Seeing as how we are fast approaching the summer of 1999, we thought
this might be somehow appropriate...

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       J. Austin Wilde and Fission Park Press proudly present:

                    ROBOTECH: THE JUSENKYO SAGA

                By J. Austin and Bridget Engman Wilde
                        Fission Park Press
                         wildeman@psn.net
                   http://www.psn.net/~wildeman/

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                             PROLOGUE:



     Zor, the finest intellect of his race and master of Jusenkyo, 
looked with pride upon the supreme embodiment of his technical mastery, 
the very acme of his achievement, as it rose in the orange sky on its 
destined journey. The Dimensional Fortress increased its velocity even 
as angry swarms of red and purple mecha engaged in pursuit. Zor knew 
that the mighty starship was too fast and too powerful for the Invid 
to stop.
     He also knew that he was about to die. The Invid outnumbered his 
Zentraedi escort by a margin of a hundred to one, and as they fell 
from low orbit in their clamshell troop carriers, they held the tactical 
advantage of the high ground. He mused that it was better this way; it 
would spare him from his nominal overlords, the Jusenkyo Masters, when 
they learned of his betrayal.
     He turned to his close companion of the past few years and gave 
him a wan smile. Breetai did not realize what was to come. If he did, 
the bloodless coward would have surely turned tail and ran long ago.
He watched the sixty foot tall panda grunt with unease as the temporary 
research base where his recent work had been conducted went on full 
alert. Already the booming footsteps of the Zentraedi shook the flyout 
balcony where he and the micronian portion of his research contingent 
waited with dread for the end.
     Saffron appeared then, the Supreme Commander of the Zentraedi. 
He was regal, handsome, and young looking even in the face of imminent 
doom. As a Zentraedi, death in battle was something to be looked for, 
welcomed, and even prayed for. Fighting and dying in such an obviously 
hopeless battle as was looming was more than could be hoped.
     Despite this, Saffron looked apprehensive. The Jusenkyo Masters 
had tasked him with the protection of Zor. It meant that no matter 
what might come, Zor must live. Such a responsibility took the 
thrilling edge off his impending and glorious death.
     He threw Breetai a disruptor rifle and turned to bellow last 
minute orders to his troops. The giant panda took the rifle and nodded 
grimly. Zor saw that his friend had realized at last what was to come. 
The panda was showing surprising backbone as he stood at his side. 
Perhaps it dawned on him that even now there was no where to run, and 
a species as dogged as the Invid would leave no place for him to hide.
     The Zentraedi tac-net began crackling with reports of the Invid 
landings. Explosions shook the compound as swift red armored scouts 
began to strafe. The ground trembled with the heavy metalshod feet of 
Tactical Battlepods, Officer's Pods, and those who were unable to reach 
their mecha in time to repulse the attack and chose instead to face the 
Invid with small arms.
     Zor watched impassively as the inner retaining wall began to glow 
red with the heat of Invid annihilation discs and the flames of dying 
mecha. Massive explosions rocked the outer courtyard as the aliens flew 
headlong into the massed particle beam fury of a battalion of pods. 
Plunging on through the hellfire in suicidal rushes, the Invid 
obliterated the pods. They would be in the center of the complex in 
seconds.
     The retaining wall gave way, swelling and then bursting into a 
shower of flaming debris. Invid Shock Troopers, crablike purple mecha 
that moved with all the grace of a two-legged battleship, skulked 
through the breach with shoulder-mounted cannontips glowing with 
priming charges for immediate release.
     They were met with a desperate fusillade from Saffron and his 
troops. The air burned with the incandescent fury of beams and the 
sizzling streams of annihilation discs. Zentraedi were immolated 
soundlessly, not giving their foe the satisfaction of hearing them 
cry out in the agony that marked their final seconds. Those that died 
screaming were instead bellowing war cries and howling taunts.
     The Invid wave recoilled as if a great hand had swept them back, 
but in the aftermath of the Zentraedi losses, were soon pouring once 
again through the opening in the wall. Saffron bellowed for 
reinforcements as the Invid threatened to turn the charge into a 
savage rout. His Zentraedi stood their ground, pouring fire into the 
enemy. 
     Zor watched one warrior charge into the advancing Shock Troopers 
armed only with a limpet mine. An annihilation disc burst him wide 
open, and body aflame with plasma, he managed to drive the mine square 
into the glowing red sensor eye of the mecha that had slain him. Zor 
could feel the defiant hatred of the Zentredi warrior as the mine 
exploded -reducing the man to scraps of burning flesh and rupturing 
the Invid mecha in a shower of smelly green ichor.
     "Protect Zor!" Saffron shouted above the din. The proud warrior 
then laughed drunkenly, like one of the Masters' mythic war gods of 
old, besotted with blood and fire.
     They wheeled about him as best they could, but a command center 
was no place to conduct a final stand. A Shock Trooper landed heavily 
at the perimeter, swatting aside two Zentraedi with its claw like hands 
and disemboweling them in the process. Its sensor eye was focused upon 
him, their most hated enemy and the betrayer of their Queen. Surely 
the word had passed with silent malice throughout the Invid ranks, and 
they would all be descending on the command center to kill him.
     Breetai unloaded his disruptor at it to little effect, and then 
flung himself down to cower in terror. At least that was what it looked 
like to Zor as the annihilation discs streamed in. The sixty foot tall 
panda caught the first disc in the side of the head, igniting the rest 
in a burst of tremendous heat and shock.
     Though the blast was set off prematurely by Breetai, it picked 
Zor up and threw him down to the deck with sufficient heat and force 
to break bones, rupture organs, and sear the insides of his lungs. 
**At last,** he thought through a haze of pain and delerium **It ends 
now...**
     "Zor is down!" Saffron bellowed. "Save Zor!"
     More Zentraedi fought through the swelling ranks of Invid, pushing 
them back. The heavy stomp of Battlepods joined the din of weapon fire, 
explosions, and the screams of rent metal. Somehow the aliens were being 
driven into retreat. Somehow the Zentraedi were overcoming their 
archenemies.

