in thought. "Stealing the technology and combining it...You know, that's a wonderful idea. You know, if we'd been able to do that kind of thing, we might have had the B-2 Stealth Bomber ten years ago." This elicited a couple of chuckles and several worried looks from the people at the table. "It'd never get past Congress, though. Tell me, Captain Kranz, do you think the technology of your...mecha, I believe you call it...?" One of the generals nodded. "...your mecha is superior to that of these terrorists?" Kranz nodded. "We're certain of that. You saw what our Gallants--" He reached down to the holster slung low on his hip and retrieved one of the wedge-shaped weapons, causing the Secret Servicemen in the room to blanche. He threw it down on the table, and it slid up to the President. "--did to that armor. That's one of the primary advantages we have over you, Mr. President--our armor alloys and weapons are lightyears beyond anything the Earth of this era has." He looked embarrassed. "My science officer, Major Eddings, could tell you more. It was an oversight on my part not to bring him." George Bush picked up and examined the gun, first checking to see that its safety was on (it was). "That's all right, Captain...Tell me, what makes this gun tick?" Kranz just cleared his throat nervously. "Oh," Mr. Bush said. "I see." He casually tossed the gun back; Kranz just as casually plucked it from the air and returned it to his holster. The Secret Service agents visibly relaxed. "Which reminds me," President Bush said. "I would like to know as much about you, your machines, and your ship as you can tell me. I'm aware of your reports, and I will read them later on. However, I would like to hear it from you." "Well," Kranz began, "it's a long story..." Bush looked at his watch. "We've got all day." "All right," Kranz decided. "I think we've given you a thumbnail sketch of our history already. Our present situation began when we had just received orders to make a hyperspace fold jump back to Earth to help liberate it from alien occupation..." More of the night-black stealth fighters had been launched from the undersea base, and they were heading in. By some coincidence, their course toward the aircraft carrier took them right past the Vindicator occupied by Joe Walker and Ivory Tanaka. Ivory noticed them when they all fired missiles at her. When the traces first showed up, Ivory swore, barely jinking out of the way in time. Locking her visual sensors on their origin, she realized that the fighters she was seeing did not show up on her radar. Furthermore (checking the flight computer's target ident memory bank), their profile was that of an enemy. That was all the excuse Ivory needed to go to combat. "To use some fighter pilot slang, time to turn and burn!" Walker would have asked who'd said that, but he was currently unconscious from the high-gee maneuvers Ivory had been pulling. The enemy fighters fired another volley of missiles, and to her horror Ivory found she couldn't dodge! The flight computer picked up on her panic and, interpreting it as emergency evasive orders, initiated the emergency sequence. Ivory began to feel herself being pulled apart, twisted. She screamed as the fighter began to change! The main thrusters separated and became legs. The secondary boosters sprouted hands and became the arms. The entire fuselage flipped up and backward to combine with the rear of the plane to form a body; the pilot's seat and some of the controls gyroscopically repositioned themselves to fit the new configuration. And a sensory unit previously stored inside the body emerged to become a head. A head on a 40-foot-tall humanoid robot. The Vindicator had gone to Battloid mode! The profile of the Vindicator had been altered so that the missiles no longer recognized it, missing it entirely to splash cleanly into the sea some miles further on. Ivory, finding herself in a humanoid body for the first time since the drone accident, reacted reflexively to the presence of hostiles, grabbing for the nearest weapon (her Destabilizer energy cannon/rifle pod, which dropped neatly into her hand), targeting, and firing. White lightning lanced from the cannon barrel, ripping through the first three enemy aircraft, tearing them to shreds. The others dodged out of the way. "What other weapons have I got?" Then it came to her--the missiles! Panels on her shoulders popped open and fired, missile after missile flying out, tracking the black stealth fighters. One by one they were all shot down. Ivory cheered! Then she subsided, in shock. "I have a body--an actual, humanoid body!" she realized out loud. Then she lifted her right arm in front of her and looked at it, then down. "A 40-foot-tall, robotic body, but a body nonetheless." She took a moment to extend her perceptions to all throughout it, and got the same sensory feedback she would have if she'd been standing around in her natural body. "I can feel things! I can touch things!" And things could touch her. Without warning, a missile streaked out of the water behind her and hit her in the back. Ivory blacked