chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (here she comes again) ROBOTECH: THE MISFOLD Part 6 Written by Many; Edited by Chris Meadows This is part 6 of the Robotech: The Misfold, a collaborative work of fiction written by several authors at once and edited by me. If you would like to write a contribution for the story, or would simply like more information, please E-mail me at chm173s@nic.smsu.edu or CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU. If this is the first part of Robotech: The Misfold that you have received and you would like to read more, PLEASE DO NOT ASK ME TO SEND THEM TO YOU. I cannot keep them on my account; they're just too BIG. They may be FTPed from wpi.wpi.edu, in the /FanFiction directory. I believe the filenames are misfold.1.Z through misfold.5.Z, or something like that. If you can't FTP, ask megazone@wpi.wpi.edu for help. WRITING FOR MISFOLD: All you aspiring authors out there, who have sent me email wanting to get involved, and also you regular authors out there, this is what you've been waiting to hear. I have news for you: I'm ready for submissions for Misfold Part 7. I have just a couple of major guidelines I'd like you to follow. No killing off of major characters, for example. At least, not without my permission, okay? And I would like you to send me a synopsis of what you potentially plan to write, so I can see if it would fit in with what I have already, or with what others plan to write. A suggestion...you might want to look back at some of the older posts to find some bad guys we haven't done anything with in a while. And if anyone wants to describe Carl Morgan's experiences between landing on the ROOSEVELT in Dec. '92 and the story's "present-day" in July or August '93, please go for it. Just synopsize first, okay? Thanks... Also, if you would like to write a brief "Author's Note" like the "Editor's Note" I wrote above, go ahead and do it. I'll include it, or at least an excerpt, in the next Misfold entry. PLOT GUIDELINES Over the course of writing six episodes, I've figured out a few guidelines (mostly by trial and error). Basically, you're pretty much free to write whatever you want within the constraints of the plot. How it goes is kind of up to you. However, there are a few ways that I DON'T want it to go, and here they are: There will be NO Zentraedi, Robotech Masters, or Invid invasions of the earth in this storyline. This story isn't about an alien invasion (unless the REF could be considered aliens), it's about a futuristic group of humans from another dimension falling into our time and trying to fit in and adapt. As far as I'm concerned, Zor never found the Invid, so the Zentraedi don't exist, the Robotech Masters' civilization has collapsed for lack of a power source they could use, and the Invid are still leading a happy protoplasmic existance on foliated Optera. The existance of a Captain Hayes and a Dr. Emil Lang is simply coincidence. Yeah, that's it. :) Likewise, the Global Civil War did not/will not happen. According to the Robotech RPG, it started when a space station that may or may not have been armed was shot down. However, we obviously don't have a space station like that, probably due to Richard Nixon's cancellation of that part of the space program back in the 70s. (Perhaps that's the essential difference between our universe and the Robotech universe. :) Thus the impetus was never there, so it didn't start. Instead, we just have the 30 or 40 minor armed conflicts going on around the world today. There will be NO Zentraedi, Robotech Master, Invid, or human starships from the Robotech universe also showing up in this universe, falling through a fold instability created by the ROOSEVELT's passage (or some such explanation). One starship (the ROOSEVELT) is believable. Two or more simply stretches credibility too far. Besides, don't we have enough characters already? Geez. A NOTE ABOUT CHARACTERS For those of you who don't know, MegaZone, Gryphon, ReRob, and all the other strange-sounding nicknames that Brian Bikowicz mentions in his segments are real people (mostly real, anyway)--they're Brian himself and all his friends at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. Most of their nicknames come from the computer account IDs they chose. MegaZone/Zoner is Brian Bikowicz (megazone@wpi.WPI.EDU), for example. If you'd like to hear all about their amazing adventures (plug plug plug), the stories coauthored by MegaZone, Gryphon, ReRob, and several others are available for anonymous FTP from wpi.wpi.edu, under the /FanFiction directory. To get them, set your filetype to binary and mget /FanFiction/dp.u*. Be sure you have plenty of disk space handy. They're terrific and funny, and I highly recommend them, especially if you like Robotech, Dirty Pair, Bubblegum Crisis, and/or a lot of other anime (and this is NOT just an idle plug--I LOVE those stories...). Now, normally I regard all characters in this story as "community property," that any author can do anything with. However, since Zoner and friends are REAL PEOPLE, anything you write which involves them should probably be sent to MegaZone for his approval/editing first (I'll be sending any such segments I receive to him anyway, regardless). AUTHORIAL CREDIT Everybody's submission is subtly changed in some way by myself. I check for spelling, syntax, grammar, continuity, etc. So far, no one's complained. Many times, I just make a few changes--change the spelling of a name, change around a paragraph or two--to ensure correctness. However, sometimes I have to make a great sweeping change; take the storyline of the submission and twist it all around in order to make it fit in. When I do this, it wouldn't be right to leave the original author's name on it by itself, so I add my own name. That way, the author of that submission doesn't get all the blame if that part is considered lousy (or all the credit if everybody likes it! :). That's just to clarify what it means when you see two names tacked onto a segment, instead of just one. SECTION SYNOPSES AND AVAILABILITY: These are the current section numbers. They are available for anonymous FTP from wpi.wpi.edu, located in the /FanFiction directory. If you haven't read them yet, please do; the following will spoil the story for you otherwise. 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. PART 4 Ben and MegaZone gimmick up a system to transmit their images to Ivory Tanaka in the ROOSEVELT's computer. They plan to build a VR system, but Ivory says she cannot help them with it. The President and JCS are briefed on what happened at Langley. The President gets in touch with General Mitchell and Captain Kranz to arrange a meeting on board the aircraft carrier ABRAHAM LINCOLN. Lieutenant Anderson tries to delete Ivory Tanaka, and Ivory is forced to flee through a maintenance uplink to Joe Walker's Vindicator's flight computer. The Vindicator accompanies Kranz et al down to the meeting on board the LINCOLN. Lieutenant Carl "Foxfire" Sanders gets scrambled to meet the arriving dignitaries and witnesses Veritech fighters defending themselves from ELITE's DarkStar aircraft. He also sees them transform into robots. Ivory Tanaka takes over the Vindicator fighter (to Walker's dismay) and discovers that it is very similar to flying the VR drone. The President, JCS, and Dr. Emil Lang of this dimension discuss ELITE and REF mecha with Captain Kranz and Commander Anders. Ivory Tanaka accidentally melds temporarily with Joe Walker's mind when Walker attempts to regain control of the Veritech through thought control. Carl Sanders talks with a VF pilot from the ROOSEVELT, Lt. Sarah "Model-T" Ford, and then ELITE attacks from a submarine. They capture Ford and escape, but Sanders gets on board the submarine before they leave. Ivory has a brief conversation with Joe Walker, then returns to the ROOSEVELT's main computer. PART 5 Joe Walker returns to the LINCOLN and meets Dr. Emil Lang. Joe recounts his adventures to the President and the JCS (leaving Ivory Tanaka out). Dr. Lang proposes using the ROOSEVELT's sensors to pinpoint the ELITE undersea base, then using Shadow Fighters to take it out. Major Eddings locates the base from the ROOSEVELT, and notices that something's strange about the computer. Meanwhile, Carl Sanders locates a uniform, a stealth fighter, and Lieutenant Sarah Ford. He breaks Ford out, they steal a fighter, and take off, pursued by other ELITE fighters. A Veritech squadron flying off the LINCOLN takes out the pursuit, and Sanders and Ford land safely on the ROOSEVELT. The Shadow Fighter squadron led by Joe Walker fires on and destroys the ELITE base. Carl Sanders and Sarah Ford are debriefed. Their personnel safe, the REF delegation takes off once more, taking Carl Sanders with them. A few days later, Ivory Tanaka accesses her corporation's computer and discovers that the other "her" is still alive. She telephones MegaZone for reassurance, and gets it. Several months pass. MegaZone arranges a meeting with a representative of the Lockheed Advanced Projects Group, aka "the skunk works," and sells him a plan for a nuclear fusion powerplant, taken from the ROOSEVELT's main computers. Without further ado (or further adon't, for that matter), we now present R O B O T E C H: T H E M I S F O L D PART 6 chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): December, 1992: Carl Morgan lay prone on his chest within the tiny rocket that was taking him to his destination. The suit he wore was a combination of a pilot's atmospheric pressure suit and a biofeedback monitoring system--it was feeding data into the minishuttle's flight computer even as it was feeding air into his lungs. Carl was inside a small ship barely six feet wide and perhaps twenty long. It had been deployed from a larger shuttle six hours before, with him inside it, and had since been proceeding at mach 4.3 toward the alien starship--the S.S. ROOSEVELT. The cavity Morgan lay within was barely larger than his body--there were perhaps six inches of clearance between his back and the ceiling. His arms were in two cupped armrests, his hands holding twin control sticks to either side of the CRT data display