     Saffron looked desperately to the burning balcony as the Invid 
were pushed into rout. The rest of the battle could be left to his field 
commanders. Zor was his responsibility.
     Breetai was down, but still alive. Zentraedi medics were tending to 
him. The right half of his face was burned away, and the air surrounding 
his unconscious body stank with the reek of charred panda fur. Breetai 
had bravely taken the burst meant for Zor, that much was clear to him, 
but one look at the tiny genius told him that it had been in vain.
     Medics tended to Zor's burned and broken body, but Saffron had seen 
too many casualties in war to believe that there was hope for him. What 
amazed him was that the puny if somewhat pudgy and heavyset micronian 
was still conscious.
     "You must not die, Zor," he told the man in spite of what he knew 
to be inevitable. "If you die, then my mission is a failure, and I must 
go back to the Masters in disgrace."
     Over the crackle of the remaining fires and the moans of the dying, 
Zor heard the surviving commo techs report of retreating Invid and the 
announcement that the Dimensional Fortress had executed a successful 
spacefold.
     He smiled, his cracked and burned jowls smarting with pain.
     "This is only the beginning, Saffron, my faithful watchdog. What 
comes now is the greatest, finest mission of all..."
     Saffron frowned.
     "Mission? What are you talking about?" His head turned up to the 
orange sky and to the Dimensional Fortress that was not there. "What 
have you done with it?" he demanded.
     Zor coughed, and there was an ominous rattle to it. "I have sent it 
away, to a place far removed from this evil, senseless war. I would not 
expect you to understand. You were never created to appreciate such 
things, and I suspect that one day it shall be your undoing."
     Saffron cocked a gigantic fist above Zor and snarled with impotent 
fury.
     "If not for my oath as a Zentraedi, I would kill you myself!"
     Zor smiled again, in spite of the pain it caused to his cracked 
and scorched face.
     "Go, Saffron," he said in a barely audible voice. "Fulfill your 
Imperative..."
     With that, he closed his eyes and slipped away into death, a 
slight smile on his chubby face as the fading sun settled beyond the 
horizon of the nameless world.



