the Macross Saga (Re-imagined) - Book 1

Chapter 4

How did they find us?

Was it something we did that led them to Earth's doorstep?

Was it the fortress's trial spacefolds that were executed during her initial three-week shakedown cruise – jumps that carried her from the moon to Mars and back again? Or was it the moment we powered up her Totem Drive and began siphoning energy from the realm of hyperspace? Perhaps, it was the will of the mysterious consciousness permeating the SDF-1 that somehow drew the Zentraedi giants to our quaint, backwater solar system.

However, I suspect the writing was on the wall for us the moment we turned on the experimental fold drives and lost Mars Base Phobos to a swirling vortex of funneled spacetime.

– from the collected journals of Dr. Emil Lang.

- # -

Although he knew his mind should have been on the job, Captain Henri Joseph Gloval failed time and again to focus on the task at hand, which was to review dozens of reports landing in his in-box by the minute, ranging from the current status of the SDF-1, to the preparations for the celebration that preceded her launch tomorrow, and the ship's readiness for the launch itself.

Part of the problem was that he couldn't delegate many of the reports. His senior officers already had their hands full.

Another part of the problem was that his XO, Lt. Cmdr. Lisa Hayes, and his third-in-command, Lt. Cmdr. Claudia Grant were late in returning to the fortress.

Or rather, their return had been delayed by an outside party.

Soon after their shuttle landed, Gloval received a short message from Claudia informing him that Lisa was otherwise engaged on the orders of one Admiral Hayes. Claudia had added that she was waiting for Lisa's return, but that it could be a while.

Gloval had been tempted to order Grant to return to the fortress post haste, but then reconsidered.

Lisa's meeting with the Admiral was contentious being just a day before the SDF-1's launch, but he'd known it was inevitable the moment he received word that the Valley Forge was inbound to the moon a few days ago. Lisa had been on Earth at the time and though he'd hoped she'd return to Macross Base before the Admiral's carrier arrived, circumstances had proven otherwise, and now the carrier was here, the Admiral was here, and Lisa was facing a moment that she herself had once confided to Gloval as a mountain she had to overcome.

Sitting back in his chair, Gloval pinched the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes.

It was a while before he opened them again, and then slowly swept his gaze about his spacious cabin, with its walls lined by shelves replete with books he'd collected over the years and brought aboard the fortress. It was a collection worthy of any military historian of repute, and as such there was a volume of Sun Tzu's Art of War somewhere amongst the hardbacks resting upright on the shelves.

However, classics of a different genre were also included.

They were books he'd read as a child and hoped to revisit again during the fortress's long voyage around the solar system.

But for now, those timeless classics would have to wait.

He had a ship to captain.

More importantly, he had a ship to oversee during her final preparations for her maiden voyage.

Rising from his chair, Gloval walked over to the large window that occupied much of a cabin wall, then peered outside.

The sprawling military base visible on the moon's surface was less than a quarter of what lay underground. The enormous hangars that housed the fruits of labor from the base's manufacturing centers were being emptied, the bulk of their content now loaded aboard the fortress. The ship was over two kilometers long with immense holds, and yet those holds were now brimming with an arsenal of war that would terrify the staunchest of Earth's nations if their leaders ever saw what the SDF-1 was now hoarding in her belly. And after her launch, the world would witness what had been achieved after twenty years of utmost secrecy.