in front of his face. Blue light from the CRT reflected off of the faceplate of Carl Morgan's helmet as he moved his left hand to the small, simple control panel just below the screen and entered a course correction. The screen blinked, and displayed all the necessary data--trajectory, azimuth indicators, et cetera. Carl pressed a few more buttons, a maneuvering jet fired, and the ship's nose nudged over slightly onto its new course. "Very good, very good..." Morgan muttered. All indications were that he would reach the alien ship in approximately thirty minutes. The stealth system was working fine, and there were no signs that he had been detected. It was looking good. Morgan remembered the three months of frantic waiting he had gone through since being called to ELITE's hidden base. He had been all ready to go up, when the mission had suddenly been put on hold. No one had told him why the flight to the ROOSEVELT had been cancelled, but through some of his friends in higher places Carl had learned that a mechanized attack on Langley AFB to capture the alien planes had ended in failure due to some amazing abilities exhibited by those planes. The head Operatives of ELITE were now trying to analyze the camera footage of the battle and figure out what their next step should be in light of these new developments. That was all he'd been told, and the rest, including the details of the "amazing abilities," had been left up to his imagination. When Morgan had learned of the number of men that had been lost in the abortive raid, and the capture of 17 intact suits of RA-2 power armor, he'd realized that ELITE now HAD to capture that technology in order to retain their technological edge. The only question was, how? The RA-2 had originally been developed by ELITE as a weapon to be kept in reserve until the day came when certain areas of the Third World might be war-torn enough that ELITE could move in and take over. With its army of extremely mobile power armor units, each as heavily-armored and as well-armed as a tank, no normal armed force could stand before them. However, for this attack to succeed, it would be vital to keep the RA-2 a secret. If anyone learned about the RA-2 too early, the whole plan could be ruined. ELITE had been taking a great risk in deploying an RA-2 squadron to Langley. Had it paid off, though, Carl had the feeling that it would have been well worth it. Unfortunately for ELITE, it hadn't, and the secret was out. Even now, Carl was sure, the United States was trying to figure out ways to counter the RA-2 armor and incorporate its technology into their own military. Carl had wondered what ELITE had been thinking of when it had waited more than three months to send him up on this mission. He had no way of knowing the real reason why they were waffling--they wanted to find out all they could from General Mitchell's reports before they committed one of their best agents. However, Mitchell's reports really hadn't told them anything they wanted to know, for the simple reason that Mitchell was aware that ELITE had access to his written reports and thus did not provide any potentially useful information in them. Finally, Carl had been given the go-ahead. His first words upon receiving the order had been, "At LAST!" He'd about gone nuts with nothing to do but mope around the top-secret ELITE base with nothing to do for three months. Now he was on the job...this was what he'd been trained for. Seventeen minutes to contact. Though Carl couldn't see the alien ship yet, he knew it was there by the minishuttle's proximity sensors. And he couldn't wait--after being cramped up in the minishuttle for six hours with nothing to do but stare at the CRT before his eyes, he was almost ready to go stir-crazy! For a moment, Carl thought back to his life before ELITE. He'd been just another high school nobody until his test scores indicated his true potential and an ELITE agent recruited him. At first, he'd been a little bit scared by the prospect of working for a criminal organization, but then he'd decided what the hell? His parents never found out about his joining ELITE--they'd both died soon afterward in an auto accident. ELITE had trained him well, and he had pulled many jobs for them with a great amount of success. His greatest aptitudes had been in the area of piloting the new RA-2 robotic power armor and RA-3 dual-mode robot armor. The RA-3 was his favorite--it was a completely mobile suit of power armor that could be disguised as a vending machine or other large piece of machinery. He'd used it to great effect recently, with the "acquisition" of that component from the university three months before... BEEEEEEEEEEEP!!! The proximity alert warning jarred Carl Morgan out of his reverie. A hasty look at the CRT radar display indicated that a large object was about to collide with him! Not even sparing himself time to curse, Carl grabbed both control sticks and shoved them far forward. The thrusters fired, and the minishuttle angled downward just in time. The object flashed by overhead. Now that he'd avoided the crash, Carl had time to swear. "What the hell was THAT?!" He punched for radar analysis and an external camera image. It had been going Mach 2.1 and had been coming from straight ahead. With the mini-shuttle's limited radar range, it hadn't been detectible until it was right on him. The camera image came on the screen, and it revealed a fighter jet. The same kind of jet that had made up the front part of that "Angel Flight" plane, in fact...and it was coming around. "Uh-oh...it must have spotted me. But how?" But Carl knew the answer. Infra-red, of course...and there must have been some visible light reflection from the shuttle, too. "Drat! Can't let him see me...better take evasive maneuvers." He put the ship on manual and fired the thrusters. "This is Firefox to RTC, Firefox to RTC, Redeye flight. I've spotted something strange in my patrol quadrant, over." "RTC here. Please describe, over." "Uh, locking in video, RTC...let me transmit it to you. It appears to be some kind of small spaceship. And the kicker is, it doesn't register on radar." "It does not show up on your radar?" "Roger...negative readings. Just infra-red and visual." "I think you'd better take a closer look, Firefox. You know the trouble we've been having with those terrorist attacks. This could be a threat to the ROOSEVELT." "Roger. Firefox out." Bluish thruster flames flared as the minishuttle Carl Morgan rode in altered its position. If he could just get far enough away from the plane, he could deactivate the jets and engage the coolant system to get rid of the excess engine heat. Then he might stand a chance of getting away undetected... But the fighter was coming in closer. Through the external camera, Carl could even see the pilot's armor suit as he came in closer, flying inverted relative to the minishuttle to get a better view. "I can't shake him." Carl checked the radar screen. Still 11 minutes out from the ROOSEVELT. He hadn't intended to jettison until at least 5 minutes away, but it looked like he'd have to do it now, to escape... Carl Morgan slid open a panel on the top of the minishuttle's simple control board and pressed down on a series of rocker switches. Each one lit up red as he pressed it. The blue CRT screen began flashing "SAFETY ON." A button under a safety cover started to blink, and Carl opened the cover and pressed it. The screen said "WARNING: INITIALIZING" with a larger "05" centered just below it. The "05" changed to "04", and this changed to "03" as the countdown proceeded. Carl quickly checked to be sure that his hands and arms were in the right places on the armrest, then looked back to the screen, which now said "00". Then the screen flipped up and the control board flipped over to reveal a much more complicated set of instruments. Panels slid down from the ceiling to cover his arms, and then the armrest assemblies moved downward. His legrests changed position similarly, and pedals slid up under his feet. On the exterior of the minishuttle, explosive bolts went off, separating panels and thruster assemblies from the craft. Other explosives went off, too, intended to scatter the panels rapidly and disguise the transformation as an explosion. As these bombs went off, other thrusters fired, separating a large portion of the minishuttle from the other fragments. From the underside of the ship, the result of these changes were clearly visible. But above, all the Alpha fighter saw was an explosion as the mysterious ship suddenly came apart. Several fragments of armor, impelled by the extra explosives in the ship, hit the Alpha, denting it and cracking the canopy. From the underside of the minishuttle, however, a different scene was visible. Something came flying out of the explosion--something roughly humanoid, and about twelve feet tall. It fired its thrusters on full burst for about ten seconds, then shut them down. "Activating supercoolant system." In just under fifteen more seconds, the engine nozzles had cooled to roughly the same temperature as the rest of space. "Firefox to RTC, Firefox to RTC. The unidentified object has exploded, doing minor damage to my bird, including cracking the canopy. Request permission to come in, over." "Roger, Firefox. You are clear to return to the ship, over." "Understood. Firefox out." -He's leaving!- Morgan thought. -It worked!