                       *         *         *



     Supreme Commander Saffron, a giant even by Zentraedi standards at 
close to seventy feet tall, stood before a monitor screen that dwarfed 
even his tremendous stature. The hawkish face of a Jusenkyo Master 
stared down at him from the monitor. Had he known that this one was 
from a lesser triumverate, that the true Masters of Tirol did not 
deign to communicate directly with their warrior creations, it would 
not diminish the odd unnamed feeling of uneasiness that he now felt. 
Fear was not a part of the emotional spectrum that Saffron was capable 
of recognizing by name.
     "We have, as yet, no information regarding the wherabouts of 
Zor's ship," he reported to the Master.
     The Master's face remained expressionless in reply.
     "The Dimensional Fortress must be recovered at all costs," he said 
tonelessly. "Utilize whatever means necessary to accomplish this task, 
but above all the fortress must be recovered intact."
     Saffron nodded. He was one of the few Zentraedi, indeed one of 
the only surviving Zentraedi to know the significance of Zor's ship 
and the secrets it contained.
     "And what of Zor, Master? Shall we inter his remains in his 
beloved garden?"
     "No!" the Master replied sharply. It was the only time Saffron 
had ever seen him evoke any kind of emotional response. Ever.
     "Place the remains in stasis and bring them to Tirol," the Master 
continued. "We may yet be able to extract information from his cells. 
See to this personally, Saffron."
     "It shall be done as you command," he said with a solemn salute.
     The Master said nothing in acknowledgement. The screen simply went 
dark.
     The swish of an airtight door sounded, and Breetai entered. The 
sixty foot tall panda had recovered dramatically from his wounds, but 
it was immediately obvious that he would be scarred for life. A 
gleaming alloy plate covered the right side of his face, and set where 
the eye should have been was a cold green cabochon of crystal.
     [Commander Breetai reporting as ordered,] the panda said, holding 
up a holosign filled with the glowing glyphic characters of the 
Zentraedi tongue. The panda, a victim of the transformative effects of 
Jusenkyotechnology, was incapable of speaking with his voice.
     "The Masters have spoken," Saffron began abruptly, using the fact 
that the Jusenkyo Masters spoke to him and him alone for added 
authority and prestige. He knew that it would have little effect on 
Breetai because of his proximity to Zor, but it had become a force of 
habit in his addresses to his senior commanders.
     "Zor's body is to be returned to Tirol and handed over to the 
Masters," he continued. "I have been directed to oversee this 
personally. As such I will be away from Fleet Operations for an 
extended period of time."
     Saffron consulted a handheld display.
     "I need a Zentraedi to lead the fleet in the search," he said to 
the panda. "One that I can count on for unquestioning loyalty, 
dedicated service, and unflinching courage."
     Breetai began to sweat.
     "I have consulted your service record, Breetai, and while I must 
confess that your previous postings in distant parts of the Masters' 
empire have kept me in the dark about your achievements, I find that 
they are most impressive indeed."
     Breetai now began to squirm at attention. Saffron, engrossed by 
the report, did not notice.
     "Most impressive. You single-handedly led the counter-attack on 
Thuverl against the Invid, outnumbered a thousand to one, and drove 
them off planet. Incredible! A feat worthy of the gods of war!"
     [Um, thank you, sir...] Breetai managed.
     "Your list of decorations is quite telling," Saffron added. 
"The Blood Moon of Karbarra, a dozen citations for Meritorius Conduct 
Under Fire, six gold battlestars, the Medal for Conspicuous Gallantry 
with titanium valor glyph, the Osmium Star of Courage, the Citrine 
Sword of Fantoma with gold laurel and severed head..." 
     [Really, sir, I... um, this is quite unnecessary...]
     "And this," Saffron went on, ignoring him. "'After ramming his 
flagship through the Invid command fleet at Ranaath's Star, Commander 
Breetai engaged in *single combat* with the Invid Regent on his own 
command ship bridge -forcing the Invid monarch to retreat in shameful 
defeat! The Jusenkyo Masters command that Breetai be awarded the 
Iridium Cluster with Platinum Supernova...'"
     Saffron frowned at this. The Iridium Cluster was an award that 
he didn't possess. In fact he had never even *heard* of such a 
decoration.
     "Most impressive indeed," he said quietly. Almost menacingly.
"I think my choice for command is obvious. You, Breetai, will command 
the fleet that is to locate and capture Zor's Dimensional Fortress. 
Your orders are to begin the search immediately - let nothing stop you 
in capturing it intact."
     Breetai was now near panic.
     [But it folded!] he protested. [It could be anywhere in the galaxy 
by now!]
     Saffron was not used to such behavior, and certainly not from a 
god of war like Breetai. Still, the man's bravery wasn't in doubt, 
aside from his hero's roll of decorations, he had seen him take the 
Invid's blast meant for Zor.
     "That is not my concern. The Masters have made it very clear that 
the Dimensional Fortress must be recovered intact. Your personal rapport 
with Zor, and your intimate knowledge of the ship make you the ideal 
commander for the mission. In any event, it should not be difficult to 
capture the ship once it is located. Final transmissions from the 
fortress indicate that Zor's crew of traitors were badly wounded by the 
Invid during their escape." He paused for effect. "I needn't remind you 
how important this mission is; the very future of the Zentraedi rests 
upon its success."
     Breetai saw that Saffron wasn't going to take no for an answer.
     [As you command,] he signed wearily. [It shall be done.]
     He turned slowly on his heels, and left the chamber to carry out 
his orders.
     When Breetai had gone, Saffron cursed himself silently for letting 
Zor's ship get away, and for allowing Zor to die. Though he remained 
outwardly loyal to the Masters that had spawned himself and the rest 
of his race, he longed for freedom from his keepers, and for the power 
to conquer the universe. He had long suspected that Zor was plotting a 
secret rebellion against the Lords of Tirol, and in their many 
conversations over the years, Zor had said nothing to him that 
contradicted that belief.
     Had he been a young private, fresh from the birthing creche, such 
ideas would have been heresy of the highest order, but he was Saffron, 
one of the first Zentraedi, and gifted with intellect and cunning far 
above the rank and file. In Zor he had hoped to find the means to throw 
off the shackles that kept the Zentraedi from achieving their ultimate 
destiny of conquest and war. He had tolerated Zor's many idiosyncrasies 
and his quiet betrayal of the Masters in the hopes that he could then 
use the man's genius to further his own ends. In Zor's ship were the 
secrets of Jusenkyo, secrets that even the Masters themselves were not 
privy to. The actual Jusenkyo Factory itself was hidden aboard that 
ship, and without it, the Masters' far flung empire could not long 
survive the onslaught of the Invid. Zor himself had confided that 
revelation to him.
     A sudden thought sprang into his mind. Perhaps that was what Zor 
had meant in his dying words to him, 'Fulfill your Imperative.' Perhaps 
Zor had read that most ardent and secret desire in his heart and 
approved. The loss of the Dimensional Fortress was a deathblow to the 
Masters, but what of the Zentraedi? Had Zor sent the fortress away 
knowing that the Masters in turn would send their giant servants forth 
to retrieve it -servants that Zor knew were commanded by a Zentredi 
ready to rebel on his own and keep it for himself?
     It was a heady prospect, and whether or not Zor had intended it 
as such, that very prospect now stood before him.
     Saffron smiled to himself. He seemed to radiate a golden glow of 
satisfaction as he decided that come what may, he would indeed fulfill 
the Imperative. Let the stars tremble with dread on that day when the 
fortress was his!
     He thumbed a stud on the commo panel, a link to his personal 
staff lieutenant.
     "Prepare the command transfer of the fleet to Breetai," he 
ordered.
     "It shall be done as you command," the Zentraedi replied.
     "And one more thing," Saffron added as he looked over Breetai's 
service record again.
     "Yes, Lord?"
     "Put me down for the Iridium Cluster with Platinum Supernova."
     There was a pause.
     "Your pardon, my Lord? The what...?"
     "No questions -do it! Saffron thundered.
     "A-At once, my Lord!" the aide stammered. "Forgive my 
impertinance!"