out, and the Vindicator fell into the water with a hefty KER-SPLASH! The dark waters closed over its head, and it sank out of sight. Lieutenant Carl Sanders finally led his squadron home, his fuel beginning to run low. He'd performed a couple of wide sweeps to check for enemy activity, but nothing had shown up. Firefox was so excited that he almost had trouble landing his plane. Fortunately his Radar Intercept Officer, Razor, reminded him to lower the hook to catch the trap wires on the carrier deck, or he would have caught some flak from the LINCOLN's CAG about it. Firefox climbed down from the Tomcat and looked around. About half of the planes that had escorted General Mitchell down (though he wasn't sure he could call them "planes" anymore) were on-deck; the rest had taken off to join a defensive perimeter around the ship. The ones remaining were all mini-Tomcats, and all but one of these had now converted to giant robots. By some twist of fate, the one that currently resembled a fighter plane was sitting right next to his Tomcat on the deck. Sanders pulled off his helmet and walked over to it. The pilot was sitting in the open cockpit, wearing some form of armor Sanders didn't recognize. The helmet visor was closed, obscuring his face. "Hey!" Sanders called up. "Hello!" the pilot called back, looking around. "Nice place you've got here!" "Thankyou! Best ship in the fleet," Carl replied. "What a coincidence! The one I serve on is, too!" Carl laughed. "Say, what are you guys? Some kind of experimental aircraft test division?" "You could say that," the pilot replied. "Wanna have a look?" "Sure thing I do!" Then Carl noticed Razor beckoning to him. "But I have to go to debriefing now. Maybe they'll tell us something while we're there." He shrugged. "See you in half an hour!" "It's a date!" the pilot replied. Carl saluted and ran off after Razor. Only then did Carl realize that the pilot's voice had not been male. Captain Kranz had just finished explaining to the President and the Joint Chiefs of Staff how, due to possible sabotage, they weren't sure they could reconstruct the proper fold coordinates to make the jump back home. "So what you're saying is that you may be stuck here...forever?" President Bush questioned. "I'm afraid that's just what we are saying, Mr. President," Commander Anders said. "And that's one of the reasons we needed this meeting, sir." "Please explain," President Bush said. "If we're going to be stuck here, it is necessary that we do something to 'fit in,' as it were," Commander Anders said. "We are human beings, you see...we will need to make planetfall now and again, for such things as supplies and shore leave, and we don't want to be treated as invading aliens every time we do." The President nodded. "I can see as how that could be a problem." He chose his next words carefully--they were to be something of a fishing expedition. "I imagine that with as few mecha as you have on that ship, a unit of enemy armed forces could cause some major trouble for you." The fishing expediton worked. Kranz said, "No, that's not our worry. The relative strength of our mecha compared to even your most advanced fighting machines still gives us the power to take care of almost any problem. The time you moved troops into the Middle East, for example--Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Our analysts have been looking at troop strength estimates for both sides, and they estimate that we could have caused the same amount of damage to the enemy forces with two squadrons of Veritech Fighters and perhaps a few Destroids and Cyclones for ground support." This caused a tremendous hush around the table as all there considered the implications of what Kranz had just said. The Army Joint Chief especially, who knew better than anyone present just what forces had been in the Persian Gulf War. Two squadrons of fighter planes and a few ground-support vehicles...? "Uh, excuse me," the Army chief spoke up, "but I'm having trouble believing that." "With all due respect, sir, it's true," General Mitchell said. "Remember, I've spent three days aboard their spacecraft. During that time, I've seen demonstrations and technical readouts, and I do believe what he's saying. These machines are fully capable of the immense amounts of damage ascribed to them." "Perhaps we'd better leave this for later, and discuss the technological aspects of your advanced machinery," the President decided. Emil Lang perked up. "Indeed...I would be interested in seeing if my analyses are very far off the mark." "Very well," Captain Kranz said. "I'll describe our principal mecha units--the Veritechs, Cyclones, and Destroids. I can't tell you much, understand...our mecha are mostly top-secret. But I can answer a few of your guesses..." The Vindicator battloid slowly sank toward the ocean floor. Indistinct forms moved around it, some shedding beams of light that were the only good source of illumination at this depth. Then the Vindicator's head unit turned, as if it were a human shaking its head to clear it. "What happened?" muttered Ivory Tanaka to