- He relaxed in the control seat. "Heh. Fooled him." The cockpit of the minishuttle was now different. The shuttle itself, through the ejection of certain components and armor plating, had changed its form to that of an RA-3 robot, similar to the one in the Pepsi machine that Carl had used to pull off the University job. This RA-3 was equipped with extra thrust packs and weapons pods, as well as a stealth system. It was the tech division's crowning achievement, and so far it was working out just fine... Carl checked his passive radar-imaging scopes. The plane was moving away at a rapid velocity, heading back toward the UFO no doubt. After waiting for a good ten minutes, Carl fired his own thrusters and began to move toward the Ikazuchi once again. Because the vehicle was slower as a robot, it would take about an hour, but Carl didn't mind. He amused himself by turning his camera toward the earth. "Beautiful. Just beautiful. Never knew it could look so good from up here." As the RA-3 continued toward the S.S. ROOSEVELT, Carl idly wondered when he'd see it again. On the ROOSEVELT, Captain Kranz was pacing back and forth in his room like a caged animal. In point of fact, that was rather what he was feeling like at the moment. With the conclusion of the ABRAHAM LINCOLN affair, it had been resolved that, for the time being, the REF would keep its personnel aboard the ROOSEVELT. There would be no further attempts to make physical contact with any terran nations until they knew more about this new planet, and how they could adapt to it. An analysis of national events, economies, et cetera would take several weeks at least. Therefore, for the time being, the ROOSEVELT would remain right where it was. The presence of the ROOSEVELT was causing some controversy on the planet. Taps into satellite transmissions revealed that much. Some people were quick to write the ship off as mass hysteria; no nation has that level of technology, therefore it can't exist. Others, like that original NORAD F-15 pilot, blamed some foreign power--the Japanese, the Russians, the Americans--even though it was patently impossible. Others thought or hoped it was some benign alien race, come to intercede in the Earth's affairs before the nuclear crisis point. Others were afraid it was a hostile alien force come to take over the world. One talk show host, Rush Limbaugh by name, had some things to say. "It has come to my attention that the Liberal congress..." (thump, thump, thump) "has been claiming that the mysterious spaceship that has been sighted is simply some sort of hoax, a mass hallucination of some sort. Well, I have found some interesting information that says otherwise, and I'm going to share it with you, ladies and gentlemen. Here, in my formerly nicotine-stained fingers, I have a government report from Dr. Emil--am I pronouncing that right? Yes? Thanks. Dr. Emil Lang is the scientist in charge of investigating this UFO. Anyway, this report from Dr. Emil Lang clearly shows that it is no hallucination. We have pictures taken from the BEST observatories in the world of this ship. No, ladies and gentlemen, I have to tell you people that it's real. "What we don't know are its intentions. Now, those Democrats in Congress have been saying that this thing isn't real, and yet, AND YET, ladies and gentlemen, this latest appropriations bill they've been trying to get passed for the military lists, and I quote, 'uncertainty about the possible intentions of the mysterious object' as a reason for appropriation. Can you believe this? I mean, on the one hand they're saying that they don't believe in it, but on the other, they want more money to defend against it in case it's hostile! Can you people see this? They want more money for fighting alleged FIGMENTS! This is just one more reason why we..." Many ROOSEVELT crewmen had developed a taste for 20th-century television, to the point where some in the higher ranks were beginning to think of it as a discipline problem. Higher rank had its priveleges in some cases--the command staff had pretty much unlimited access to the communications network. It was a simple matter for Major Eddings to set up the ROOSEVELT's vidcommunication system to receive satellite broadcasts, and the military descrambler system of the Ikazuchi could decrypt any satellite scrambler ever invented. So the higher-ranking officers could receive a few hundred channels of cable TV, even in their own rooms with their personal computer and communication units. Veritech pilots, with their planes' satellite communication systems, could similarly receive earth TV, and some were getting hooked on MTV. Commander Anders, the Veritech CAG, wasn't worried about it becoming a problem as long as his men did their jobs properly. And so the months had passed. People spent their time in different ways. Captain Kranz had read reports, watched a little TV, kept up his simulator time, and oversaw the operation of the ship. Commander Anders did much the same. Major Eddings did research into the scientific advancements of this 20th century. Joe Walker, Sarah Ford, and Carl Sanders worked together on Veritech retraining. Carl was coming along quite well, in fact, and he loved it. It wasn't long before he was given an honorary commission in the Robotech Expeditionary Force at the rank of Lieutenant, and allowed to fly routine patrols in a Veritech. General Mitchell continued to send back reports to Washington. And so it went... Over six months, they'd waited here. Looking, learning, analyzing, searching. Trying to find a way to get back home, while at the same time learning as much about this new world as they could through content analysis of broadcasts, recon sweeps, and contact with the United Nations. The UN had been a bit hesitant at first about opening communications with a UFO, and it had taken a personal envoy (Kranz had sent Commander Carter) to get it worked out. The ROOSEVELT was now a provisional member of the UN--nonvoting, as yet, and without a representative in the UN building in New York (due to fears of another kidnapping attempt). Instead, telecommunications equipment was set up so that the ROOSEVELT-appointed "ambassador" could monitor and contribute to the proceedings from the ship itself. (Ivory Tanaka also monitored these events, as it helped to stave off ennui.) Over six months they'd been here, and what had they accomplished? Nothing. They'd just sat up here and watched that planet tearing itself apart. It really got on Kranz's nerves...here they were, a nation unto themselves, with enough firepower to win a small war, and yet they were just SITTING up here, watching and doing nothing. The REF was supposed to defend the earth, but did this include defending it from itself? "Damnation," Kranz swore. "I'm the captain, and it's my decision. I think we've been idle long enough..." He punched up the intercom. "Get me Commander Anders." A few minutes later, Anders came on. "Yessir?" "I want Shadow Legioses dispatched on scouting missions immediately to Somalia, Angola, Bosnia-Herzogovena, Lebanon, and any other current trouble spots. I want information, but I also want results." "Understood, sir. Anders out." Pieter Thomassen : Meanwhile, on the planet below, there was a meeting going on in the White House: the next President was being briefed by the previous one. "You've read the memo from the JCS ?" Bush asked. Bill Clinton looked down to where the report lay. Yes, he had read it, along with other papers which revealed the Langley battle, the item he had won the elections on, in too much detail for his peace of mind. When he had promised action, and won the elections with it, he had not considered that 'action' against an enemy that had violated American soil would be 'unrecommended'. At least, not in this way. He had thought it was a government cover-up of a battle between two arms of the government. But as it had turned out, the USA had had little to do with the battle; it had just happened on American soil. He read the (to him) most frightening document of all again. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MEMORANDUM FROM: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staffs TO: President Bush President-Elect Clinton SUBJECT: REF/ROOSEVELT MILITARY CAPABILITY REFERENCES: IntelRep 0988-58326-456 (Mitchell, Gen.) CLASSIFICATION: MOST SECRET 1. Continuous reports from General Mitchell have given us these numbers on the Roosevelt combat "mecha" and other capabilities. Though the Roosevelt crew has been cooperative, it must be stressed that this cooperation did not include details on technological achievements or absolute numbers. 2. Air Wing: Roosevelt carries between 450 and 480 air and spacecraft. Most of these appear to be 'Alpha' transformable fighters, with about half that number of 'Beta' transformable fighter/booster units. In addition, there are some 40 - 48 total 'Valkyrie' (Steroid-F14) craft, recon craft and trans-atmospheric assault transports. In numbers, these craft total about 6.5 US Air Force wings, however, the higher level of technology present in all craft make for a combat capacity far in excess of the entire US Air Force, and could well be equal or higher to that of the world's combined Air Forces. 3. Ground Troops include about 200 so-called 'Destroids', the least powerful of which equals several tank companies, and (most numerously) about 3000 'Cyclone' reconfigurable motorcycles. Additional personnel (about 2000) is equipped with body armor, capable of withstanding small cannon fire and the 'Gallant' laser rifle/pistol, capable of knocking out tanks. Ground control is effected from 'Ground Mobile Units'; some kind of mobile fortress it seems. There are four of these on the ship. Numerically a reinforced brigade or small division, this ground force would possibly be a match for the US Army. Note that the ground troops can be reinforced by 'battloid' mode fighters operating on, or just over, the ground. Indeed, this appears to be a standard REF tactic. 4. Weaponry of the mecha includes at least lasers, ion cannons and probably also particle beams in addition to missiles and cannon rounds which can be equipped with powerful explosives, or high-tech warheads like plasma bombs. 5. Starship weapons: General Mitchell has had the least success in gaining infomation in this area, but tentatively gives this section as, one, 'main cannon', type and range unknown, several secondary laser batteries (> 10 in number) and at least 3, but possibly as many as 10, missile launchers/launch bays. Most of these weapons can provide support to ground troops. 6. The ship itself can make >10% of the speed of light, and apparently has some sort of energy shield protection capability. Total ship crew numbers greater than 7000 men and women in approximately equal ratios. 