Chapter 5

David awoke to the gentle prodding of a pretty red-headed nurse. She waited for him to come fully awake before placing a tray of food before him. "We were beginning to wonder if you were going to sleep all day." she commented. 

He glanced at her briefly before allowing a slow smile to creep into his features. "I was tempted, but the thoughts of missing out on breakfast were beginning to win me over. Thanks," He indicated the meal that had been set before him, "for this." 

"No need to thank me - you haven't tasted it yet" She smiled at him. "Is there anything else I can get you?" 

David pondered that for a moment. "Well, there is something I've been wondering about." He paused. "Um, you wouldn't happen to know what happened to the woman I was with when I crashed, would you?" 

She straightened and raised an eyebrow. "You were brought in two days ago, and there have been a lot of other people brought in in the meantime, but I might remember. What was her name?" 

"She was... waittaminute. Two days?" 

"I told you that we thought you were going to sleep all day." She chided playfully. "You were saying?" 

<Two days?> David shook his head. "Ummm... oh, yeah. She was a pilot. RDF, I mean. Her name was Christina. Christina Leeds." 

If he hadn't been looking straight at her, David would most likely have missed the shocked expression that flashed across the nurse's face, vanishing an instant later as she regained control and adopted an impassive air. "You mean Lieutenant Leeds. No, I'm not sure what happened to her. A family member came down and identified her, and that's all I know." 

David let that sink in. "Family? Oh, right. Ah, there was a photograph in Chri- ah, Lieutenant Leeds' breast pocket...did the family get it?" 

"I don't know." the nurse replied . "Now I've got to get back to my rounds. I'll be back to check on you in a bit." With that, she vanished out through the curtained entrance. 

David stared after her for several moments before glancing down at the breakfast tray that sat before him. <What the heck was all that about?> He placed a small chunk of pancake in his mouth. <Blech!> 

[Time Hack - Friday, 3 July 2009, 1040 hours, SDF-1 Medical Bay] 

David sat silently in a wheelchair as a nurse pushed him down the hall. His leg thobbed a little, but most of the pain had subsided. Stiff and sore, he relished the opportunity to get out of the hospital and check out the interior of the SDF-1. He gazed at the numerous people lying on stretchers and gurneys all around him, and shuddered. <So many dead and wounded, and that was only the first battle. What about the next one?> He pondered this for a moment. <Why am I so certain that there will be a next battle? Maybe the aliens won't come after us. Yeah, right. This is an alien ship, at least it was originally...and aliens came to get it. Or destroy it. Either way, they'll be back.> 

He looked up as the wheelchair came to a stop in front of a paper-cluttered desk. The nurse behind the desk glanced at him for a moment before asking "Name?" 

David blinked. "Marshall, David Anthony." 

The nurse typed something into her computer terminal. "Ah, here you are. Okay, mister Marshall, you're being released on your own recognizance." She smiled at him. "We don't want to see you back here again, okay?" 

He signed several release forms, sat through the out-patient discussion, obediently accepted the bottle of antibiotic pills (along with sixteen pages of Do's and Don'ts), and took the complimentary walking cane offered by the nurse behind the desk. "We want that back, by the way." she added. 

He had almost made it to the exit door when the nurse called out him name. "I almost forgot! You're to see Commander Fokker as soon as possible!" she called out. 

He acknowledged her and left the facility, wondering why Commander Fokker - a legend in his own right - would want with him. <I hope they don't want me to pay for that fighter.> 

[Time Hack - Friday, 3 July 2009, 1520 hours, SDF-1 Officer's Barracks] 

David stood stiffly in front of the door to Lieutenant Commander Roy Fokker's quarters. It had taken him several hours to find his way here, after getting lost several times and knocking on four wrong doors, and his leg was virtually screaming in protest. He had passed several enourmous bays where Macross City was being rebuilt for the civilians rescued from Macross Island. David still could not believe it. <Aliens. Pluto. Rebuilt city INSIDE the ship. What next?> He sighed and knocked on the Commander's door. 