                         *       *       *



     Commander Breetai settled heavily into his command chair aboard 
his monstrous command ship. Zentraedi commanders were generally 
expected to stand within the command blisters overlooking their stadium 
sized Bridges, but this did not concern the sixty foot panda. He 
preferred his comforts, and that meant sitting. The superhard alloy 
deck was not something he found comfortable standing upon for hours on 
end.
     Minister Happousai, his aide de camp and interface with the rest 
of his command, was already waiting for him. The malformed Zentraedi, 
tiny by their standards at barely twenty feet tall, was browsing through 
several projecbeam displays. His wrinkled face and mauve skin reminded 
Breetai of a gigantic bipedal prune.
     "So, Breetai my boy, what did Supreme Commander Saffron have to 
say?" he said to the panda, still gazing at the projecbeams.
     Breetai grunted. It was just like Happousai, oldest of all the 
Zentraedi and keeper of the races' collected history and secret 
knowledge, to address him in such an informal and even disrepectful 
manner. If he had really been a Zentraedi, Breetai would probably have 
crushed him into paste for such flippantness. If he had really been a 
Zentraedi.
     Commander Breetai, the supposedly legendary commander and 
renowned warrior among an entire race of warriors, was not a Zentraedi.
     He sighed to himself in reflection. Only three years ago he had 
been micronian, living the good life as a wandering martial artist 
with his young son. Then one night he had stumbled across a Zentraedi 
survey ship that had landed on his homeworld in search of life form 
samples for Zor's research. His curiosity (and greed, although he was 
not willing to admit that to himself) had gotten the better of him, 
and he had snuck on board searching for something valuable to steal.
     Had he known the true form of the Zentraedi, he would never had 
done it, but the crew were all micronized, and their seeming human 
forms put him at ease and made him careless. The ship lifted off before 
he knew it, and soon docked with a mothership for an immediate fold 
operation.
     It was then that he saw the Zentraedi enter the Jusenkyo Chambers 
and return to their normal sizes as giants. The mothership was scaled 
entirely to their brobdignagian frames, and soon he was faced with the 
dilemma of starvation and dehydration for the simple inability of being 
unable to reach any of the fixtures that dispensed food and liquids. 
Desperation had driven him to the Jusenkyo Chambers, but again his luck 
failed him, and he entered one set up with genetic materials from one 
of the collected samples of his homeworld.
     When he came to, he was a panda bear standing sixty feet tall.
     The Zentraedi were an arrogant lot, and so their internal security 
was scandalously lax. He was able to remain hidden from the small crew 
of the survey mission until the ship defolded close to the newly 
constructed Super Dimensional Fortress of Zor. It was Zor, the 
enigmatic genius and founder of Jusenkyotechnology that discovered him 
and determined what had happened to him. It was Zor who had befriended 
him and took steps to protect his true identity from the Zentraedi, who 
would have executed him as a spy.
     For example, his current identity as Breetai. With millions of 
ships in the Zentraedi Grand Fleet, scattered across thousands of 
parsecs of the galaxy, and also literally trillions of Zentraedi 
warriors in existence to crew these vessels of the Jusenkyo Masters' 
far flung empire, it was a simple matter for Zor to fudge a service 
record for an officer clone named 'Breetai' and make him a highly 
decorated commander attached to Zor's research group following an 
'accident' in a Jusenkyo Chamber. Not even Saffron pretended to keep 
up with all of the developments throughout his fleet, and it had been 
a simple matter to keep him happy. If Breetai's service record said 
that he was an efficient, ruthless, and highly successful commander, 
then that was good enough for Saffron.
     But now Zor, his friend and patron, was dead. Breetai didn't 
pretend to fully understand the conflict which pitted the Jusenkyo 
Masters and their warrior clones against the vile Invid, but none of 
that mattered now. With Zor's death went his best hope of ever 
reversing the terrible effects of the Jusenkyo Chamber and returning 
him to his human form.
     His only remaining hope now lay in recovering the Dimensional 
Fortress intact. All of Zor's research into the subject of separating 
the panda genes from the human was aboard that ship, as were all of 
the sophisticated machines to make it happen. His feigned reluctance 
to Saffron upon receiving his orders was necessary if he was to remain 
on the Zentraedi Supreme Commander's good side long enough to affect 
his change. It wouldn't do at all to have Saffron think that he had 
plans to keep the Dimensional Fortress for himself -which was exactly 
what he intended.
     "Well, Breetai?" Happousai pressed, a hint of irritation in 
his age worn voice.
     His aide's question snapped him out of his reflection, and he 
produced his holosign.
     [We are to find and recover intact Zor's Dimensional Fortress,]
he signed. The glyphic written language of the Zentraedi wasn't too 
difficult to learn after growing up with his native Japanese.
     Happousai nodded sagely.
     "That should take a few cycles," he mused. "Good thing I updated 
my research materials."
     He proudly pointed to the projecbeam display. Suspended within 
the holographic field were rotating shots of various female Zentraedi, 
clones fresh from the tanks and awaiting assignment to a fleet.
     Breetai grunted to himself. The Zentraedi were clones; mass 
produced through the wonders of Jusenkyotechnology, segregated by gender 
into separate fleet groups, and treated with hormones in their rations 
to keep them both aggressive and completely sexless. Indeed, feelings 
of love, kindness, passion, and good old lust were so alien to the 
Zentraedi that when experienced even in the most off-handed and harmless 
circumstances produced debilitating nausea. Nevertheless, if there was 
anyone in the entire Zentraedi Forces who had the potential of becoming 
a pervert, it was Minister Happousai.
     The giant prune wouldn't understand the concept of sex if you used 
movies to explain it, but that didn't keep him from his unnatural (to 
the Zentraedi; Breetai saw nothing wrong with his peep shot collection)
fascination with the female form. He claimed that he was conducting 
research on the matter, and as one of the only Zentraedi with any kind 
of academic background it made sense, but Breetai had seen his aide 
trailing long strings of drool from his gibbering lips on enough 
occasions to know the truth. He was hot and bothered for something he 
could never comprehend and could never have.
     [I suppose we should get the fleet underway,] he signed while 
Happousai made purring noises at the projecbeam and tried to enhance 
the images still further. He tapped his aide on the shoulder with his 
sign when the little giant did not respond.
     "In a minute," Happousai whined. "The good part's coming up."
     Breetai sighed and began tapping his claws in succession upon the 
alloy surface of his command chair armrest. Happousai began making 
burping and retching noises that could only mean that 'the good part' 
was being reviewed. When the misshapen little gnome finally turned 
around to face his commander, he wore a look somewhere between ecstacy 
and agony.
     "You were saying, *urp,* Breetai?"
     [Get us underway!]
     Happousai shrugged and wiped at the drool on his mouth.
     The hundred thousand ships of Breetai's fleet prepared for 
immediate spacefold. Though it might take years, they would not stop 
searching the galaxy until they had found Zor's ship. 
     As the mighty spacefold engines began to power up for the jump, 
Breetai thought about his young son. He knew that as the commander of 
a great fleet of Zentraedi warships engaged in a quest to find a 
single ship in the great haystack of the galaxy, the odds of ever 
seeing the boy again were infinitesimally slim. He also didn't know 
the space-time coordinates of Earth even if he could justify the great 
expenditure of precious Jusenkyo energy to return. 
     He murmured to himself with some regret, and put it out of his 
mind. He had a ship to find, and a cursed body to get rid of. He 
couldn't afford to think about a son he would never see again.