7. This is not the largest or most powerful ship of the Robotech Expeditionary Force. General Mitchell has identified at least two larger ships, one of which, called 'SDF-3' is the flagship for the whole Force. Also, the Roosevelt is not a unique ship; there appear to be at least 14 others of her class, not to mention many smaller ships. 8. Stated mission of the Roosevelt was to free planets of the alien race called the 'Invid'. Ergo, the Roosevelt has been designed, apparently successfully, to routinely engage and destroy forces strong enough to attack and conquer entire planets, some of which have higher technological levels than Earth. One must therefore conclude that the combined resources of this planet may not be sufficient to repel an attack from the Roosevelt. 9. In view of the above, military operations against the Roosevelt, or any other units of the REF that might appear, are NOT recommended. Signed: The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - The President looked up from the document. "There has been no more activity from these spacers?" "No. The JCS would have been more concerned then; after all, if they decide to stay here, the power balances in the world will undergo some major changes, as if this terrorist group wasn't enough already." That was some comfort then. The REF was bad enough, an active REF was infinitely worse for Clinton. It would all be on his plate now. High above the White House, several shapes left the ROOSEVELT, undetected by any Earthly sensor. They choose courses to the hotspots of the world: Bosnia, Somalia, the Far-East. As fuses in a powderkeg... No war is ever pretty, but civil war is to 'normal' war as war is to peace. The war in Bosnia was more brutal than most, but all the death and terror was far below the REF's leasurely cruising Shadow Legios Gray Three. The pilot, Lieutenant Manfred "Baron" Richter, was studying the data that the sensor operators in the bulky Shadow Beta behind him were compiling. After having watched the flow of information for over three hours, Richter was becoming convinced that the Invid could have taken a few lessons from the humans on the area of cruelty. But then he realised that the Invid had done so, through the Robotech Masters, and what did that say about his race? Getting quite fed up, he directed the communications system to go for laser contact with his collegue in Shadow Legios Gray Two, orbiting over Somalia. After a short wait the commo system managed to direct a pencil-thin beam of coherent light toward the predicted location of Gray Two, which, since both Legioses were on schedule, was also the actual location of Gray Two, and then the system managed to pick up the answering beam from Gray Two. "You busy, Jennifer?" "Nope. It's been a real quiet flight so far." "Here too. Of course, there isn't much here that can even spot, let alone reach us." "Well, that drone plane managed to, when we first arrived here, didn't it? But then, the ROOSEVELT is not exactly a Shadow Fighter." "You're right, of course. Have you got anything planned for tonight?" While the two REF pilots were discussing their social schedules, two of of ELITE's DarkStar stealth fighters were planning a rather different kind of rendezvous. Even with the full-scale inquiry directed at them, ELITE was still quite safe from discovery, but sometimes the investigators did come a bit too close for comfort. They had been diverted so far, thanks to the massive infiltration operations that ELITE had staged for the past decade, but there were only so many members and far more opponents. And since an organization like ELITE drew its greatest strength from stealth, it was best that they stay in the shadows for some time yet to come. So the ELITE leadership had planned to divert a lot of the United States's investigations to a faraway part of the globe. To Somalia, to be exact. They planned to shoot down some American air assets over Somalia. The public outcry would demand a powerful reaction, and the military would be let to believe (by ELITE infiltrators) that this incident was the result of a threat by American forces to a major ELITE installation somewhere in East Africa. After all, the fighters had to come from somewhere, didn't they? And they must have broken cover for something important, too. Any officers that would point out that the fighters might well be based in Europe and flown in for a diversion would be drown out by the infiltrators. The targets selected were a F-14 BARCAP (Barrier Combat Air Patrol) and a medical relief flight. In the lead DarkStar, Operative 256 used the stick to waggle his wings, a sign for his wingman to veer of towards the C-141 medical relief flight. He himself went on towards the juicier target, the F-14 fighter planes. Operative 256's real name was Gaston Lefebre, and while he brought his fighter onto the intercept vector, he thought, with a leery grin on his face, what his wife would do when he came home with the bonus for this job. His grin became even larger when he thought what his girlfriend would do when she found out he had kept the better part of the bonus from his wife. Failure didn't occur to him--after all, who could spot him and interfere with his mission? He had a state of the art stealth system. High above the two DarkStar fighters and their targets, the pilot of Gray Two was still talking to Gray Three, when suddenly she heard from the sensor operators behind her. "Lieutenant Taggart, we are picking up two anomalies on the sensors." "Specify." "Well, after the ruffle the commander had with those stealth fighters, we're planning to upgrade the radar to a UWB set, which can detect those stealth fighters by emitting such a heavy multiband radar pulse that..." "I know that. It isn't ready yet, so that can't report an anomaly. What gives?" "As a stopgap measure the techs have made a software link between the radar processors and the Optical/Infrared Imager system. It is set to report any optical or IR contacts that don't show up on radar. Drawback is, it doesn't have that much range or resolution, so it only works on medium to short ranges." "I know. So?" "The system is showing two IR traces closing with some American aircraft, but the traces have no accompanying radar trace. Tentative id reads as terrorist stealth fighters." Jennifer Taggart called it up on her terminalscreens. The tech was right. "RTC, RTC, this is Gray Two. Come in ROOSEVELT Tactical Command, over." "Gray Two, this is RTC," came the reply from the ROOSEVELT's tactical bridge. "Go ahead." "RTC, I have two possible hostiles closing with three American craft. Request instructions. Over." "Ah, uh, stand by, Gray Two. Do you have a possible time to intercept from the bogeys? Over." "That's affirmative, RTC." "TTI is 90 seconds." "Roger. Standby." Jennifer looked a bit closer at her screens. "RTC, one of their targets is an unarmed relief flight. Request permission to engage." "Negative, Gray Two. We are tracing command now. Stand by." By the time command was in the RTC, the American planes would be on the desert floor, in pieces. There was a time for following orders and one for own initiative, and Jennifer decided to exercise some of hers now. "Computer, find the com frequency of those American fighters. And plot an intercept course to the hostile tracking the cargo flight." The computer's voice answered: "Confirmed." "Clear all missiles for firing. Set up a solution for the hostiles, priority to the one behind the cargo plane." "Confirmed. Intercept course is 237, firing coordinates for Reflex missiles in 30 seconds. Plane to plane frequency found and set into com system channel 4. Missiles are cleared for firing. Full ammo available." "American F-14 flight, attention! Stealth fighter approaching on your six, 12 miles!" Immediately, every F-14 within radio range began evasive maneuvers, but Jennifer was too busy to notice. "Firing solution. Firing solution," the computer announced. The head-up display flashed 'FIRE', too. Jennifer pushed the button that sent a long-range Reflex missile towards the DarkStar fighter. Aboard the C-141 cargo flight, a CNN news-crew was interviewing the pilot. ".....and we are all glad that we can hel--holy ---- what is that!?" The pilot had spotted the incoming Reflex missile. So had the DarkStar, and it went into a successful evasive that defeated the incoming warhead. It also exposed it to the human and mechanical eyes in the cockpit of its target. "#$%@&*--where did he come from?--I don't like this--call mayday!" The newscrew was too busy filming to utter a sound, not even when the DarkStar fighter recovered and lined up on the Starlifter. "That bastard is going to fire! Prepare for evasive!" But the DarkStar never got the chance. Later that day, retired generals would marvel in CNN's Atlanta studio when they saw on the tape that the cameramen had managed to smuggle away that the missile had, oddly enough, turned around, homed in on the DarkStar fighter and blown it out of the sky. As they said, times had changed since they had been in the Air Force. Among the F-14 Tomcats that were trying to evade the DarkStar on their six was Cheer One, piloted by a Captain Masterson. He was scanning the sky while he listened to the exclamations of F-14 pilots all over Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. An air controller was calling for an identification on the person who had panicked the aircraft. Apparently, he thought it was a joke, played by some bored sailors sitting in an aircraft aboard a carrier, who thought it was fun imagining all those Tomcats and their hotshot pilots going all over the sky, evading an imaginary threat. Masterson himself thought it was likely, too. After all, the stealth attack had been on the East Coast, and he was a third of the world away. In Cheer Two, Masterson's wingman Johnson had similar thoughts, but forgot them the moment he saw a black speck where there should have been blue sky. "Cheer One, bogey to the south of us! He is closing on us. Suggest you turn into him, then I can approach him from behind if he tries to go for a missile launch position!" In the DarkStar, Lefebre was wondering what had gone wrong. One moment he was all set up for a flawless attack, the next both his targets were doing evasive maneuvers that spoiled his firing solution. How had he been