After a moment, a voice called out, "It's open!" David opened the door and stepped inside. The room was a jumble of boxes and clothes, scattered around the room haphazardly. The voice called out again from behind another door. "Be right out, make yourself comfortable!" 

David looked around but couldn't find a chair that didn't have a pile of stuff on it, so he leaned against the door and let his eyes roam around the room. He spotted a picture on the wall, the only decoration visible. It was a picture of a tall blonde-haired man standing close to an attractive black woman. He smiled - they made a cute couple. The other door opened and a giant of a man stepped into the room. He stood over six feet tall, with a shock of blonde hair on top of a well-defined face. He glanced at David and extended a hand. "Hello, I'm Roy Fokker. You are?" 

David straightened and almost saluted. He dropped his hand and gripped Roy's. "Oops, ah, I'm David Marshall, sir. I was told you wanted to see me?" 

"Marshall?" Roy said, "Ah yes, the other civilian pilot that had Commander Hayes throwing fits, AND who scattered pieces of one of our Veritechs across one of the landing bays." He smiled and released David's hand. "You'll have to excuse the mess, but things've been a bit hectic lately and I haven't had time to unpack. New quarters and all." 

Despite his misgivings, David found himself liking the Commander. "What did you want to see me about, sir?" David asked, almost fearing the answer. 

Roy sighed and turned away from David. "During the first battle with the aliens we lost a lot of good people, people that are hard to replace." 

Christina Leeds' face popped up in his mind's eye. "Yes, sir." 

"We need volunteers to replace those people who were killed. What with the equipment from the Daedalus and Prometheus, we have more Veritechs than we have pilots." Roy turned back and looked at him. "We need people to pilot those Veritechs. People with flying experience are at the top of the recruiter's 'Want List'." 

David swallowed. "You're asking me to fly a Veritech?" 

"Actually, I'm asking you to enter the training course. If you make it through that, then you'll be asked to fly a Veritech." Roy smiled. "If you want to, of course." 

David thought for a moment before smiling back. "Well, I already know how to wreck a Veritech, I guess actually flying one couldn't be much harder." He saluted. "I volunteer for Veritech training, sir." 

Roy laughed and returned the salute. "Good." He looked at David's leg, the bulky bandage all too visible. "How long until you're fully healed?" 

David shrugged. "Exercise does a body good, Commander. I've flown before, and - God willing - I'll fly again. You need pilots now... I may not be able to fly now, but I can still train so that I'll be ready to go after I'm fully healed." 

Roy nodded. "I like your attitude. We'll start you in training tomorrow." 

He reached out to shake David's hand. "Good luck." 

David returned the handshake and allowed himself a wry smile. "Luck, sir? It'll take more than luck." <I only hope I'm good enough to do this.> 

[Time Hack - Friday, 22 July 2009, 1040 hours, SDF-1 Trainee's Barracks] 

David sat quietly on the bunk, staring at the innards of the clock radio he had just finished tearing apart. Electronic components of all shapes and sizes lay scattered before him, and he idly sifted through them as his thoughts wandered. 

The past three weeks had been sheer hell, mostly due to the incredibly vast amounts of training that the instructors were cramming down the trainees' throats. David couldn't really blame them, of course - what with the horrendous number of pilots killed during the initial battle with the aliens, they were hard pressed to field a sufficient number of Veritechs to defend the Fortress. The fact that no one had any idea what a "sufficient number of Veritechs" was only added to the tension. 

David picked up the clock's tiny LCD display and fingered the wires sticking out of it as he thought back over the past weeks. Enlisting immediately after speaking with Commander Fokker, there had been a seemingly endless mound of paperwork to sort through - sign this, initial here, witness that, fill out these. Some things never seemed to change. The only problem he had encountered was when he told them that he had prior military service. Then came a barrage of questions about himself and his previous assignment - questions that he would have rather not answered... 