herself. Then she remembered--the missile! She ran a quick systems diagnostic (the human equivalent would have been checking to see if it "hurt") and found that the missile hadn't really damaged anything--coming as unexpectedly as it had, it had just thrown some systems out of alignment ("knocked the wind out of her"), causing a temporary loss of function (lapse of consciousness). A groan came from the crew compartment of the fighter. "What the hell--? Hey, something's on the sonar!" And something WAS, Ivory realized. Infra-red and sonar traces indicated some form of power armor, specially fitted for undersea operation. About half of them appeared to be carrying weapons; the other half seemed to have some sort of retrieval gear--magnetic cables, nets, and things. Joe Walker's fingers played over the controls for his battloid-mode machine, lining up targets. But before he had a chance to fire, the Vindicator lashed out with its fist, bashing one of the armor suits that had dared come too close. "Uh-oh," Joe muttered. "Now they know we're active." The ones with weapons were raising them, and the ones with the cables and nets were moving back. Ivory fired the gun at one of the armor suits, and three fired torpedoes at her in return. Ivory screamed as the torpedoes rocked her, and caused some of her systems to short out. "Manual controls aren't responding again..." Walker muttered. "Only one option..." He concentrated on gaining mental control of his robot, neurally interfacing with the systems and gaining control. Only instead of the usual vibe, he found... Ivory gasped, as she felt--felt CONTACT. "No!" she gasped, realizing where it came from. "Too soon! I can't--I can't--Aaaaaaaah!" "What's happening?!" Joe gasped. Instead of gaining control, he was--MERGING. "No!!!" Then... F * U * S * I * O * N The Vindicator lashed out at its agressors with lightning-fast moves, much faster than any mere pilot could have performed them. It punched one of the sea armor suits into pieces, and knocked another back with a kick. Then the foot thrusters fired, and it began to rise toward the surface. The armor followed, firing more torpedoes. These the Vindicator easily dodged, and returned fire with missiles of its own. These missiles, almost as effective underwater as in the air, completely decimated all but one of the sea-based power armors, and then the Vindicator rose into the air. They were close...closer than two lovers...they were literally the same person now, feeling what each other felt, knowing what each other knew, sharing the same memories, the same sensations. They were neither Ivory Tanaka nor Joe Walker now...they were ONE. The single persona running the Vindicator gradually separated into two. They floated in cyberspace, facing each other. Lieutenant Walker was in a glowing version of his CVR-3 armor, while the other was wearing a skin-tight, neon-blue bodysuit that showed off every curve on her body. And what a body! She had oriental features, dark hair down to her ankles, and stunning eyes of the same neon blue as her bodysuit. "Who are you?" Joe Walker asked. He had a sudden flash of a fancy laboratory, with cables leading into a bodysuit worn by a woman, and numerous consoles and a big screen. It seemed to be a memory, yet it wasn't his own. "What are you doing here? Where IS here?" "I'm Ivory Tanaka. And this is the inside of your plane's flight computer. You see, I'm in it--and I'm in control." She opened a viewscreen of the view from the head sensors of the Veritech. "You're not really here--there's barely enough room for me. You're just interfacing through your helmet's neuroreceptor system, as you do when you pilot the plane." "I am?" Walker opened his eyes and saw the cockpit once again around him, and two figures on the central nav/comm screen--him, and the other. He closed his eyes, and was back inside again. "Who ARE you?" Joe asked. "And what are you doing inside my flight computer?" "I'm a research scientist, who was flying a VR recon drone too close to your ROOSEVELT," she half-whispered. "Someone tapped the flight computer, and now I'm just a ghost in the machine..." Her last word echoed, as she faded away. Then the fighter gave a lurch, and Walker found himself back at the controls. The Veritech was handling differently, and he realized that the flight computer was now empty. "What? Where are you?" Barely a whisper: "We will meet again..." Then it was gone. Walker decided to tell no one of his experience. At least, not until he'd had a chance to puzzle it out for himself... Ivory Tanaka had realized that she'd been about to lose control of herself. This was why she'd cut short the conversation and leaped along a secondary datalink to another Veritech. Here she fought an inner battle far harder than many she'd previously had to face. In the fusion of her own and Lieutenant Joe Walker's minds, each had gained a portion of the other's memories, thoughts, and personality of recent days. For Walker, those memories wouldn't cause extreme problems, since he had a physical body that had its own routines, its own patterns, which