Chapter 8

[Reality Check - Tuesday Jul. 21 2009, 1432 hours, Bay 5B] 

Thallin slapped his hand onto his head and groaned. Through the open finger he looked at the naked form of Izabelle, wondering when he had become so blazé as to not realise she was walking around without any clothing. "Why didn't you say anything?" he asked out loud. 

"What about?" enquired Izabelle. 

"About your lack of clothing!" 

"You never remarked upon it," she answered in a puzzled voice, "so I assumed that this was proper attire for me to not wear." She took a few steps forward and Thallin blushed, now acutely aware of all the movements of her flesh. 

"Look", he gulped, trying to retain his composure. "It just isn't seemly for a young woman to walk around butt-naked. We're going to have to get you some clothes, somehow." Thallin sat down, suddenly bone-weary. "You know, when I enlisted I am certain it said nothing about being propelled to the ends of the solar system to try to figure out clothing for a recently non-dead female." 

Izabelle looked at herself critically. "Do you not like this body? Is there something wrong with it?" 

Thallin blushed. "No, it's fine. It's just fine," he mumbled. "It's just..." he paused and sighed. "Look, never mind. Just take it for granted that I like your body, but that clothing it is a must in this society. Outside of certain activities, that is." He immediately regretted his last statement. 

"Activities? Which activities, Thallin?" asked a curious Izabelle. 

"Er... Sunbathing... Swimming... Things like that." 

"I see. So my walking around naked would not be socially acceptable?" 

"No, I think you would attract a lot of attention if you did that. And we are trying not to attract attention, remember?" Thallin saw a glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. He was hoping it was not an on-coming train. Izabelle sat back down pensively and thought for a moment. 

"Then I will wear clothes outside this room and stay naked when I am alone with you," she pronounced with a certain finality. 

Slowly, methodically, repeatedly, Thallin hit his head on the wall. 

[Reality Check - Wednesday Jul. 22 2009, 1005 hours, Bay 5B] 

"Lieutenant Thallin, report to Research. Lieutenant Thallin, report to Research immediately!" The voice kept repeating this message over and over again, urging him on. Eventually, Thallin reached for an intercom and punched the number to the owner of the voice. "Valerie," was the only word spoken as the receiver was picked up at the other end. 

"Thallin here. I got your message, I'm on my way. Now would you please stop paging me?" 

"Lieutenant Thallin. I have a message from Dr Lang for you. It reads: sectional plans show relocation possible - arrange to have units ready at junction points. That is all." 

"Thank you. Thallin out." He hung up the phone and hurried down the corridor to one of Research's stations. These small rooms were scattered all over the SDF and contained various portable equipment which might be required by its members. Beneath his feet, the plating shook more and more often as the enemy found holes in the SDF's defence network. Announcements of various catastrophes resounded hollowly along the passageway. From the sounds of it, Macross was losing the battle. And now, to top it all off, it seems as though Lang had gotten the Captain's approval for his crazy scheme. Not that it would not work, Thallin knew Lang well enough to know the scientist would never propose a plan that would fail, but the idea of reconfiguring the ship in the middle of battle - to open parts of it to space, for Christ's sake - was not one of Thallin's preferred options at this time. He wondered how the civilians would fare. After all, the holds in which they had been rebuilding the city would be breached for a few seconds as panels slid from position to position, exposing the city to the vacuum of space. 

He reached the station at tapped his code on the lock's keypad, opening the door. Once inside he grabbed a v-suit and stepped into it, zipping it closed around him. Grabbing a toolbox and a communicator, he ran out of the room, slamming the door behind him. "Team 5 alpha to fold room. I repeat, team 5 alpha to fold room. Prepare for re-configuration procedures and coupling of power conduits. Attention all dee-cee teams, five minutes till Macross Transformation. All teams to secure themselves by T minus two minutes." He flipped the communicator shut and jumped down a stair-well, landing awkwardly, nearly twisting his left ankle in the process. 

The fold room was a gigantic area of nothingness which had once been occupied by the Macross' fold generator, the device which was supposed to allow the SDF-1 to warp the fabric of space by creating a naked event-horizon around the ship, enter the realm of hyperspace, then emerge into normal space at the intended destination. At least, this had been the theory. But something had gone horribly wrong over Macross Island that day. The gravitic-energy bubble around the SDF-1 reacted in a bizarre fashion and expanded, far enough to encompass not only the SDF, but also Macross Island. What was supposed to be a simple fold to the far side of the moon for the SDF-1 turned out to be a trip to the far side of the solar system for the ship and everything within a one kilometre radius. To make matters worse, the fold generators had disappeared.. 

Now, several weeks after the event, the reason for the missing fold drives was a matter of records. Something had gone wrong with the engines themselves - maybe a part which had broken under the strain of the fold, maybe some functions of the generators had not been fully understood, more likely than not the fact the SDF-1 was deep inside the Earth's gravity well - what, none would probably ever know for sure now. But the results were catastrophic in consequences. Meters and probes registered an alarming increase in the energy potential of the drives, a geometric increase. It caused the settings on the fold-controls to randomise at 5 microsecond intervals. An automatic emergency system, built by the original creators of the Macross, then proceeded to dump the fold system into hyperspace, forcing the ship to re-enter real-space in an uncontrolled manner. Luck had been on the RDF's side - the ship defolded near Pluto. It could just as easily have defolded in orbit around Rigel-VII. 

Nowadays, the only things inhabiting the fold-room were mysterious flashes of energy, a tribute to the tremendous power the engines had contained scant seconds before being ejected from the ship. 