________________________________________________________________________



     In the early days of 1999 the Global Civil War marked its first 
decade. Though not initially referred to as such, by 1999 the term 
'Global Civil War' came into vogue with the media and historians alike 
as numerous brushfire conflicts around the world slowly grew in 
intensity, dragging the major world powers into an escalating cycle 
of insanity until even the very reasons that started the war were 
forgotten. Countries fell to internal strife; alliances that had 
lasted decades crumbled overnight; religious, ethnic, and class 
struggles burst into open war and open genocide. Chemical, biological, 
and even a few tactical nuclear weapons were exchanged, and few 
seemed to be capable or willing to stop the madness before it was too 
late.
     By 1999, the war had polarized into two major factions, the 
Internationalists, who favored world unification and eventual 
disarmament - backed by the only remaining power bloc of nations now 
known as the Western Alliance, and the Balkanized clots of extremists, 
fascists, racists, and bigots of every stripe who couldn't or wouldn't 
see how close the world was stepping towards final thermonuclear fire. 
People everywhere began to prepare themselves for the end, for despite 
the steady flood of propaganda from all sides to the contrary, there 
was only one way the war could end.

     On a lonely night high above a tiny island in the South Pacific 
whose only claim to fame was that it had once been the site of French 
atomic tests in the fifties, all this was about to change.



                         *       *       *      



     Twenty year old Lieutenant (JG) Tofu Ono watched the supercarrier 
_Nerima_ shrink beneath him as the massive CH-88 Sea Sergeant helicopter 
lifted into the cloudless blue South Pacific sky. At the stick was his 
arch-nemesis Pansuto Tarou, a cocky rogue of a man who had spent the 
last several years of the Global Civil War trying to kill him. Both men 
were fighter pilots for their respective power blocs. Tofu was an 
Internationalist, fighting for an end to the war and world peace and 
unification. Tarou was a mercenary for the Neasians and fighting for 
the almighty dollar, yen, ruble, pound, mark -whatever he could get his 
hands on. 
     It had taken the crashlanding of the Visitor, a 1200 meter long 
spacecraft of unknown origin to get him sitting next to a man like 
Tarou, but Tofu supposed anything was better than continuing the 
pointless war to its illogical and fiery conclusion. He resolved to 
swallow his pride and not give in to the man's constant prattle about 
his self-superiority. He could tell that it wouldn't be easy.
     The smell of cigarette smoke from behind him in the cabin was a 
further reminder. Captain Soun J. Tendo, Commanding Officer of the 
_Nerima_ was aboard as Officer In Charge of the preliminary close 
examination of the spacecraft wreckage. The brooding Captain Tendo kept 
his officer's cap pulled low over his brow so that only one eye was 
ever visible at a time. Accompanying him was the Earth's premier 
scientific mind, Doctor Cologne. The wizened Chinese woman kept to 
herself, obviously consumed with the enigma of the Visitor. With her 
was a hand picked research staff of six. Half a platoon of heavily 
armed Marines made up the balance of the passengers. Tofu wondered 
what good a handful of grunts were going to do if the alien ship's 
crew decided they weren't welcome. A 1200 meter long ship could carry 
a lot of people inside.
     Any further reflection was shattered as the Sea Sergeant neared 
Macross Island. The spacecraft had made a remarkably soft landing 
considering the speed at which it had entered the Earth's atmosphere, 
and there was considerable speculation among the analysts of the 
radar data recorded during the ship's arrival that it had in fact 
altered course and speed prior to touchdown. It was one more reason 
to suspect that the ship was manned, despite the fact that it had 
failed to respond to the numerous attempts to communicate and reacted 
in no way to the progressively closer flybys of drones and then manned 
aircraft.
     "Lookit the size o' that sumbitch," a Marine remarked offhandedly.
     Tofu did indeed look. Just how big 1200 meters really was had been 
an abstract in his mind until then. Now it was abundantly clear just 
what that figure meant.
     The ship had clearly seen better days. There were significant rents 
in the hull, which Tofu could tell even from the respectful distance 
they maintained was perhaps a meter thick or more in some locations. 
It was no longer glowing red hot, but had in fact cooled to ambient 
temperature within the last several hours. There were no lights, no 
open hatches, no signs whatsoever that the ship was anything more than 
a tremendous derelict.
     "Take us down, Colonel Tarou," Tendo directed.
     Tarou smiled arrogantly and lowered the chopper's collective even 
as he deftly set his torque with a flick of his wrist. He seemed to be 
enjoying the fact that he could pilot a helicopter -something that he 
knew Tofu could not. 
     The Sea Sergeant settled down within fifty meters of the vessel. 
It was agreed that fifty meters was a good compromise between having to 
move the heavy scientific gear the least distance possible and not 
landing so close as to provoke an immediate and potentially lethal 
response. If the Visitor knew or cared about their arrival, it did 
not choose to make it known.
     "All right," growled Captain Tendo. "Let's get moving."
     They lugged the various crates, strongboxes, and cases along the 
tortured soil of the island until they were within twenty meters. The 
Visitor continued to ignore them. When they had set up their recording 
units and erected a series of shade pavillions against the hot summer 
sun, Tendo decided to take a closer look.
     Tofu frowned as he was issued an Ingram MAC-35 submachine gun. 
The Marines were packing even heavier arms; caseless assault rifles 
-some with 20mm launchers, RPGs, light machine guns, even a 
flamethrower! The reason for his unease wasn't that he was untrained 
in how to use the weapon effectively - he was actually quite good with 
one - so much as it was the feeling he had that such a primitive 
weapon would do no good against whatever might be arrayed against them 
inside. On top of that, just how seriously could you take the idea of 
peaceful contact with an alien civilization when you were armed to the 
teeth?
     They approached the hull near a large circular impression that 
was argued back and forth by Doctor Cologne and her staff until it was 
declared to be a hatch of some sort. There was no visible mechanism 
apparent to operate it, if it was indeed a hatch. The team stood at 
the threshold scratching their heads.
     Colonel Tarou was the first to lose patience. Against bellowed 
orders from Captain Tendo, he walked straight up to the hatch and 
began banging on it with his fist. When that produced no response, he 
began kicking it. Finally he resorted to the butt of his rifle.
     No one was more shocked or surprised than the Neasian mercenary 
when the hatch snapped open abruptly and two large metallic tentacles 
seized him. Before anyone could do or say a thing, the tentacles jerked 
Tarou inside the ship and the hatch slammed shut.
     "...fuckin'-a..." the same Marine as had commented earlier grunted 
for the benefit of the remaining team.
     The hatch then slid open again, paralyzing the team with dread. 
This time no tentacles appeared. Nor was there any sign of Colonel 
Pansuto Tarou.
     "Now what?" Lieutenant Tofu asked Captain Tendo.
     Tendo set his jaw firmly and turned to Doctor Cologne.
     "Now what?" he asked her.
     Cologne narrowed her eyes.
     "How should I know?" she returned sagely.