would not be so easily changed by the imposition of other thoughts--the brain would simply ignore them, or most of them, leaving only a few to pop up like some strange, drug-induced flashbacks. But for Ivory Tanaka, it was different. Ivory herself was just an electronic bundle of memories and thoughts, with no physical body to help her. Each thought, her own and Walker's, seemed equally valid, in and of itself. Now Ivory had to take the time to sort these other memories out, to prevent them from taking over her own thoughts and turning her into a half-Joe Walker, half-Ivory Tanaka combination. After a long and draining struggle, she finally succeeded. It happened that the pilot of this Veritech had just opened a link to the optical sensory systems on the S.S. ROOSEVELT, to check for intrusions past the defense perimeter. Ivory Tanaka sensed the link opening, and realized that it led back to the starship's central computer. In the space of an instant, Ivory decided to go back; a tenth of a second later, she was there. -Ah,- Ivory Tanaka thought, as her glowing form floated free in infinite electronic space. -Home, sweet home.- The debriefing lasted a couple of hours, during which time Lieutenant Carl Sanders was told that the Veritech fighters were "experimental aircraft" from "a new ally," and that everything about them was top-secret. The pilots were instructed to return to their quarters and forget what they'd seen. Sanders didn't mention his planned rendezvous with the VF pilot. Ten minutes after the debriefing, Sanders was back on the deck, wearing a borrowed catapult crew coverall. However, instead of going to the catapult, he walked over to the fighter to meet its pilot. "Well, hel-looo, handsome," that same voice called down to him. Only this time it wasn't muffled by the flight helmet. Carl looked up, and saw a rather good-looking female face, framed by falls of dark hair to either side. The dark color of the body armor she was wearing nicely complimented her hair, Carl noticed. He wondered if she'd deliberately chosen it that way. "Hi, beautiful!" Sanders answered, matching her tone. He stopped beneath the fuselage and saluted. "Lieutenant Carl Sanders, U.S. Navy, call sign Firefox." The pilot saluted back. "Lieutenant Sarah Ford, Robotech Expeditionary Force, call sign Model-T. That was good flying up there against those black birds." "You saw?" Carl asked. "Sure did," Sarah replied. "Through sensor relay from the ROOSEVELT." "The ROOSEVELT?" Carl asked. "Our ship," Sarah said, in the tone of someone telling someone what he already should have known. "Uh, right." Carl filed that away for later inquiry. "Pretty neat-looking bird," he said, changing the subject. "Come up here and take a look," Sarah Ford invited. "Just open that panel and pull for a ladder." Carl Sanders did as directed and climbed up to the cockpit. Where he was presented with a startling array of controls and read-outs when he glanced inside. "Wow!" was his eloquent comment. "Yes, it is." Sarah Ford wasn't sure what had attracted her to this rough-looking pilot, but when she'd seen him, something had clicked. Perhaps it was just that, having been raised as an orphan in an REF youth home, she was short of friends and needed someone to talk to, and he looked like a kindred spirit. Or perhaps she just liked the way he wore his flight suit. Regardless, here she was, showing him the controls of her Veritech fighter, and she wasn't even sure exactly why. Sarah climbed out of the cockpit so Carl could sit down and take a look for himself. "See this? This is the control matrix for the navigation computer..." She started telling him about technical aspects of the Veritech, and gradually slipped over into a personal discussion. Before she knew it, she was describing her life in the REF, from the time her parents had been killed fighting the Invid, through basic training, then on the ROOSEVELT before the fold. Carl reciprocated with tales of his own childhood and academy days. Even though Carl didn't understand half of the things she was talking about or the places she described, he had a feeling that he was going to learn about it, and quite soon. It was about a half hour after the end of the debriefing that it happened. Carl was first alerted by a spash as the water was parted to the side of the ship. When the WHAM--CLINK sound of a grappling hook launcher sounded, he looked up. Then gasped. One of the black suits of power armor that had attacked the REF at Langley (though Sanders didn't know about that incident) was hovering above the side of the carrier, pointing its gun straight at them and looking rather menacing. Beneath it, black-suited commandos were coming up over the side of the deck, Ingram MAC-10 submachineguns mounting long silencer/suppressors in their hands. Sarah gasped, dropping to the deck and drawing her Gallant. With great presence of mind, Carl drew his own sidearm and put two rounds into the lead commando. The black-suited raider half-turned, firing off his MAC-10 into the air, and went over the side. At the sound of gunshots, the marines