As always, my thanks to Shoji Kawamori and Studio Nue for the creation of Macross. Further thanks to Carl Macek and Harmony Gold for the vision that gave us the strange and wonderful alternate world that is Robotech.
Additionally, information from MechaJournal.com was useful and inspirational. Thank you!
Captain Vanessa Leeds liked fold travel. It was ironic, given that her first space fold was the roughest anyone from Earth had ever been through, and had stranded her and her crewmates on the SDF-1 a full year's journey away from their homeworld. Certainly most of her own bridge crew on the
Jeanne d'Arc made no secret of their distaste for the time spent in the gaps between reality. They disliked the distortion of one's sense of time and place, the constant blur on the edges of every object, as if they were on the verge of separating into a double image. It was not unlike when Vanessa used to get a new set of glasses, and had to adapt to that awkward feeling that the world was skewed. Many of her crew experienced nausea within the first few hours, or developed migraines that came and went. The sick bay staff always topped off their stock of motion sickness medications right before a fold jump.
There was more. The passage of days was uncertain. The true duration of a fold could be calculated and counted, but the
perception of that time was something else. A fold lasting days might feel like a few hours, even as the shipboard chronometers advanced wildly. The best that could be done was to avoid overly long folds, because it was impossible to determine when to relieve crew from their watches, except by subjective judgements about their fatigue and alertness.
Of course, there was also the disconcerting blankness of fold space. The reassuring thrum of the ship's Reflex furnaces, and the vague sense of forward motion, clashed jarringly with the unwavering bright white light visible at all times through the ship's viewports. The crew always joked about 'waiting in the White Room'. The most stoic endured it in silence, while the rest muttered their complaints to each other and obsessively watched the chronometers, until the blessed blackness of real space surrounded them again.
But Vanessa loved it. This was her dream, after so very long, after shattering wars and the near extinction of the human race. Her place in the Pioneer Mission had been threatened by revolutions, battle, betrayals, and her own wounds, to both body and heart. How could the physical discomforts of a space fold bother her after enduring all of that? To her, a space fold was a ritual and a promise. New vistas opened, and the beauty of the Universe was spread before her. And when the spell was completed, she was always greeted by sights no human from Earth had ever witnessed through their own eyes - nebulae, black holes, pulsars, binary stars, supernovas, and new worlds, though none of them had yet been blessed to support life.
"Standby for defold operation," Ensign Reda Sertos, the
Jeanne d'Arc's helmswoman, announced from one of the forward bridge station. Her voice was quivering with anticipation as she bounced in her seat, setting her long pink pigtails bobbing. She detested fold travel perhaps more than any member of Vanessa's bridge crew. The endless inaction was a sore test of patience for a woman who had once handled a Zentraedi frigate with all the nimbleness of a starfighter.
"Lieutenant Abargil, air group status?" Vanessa's long time friend and executive officer, Allison May-Reyes, prompted.
"Air group status is green, Commander," Amine Abargil reported back cooly from the station to the left of Reda's, with only a nasal hint of his lyrical Moroccan accent in his voice. "Gold Saber squadron is in the ready launch position."
"Tell my husband to steer clear of trouble out there."
The too-serious Abargil kept his eyes forward so no one could see his embarrassment. "Reply from the CAG." He swallowed, clearly stifling a groan. "'No need for concern, I'm not the one with
Hazard for a call sign.'"
May snorted, and the rest of the bridge crew chuckled. Years of deployment together in deep space had relaxed some of the military formality of the REF crews, and the couple's banter had become another tradition at the end of each fold to an uncharted star system.
"Station status, please," Vanessa ordered, smiling even as she refocused the attention of her crew.
"Tactical, ready, ma'am Weapons, green. Main drives, green. Secondary systems, green," Lieutenant Commander Duy reported from just behind the helm and flight direction officer positions. His tone was soft, confident, and carried easily across the compartment.
"Communications, preté," Ensign Garo, seated at the portside facing station said, exaggeratedly rolling the 'r'.
"French, this time, Ensign?" Vanessa asked.
"Mais oui!" the polyglot Zentraedi officer replied exuberantly.
"Just be sure I can understand you," Vanessa added, still smiling.
"Á vos ordres, Capitaine!"
Vanessa waited, then cleared her throat. Nothing. "Sensors?" she finally asked, her tone sharpening.
Ensign Penelope Aster, at her station opposite Garo's, huffed and turned to look over her shoulder, her waist length, shiny black ponytail whipping around behind her. "Sensors ready, Captain!" she finally answered in an exasperated voice, looking down her aquiline nose at Vanessa.
"Ensign!" May snapped.
"But there's nothing to report! You know we're in a complete whiteout! I won't be able to tell if the sensors are even really working until we defold."