                         *       *       *



     The robot was known as an Ambler, and was basically a pod crammed 
full of sensors and telemetry gear atop two spindly legs. The whole 
arrangement stood only a meter tall and was guided by remote control 
through a radio transmitter one of Doctor Cologne's assistants now 
operated. The hatch had remained open, as if daring someone else to 
try his luck.
     The Ambler robot moved awkwardly up to the hatch, television and 
thermographic cameras scanning the interior as a bank of laser 
rangefinders and an ultrasonic sonar transducer probed for the 
dimensions of the compartment beyond. The results were not encouraging. 
     "According to Ambler, the space inside the hatch is too big for 
the instruments to accurately gauge," the assistant muttered.
     "How big would that have to be?" Tofu found himself asking.
     "Over a hundred meters," the tech replied tonelessly.
     "Send the robot inside," Cologne ordered.
     Ambler took a hesitant step into the ship and then stopped dead.
     "What is it?" Captain Tendo asked.
     The assistant began fighting with the controls.
     "I'm not getting any kind of response. All the feeds are dead. 
It's like the robot's whole system just crashed."
     "I was afraid something like this would happen," Cologne 
apologized. "The Ambler system is still not bug-free."
     Captain Tendo shook his head slowly.
     "We'll just have to go inside then," he concluded.
     "That's crazy," a tech cried. "After what happened to the Colonel?"
     "STAY HERE THEN!" Captain Tendo bellowed, his head increasing to 
the size of a hot air balloon and his ten foot long tongue twisting a 
serpentine pattern inches before the tech's ashen face. Lieutenant Tofu 
had seen Captain Tendo's Demon Head routine before, and it was never a 
pleasant sight - even when you weren't on the receiving end of it. The 
tech nodded meekly and gathered his equipment for the journey inside.
     "Now that that's settled," Tendo continued. "Sergeant Apone, move 
your first squad inside. The rest hold back for now."
     Gunnery Sergeant Apone, a rather formidable man with dark skin and 
darker eyes, chewed thoughtfully on the stub of an unlit cigar before 
issuing the necessary orders.
     "You ladies heard the man and you know the drill; Frost, you take 
the point. Drake and Vasquez provide covering fire. Hicks, you and 
Crowe move up the left; Hudson and Wierzebowski take the right. 
Dietrich and Spunkmeyer walk drag. Move it people, like you got a 
purpose!"
     The Marines shuffled through the hatch like professionals. Only 
Hudson seemed to look apprehensive as he darted through the portal. 
When nothing jumped out of the shadows to attack the Marines, the rest 
of the team save a small telemetry and commo group stepped inside.
     Enormous would not have done justice to the size of the dimly lit 
compartment beyond the hatch. Stupefyingly huge comes close, as does 
dizzyingly massive, but neither term has much poetry to it and so for 
now enormous will have to do. The far bulkhead could not be seen, even 
with the powerful halogen lamps each person wore on his shoulder. 
     One thing was abundently clear among all the of the ten dollar 
adjectives that applied to the size of the compartment. Aside from the 
reasonably sized hatch through which they had entered the craft, 
whoever had built this ship had intended it for beings far larger 
than humans. 
     "We'll split up into two groups," Tendo said as the scientists 
took various readings with their gear. "One group will move forward 
along the port side while the other moves forward along the starboard. 
With any luck we'll meet up in the bow of the ship, but if for some 
reason that doesn't happen, I want both groups to backtrack and 
rendezvous here after one hour."
     Captain Tendo kept Tofu and Cologne in his group while a few 
assistant researchers took the other group. Both teams wished each 
other luck and then struck off to explore. No one noticed as the 
seemingly dead Ambler came to life, and began walking away on its own 
path.
     Lieutenant Tofu Ono followed closely behind several of the Marines 
as they made their way along the port side of the ship. They had walked 
through passageways and catwalks big enough to play a game of football 
comfortably, entered deserted compartments that could have held a good 
sized office building, and crossed over chasms whose bottoms could not 
be seen nor sensed with their equipment. There was no sign of life 
to be found anywhere. The ship seemed deserted.
     Beyond the understandable vertigo and feelings of comparative 
insignificance, Tofu had the odd feeling that the walls and ceilings 
weren't standing still for them, but he tried to discount it as being 
the simple result of such vast distances playing tricks on his eyes.
It wasn't until he actually saw a bulkhead slide soundlessly away from 
the team that he took himself seriously. The Marines froze and directed 
their weapons at the retreating bulkhead, but when it seemed clear that 
there was no danger beyond a certain discomforting feeling of 