on the deck reacted, turning and bringing up their M-16s. As the automatic weapons fire commenced, ten of the Cyclone riders took to the air, sighting their own weapons in on the power armor. Five more commandos had gone down, but they kept coming. Sarah Ford's CVR-3 armor protected her from small arms fire as she continued to aim and fire her Gallant, but Carl, realizing his vunerability, had ducked down inside the VF's cockpit after firing off several more rounds. The power armor unit had begun hosing down the carrier deck with 20mm cannon rounds, but had caused no serious damage except to the deck plates. The Cyclone-armored troopers were mostly invunerable to even this caliber of shell, and the Marines had already ducked behind metal bulwarks on the deck and continued to return fire. About twenty minimissiles from Cyclone armors homed in on the hovering power armor and finished it, thus putting an end to that threat, but in the time that it had been providing air cover, about thirty of the assault troopers had made it onto the carrier. Sarah Ford continued to blast away at them, until one managed to get behind her and knock her out with the butt of his gun. "We're outnumbered!" the commander of the enemy troops called to his men. "We've got what we came for! Let's get out of here!" Continuing to fire at the Marines and the Cyclones, the commandos retreated, carrying the unconscious Sarah Ford with them. As they jumped over the side of the deck, a projectile flew up and over, past the Veritech, to land in the middle of the Cyclones and Marines. It started releasing clouds of smoke and gas, incapacitating the Marines and inconveniencing the Cyclones. Lieutenant Sanders was watching from the cockpit of the Veritech as this happened, and something stirred inside of him as he watched them drag Sarah away. "I can't let them do that!" he gasped. So, grabbing his auto pistol and something that looked like a grenade from the cockpit floor, he vaulted from the Veritech, ran and jumped over the side. He landed in the water beside a black, rubber-coated submarine. The dorsal hatch was open, and the black-suited commandos were dropping through it. Carl swam over to the side and climbed up the ladder attached to the side. Fortunately for him, his wet cat crew's coveralls looked quite similar to the commandos' black jumpsuits--he was able to sneak on board with ease. The soundproofing of the conference room couldn't quite hide the sounds of gunfire or the explosions. Captain Kranz noticed them first, and said, "What is that? It sounds like...like gunfire." Commander Anders heard it too. He stood up, and loosened his Gallant in its holster. "I don't know, but I intend to find out," he said purposefully. "Now, gentlemen, I'm sure there is no cause for alarm," President Bush said, picking up a telephone handset from its resting place at his right hand. "Hello, put me through to Captain Hayes. Ah, hello, Captain. Tell me, what is that noise?" As the inaudible answer came through the handset, Bush's face took on a more stern aspect. He covered the receiver with his hand and said, "It IS gunfire." Kranz started to get up. Commander Richard Anders had the presence of mind to activate his wristcomm. "This is Commander Anders to Major Taylor. What the hell is going on out there?!" The answer was audible to everyone in the room. "Some men have just come over the side, sir!" There were gasps from all around the conference table. How could such a thing be possible?! "What's your current status, Major?" "We just shot down the power armor unit that accompanied them...They're retreating! But they've got one of ours, Commander, the pilot of VF-122!" Anders closed his eyes and mumbled to himself. Then said, "That would be Lieutenant Sarah Ford, then." He clicked the transmit button again. "Don't let them get away!" "It's too late, sir, they've already gone back over the side!" "Then go over after them!" Kranz waited to hear no more; he ran from the room, pistol in hand. But it was indeed too late. The submarine had already slid beneath the waves, leaving only a couple of bodies and a grease slick from the defunct power armor in its wake. Captain Hayes joined them on the flight deck. "You have to DO something!" Kranz railed at Hayes, forgetting for a moment his legendary hero status in their own world. "Depth charges, torpedoes, SOMETHING." "We can't do that," Hayes said. "We don't even know where they are." "Besides, such measures would kill Lieutenant Ford as well as her kidnappers," Commander Anders pointed out. Captain Kranz sighed and looked at his feet. "I know. I just hate feeling so HELPLESS." A young marine dressed in camo fatigues came running up to the captain and saluted. "Sir, we've found no trace of the terrorists other than the bodies, and no trace of the two missing personnel either." "Wait a minute. TWO missing personnel?" Anders asked. "Yessir, that's right, sir," the marine said. "The aircraft pilot and another person, male, possibly a member of the cat crew. He was observed firing back at some of the terrorists, then he went over the