The Protoculture Wars






                         Derek Sherman

                           Robotech:
                       Alternate Points
                            Of View
                             
                            
                             David
                            Marshall
                              
                           
This book is dedicated to the following people:
  Aubry "Neoculture" Thonon (aubry.thonon@qed.qld.gov.au)
  K. Wiley (kkwiley@uccs.edu)
  Alex (profnut@nyongwa.montreal.qc.ca)
  Steve (epustay@aol.com)                 
  Kirstin (adathono@cc.uq.edu.au)           
  The Ever-Mysterious Izabelle "IZI" Fate (whom I hope to *never* meet in
real life)
  And everyone who ever wrote a fanfic that I liked  :)


Legal Stuff

This work is c 1994-1996 by Derek Sherman, except for the portions directly
related to other characters. It should be noted that Robotech and all things
Robotech-related are owned by Harmony Gold.


Feel free to copy this book and distribute it as long as:
          A)   The copyright notices are left in;
          B)   If it is printed in a fanzine or any other free,
               nonprofit publication, could you mail me a copy
               please?
          C)   It may *not* be printed in a commercial publication
               without the prior assent of *all* the copyright
               owners, myself included.
          
I apologize to Aubry for lifting some of the previous section from his part
of this "collective fanfic", but I'm not very good at dedications or
legal-type stuff.

------------------------------------------------------------
Chapter 03

[Time Hack - Saturday, 27 June 2009, 1230 hours, Macross City]


David swam back to consiousness, a throbbing ache filling 
his head. <Looks like I survived. I think.> He tasted blood 
in his mouth, and his entire felt stiff and sore. He tried 
to remember what had happened, but his memory blanked out 
just after an exploding missile had thrown him into the 
side of a building. He tried to raise a hand to his head, 
to make sure that it was still firmly attached, and at that 
moment realized that his body was pinned underneath 
something, and he was unable to move.

  <Oh, God! I'm buried alive!> He struggled for a moment, 
but was forced to stop as blinding pain erupted inside his 
head. He craned his head around, trying to see where he 
was, to see anything that would give him a clue as to what  
was going on, but he couldn't see anything. He thought 
furiously for several moments, calming himself down, and 
noticed that he was bouncing slightly. "What the hell?".

  David nearly screamed as briliant white light flooded 
around him. His eyes rapidly adjusted, and he saw where he 
was - and was amazed. He was curled up in the hand of one 
of the giant robots that he had seen fighting the enemy 
eggs. The "head" of the thing was looking down at him, and 
a slightly metallic-sounding voice sounded from nearby. 
"You okay?" the voice - female, he noticed - asked. "Get 
down and hide for a minute... this ride's gonna get a bit 
too bumpy." He tried to absorb what he was seeing as the 
giant robot lowered him down to the ground and he jumped 
clear, stumbling a bit on some loose debris. He paused a 
moment to look back at the giant robot that had rescued 
him, but it had already turned away from him and was 
holding it's massive weapon in a ready position.

  <Must be more of those damned eggs around here 
somewhere.> He moved all his limbs and did a quick once-
over to make sure he wasn't seriously hurt. Aside from a 
gash on his head that was bleeding profusely, he seemded to 
be alright. <I'd better haul my ass to one of the shelters 
pronto, before one of these damned things steps on me or 
something!>

  "I'll try to make it to the shelters on my own!" He 
called up to the massive robot, not knowing whether or not 
the pilot heard him. He looked around quickly, saw a 
building he recognized (the smoking remains of "Perron's PC 
Palace" - a computer store he frequented) and began to run 
in the direction of the shelters. There was a tremendous 
blast of noise behind him, some of which he recognized as a 
Veritech's gun pod, which meant his savior was engaging the 
enemy again. David picked up his pace. 