spotted? But he could wonder about that later, all he had to do was shoot the two aircraft down. Since their radar could not lock onto him, they could not fire back. It was too easy. He closed on the F-14 flight leader. In Cheer One Masterson was getting nervous. "You sure you are set up for this?" he asked his wingman. He did NOT like playing bait. "Yes. My backseater [guy in the back seat] is aiming the camera now." While the radar was totally useless against the DarkStar, the laws of physics can be quite rigid when they want to. One of those laws was that aircraft going through an atmosphere at hundreds of miles per hour got warm from air friction. And warm surfaces radiate infra-red radiation, which heat-seekers can home in on. Even so, even heat-seekers are normally aimed by the radar, and would thus be useless against a stealth fighter. But when word had come to the squadron to which the Cheer flight belonged about the attacks on Langley and the LINCOLN, some technicians had remembered that the latest Russian fighters carried an infra-red camera as well and had thus not so much need for radar. Since the F-14 could also be equipped with a tv-camera, linking the fire-control to it was a logical step. With the aproximate direction given, the heat-seeker missile could finish the job by itself. Gaston Lefebre didn't know that: as far as he was concerned, he was invulnerable. So he paid no attention to Cheer Two as it came up behind him: he thought it was just trying to divert him. "Hurry up, Two. He's almost in firing position!" Johnson addressed his radar/camera operator."Ready yet?" "Mere seconds now. Yes!" A growling noice came from the headphones in Cheer Two. A Sidewinder heat seeking missile had locked onto the DarkStar. Johnson pressed his firing button, and a missile leaped off its pylon and homed in on the DarkStar. Gaston Lefebre heard the missile launch warning in his cockpit and looked with unbelieving eyes at the closing missile in his mirror. How could it track him? Then reflexes took over and he pulled his fighter into the sun, hoping to convince the incoming missile that it was a far better target then his fighter. The missile took the bait, and now Gaston was angry. How dare they shoot at him?! He was a member of ELITE! [bit arrogant don't you think?] He swung his fighter round to attack Cheer Two. Unfortunately, he forgot that Cheer One was also around, and never even saw the Sidewinder that Masterson launched while his wingman played bait on his turn. The missile struck the DarkStar in the weapons bay, setting of an explosion in the missile Lefebre was about to launch at Cheer Two, which set off the other weapons in the bay, which set of the fuel, which explosion widowed Madame Lefebre. [His girlfriend wouldn't really mind, since Gaston had been away so often, and anyway she was eying a Swedish twin who had come down to Paris for a culture-filled vacation.] Shortly afterwards, in Washington, the incident caused immediate meetings between the political and military leaders. The evidence of other activities from the mysterious terrorist organization was worrying enough, but the suspicions about the source of the unexpected help the Americans had received over Somalia caused even more raised eyebrows. In the White House, an officer was briefing his commander-in-chief and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Both the radio message and the missile originated at the same spot over Somalia. Our radar stations had not picked up any sign that there was something out there. The craft was totally stealthed. But one of our Keyhole satellites took a camera shot from the location, and that shot shows an object that does not show up on any radar at all." "It can't have been one of the terrorists' craft, can it? Why would they knock down one of their own guys?" the Army Joint Chief asked. In reply, the officer showed the photo he had talked about. Nobody in the room had trouble identifying the silhouette as a REF Legios. After a while Clinton remarked, "Guess they aren't quite so out of this world's affairs as they wanted us to believe." megazone@WPI.EDU (MegaZone): Over the past few months Ben and Zoner had worked hard on developing a virtual reality interface. Zoner had the idea of a gyroscope-like mount that would allow a full range of motion. It wouldn't be perfect, but linked with LCD goggles and a data suit it would provide a realistic enough feel for the user. It consisted of a seat molded to the shape a human body would take if relaxed in a weightless environment mounted within three concentric rings. The rings allowed the operator to be turned in any direction. A few of the parts--bearings, motors and the like--were purchased directly. However, all of the major hardware was produced from raw stock in the WPI machine shops. Joe Gale was more than happy to help a couple of guys obviously very driven to develop something on their own. It meant many days spent working on the lathes and in the welding room. The hardest part was heat forming the pipe stock into the ring shapes needed. They ended up settling on a octagon shape; it was a lot simpler just to weld the straight pieces as needed. The 'couch,' as it was called, held the telemetry equipment needed to transmit the signal from the data suit to the computer. Though simple brush contacts could provide power for the motors, far too many signals were needed for interface to use them for the VR links. A battery supply, basic processor, and transceiver were fitted inside the couch. The user would simply plug his data suit and goggles into the couch to use the system. The datasuit was a bit more straightforward, though it meant a great deal of work. They started from a diving wetsuit; it provided a good base as it fit the body tightly and provided good sensory insulation. All of the major joints were fitted with external cable guides, so that if the joint were flexed cables within would change their tension. The cables were connected to rheostats which could vary the signal strength. The more sensitive finger joints were outfitted with a fiberoptic sensor system. As the joints were flexed, the strength of the light signal was varied, and this was translated into virtual motion for the computer. To achieve sensory feedback, small air bladders were installed within the suit. As the operator 'touched' objects in virtual space the bladders would inflate, providing resistance. These were run off of a compressed air tank in the couch. The system was topped off by a pair of goggles using twin color LCD screens borrowed from an Atari Lynx, simple Sony Sport headphones provided the aural component, and a throat mike allowed for speech transmission. All in all a kludge. But a damn good one. While Ben, Zoner, and numerous assistants were working on the physical components, ear and entropy were working on the software and interface technology. They had managed to get a 486DX2-66 temporarily 'misplaced' and they were using that to run the majority of the interface. An Amiga borrowed from Jim Skinner served as the graphics engine. It took some work to get a PC running Linux to work with an Amiga, all while using kludged software. But work it did. The software itself was mostly pieced together from code the team had managed to extract from the Ikazuchi's system. It at least allowed them to figure out the graphics codes the ROOSEVELT's network used for VR interface. That in itself took quite a bit of trial and error. The hardest job was building the interface hardware that would interpret the signals from the suit for the computer. Once that was done it was mostly the simple matter of tweaking the software to understand the inputs. Ok, so it was far from simple. The one part that no one, save Zoner, truly understood was the need to make the suit's electronics watertight. ear finally got curious enough to ask one day. "Zoner, this thing may have been a wet suit at one point, but why waterproof it now?" "Ah...for phase two." "Phase two?" "Yes. The gyro-rig is phase one. Simple and effective, it'll allow us to debug the system easily. And I figure once we have the interface down we can program some games and sell rides on the thing. Maybe it'll pay for itself." Ben, who had been working nearby, chimed in, "Good idea, but you were saying?" "I was saying what?" Larry joined in too, "Um...phase two." "Oh yeah. Well, as good as this is, it still will give the operator some cues that he isn't in the virtual reality. Like the pressure of the couch on his back, the texture of the suit, etc." "I have a solution for that," Ben interrupted. "Let's hear it." "We can oil the person down with a water based lubricant, like KY-Jelly. That way the friction within the suit will be at a minimum." "Good plan, disgusting, but good...Anyway, as I was saying. There will still, even with the oil, be some intrusion by reality. Phase two will minimalize this. Tell me, how does one achieve full freedom of movement?" "Weightlessness?" ear offered. "Exactly." "What, you going into space?" Gryphon asked sarcastically. "No. How does NASA train the astronauts?" "Water tanks!" ear exclaimed. "Bingo. If we can get the system to a reliable level, the next step is to go for neutral buoyancy. We can build a backpack telemetry unit, ok so we'll lose some time in the matrix, and a full breathing mask/video/audio unit. We get a tank, maybe the school pool. Though I'd rather not deal with the chlorine. And there we go." "Um...first we need to get phase one working." "Right," Ben sighed. The group returned to work. It wasn't until the summer vacation that the unit was mostly debugged and ready for a test run. Zoner had been practicing with some simulations Eric and Larry had designed. It took a while to get used to the virtual world and the suits operations, but once all of the sensors were calibrated and the initial shock was gone it was easy. "Well, I'm ready to rock," Zoner said as he entered dressed in the wetsuit, "I still fell weird covered in KY though. Ick." "The sooner we finish the run, the sooner you shower." "Thank goddess. Ok, let's go." Zoner plugged the suits umbilicals into the couch and strapped in. ear checking him over and gave Ben the thumbs up. Zoner settled the goggles into place and waited. Larry switched on the interface and motor relays, while Ben established a link with the ROOSEVELT. Anyone looking through the living room windows of Ben's apart would have been a bit confused. One of the reasons for the dark curtains. Jenna's recorded voice began a countdown, "5...4...3...2... 