side after them." "Whoever he is, we'll find him, and Lieutenant Ford, too," Kranz said, still angry. "Commander Anders, I want you to get all our planes in the air. Get on the horn to Commander Carter in the ROOSEVELT and have him use the sensors to track that sub, or anything that looks like it might be that sub. We aren't just going to stand by and let them take one of our men." As Anders nodded, President Bush emerged from the carrier superstructure, flanked on all four sides by Secret Servicemen. "I have been appraised of the situation," he said to Captain Kranz. "Rest assured that we will spare no effort to--" Kranz turned on him. "And YOU can be assured that WE will spare no efforts of our own. One of our own is missing, and until that person is found we are not leaving this planet. We will go anywhere, do anything to get our crewmember back, and you'd better believe we're going to come down hard if she's harmed in any way." "Now hold on," George Bush said, raising a hand. "You don't think that WE had anything to do with this..." "I only know that since we came here, we have been hassled almost nonstop, with recon flights, attacks by strange aircraft, and ambushes by terrorists who seem remarkably well-informed," Kranz shot back. "Either you are responsible, or you've got some damn good security leaks." A couple of the Secret Servicemen looked concerned, especially since Kranz was still holding his pistol in his right hand and was waving it around to illustrate his point. Anders saw their concern and gently removed the weapon from his superior's hand and replaced it in his holster. Kranz looked surprised. "Oh, thank you, Commander." "Captain, don't you think that's just what the terrorists WANT, to drive a wedge between us and the United States so that while we fight each other, they can move in and take us out?" Kranz nodded. "You could be right." He turned to Bush. "I'm sorry, Mr. President. I've had a lot on my mind lately." "That's all right," President Bush said. "Reagan and I felt much the same way about hostages. Of course, Ronnie felt that way much more than I did..." Lieutenant Carl Sanders stood in one of the small wardrooms of the submarine, shivering, his clothes dripping. "This is great..." Sanders muttered. "I have a half-empty Beretta 9mm, some kind of strange-looking grenade that says COBALT on it, and nothing else. And I'm in a submarine full of enemy agents from God knows where, and I have to rescue a kidnapped robot pilot. Did I go to bed and wake up in a bad Tom Clancy novel, or what?" There was nothing for it, however. Sanders knew that he would have to do something. And the first step was to find food and clothing. As luck would have it, the next corridor Sanders stumbled down had doors to the crews' quarters on either side. Fortunately, the locks were quite easy to smash. Within five minutes, Carl had more suitable attire than a wet cat crew suit. Next, he had to find Lieutenant Ford. A groan emanated from the cot in the corner of the small cell. "Ah, good, you're coming around, then," an oily voice said. Lieutenant Sarah Ford sat up, blinking, and was rewarded for her effort with a wave of pain and nausea. Sarah looked around. She was in an 8 foot by 8 foot cell, which had a bunk, a sink, a privy. Her armor and weapons had been taken from her, and she was wearing just her uniform. She still had her wrist-comm, though. Perhaps they hadn't realized what it was. Outside the cell was another room, just as big, with a bulkhead door leading out and a desk. At the desk sat a man in a utilitarian uniform with a gunbelt on it. On the belt were a holstered revolver and a ring of keys. It was the man who had spoken. He was now peering at her, a smirk on his face that he made no attempt to disguise. "Where the hell am I?" Sarah demanded. When he made no answer, she said, "Dammit, I asked you a question!" "Make me answer," the man said, propping his feet on the desk and picking up a Tiny Toon Adventures comic book. "You'd better let me go if you know what's good for you," Ford pressed. "You've let yourself in for a heap of trouble by kidnapping me." The man put down the comic book. "I don't think so, girl. For one thing, your friends don't know where you are. For another, even if they were to find out, our defenses are more than good enough to stop them cold." Pure braggadocio, Sarah decided. It had to be. "You sure didn't do so well at Langley," she prodded. He didn't bite. "I wouldn't know. I wasn't there." He went back to reading his comic book. Sarah swore and lay back down on the bunk. She listened to the sounds of the room around her. It sounded rather like being on a spaceship--the vibrations of the engines through the deckplates, and utter calm without. "This must be...a submarine?" Sarah muttered. "Must be. So I'm underwater, in a sub, heading for I don't know where." She began to make her plans to escape. It was two hours later, by Carl's reckoning, that the submarine surfaced. He was in the sub's small game lounge at the time, making the pretense of being an off-duty crewman. He'd already made fifty