Chapter 2

<It's the end of the world. Or damned close to it.> David thought to himself as he ran through the ruined streets of Macross City. The aliens - he still had a hard time coming to grips with the idea - had been bombarding the city for almost fifteen minutes now, and the number of safe places in the city was rapidly dwindling. Entire city blocks were being blown into smoking craters all around him, a steady rain of dust and debris was raining down on the stunned populace as they milled around the shattered streets of the city. Thousands of people were probably already dead, and the ones who failed to reach the shelters on the outskirts of the city would probably join them soon. 

<Including me> he noted unhappily.

He dashed around the corner of a half-collapsed building and skidded to a halt in the gravel and debris. Standing before him, roughly fifteen meters away, was some sort of giant machine that looked like a spiny egg resting on reverse-articulated legs. The machine was currently levelling one of its spines - which David assumed to be a weapon of some sort - at a man and woman who were standing in the rubble. David hesitated a moment, trying to decide whether or not he could save the egg's victims. There was an eruption further down the street as two more of the enormous egg-machines tore their way through an apartment building and waddled into the street.

"Ah, dammit!" David cursed, his instincts taking over, and began sprinting down a side alley. <Why did I even bother to think about that?> he asked himself as he hurdled an overturned motorcycle. <The damned things are over forty feet tall! There's no way for me to fight them!> He slowed his pace as he approached the next street, not wanting to run out in front of one of those machines. Sure enough, one of the huge alien machines' feet smashed down in front of him, shattering the pavement of the street and knocking him off balance. He blurted an inarticulate obscenity, pin-wheeling his arms as he fought to regain his footing, then turned to run back the way he came. A sound like an enormous buzz saw tore through the air, followed by a flash of brilliant light, intense heat, and a thunderous explosion that blew him off of his feet and into a pile of discarded garbage. He quickly pulled himself out of the foul mess and looked back over his shoulder, but the gigantic alien machine was gone.

<What the hell is going on here?> He stood up, his every instinct to run as far away as possible. Instead, he slowly walked to the end of the alley and peered cautiously around the corner. What he saw made his heart race even faster than it already was. 

A giant robot of some sort was standing in the middle of the street, holding a large rifle-like device in its hands. He looked closer and cursed quietly - the "rifle" looked exactly like the gun pods he had seen on the Veritech fighters that had been on display! "What the HELL is going on here!" he shouted, to no one in particular.

As he watched, the robot pointed its gun down the smoke-filled street. <What's he aiming at?> David wondered. He didn't have to wonder long - two of the alien eggs burst through the smoke, weapons blazing fluorescent death. The robot dodged the fire easily, firing its own weapon in return. One egg was holed in over a dozen places by the robot's shots, and collapsed backwards in a cloud of smoke and fire. The other one leapt high into the air on jets of flame, raking the entire area with weapons-fire. The robot dodged this, too, then shot the other egg out of the sky with a sustained burst from its' own weapon.

"All right!" David yelled happily. "Go get them bastards!" The robot turned towards him, and he realized that the pilot had heard him. He raised his hand to wave, then became aware of the fact that he had moved to the middle of the street. He realized how vulnerable he was out in the open, and turned to move off to the side of the street. There was a loud noise behind him, and he turned in time to see another egg-shaped machine rise up out of the smoke further down the street. This one, however, had some sort of rack mounted across its top. He paused to wonder what the rack was for, then cursed himself for standing out in the open and began backing away from the giant machine.

The egg fired a flurry of missiles, then bounded into the air. David gaped at the enormous machine as it leapt high above him, its shadow falling across him as it passed. With a start he realized the the missiles the enemy had fired were coming right at him. He scrambled to get out of the way, lost his footing, regained it, stumbled over a dead body, and concluded that he wasn't going to make it.

The missiles streaked down around him, and David barely had time to shout an obscenity before the world exploded. 

[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 body was stiff and sore. He tried to remember what had happened, but his memory blanked just after an exploding missile had thrown him face-first into the side of a building. He tried to raise a hand to his head, to see if his nose was still attached, and discovered that we was inside some sort of cramped little space. His arms were pinned at his sides, and he could barely wriggle. There enough light to see by, but little very little to see.

<Oh, God! I'm buried alive!> He struggled for a moment, but was forced to stop as blinding pain erupted inside his head. <God, what a headache! Must've bonked myself good.> He gingerly 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 to no avail. He thought furiously for several moments, calming himself down, and noticed that he was being bounced around in a rhythmic pattern. "What the hell?".

David nearly screamed as the ground around him open up and 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 hands 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 rough." 

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 machines 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, and the fact that his nose felt broken, 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 had 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 times 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 egg-shaped machines and a blocky, insectile red-and-black machine were engaged in battle with roughly a dozen Veritechs, all in their robotic forms. The Veritechs were acquitting themselves well, as evidenced by the smoking remains that littered the hill, but they were slowly being forced back towards the shelters they were trying to defend. As David watched, one of the Veritechs 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!> Horrified, he watched as another Veritech came apart in a fiery explosion, even as it riddled one of the massive alien 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. His anger and helplessness began to surge within him, turning to red-hot fury. <Damn Damn DAMN!>

A glimmer of light-on-metal caught his eye. 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...> The desire to do something was overpowering, and 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 him 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 lazy 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 raging 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 Flight 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 happy 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 using the side stick. He increased the throttle slightly, and 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. More or less.>

The battle had gotten much worse for the defenders. There were only three Veritechs now, and the number of alien units 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 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 his teeth loose.

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 shrapnel a moment later.

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

The remaining alien units 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 rocketted straight up into the air. <Not quite where I wanted to go, but this'll work, I guess.> He depressed the foot pedals and upward rush levelled into level flight. 

<Ah, that's more like it.> 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 on jets of flame.

"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, landed on the ground, and leapt back up to meet 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 the muscles in 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 mirrors mounted on the sides of the control panel revealed two alien eggs pursuing him. "Two on one...that's not fair, dammit!"

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 aliens shot past him, then slowed and began falling after him. <Then again...> He brought the fighter's weapon to bear and sprayed rounds at both of them. One of the aliens belched smoke and began spinning out of control. The other one, however, remained untouched and fired back at him. He targetted the last alien, 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 alien followed him down, firing all the way. <This is not good. This is NOT GOOD!> David thought. <What am I going to do? 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?" he wondered aloud, coughing as thick smoke poured through the cockpit.

Behind him, the enemy closed in for the kill. 

Forward to Chapter 3. 
Back to Chapter 1. 

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