"Transformation in fifteen seconds," came the warning from the speakers above their heads. Thallin directed the movements of a group of twelve technicians; six on one side of the room, six on the other. If all went well, the ends of the severed conduits would meet somewhere near the centre of the room. Special attachments had already been fitted on each of the conduits to make the junction as easy and as smooth possible. Thallin's team was there to make sure that no glitches happened during the connection of the conduits. 

"Transformation in five, four, three, two, one... Macross Transformation engaged." Deck plates vibrated, seemingly becoming alive as the fortress shuddered. Like a lycanthrope from mythology, like the Valkyries which it held in its bay, the Macross was morphing, but on a much, much larger scale. 

"Everybody look alive. Here they come!" Large metallic bundles of power cables suddenly appeared from each side of the room, making their way snake-like towards one another. Finally, they were close enough that the magnetic grapple on each sought its counterpart, and the conduits snapped together with a sound like the crack of a whip. "B-team, check the power linkage!" yelled Thallin above the din of the engines. "A-team, I want a test frequency run down the circuit, and I want it now!" 

Thallin moved towards the conduits, running. Suddenly, one of the random flashes of energy permeating the room appeared in from of him. Too surprised to think, Thallin promptly fell on the floor. His entire body felt as if he had just run into a wall, even though he had not actually hit anything. A nearby technician came over to help him to his feet, but Thallin waved him off, shunning away from physical contact. Upright again, Thallin placed a screwdriver against the twinkling flash of light. As quickly as it had appeared, the light vanished and took the screwdriver with it, yanking it out of Thallin's grasp. For a few seconds he stood there bewildered, then Thallin continued towards the power conduits at a fast jog. The entire incident had maybe taken ten seconds at the most, but Thallin was certain there was something that could be made out of those random bursts of light. 

[Reality Check - Wednesday Jul. 22 2009, 1936 hours, Bay 5B] 

Thallin sat back in his chair with a deep sigh. The day had worn him out and he was looking forward to a hot shower, followed by eight or nine hours of uninterrupted sleep. 

The main guns had fired without a hitch and destroyed the enemy cruiser with one blow. The enemy fighters had been fought off, although CAG was still trying to assess the damage done to the ranks of the Veritech pilots. Civilian casualties had been high. Several hundred bodies were still unaccounted for and Rescue thought they might have been blown out into space during the transformation. Thallin had reported his accident with the flash of light and Lang had disappeared into the fold room to inspect the ever-changing display of energy there. To top it all off, he had come back to the lab - were he was now spending most of his time anyway - and had found a note from Izabelle waiting for him on his computer screen. 

< STEPPED OUT FOR A MOMENT. >
< WILL BE BACK FOR DINNER. >
< IZI. > 

Thallin cleared the message from the screen and noticed that the computer itself had issued him a message. Intrigued, he called up the entry and read it. <So, Miss Landers, what makes you so interested in my file?> he thought as he stepped through the numerous attempts to break into his service and medical records. <I guess I'll just have to make it a little easier for you.> Thallin created a new entry in the records and copied his file to it, linking it to the name Todd Harris. He then removed the password from his file and replaced the contents of his file with the picture of a female cartoon character with a finger pulling on her lower- left eyelid and sticking out her tongue. He added a "better luck next time" message to the bottom of the screen, then closed the file with a chuckle, committing the changes away. 

The door to the lab opened and Izabelle walked in, wearing a flight-suit and holding a couple of trays in her hands. "Good evening Thallin. I have brought dinner for us both." Thallin got up and walked around her for a moment, looking her up and down. Izabelle stopped moving a struck a pose. "Is this acceptable attire?" she asked Thallin. 

"Yes, this is much better, much more acceptable." He could not take his eyes off her, the flight suit doing things for her figure that enhanced the curves inside it. "Did you have a lot of problems getting the food?" he enquired, wondering if anybody had noticed a dead woman walking around, ordering dinner. 

"There was no problems obtaining dinner. However, a few of the pilots in the refec were looking at me for a long time. A couple emitted a two-tone whistle in my direction. One looked at me as though he had seen me before. But he did not accost me as I walked out." 

"Did anybody stop you for any reason?" 

"A young woman did. She was of medium height, with short brown hair. She was wearing glasses. She kept on calling me 'Christina' and seemed quite upset when I insisted I was called 'Izabelle'. She called me a liar a few times before collapsing to the deck and breaking down in tears. I thought it prudent to remove myself at this point." 

<It must have been Christina Leeds's sister, Vanessa.> "That's all right. You did the right thing in avoiding a confrontation." He winked at her and rubbed his hands together. "I'm famished. What's for lunch?" 

Izabelle offered the tray in her left hand to him. "Roast pork, peas, carrots, potatoes and gravy. Dessert consists of..." She paused, perplexed. Thallin was gazing at a patch on her left breast. "Is there something wrong, Thallin?" 

"Izabelle," asked Thallin in a small, wavering voice, "where did you get the flight suit from?" 

Thallin rushed into bay 5B and stopped short. In the middle of the room, next to the VX-001, was the naked body of a young woman. Lying next to her was a small length of pipe. Thallin walked up to the body and felt the bump on top of her head. <I can't believe she thumped somebody and stole their clothes.>A moan issued from the body as Kay Landers came back to consciousness. 

Sweat broke out on Thallin's fore-head. "Oh boy." 

Forward to Chapter 9.
Back to Chapter 7. 

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