1...Link." And Zoner was flying through the ROOSEVELT's data nets. The interface wasn't perfect--most constructs looked like an early PIXAR short. A few major, and therefore probably important, constructs had a 'Jurassic Park' realism. Zoner flew from construct to construct, controlling his motion with movements of his hands. He loved flying planes; he thought the freedom was beyond compare. But flying had nothing on VR. Though the simulations had allowed him to develop his matrix skills, they couldn't have prepared him for the vistas he saw before him now. He was like a kid in a toy store, zooming from construct to construct. He wanted to see everything at once. Though he didn't draw attention from the other system operators (he looked normal enough), someone did notice. Ivory noticed the link to Ben's system come online, but the data transfers were not those of a normal uplink. They were much faster, and there was something strangely familiar about the link. Instantly she was off to see what the gweeps were up to. She stopped short as she approached the icon floating from construct to construct. Most of the crew used simple dataterms, few ever used the VR systems. They were normally reserved for CAD work and the like. There was something about the appearance...The icon turned around to leave a construct and Ivory gasped. Zoner! The icon was constructed of digitized pictures of Zoner. At the same time Ivory spotted him, Zoner noticed her. He momentarily thanked ear and Larry for not making the icon too realistic. He would have hated for Ivory to see him drooling. He knew she was attractive, but this was the first time he had seen her in three dimensions. And Ziggy's graphics didn't compare to the image he saw through the goggles. They hovered there for a moment, Ivory trying to control her surprise and Zoner trying to control his libido. Zoner finally broke the silence. "Well, what do you think?" "I...I mean...How?" "Gryphon, ear, entropy, and I have been working on this for months. We didn't want to let you know about it so we could surprise you. Also, in case we failed, it wouldn't be as embarrassing." Ben who, along with Eric and Larry, had been monitoring events via Ziggy chimed in. "Hey, there was never a chance that we'd fail!" Zoner turned to the 'sky' and shouted, "Hey, stay out of this." "How did you do this?" Ivory asked. "This," Zoner gestured to himself, "data suit, VR headset, and a lot of software. Don't worry, there is no mindlink involved. I get all my input from tactile, visual, and aural cues. That's why my icon isn't very fluid, it's all electro-mechanical input. It's crude, but it works." "I'll say." Ivory was rather surprised, these college students had managed to develop a working VR system that was a good as some of her company's early prototypes. If she had helped them there was no telling what they could have done. "Well, this is phase one. There are still a few bugs to work out, but once that's done we go to phase two." "What's that?" "We'll use a neutral buoyancy tank to cut down on the 'reality interference' as much as we can." "Sounds like you know what you're doing." "Really? Sometimes we don't know ourselves. Care to show me around? This is your turf after all." "Certainly sir, this way." Ivory gave a mock salute, then flew off into the matrix, followed closely by Zoner. chm173s@nic.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows): Wanting to learn more about the hardware and software behind MegaZone's VR uplink, Ivory of course found it very simple to reach back down Zoner's datalink to the computer he was connecting from and do a quick scan of the hard drives, programs, and VR hardware/sensors. Zoner noticed the interface slow down slightly, but he attributed this to the standard "lag" that plagues most Internet MUD and MUCK connections. Ben, Eric, and Larry, however, noticed the drive lights running when the programs didn't call for drive reads, and started to wonder. During a split second that she stretched into five minutes, Ivory analyzed the program. Hmm...rough, choppy in parts, very obviously patched together with the programming equivalent of spit and baling wire, yet it ran. It was similar to some of the early systems the Company used, only obviously slapped together in much less time. She saved it to some personal datafiles, for later reinspection. After finishing with the program, Ivory ran over the sensory data, and was amused to notice that Zoner's heart rate and blood pressure were up, and he seemed to be sweating a bit more than would normally be expected. It could just be from the VR experience itself, but Ivory didn't think so. -Well, what do you know?- she thought, smiling inwardly. It wasn't really a surprise; she knew she was attractive. She had been even before the transition to VR. And now that a computer image was her representation, she was capable of enhancing her looks in a dozen subtle ways to increase that attractiveness, from the length of her hair to that skin-tight neon-blue bodysuit she wore that resembled something out of TRON. She was gratified that it seemed to be working... Ivory led MegaZone over toward and into a data uplink line, and they stepped out seconds later into a room filled with bright screens on the walls and glowing circuit board representations all around. "This is one of the terminal labs," Ivory explained. "On the other side of those screens, people are doing the typical dataprocessing chores that are the same for computer labs anywhere..." She gave a shake of her head, sending ripples down her ankle-length mane of jet-black hair. Zoner leaned over to take a closer look at some of the screens. Here someone seemed to be debugging a Unix program; there someone was using what appeared to be an advanced version of Emacs to write up a patrol report...and there-- You see a troll. > kill troll You slash the troll. The troll pounds you! You massacre the troll to tiny bits with your slash! The troll is dead. > get all from corpse "What do you know..." Zoner muttered. "MUDders even here. Guess gweeps are gweeps no matter where you go." Zoner followed Ivory to another virtual room. Here, Ivory opened a giant screen in front of them, and projected upon it--the Earth! "Wow..." Zoner said. "I wrote about this...but I never thought I would really get to SEE it from this perspective. At least not for a long time." Ivory nodded. "It is quite an inspiring sight, is it not?" Zoner stood there and looked at it for a while, before they moved on. The next place they toured was a busy, crowded interface, with simulated data screens placed all around. "What is this place?" MegaZone asked. "This is the Veritech telemetry center," Ivory announced. "All of this--" she waved her arm "--is dedicated to monitoring the sensors and instrumentation of all Veritechs on patrol or strike duties." MegaZone glanced at several of the screens, with their seemingly meaningless alphanumeric code strings and sine wave patterns. "And you can understand all this?" Ivory inclined her head. "True, it is somewhat overwhelming at first, but after you understand a few fundamentals, most of the interpolation comes easily." She pointed to one cluster of screens. "This Alpha-Beta Legios is making a perimeter sweep at 2,000 miles, that one is carrying scientific telemetry packages for the science division, and that one--" She paused, took on a somewhat startled expression. "That one is flying recon over Serbia." "What?" Zoner moved over to stare at the screens at which she was pointing. Some of the data he didn't understand, but looking closer, he could make out what appeared to be the gun camera feed, and there was radar, weapon status, engine readouts... "Since when has this been going on? I hadn't heard about that." He had heard about the REF in the news--who could avoid hearing about this strange new "nation" that was joining the UN?--so he knew something about what he was getting into with his VR uplinks. But no one had said that they were conducting earthside operations. "I hadn't either," Ivory said, a similar look of surprise on her face. She had been monitoring REF/UN transmissions, but neither side had said anything about staging planetside maneuvers. "It is a Shadow Legios, which would seem to suggest that those on Earth might be in the dark as well." "Bah," MegaZone said, as the implications of that hit him. "You mean that the REF might be planning to invade?" "Just a moment, I'll try to find out." Ivory Tanaka's icon digitized and rezzed out. Then a second later, it rezzed back in. "Not invade, necessarily, but perhaps intervene. Listen." She held up an icon that resembled a cassette player, and the digitized playback started. "Captain's Log; July 27, 1993 local; 1946 hrs Eastern Time. After months of sitting here, watching, and doing nothing, I have decided to intervene in the Bosnian-Serbian situation. It is a decision that I have not made lightly, and I am certain that the command staff would object heavily were they not largely nonexistant due to heavy personnel losses from the hull breach during the struggle for Onyx IV. "The governments of the world are simply watching and waiting, but not DOING anything. The Americans, French, and British are CONSIDERING air strikes, but none of them have committed to anything yet and I don't think any of them will. They're too concerned with public opinion to get their hands dirty in any way. "Well, we don't HAVE a public to have an opinion. We're something of an army without a country. Or perhaps, our country is the entire world. We can't stand by and watch it tear itself to shreds, we just can't. So I have dispatched Shadow Legioses to survey the different trouble spots of the world. After we have close-up sensory data, we will act. End of log." "It looks like we have a new