bucks off some of the other crewmen at pool, and then the dive alert sounded. As everyone ran out, Carl shrugged and followed. When he came up on-deck, he was quite surprised by what he saw. They were not on the surface but inside a sub dock instead. It strongly resembled the set from THE SPY WHO LOVED ME, only smaller and without the big camera ball sliding along the ceiling. The rest of the crew was debarking, so Lieutenant Sanders followed. But, looking back, he happened to catch a glimpse of Sarah Ford being marched down a plank to the other side of the sub bay. Her hands were tied behind her head, and there were MP-5 machine pistol-toting guards in front of and behind her. Carl memorized the door they passed through. He would sneak back later tonight and rescue her, and they would escape...somehow. Perhaps if this base contained some of those Firefox-like stealth jets, they could fly to freedom...? It was an idea... At the conference table aboard the U.S.S. LINCOLN, things had changed. The atmosphere was more tense now, and it was more difficult to talk in the light of what had just happened. Somehow the LINCOLN's sonar just hadn't seen the boat coming. The submarine should have been easy to detect, but it was not detected. This led President Bush to speculate on the possibility of either sabotage or an inside agent aboard the LINCOLN, neither of which the President cared to think about. At the President's request, the U.S.S. MISSOURI had been brought alongside the ABRAHAM LINCOLN. With its weapon systems, it would be an immense help should any more of the terrorists make an attempt at disrupting the meeting. Not that it was likely to last much longer, Bush thought. The attack and abduction had seen to that. He idly wondered who the man was who had reportedly killed two of the assault crew and then jumped in after them. All the members of the catapult crew had been accounted for--was he one of the enemy, then, and shooting the attackers a clever ruse? Somehow, he didn't think so... President Bush jerked his attention back to the conference table where Commander Anders had voiced his displeasure with the kind of security measures, and indeed the kind of WORLD where such things as the recent attack could happen. "If there's one thing we've learned in all our journeys, it's how precious life is. We will intervene if these attacks continue to take place." There was a muttering around the table. All those present were well aware of the capabilities of the Robotech machines on board Kranz's ship. "What exactly do you mean, you will 'intervene'?" Bush probed. "We will take steps to ensure the immediate negation of any hostile forces," Captain Kranz said in calm, clipped tones. "Is that some sort of threat, Captain?" President Bush asked. "No, sir, merely a promise," Kranz replied. General Mitchell had absented himself early in the conference to catch up on some sleep. Consequently, the first he'd heard of the attack had been the gunshots. By the time he'd gotten into his uniform, it was over. Rather than disturb the conference, Mitchell went straight to the bridge of the ship to find out what had happened. When he learned of the attack and kidnapping of the REF pilot, he swore vehemently and returned to the flight deck. The first thing he did was to find Commander Anders, who was in the cockpit of the Alpha they'd come down in. As Mitchell walked up, Anders was saying, "Understood. Contact me immediately if you pick up the trail. Out." He looked up, then down at General Mitchell. "Oh, hello General. I just excused myself from the conference table to come out here and contact Commander Carter about the search. I trust you've heard about our little...incident?" He waved a hand at the bulletholes in the deck, which were still in the process of being patched by enlisted workers. "Indeed I have." Mitchell nodded. "They just never stop, do they? What could they want with one of your pilots?" "Either use her as a hostage--which really wouldn't work; our men know the risks involved and are perfectly willing to die for us--or to try to pry technical information out of, which is far more likely. Not that she'd know much about the inner workings of our mecha." "How is the conference going?" Mitchell asked. Anders shrugged. "Not too good, but not as bad as expected either. I think they're going to work it out." Anders grinned as he recounted Bush's expression at hearing their "promise" to intervene if necessary. Mitchell chuckled. "I wish I could have seen that." But then he turned serious. "This could cause a great deal of trouble for us. I would dearly love to get my hands on those terrorists..." "I would, too," Commander Anders agreed. "We all would. But right now, the only thing we can do now is wait." [To be continued, tomorrow...] -- Chris Meadows/Robotech_Master | Author: Robotech: The Misfold robotech@worf.infonet.net | Author: Team M.E.C.H.A. (Superguy listserv) cmeadows@nyx.cs.du.edu | Author: Crapshoot & Co. (Superguy listserv) chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (soon) | Author: [AU] thread (alt.pub.dragons-inn)