Vanessa took a few steps toward Penelope's station. The woman was intelligent, attractive, and very good with sensors operation and analysis. She was also vain, impatient, and disrespectful. Weeks had passed since she came aboard with the other transfers during the ship's last visit to Space Station Liberty, and she had made little progress fitting in with her crewmates. Vanessa tried, as she always did, to answer her attitude with a mix of firmness and patience.
"You're right, Ensign. I am well aware of how a space fold affects our sensors." She raised her voice to carry to the rest of the crew. "But we are about to defold into an uncharted system. We could find anything waiting for us. Enemies. New friends. Dangers none of us could have predicted. So I need to know that every member of my crew is sharp and mentally prepared to respond the instant we arrive. Am I understood?"
Penelope blushed and lowered her head. "Aye, Captain. Understood."
"Good."
The hatch slid open with a hiss. "Admiral on the bridge!" May sang out.
"As you were," Admiral Mbande ordered curtly, so as not to disrupt the crew at their defold stations. The ship's science officer, Doctor Jacob Priest, followed behind her before the hatch shut.
"Admiral, would you care to address the crew?" Vanessa asked.
"I think not, Captain. This is your ship, and your bridge. I imagine you may have a few words to share."
The tall, sharp-featured woman had changed little since the day she had greeted Vanessa so coldly aboard the ARMD warship
Armor 7 in Earth orbit, almost seven years ago. Mbande had been the captain then, a sub-Saharan woman who fought for the anti-UN forces before Earth's catastrophic First Contact brought about an armistice, and an opportunity to join the UN Spacy. Vanessa had been a fast-tracked command trainee, and an interloper when they met. In the intervening years, a respectful working relationship had developed between admiral and captain, but Vanessa wasn't sure that they would ever become friends. The admiral scrupulously kept to the domain of strategic operations and the disposition of Task Force 2 as a whole. She carried herself with a calm aloofness, and today was no exception. "Very well," Vanessa said to her superior, and turned to the comms station. "Ensign Garo?"
"Parlé, Capitaine!"
Vanessa took up the offered hand set. Her bridge crew were all watching her as she squared her shoulders.
"All hands, this is the Captain. We are about to defold in an uncharted star system. Astrographic scans indicate a type G star, like Earth's, and a planet within the zone that can support life. We are now on the leading edge of the Pioneer Mission. Most of you have already heard what I'm about to say, but for those of you who are new to the crew of the
Jeanne d'Arc, I think it bears repeating. With each new fold, each new star system, we renew our hope for discovering life, and making peaceful contact with our peers in our galaxy.
"The ultimate goal of the Robotech Expeditionary Force and the various carrier groups assigned to the Pioneer Mission is to usher in a new era for Earth society, one of exploration, colonization, and contact with other species. Most of all, to protect our homeworld by ending the state of war between Earth and the empire of the Masters, and bringing freedom to the Zentraedi warriors that they created in an attempt to dominate countless other worlds."
Vanessa paused and swept her gaze across the attentive faces of her bridge crew, one more time, then looked at the bright orange numerals that were still rapidly ticking over on the main chronometer. "Be ready for anything when we arrive, but be always mindful of our hope for the peace and safety of Earth, and our dream of finding our place among the stars. That is all."
She passed the handset back to Ensign Garo, and the final preparations for defold began in earnest.
"A pretty speech, Captain," Mbande murmured.
Vanessa arched an eyebrow, but didn't rise to the bait implied by the admiral's tone. It was an old argument, one that they had both largely given up trying to win. Vanessa's military record, combined with the devastating battle attrition of the last ten years, had launched her from a lowly ensign on the SDF-1's bridge to captain of her own battlecarrier in an absurdly short amount of time, and she knew she was seen as a dreamer and troublemaker by some of the REF high command. Vanessa didn't condemn Mbande for her focus on military preparedness and basic pragmatism. The woman was not heartless. She and her former crew on
Armor 7 were only alive because she had refused to allow them to throw their lives away when the Zentraedi global assault wiped out the rest of Earth's defense fleet in a matter of seconds. Vanessa respected and trusted her superior, but she would always seek to counterbalance the cold mechanical calculus of military decision makers.
"Commencing defold!" Ensign Sertos called out, the excitement in her voice making the announcement almost an invocation. Vanessa kept her face composed, but she held her arms stiffly at her sides, nervously drawing the blue thumb of her cybernetic hand across her synthetic fingertips.
Every object on the bridge split into a vertigo-inducing double image, then snapped back into place. Vanessa squinted as the bright white glow through the viewport intensified until it was almost blinding, and then abruptly they were surrounded by the dark void of deep space again. The numerals on the chronometer stopped their rapid count.
08:37:35 02/14/2021
Next week… ghosts in the void…