[Reality Check - Saturday Jun. 27 2009, 1515 hours, Macross Island SDF-1
Base]

The trip to the shelters had taken a lot longer than David had
anticipated, seeing as how he had to detour several time to
get around sections of the city that had been rendered 
impassable by fire or enemy activity. His head ached, and he
was thoroughly winded when he finally reached the road leading 
to the D-block shelters. He took in the view and gasped. 
<Oh, God, no!> 

  A furious battle was being fought on the hillside around 
the shelters. Nearly two dozen of the alien eggs - he was 
still having trouble believing that they were aliens - and 
several blocky, insectile red-and-black machines were 
engaged in battle with roughly a dozen Veritechs. The 
Veritechs were acquitting themselves well, as evidenced by 
the smoking remains that littered the hill, but they were 
slowly being forced back. As David watched, one of the 
Veritechs (which was in "Robot" form) took six or seven 
hits in it's midsection and disintegrated in an eerily 
beautiful explosion. 

  David looked at the shelters that were in the center of 
the fight, and saw numerous pock-marks on the cliff face. 
<Those damned aliens must be trying to destroy the 
shelters!> David watched in silent horror as another 
Veritech came apart in a fiery explosion, even as it 
riddled one of the massive insectile machines with cannon-
fire. <Damn! I've got to do something! But what?> His 
savior was somewhere far behind him, if she was still 
alive, and he didn't have any weapons that would do any 
good against the alien machines. <Damn Damn DAMN!>

  A glimmer of light-on-metal caught his eyes. Far off to 
his left lay a Veritech, one that appeared to be in some 
sort of hybrid-robot shape. He saw arms and legs, but the 
cockpit and fuselage was still fighter-like. It was resting 
on it's legs, with the nose section buried in the ground. 
<I wonder...> He ran over to the aircraft.

  The pilot of the downed Veritech (designation VT-133, 
David saw written under the canopy, along with the pilot's 
last name - Leeds.) was undoubtedly dead, David concluded 
as he peered through the shattered canopy. Something had 
pierced fuselage beneath and to the rear of the pilot's 
seat, and shrapnel had blown upwards through the cockpit. 
The pilot had taken a massive amount of shrapnel in the 
back, and must have tried to land his plane even as he bled 
to death. <Poor sucker.> David thought, pushing the canopy 
up and out of the way. He then proceeded to haul the 
pilot's body out of the plane, trying hard not to notice 
how much blood was splattered around the cockpit. He 
carefully pulled the pilot's helmet off after laying hiim 
on the ground, and received yet another shock - the pilot 
wasn't a man after all, but a rather attractive young 
woman. He gazed down upon her face for a few moments, then 
placed her helmet upon his own head. <Hope I make out 
better than she did.> he mused as he turned back to the 
Veritech.

  He reached out to grab the ladder and froze, unwanted 
memories surging through his mind. A crippled aircraft. A 
pilot trainee watching in horror as his aircraft's autopilot 
failed, causing it to go into a downward spiral. A fiery crash.
  "Stop it, David." he growled. "STOP IT! There's no time for 
this now!" He willed his trembling hands to grasp the ladder, 
forcing back the emotions surging within him.

  David climbed into the pilot's seat and rapidly scanned  
the numerous dials and guages and levers and switches all 
around him, performing the action quickly and efficiently. 
<Thank you, Torres Military Cadet School.> He quickly 
located the system indicators, and was relieved to see that 
most of them were showing green. He was overjoyed to see 
that the fighter still had two missiles mounted on the left 
wing. He wasn't too hapy to see that the ejection system 
was one of the few indicators that was showing a red light. 
<Figures...ok, buddy boy. If this one goes down, you ain't 
bailing out.> He shuddered. <So don't go down this time, ok?>

  After a few tentative experiments with the controls, 
David figured out how to aim the Veritech's weapon. He 
increased the throttle slightly, and was breathed a sigh of 
relief when the craft rose a meter or so into the air. The 
noise from the engines was almost deafening through the 
smashed canopy, but David ignored it. <Now to see what this 
thing can do.> he cautiously worked the controls, and 
the Veritech spun in a slow circle. "At least it seems to fly like 
a regular plane."