player in world politics," Zoner observed. "Indeed," Ivory said. "Things have suddenly become a great deal more complicated." Joe Walker lay on his bunk, staring at the ceiling and thinking about Ivory Tanaka. The enigmatic computer lady had contacted him several times during the months they'd spent waiting in orbit. Sometimes she got in touch at awkward times. For example, when he was typing up his report on a patrol mission, she would suddenly appear on the screen of his terminal. How did she DO that?! Not that he REALLY minded. It was a break from the monotony of his work, and in addition, she had a really great...view. But, from what she had told him, a view was all it WAS. She had no physical body. She was a ghost in the machine. Or so she said. She had told him (with some reluctance) about her transferral there, after first swearing him to secrecy. But, she said, she trusted him. Her look through those memories that she'd gained from her brief melding with him had assured her of that. Besides, what could he gain by telling anybody? To tell the truth, Joe still wasn't sure why he hadn't gone to his superiors. Perhaps it was fear of getting laughed at, but maybe also something else. Maybe, no matter how he denied it to himself, he was just the slightest bit attracted to Ivory. These thoughts were interrupted by his intercom chiming. "Yes?" Joe asked, without getting up. "Lieutenant Walker, please report to the bridge observation deck in 15 minutes for briefing," Ensign Illeana Coello's voice said. "And, um...he wants you in your flight suit and ready to go." "Briefing?" Joe sprang up, pulling off his uniform. "Thanks for the early warning," he said drily. "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. I was just now told myself." "Forget it, Ensign. I'll be up there in a minute." Joe pulled on his flight suit, stepped into his boots, grabbed his sidearm and gunbelt from his footlocker, and stepped out the door. As he ran down the corridor, a thought struck him. "He wants you in your flight suit," Coello had said. Who was "he"? Could it be...No, surely not. But it was. As Walker stepped into the spacious briefing room, the figure sitting at the other end of the table swivelled his chair around to face him. It was Captain Kranz. Joe saluted, and Kranz returned the salute without standing up. "Sit down, Lieutenant." "Thank you, sir." Walker put his flight helmet on the table and sat down next to it. "I understand you wanted me ready to launch." Kranz nodded. "Your Valk is being prepped for flight even as we speak." "My Valk...?" Joe's mind jumped to the conclusion that he had been hoping for ever since they'd arrived here. "You mean--?" Kranz nodded. "It is time, Lieutenant, for a display of our strength, and our unwillingness to let this world we're orbiting go down the tubes. You are going to provide that show, and a Super Valkyrie Veritech fighter is just the way to do it. Not even our Legios fighters carry the weapons spread of a Super Valk, and in addition, it has better speed than an Alpha fighter." -And,- Joe Walker thought, -it's not as ugly as an Alpha fighter.- "Sir, I'm all ears." "Good. This is how it will go. Your fighter is currently being loaded into the dorsal carrier on the THEODORE." The ROOSEVELT's Horizont shuttle THEODORE had been specially modified to carry a Valkyrie or Super Valkyrie instead of a Legios, and had been Walker's atmospheric insertion vehicle on more than one occasion. "After that..." The beeping sound in Walker's ears told him it was time to wake up. He yawned, opened his eyes. The readouts from the Valk console reflected off of his CVR-3's faceplate. Eleven minutes to re-entry. Perfect. Walker ran over the prelaunch computer checks, glanced over his weapons configuration. He was mounting twelve short-range plasma missiles under the wings, and 30 medium-range reflex missiles in the booster launchers. There were four short-range armor-piercers in the Valkyrie's forearm launchers, and the GU-11 slung on the fighter's underbelly was completely full. Joe climbed out of the cockpit and looked at his fighter one more time. All he could see of his fighter, anyway, which was basically just the fuselage. All the rest of it was on the outside of the THEODORE, enclosed in the launch brackets which would release when it was time to go. Along the side of the cockpit, various hoses and mechanical waldoes were servicing his plane and keeping it clamped in place. Joe nodded and climbed back into the cockpit. Punching a couple of keys, he closed the cockpit. He toggled the switch to retract the cockpit-entry interface back into the ship, and had a clear view of space, obstructed only by the nose and body of the Horizont above and in front of him. In the cockpit, various indicator lights were shining steadily or flashing. Joe glanced over the 'boards; everything was optimal. Time to give the guys in the flight deck a ring. "Hello up there, this is Firebird One," he said into the intercom. "I'm reading eight minutes to re-entry. How's your status?" "All systems are go, Lieutenant," the Horizont pilot responded. "Looks like a clean re-entry." He was looking forward to it, actually--after so many times of dropping the shuttle in under Invid or renegade Zentraedi fire, a nice, relaxing, normal re-entry would be like a walk in the park. "Any radar contacts?" Joe asked, wiping the visor of his CVR helmet with a piece of cloth before putting it on." "Nothing out of the ordinary...No, wait. I'm reading several blips on an intercept course." "Fs or MiGs?" Joe Walker thumbed some switches to power up the Valk for flight. "MiG-29s. I think they're out of Iraq." "Hmm. Well, they can't touch us anyway. And I'd imagine they must be violating some major airspace." Joe punched up a tactical display. "Keep track of 'em, but I don't think they pose any kind of a threat to us..." "Sir, we're reading a large spacecraft, radar profile most closely matching the REF's Horizont shuttle, on re-entry track," the NORAD technician reported. "Where's it headed?" General Phillips asked, leaning over his shoulder. "The Bosnia-Serbia area," the tech reported. "What do you think?" "Hmm...better get on the line to Washington, see what they want us to do. In the meantime, get an F-15 flight in the air on an intercept. Just in case. Oh, and put that fighter's track on the main screen." "Yessir." As General Phillips walked toward his desk/workstation, he thought about recent events. First the stealth fighter intercepts, now this. He wondered just what in the hell was going on. "Just what in the hell is going on?!" President Clinton slammed down the receiver on the secure line to NORAD and grabbed the other phone he'd set up--the direct line to the microwave transciever set up to link to the ROOSEVELT's comm network. "Sir, a President Clinton wants to talk to you?" Ensign Illeana Coello called over to Captain Kranz, holding down the "mute" key on her console. "Uh...tell him I'm not available right now." Captain Kranz didn't care to discuss his decision until the aftermath was in. If this Bosnia thing worked out, it would mean he would have a better position from which to address the UN. If not...he shuddered involuntarily. It could be the biggest blunder of his career. But he couldn't just SIT there and watch this world go to shreds. The 4 MiG-29 fighters closed on their assigned position. However, these were not ordinary MiGs. These MiGs had been fitted with long-range air-to-air missiles, modified for ASAT duty. And they were not flown by Iraqi pilots, either. ELITE had been tracking the Horizont ever since it had launched from the ROOSEVELT. They had been waiting for a chance to retaliate for the destruction of their undersea base, and it looked like this might just be it. "Shuttle is coming into range," the flight leader reported. "Stand by for launch in thirty seconds." "Standing by..." The reason ELITE was using MiGs for this operation was actually twofold. First of all, their DarkStar fighters could not mount this particular kind of missile, due to a design oversight that was still being patched by ELITE's design engineers. The second reason was that this way Iraq, or some other country using Soviet weapons, could take the blame. "Launch minus ten...nine...eight..." The flight leader calmly counted down, as his right thumb flipped open the missile launch safety on the HOTAS (Hands-On Throttle And Stick) controls. All readouts on his flight computer were go. The target was firmly locked (via optical tracking--the shuttle would not suspect a thing until launch). The missiles were armed. All was in readiness. "...two...one...launch." Eight missiles leapt from under the wings of the MiG-29 fighters, oriented themselves, and streaked skyward. Alarms started sounding, in both the cockpit of the Valkyrie and the flight deck of the Horizont. "Son of a--!" the shuttle pilot swore. "Vampires. Inbound. Eight of 'em. Must be optically-tracked." "Time to intercept?" Joe Walker asked, placing his hands on the Valkyrie's HOTAS. "ETA two minutes, seventeen seconds." "Emergency separation on my mark." Joe rammed the throttles to full, watched the readouts as thrust built. "Mark!" On the flight deck, the copilot jerked a lever down, releasing the docking clamps, and the Valkyrie streaked forward, out from under the shuttle. "You guys get out of here. Lose the missiles and wait for me in orbit." "That's a roger, Firebird One. We're accelerating to Mach 14 and high-tailing it." As the Horizont lifted away, Joe Walker looked at the earth spread out panoramically below him, curving away at the edges. Beautiful. Though he'd disconnected a bit earlier than intended, it was not a major problem. He simply angled the Valkyrie Veritech for re-entry and set thrusters. But those missiles...hmm. Those could be a problem. Five of them were still chasing the Horizont (rather uselessly, in fact, since the shuttle would have reached its Mach 14 acceleration and outpaced them long before they could catch up), but three had split off and were following HIM! And while he could accelerate to max speed and outrace them himself, it would put him way beyond the target area for his mission. He