helplessness in the face of the unknown, returned to their proper 
fields of fire and resumed their watch.
     "I've got a strange feeling about this," Tofu said to Captain 
Tendo as he wiped his glasses with a handkerchief.
     Tendo nodded gravely.
     "I feel it too," he confided. "It seems as if we are being 
deliberately herded in a certain direction. I don't believe that we 
are still headed forward."
     "If it's true," Tofu replied. "It will make getting back very 
difficult."
     "If we are being 'herded,'" Cologne interjected. "It is for a 
distinct purpose. I do not feel that we would be allowed to return to 
our point of entry until whoever or whatever is directing our movements 
is finished with us."
     As if on cue, the deck beneath their feet began to tremble, and 
a moment later they were moving up towards the overhead at a rapid clip. 
So rapid in fact, that it appeared that they would be smashed against 
the ceiling.
     "This ain't happening, man," Hudson whined. "We're doomed!"
     "Stay frosty," Apone muttered coolly.
     Tofu took his glasses off again, preferring to meet his end 
without being able to see it.
     The end did not come, as the ceiling began to shimmer, and the 
team passed through it with nothing more than a curious itching 
sensation. They came to halt on the other side of the ceiling, in what 
appeared to be a tremendous command center. Their first meeting with 
one of the ship's crew followed shortly after.
     A skeleton of human proportions and appearance lay before them, 
offering a rictus smile of agony, and wearing a uniform that apparently 
defied decay. The only catch was that said apparel would have suited 
a man fifty feet tall. They could see where a large hole the size of a 
compact automobile had been burned through the plastic like material 
in the chest of the uniform, and that the bone structure beyond the 
hole was entirely missing. Other skeletons lay scattered in death 
around the massive compartment.
     "I'm seeing it, but I ain't believing it," one of the Marines 
muttered.
     "We definitely ain't in Kansas no more," another added gravely.
     "If this is the crew, then who brought the ship in for a landing?" 
Tofu asked aloud for everyone's benefit. "This thing definitely 
exhibited non-ballistic motion during its descent, so someone had to 
be at the controls."
     "An automated system most likely," Cologne responded. "Some 
computerized navigation unit trying to minimize the damage of impact."
She pointed a gnarled finger at a transparent bubble elevated above 
the aft end of the compartment. "That is probably the captain's station, 
if this ship's builders follow similar design philosophies as ours, 
and by judging from the remarkable similarities of their skeletal 
structure, I have the feeling that the builders of this ship are very 
much like us, if significantly larger. The answers we seek might be 
found up there."
     "Any ideas on how we get up there?" Captain Tendo asked.
     "None," Cologne admitted. "But we were obviously brought to this 
location for a reason; that implies that there is still some form of 
intelligence aboard -even if it is only a computer."
     Tofu looked around the cavernous chamber and waited. He hoped it 
wouldn't be too long before something interesting happened. As he stood 
there and tried to take in the magnitude of what he was seeing, a 
disturbing thought crossed his mind.
     What if all these skeletons were lured here just like we were...?



                          *       *       *



     After several hours of waiting, the team eventually gave up and 
began searching around the compartment for something significant. Tofu 
found it first, a chamber scaled to a human occupant. It was the most 
encouraging informaton that they had yet discovered.
     The chamber had once belonged to Zor. A comfortable bed dominated 
one bulkhead of the chamber, and other recognizable fixtures of life 
were visible as well. Here a desk, there a chair. A walk-in style 
closet was filled with finely tailored clothes that would cover a 
portly man of moderate human height. 
     Other pieces of the room were not so easy to discern, but Cologne 
was determined to unlock their secrets. Tofu found it disturbing that 
they had not found one picture or piece of sculpture that would prove 
that the builders of the ship were like humans. The chair and the 
clothes pointed in that direction, but he needed something more 
concrete than that.
     It wasn't until Cologne's fiddling with some sort of console 
resulted in a holographic image, that Tofu got his wish. A heavyset man, 
clearly very close to a human if not the genuine article, appeared in 
the field. He was wearing attire similar to that found in the closet, 
and so Tofu decided that they were looking at the man whose quarters 
this had once been.
     The man's voice, Zor's voice from beyond the grave, spoke to them 
in a chiming melodic tongue that seemed both friendly and wise to the 
assembled team. Unfortunately they could not understand a word he said.