  The battle had gotten much worse for the defenders. There 
were only three Veritechs now, and the number of enemy eggs 
hadn't diminished appreciably. <Damn!> David cursed, biting 
his lower lip. <Ok then, let's see if they like surprises. 
I just hope they're not looking in the rear-view mirror.> 
He double-checked the status indicator for the gun pod, saw 
it was green, and centered the HUD's targetting pipper on 
one of the red and black insect-like alien machines, which 
he assumed was some sort of command unit. <Time to say bye 
bye, buddy!> David depressed the trigger and gasped as the 
buzz saw roar of the cannon threatened to shake the 
fillings out of his teeth.

  At the last moment, the alien pilot must have sense  
something amiss, because the enormous machine began to turn 
around. Cannon rounds impacted all along the left side of 
the machine, punching holes in the machine's side, and it 
erupted into a ball of flame and debris a moment later.

  "Yeeehaaa!" David shouted as he watched the alien's  
demise. "Take that, you lousy mother...uh oh"

  The remaining eggs had turned, almost as one, and were  
pouring an unbelievable amount of weapon's fire in David's 
direction. He slammed the throttle to 150% and the Veritech 
shot straight up into the air. <Not quite where I wanted to 
go, but this'll work, I guess.> He depressed the foot 
pedals and his flight tapered into a more level type of 
flight. Something beeped at him, and he had barely begun to 
search for the source when two of the alien eggs rose up in 
front of his aircraft.

  "Oh, shit!" He quickly targetted the closest one, fired, 
and missed. "SHIT!" He yanked on the controls, causing the 
Veritech to veer sharply down and to the left. The alien 
eggs dropped past him, hit the ground, and leapt back up to 
meeet him. "Aw, man!" He pulled back on the stick and 
pushed the throttle even further, so that he was rocketting 
straight up. He grunted, tightening his abdomen, trying to 
keep the blood in his head where it belonged, as brilliant 
beams of light began shooting shot past him. A look in the 
"rear-view mirrors" mounted on the sides of the control 
panel revealed two alien eggs spared a look back and saw 
that there were two eggs pursuing him. "Two on one...that's 
not fair, guys!"

  Working out of desperation, David threw the throttle into 
reverse, hoping to catch the aliens off guard. The fighter 
came to a complete stop and began spiralling back towards 
the ground <Oh, dammit! Not that way!> The two eggs shot 
past him, then slowed and turned to face him. <Then again, 
I meant to do that.> He brought the fighter's weapon to 
bear and sprayed rounds at them both. One of the eggs 
belched smoke and began spinning out of control. The other 
one, however, remained untouched and fired back at him. He 
targetted the last egg, depressed the trigger, and was 
rewarded with - nothing. A quick check of the ammunition 
counter revealed the problem. <DAMN! I'm outta ammunition!> 
There was an violent thud as pieces of metal flew off of 
the left wing, and several indicators began flashing red 
and yellow lights at him. <Oh damn oh shit oh damn!>   

  David slammed the throttle back to 150% and spun around, 
so that he was diving towards the city. The enemy egg 
followed him, firing all the way. <This is not good. This 
is NOT GOOD!> David thought. <What am I going to do?> He 
cursed. <Of course! The radio!> He reached out and keyed 
the transmitter.

  "This is VT-133 to anyone who can hear me. I'm being  
pursued by an enemy...uh, an enemy 'egg' and I need help." 
He quickly looked at the panel in front of him. "I'm at 
angels three, heading 224, speed-" There was another thud 
and smoke belched into the cockpit. A quick check of the 
radio revealed that it wasn't working now. "What else can 
go wrong?"

 Behind him, the enemy closed in for the kill.
------------------------------------------------------------


Derek