would have to circle back, and by that time they would have spotted him on radar. Not an optimum situation. Joe was aware that he could simply ignore the missiles and take the impacts. But it didn't sit well with him to just sit there and let the other guy hit him. Besides, the missiles could be tac-nukes or something. You never know. And with the damage that previous missile had caused just by hitting the recon gear... "Computer. Firing solution on those missiles, underbelly laser. Hit 'em as soon as they come into range." The computer cheeped its confirmation, and Joe firmly gripped the stick. If the laser didn't hit, he would have to pull some Gs in the hope that those missiles didn't have something comparable to a Reflex guidance system. He nervously watched the tactical readout on the center Multi-Function Display. Thirty seconds...Joe wasn't reading infrared or radar pinging, so it had to be an optical guidance system. Too bad he wasn't lower down; he could try to lose the missile in the clouds. Twenty...ten... The lasers swivelled and fired. Once, twice, three times...the first missile exploded, destroying the second one. But the third one was still coming at him! Without even thinking, Joe shoved the stick hard starboard. The missile barely scraped by without hitting him. It didn't appear to be coming around to try again, but just to be on the safe side he lined it up in the HUD and snapped off a quick blast from the nose lasers that vaporized it. "Whew. Now where ARE those pesky MiGs...?" He checked the tactical display. "They're gone. Damn. Must have landed somewhere. Ah, well. On with the mission." Joe reached into a pocket, brought out a small laserdisk. He glanced at the handwritten label on it, slid it into a small walkman-type CD player he'd wired into the cockpit audio system. He hit play, and a song began to play. Riggs, "Radar Rider." It was appropriate, and from the old 20th-century movie (Joe caught himself. This WAS the 20th century, it wouldn't be "old" now) HEAVY METAL, which his fighter had been named after (and bore the logo from, painted on its nose). He shoved the stick forward, and began his re-entry. Clinton picked up the NORAD phone again. The news wasn't any better this time. A smaller plane, fitting the profile of the REF's Valkyrie fighter, had separated from the shuttle and was now on a direct course for Bosnia. There had been missiles fired in that area, but by whom and at whom was still uncertain. Clinton set his jaw, looking around the oval office. His eyes fell on pictures of Hilary, and their daughters, and Socks the cat. He had to keep them safe, didn't he? It was up to him... "That fighter squadron you launched...if the REF plane doesn't divert and land, you have my permission to blow it out of the sky." He slammed down the receiver, and felt a little better. He began thinking about what he was going to say to the UN about this. "Sir! Reports coming in from the THEODORE!" Illeana Coello announced, thumbing some keys and fiddling with a tuner knob. "They were attacked by ASAT missiles fired from MiG-29 aircraft before insertion. Lieutenant Walker performed an emergency separation and is in the process of re-entry. The TEDDY has evaded the missiles and has achieved stable orbit." "Thank you. Keep me informed, Ensign..." -They've played their first card,- Kranz thought. -But the hand is ours. Now we'll just have to see how the game goes...- "Unidentified aircraft, this is Sierra Leader, with Sierra flight. You are in violation of Bosnian airspace. You are ordered to change your course and follow us to a landing." "Sierra Leader, this is Firebird one," Joe responded. "I'm sorry, but that's a no-can-do." The pilot checked his scopes. 87 mile range...a bit far for missile launch. "Firebird one, if you do not change course at once, you will be fired upon." He hit the arming switch for his missiles. "And I'm afraid I can't do that. I have a mission to perform. And before you fire on me, you should know that I am more than able to knock each and every one of you out of the sky. So either stay the hell out of my way or get shot down. Your choice." The warning light on Sierra Leader's board lit up, indicating that targeting radar had him pinged. "Sierra Flight, you may fire when--" Then he exclaimed something unprintable as the Valkyrie suddenly accelerated straight toward them at Mach 6! "Sierra flight, break, break!" The Valkyrie passed between them and was gone as suddenly as it had come. "Sir...I don't think our missiles can catch that," Sierra 3 observed. Sierra Leader grudgingly admitted he was right. As Joe Walker passed over the damaged, half-destroyed Slavic cities, plainly visible in the high noon sunlight, he took just a moment to reflect on man's inhumanity to man. Sometimes, Joe thought that where cruelness was concerned, the Regent simply had nothing on the human race. Considering that it was the Robotech Masters who had started it all with their defoliation of Optera, the Invid homeland, he guessed that he was probably right. But now there was no more time for these reflections. Joe cued up another song on the CD player as he swooped low over Sarajevo. The tactical scanning systems were beginning to light up now, correlating the VF's own sensor output with images being transmitted from the ROOSEVELT. Blips popped up all over the contour map--these were armored vehicles, including anti-aircraft guns, mobile missile launchers, and tanks. Joe keyed up the thirty that were farthest away but still within range, programmed them into the missile targeting computer, then thumbed the 'fire' key. In a series of KER-WHOOSHes, all thirty of the Super VT's medium-range Reflex missiles shot from the tubes on the front of the plane's booster pods. They fanned out and looped skyward, each one homing on a different target. Now there were just the closer units to track and kill. Joe grinned, and punched 'play' on the CD player, and Don Henley's "All She Wants to Do is Dance" filled the cockpit. He sang along as he swooped down past the city, sensors locking in on more tanks. Then flak filled the air, as anti-aircraft guns located and tracked him. Joe didn't worry; he broke right, locked the crosshairs on the gun emplacement, and fired a few shots from the GU-11 and nose lasers to take care of the problem. The ack-ack guns blew up quite nicely. Next came a cluster of tanks that were moving up a dirt track toward a nearby village. Four of the plasma short-range missiles from under the wings took care of them quite nicely, and Joe moved on. "I demand to know the meaning of this outrage!" the Russian delegate to the UN yelled angrily. "Three minutes ago, I received a report that an alien aircraft had entered the atmosphere over Bosnia and was destroying military vehicles. The aircraft came from YOUR ship!" He pointed angrily at the video communication screen on which the REF delegate was represented. "I--er--" the confused delegate, an REF Lieutenant Colonel, began. Then the image flickered briefly, and the delegate said, "He acted with the full authority of Captain Kranz. That is all I'm permitted to say at this time." This caused a great deal of hushed murmuring among the delegates of the UN assembly. It also caused some confusion on the part of the REF delegate, who had actually said nothing of the kind. On board the Ikazuchi, Ivory Tanaka observed the fun. She'd taken the initiative to alter the delegate's dialogue because she felt that the REF should be presenting a strong front to the nations of the world, and the Lieutenant Colonel simply hadn't been briefed on the current situation. Joe Walker finished dispensing his ordnance. He checked radar. That F-15 patrol had almost caught up to him...probably time to leave. Joe converted back to fighter mode, kicked in the booster pack, and streaked skyward. Just a few more hours, and he'd be back on board the ROOSEVELT. As Lieutenant Walker headed for his rendezvous point with the TEDDY, he couldn't help but wonder what the repercussions were going to be. He didn't think that any of the countries of this world were going to want to take this lying down. But he mentally shrugged. That was Captain Kranz's concern, not his. Besides, Kranz had probably thought the whole thing out well in advance. Leave the strategy up to those in charge, Walker decided. "Captain, Firebird one has reported successful performance of his mission and is now on his way to rendezvous with the THEODORE for the trip back." "Thank you, Ensign. I'll be in my quarters for the next half an hour or so." Captain Kranz got up and left the bridge, walking down the hall to where his room was. His walk was slow, for there was a great deal on his mind. He was going to have to make some kind of announcement, to address the UN, he knew this. What he was going to say was not quite so certain. His plan had not been well thought-out. It had been a hunch, a spur-of-the-moment thing. His plan: to show the nations of the world that the REF was as capable of intervention in world affairs as any of the other so-called "superpowers." This he would point out in his address. One Veritech--one old and relatively outmoded Veritech--had singlehandedly knocked out more than thirty armored vehicles. Oh, yes, the nations of the world would complain...but they would realize the power the REF wielded, and hopefully accept them as a full, voting member of the council. The next step would be to send in a Horizont full of troops and mecha, and secure the Bosnian nation. With their Veritechs and Cyclone power armor, they could stop the fighting, get the disputes settled, and police the area to make sure the war didn't get started again. After that, they could move on to other war-torn areas, like Somalia. They WOULD bring peace to this world; Kranz's resolve was as strong as ever. It was just a matter of how... [To be continued...as soon as we get together and write it...] -- Chris Meadows | Robotech_Master's First Law of Superguy: CHM173S@NIC.SMSU.EDU | Continuity is Overrated. CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU | Robotech_Master's Corollary: ...but sometimes CMEADOWS@NOX.CS.DU.EDU | necessary all the same.