"You claim to have served in the military before." Lieutenant Thompson had asked him. "Do you have any proof of that?"  

"Well, sir, all my records are back on Earth, and the paperwork and pictures I had had were lost during the misfold." David had said. "Unless, of course, you can contact the US Military Records Bureau." 

"So you have no proof of this claim?"  

With a sigh, David had answered, "No, sir. But you can quiz me, test me, ask me about anything that I was trained on. Especially T-15s." At the puzzled look from the Lieutenant, David had further prompted, "That's the aircraft that I was trained on, sir."  

"I'll keep that in mind." Lieutenant Thompson replied. "Let's just hope you're telling the truth. Next!" 

David shook himself back to the present. He gazed out among the other recruits, all busying themselves with manuals and technical orders and such. David returned his gaze to the disembowelled clock and sighed. He had read through all the manuals and books three times already, until he couldn't stand it any more - so he disected his clock instead. It was something to do, and it kept his mind off of his problems. At least, that was the theory. Problem was, he couldn't stop thinking about the accident. 

After the accident, the public outcry had been enormous. People had been chafing under the economic restrictions imposed by United Earth Government as the SDF-1 was being rebuilt, and the accident had given them a way to vent their frustrations. There wasn't a single broadcast station he could turn to that didn't have something to say about the accident, didn't have pictures of charred and broken little bodies, didn't have some protesting group or another calling for his head. 

The official line was that the problem had nothing to do with pilot error, but rather that the port turbine had suffered a "catastrophic disintegration" (in military parlance) and had taken out several systems, including the autopilot. David hadn't known this when he set the plane on a course over Lake Erie and ejected, and was then forced to watch helplessly as the aircraft plunged into the heart of the city on it's rendezvous with history. Still, the public demanded that someone be held accountable, and the military needed someone to take the fall, to divert the public's anger - so David, the trainee pilot who wasn't really at fault, became the scapegoat. That seemed to be his role in life - the victim of other people's anger. 

David shook his head and berated himself for thinking about such things. In the grand scope of things he had come out rather lucky. He had survived the Macross Island battle, survived crashing into the SDF-1's flight deck, survived the misfold that dropped the SDF-1 into Pluto's orbit, and managed to get himself enlisted in the Defense Force. He smiled at that. Due to his previous involvement with the military, David had the dubious priviledge of foregoing nearly half of the required training - mostly the portion of it that taught recruits dicipline and "proper military decorum" and such. All the "Yes, sir!" and "No, sir!" claptrap that didn't matter a whit in the heat of battle. Of course, that meant that he was instead dropped into the combat tactics and training courses right off. Hours upon hours of studying combat footage - which he found boring to the extreme - and training in the mecha simulators - which he adored. 

Flying was the only reason he was able to tolerate the long hours of tedium that came along with the classroom work. The moment he stepped into the simulator, the instant the first enemy mecha appeared on his scopes, all his concerns about bookwork and instructors and what-not vanished, replaced instead by the calm serenity of flight. Equally agile in any of the Valkyrie's three available modes, David's instructors seemed greatly impressed by his skill. His accuracy with the GU-11, even with computer-assisted targetting, left much to be desired, however. 

Meanwhile, on the bridge of the SDF-1, Ensign Vanessa Leeds had finally found the courage to review the report on her sister's death. She was shocked to find that Christina had not been piloting her Veritech when it crashed into the landing bay - rather, a civilian named David Marshall was at the controls. She pondered this for a while, wondering why Christina wasn't flying her plane, and how a civilian had managed to get himself into a military aircraft - vague recollections of Lisa's harrange about civilians being in places they shouldn't be echoing in her mind. She was about to query the computer on the status of David Marshall when her monitor flashed a report from the radar room. 

"Fold reaction at six o'clock." 

Forward to Chapter 6. 
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