     "<This, kind sirs, is a very tragic story...>"



                          *       *       *



     The transmission went on for a few minutes, showing lots of 
technical information that not even Cologne pretended to understand, 
and then concluding with the disturbing image of an Invid Shock Trooper. 
The tone of the man's voice changed considerably then, and from it they 
concluded that the first part of the message had been a greeting, and 
the last some sort of warning.
     The best Cologne could do with the console was get the message 
to repeat itself, but no more. 
     The Ambler appeared then with the other half of their team looking 
puzzled but otherwise unharmed. It walked steadily towards them until 
it was only a few meters away. It stopped then, turned around, and gave 
them all the impression that it was waiting for them to follow it.
     Captain Tendo looked at Cologne, who shrugged and decided to 
humor the robot.
     Ambler started to walk along a previously non-existant passageway. 
As the bulkheads moved to let them pass, it became clear that the ship 
was somehow in command of the robot, and using it as a friendly and 
presumably familiar guide for the beings that had entered it.
     "Do you suppose it's leading us out?" Tofu asked Cologne.
     "Quite possibly," she replied.
     "Will we be able to return sometime?"
     Cologne gave that some thought.
     "I believe so. The ship doesn't seem to be in any sort of 
condition to leave. Perhaps in time we can work something out with 
whatever entity, biological or synthetic, is controlling the ship. 
Exchange repairs and repair materials for knowledge or something along 
those lines."
     Ambler stopped abruptly near the open hatch that led to the 
outside. As it stopped, the ship itself seemed to quiet, as if whatever 
animating forces present had suddenly ceased. The assembled team looked 
at each other in puzzlement, but no answers were forthcoming.
     A terrible wailing filled their ears then, and all eyes looked 
with horror upon a great hairy creature coming at them with powerful 
arms outstretched. It was something out of nightmare, seven feet tall, 
with wings, a cluster of tentacles upon its back, and bloodshot eyes 
filled with madness.
     "What the hell is that?" Tofu cried.
     It shrieked mournfully while lurching towards them with a 
gorilla like gait.
     "Stay back!" demanded Gunnery Sergeant Apone.
     The creature continued its rapid advance, drool streaming from a 
wide mouth filled with formidable teeth. It howled in terror, as if 
pleading for help.
     "The thing looks like some sorta cross between a yeti and an ape," 
Tofu exclaimed.
     "What about those wings?" Hicks asked.
     "Screw the wings, man," Hudson gulped. "What about those octopus 
tentacles?!"
     The creature continued to shamble towards them.
     "I said stay back!" Apone repeated.
     The miserable beast didn't even pause. Drake and Vasquez looked at 
each other and then cycled the bolts of their machine guns.
     "LET'S ROOOOOOCK!!!" Vasquez shouted.
     The thunder of the two machine guns filled the air. Within an 
instant of the first reports, the rest of the team followed suit with 
whatever they had. The beast looked at them in shock and disbelief as 
it was blown to ribbons by hundreds of rounds slamming into it in the 
span of seconds.
     When the smoke cleared, Corporal Hicks stepped gingerly over to 
the blood sodden mass of hair and tissue that had been their target 
only a few moments before. A glint of metal in the light of the 
shoulder lamps caught his eye, and he stooped to investigate.
     "You guys aren't gonna believe this," he said slowly.
     "What is it, Corporal?" Captain Tendo demanded.
     Hicks showed them what he had found. It was a metal chain, and 
suspended on it was a pair of bloody dog-tags.
     "This used to be Colonel Tarou," he said evenly.



                         *       *       *



     "And so in conclusion, it is the opinion of Doctor Cologne that 
Colonel Tarou was a victim of the transformative technology of the 
alien beings that created the ship," Captain Soun Tendo reported to 
the leaders of the Western Alliance embarked aboard the supercarrier 
_Nerima_. "A discipline which she has dubbed Jusenkyotechnology. Its 
very nature seems to be one of change and transformation. We do not 
know if Colonel Tarou's transformation was accidental or by design 
of the ship's controlling entity at this time."
     He stood at casual attention then, waiting to field the many 
questions he knew were coming as best as he was able.
     "What about this controlling entity?" one of the senators asked. 
"Your written report states that the ship went quiet shortly before 
Colonel Tarou's tragic demise."
     "There has been no further activity on board the spacecraft," 
Tendo assured them. "We have conducted several more expeditions within 
the ship, but encountered none of the previous phenominae. The ship, 
if not dead, is at least dormant."
     "What is the likelihood of our being able to glean any pertinent 
technology from the spacecraft in the near future?" another senator 
asked.
     Tendo frowned. "I must confess that I'm no expert here. Perhaps 
if you were more specific about what you hoped to find?" **Come on, 
you old bastard, say it! You want to know if we can find some sort of 
super weapon!**
     The senator cleared his throat and looked around the room at his 
peers. It was clear that they expected him to say the same thing he 
wanted to ask.
     "Well, to put it bluntly, Captain; something that will help us 
end the war quickly and decisively in our favor."
     Tendo tried to keep a straight face. 
     "Our inspections reveal that the ship was very heavily armed, so 
yes, I think that if we ever make any headway towards deciphering their 
technology, we could find something that would be useful in ending the 
war."
     **Idiots!** he thought to himself. **The ship itself is everything 
you need to get all the sides to stop fighting! If you really read my 
report you'd know that the ship is obviously a refugee from a great 
conflict between beings of unimaginable destructive power. If we don't 
all stop fighting amongst ourselves we'll be sitting ducks when those 
aliens reach our planet. If one half-crippled ship can get here, then 
others in better condition certainly can...**
     "One final question for this session," an admiral asked. "Can the 
ship be repaired and fitted out for our use?"
     "Of course it can!" Doctor Cologne said as she entered the chamber 
from a side door. "What did you think we were going to do with it? To 
even consider leaving it a wreck on the beach would be insanity."
     Tendo watched the eyes in the room begin to shine with contentment. 
The arrival of the Visitor was already being hailed as miracle, and 
multilateral cease-fire agreements were in the process of being 
discussed with far less of the usual cynicism. The final peace was at 
hand, if only these men played out the hand they had been dealt to the 
logical conclusion. 
     **All the same, I can't help but feel that all miracles, even this 
one, come at a heavy price...**



                          END OF PROLOGUE