MACROSS DYNAMITE
Seven: To Facilitate the Great Unknown

Varauta System, Third Planet, UN Spacy Varauta Command

          Isamu Dyson hated to sound weak in front of anyone, much less his old commander on Eden, whose comments on his last performance report had haunted him for quite a while after he had been transferred to Varauta. Does not follow orders well, Millard Johnson had written. Has a problem with anger management. Cannot be trusted with simple tasks. Has a tendency to talk back to superiors.
          After Project SuperNova was over and done with, he'd sat on Eden kicking his heels in the dust for a year – a year after Sharon Apple, a year after Guld's destruction of the Ghost X over the atmosphere of Earth, a year in which he sat in his borrowed quarters and borrowed flight patches and gritted his teeth as commander after commander read his performance report and said, I'm sorry, you're just not the right material for us. It was almost laughable – Isamu Alva Dyson, successful test pilot of the most advanced fighter ever created, turned down for assignment because, according to his superiors, he could "not be trusted with simple tasks." He'd tried complaining to the colonel, who simply smirked at him in that annoying way that Isamu couldn't stand, and had suggested he try to calm down and listen to the world around him for a change.
          So Isamu calmed down, or tried to. He took up photography, though he wasn't the best photographer in the world. He entered marathons in the baking heat of Eden's deserts, and managed to win one or two. He learned to cook, and impressed all his girlfriends with his newfound skill. The girlfriends were something he couldn't seem to rid himself of the habit of, but it was never anything serious – a dinner or two, a movie, an outing out on the town, bar-hopping. There were one or two of them who had seemed like they wanted it to turn into something more serious, and he'd ditched them in a heartbeat.
          He only had girlfriends because there was nothing to do, really, while he was waiting for the woman who he never wanted to call just a "girlfriend," because the word in his mind was so shallow, and he wanted much more than that. And when Myung had finally called him up and said she was ready, he hadn't wasted a beat.
          The day after they were engaged, Colonel Johnson had called Isamu into his office and gave him the startling news he was to become the deputy commander of the garrison on Vortex Five, about an hour away by fold from Eden. And Isamu thought over what had happened the past year and had asked what would happen if he refused.
          Colonel Johnson had simply folded his arms over his chest very smugly and said, "I thought you'd say that."
          He'd asked Isamu if he was calm enough to start working again, and Isamu had said oh yes, definitely. So Isamu was promoted to captain and made the deputy commander there at the test center, a position which he didn't hate as much as he had thought he would. His beloved YF-19 had been taken away, back to Earth, but there was talk of the first VF-19 on the line already, and production had started more quickly than anyone had thought it would.
          After the wedding, he and Myung moved to a nice little house on the outskirts of the city, close enough for Isamu to commute to work from, but close enough to the city that Myung could attend her archaeology classes. Neither of them wanted children, and they were happy enough just with the two of them. He wished Myung hadn't given up singing for good, but he wasn't about to say anything anyway. Sharon Apple had been enough for him. Better a quiet life with an archaeology professor than another hair-raising adventure in which more people would die.
          They kept a picture of the three of them, with Guld, on their fireplace mantle. Myung was bad about housekeeping, but there was never dust on that picture. Sometimes she'd come home late in the evenings and catch Isamu brooding, staring at Guld's childish face in the photograph.
          It was a quiet six years, six years in which Isamu went from bachelor to husband, pilot to commander, and decided that life was pretty good. And then just as he'd decided that, just as Myung had been offered a teaching position at the University of Eden, he'd gotten another call from the colonel. Apparently there was that one line at the bottom of his first performance report that no commander had bothered to read, the line that read: "Is one hell of a pilot. Is more than one hell of a leader."
          Apparently, Britai Kridanik, UN Spacy commander, had decided to read it. And had decided that Colonel Johnson was right.
          "Not bad for a wet-behind-the-ears colony boy," Myung had teased him when he'd come home still stunned from the assignment, and he had smiled uncertainly, told her, "You know that means you'll have to turn down your teaching position if we go to Varauta."
          It was one of the reasons he loved her, he reflected later, when she didn't skip a beat, just told him, "I know. I already turned it down today. I had a hunch."
          Varauta was as different from Eden as air and space – a wild, rocky planet with craggy green things growing through the stones, and the planned capital city with streets in straight squares and its architectured landscaping cut every Thursday by the big trucks rumbling down the streets that looked, more than anything, like giant razors. The city was still being built when they got there, the military garrison no more than a few unfinished buildings and some trailers within a makeshift chain-link fence.
          He'd waded in with unbridled enthusiasm, and found that he loved working with the people there. The new Varauta Spacy commander, General Korhyk, had seen more than simple space combat; she had war stories, real war stories, about the aliens called the Protodeviln on which reports were just beginning to trickle in. She'd been there and done that, and Isamu respected her tremendously. Through her, he'd heard about the Planet Lux, the Spiritia Farm, the Macross 7, the rock band called Fire Bomber, and when the news finally made it through the tabloids, he was able to wade through the fiction and pick out the facts.
          Song energy might sound strange to some, and sometimes he would even wonder if he himself believed it. And then he would remember Sharon Apple's ghostly form swimming through space like it was water, seeping in through the YF-19's cockpit, kissing his ears with her icy song.
          They'd given him squadron commanders about a month after he'd gotten there, and he'd looked at them, standing there in front of his desk, each with his or her own personal signature to the standard military bearing, and he wondered if he had been as stiff as that, or as terrified as that. They were all good kids, but Isamu hadn't really clicked with any of them, hadn't quite felt comfortable because he hadn't been that proper soldier or by-the-book commander.
          Until Sylvie Geena.
          Blond, biting, brilliant 1st Lieutenant Sylvie Geena, time in service just two and a half years, almost fresh out of the Academy, recently transferred from the Zentradi riots on Earth. Word was it that Admiral Britai had personally recommended her to Varauta because she was just that good, and the first time she marched into Isamu's office and stood there, arms across her chest, daring him to say anything, he believed it.
          But it wasn't because of that that he felt a bond with her. Sylvie was sarcastic almost to a fault. She never did anything by the book, and would make a habit of tossing forms and folders into the trash if someone tried to point out the "right" way. She talked back to her commanders and seemed quite proud of the fact. She'd been almost demoted twice for not obeying orders in the middle of a fight, but had ended up receiving medals for both of them instead – once for single-handedly pulling her entire unit out of a doomed firefight, and another time for saving some reporter from being squashed by a Zentradi battle pod.
          He had worried at first that she would resist his orders just like she had a reputation for resisting orders from other superior officers, but he needn't have worried. "I think we'll get along fine," she told him after the initial interview. "You're like me, aren't you, sir?"
          Isamu had been too startled to say anything, and then after she'd smirked at him and slammed the door behind her, he'd burst out laughing. Not so much because what she said was funny, or because he found her amusing, but because now he understood just a little of what Colonel Johnson had gone through when Isamu had arrived on Eden.
          Still, Sylvie was, as the same colonel would have put it, one hell of a pilot and more than one hell of a commander. Her troops loved her and Isamu would trust her with his life, if it came down to it. The other squadron commanders would too. Jealousy seemed nonexistent around her – there was no being jealous of Sylvie because she just made people feel free, happy, confident. It was a kind of charisma that Isamu found incredibly refreshing.
          Which was why now, as Colonel Johnson was on the conference line from Eden, Sylvie was standing in front of Isamu's desk, chewing uncertainly on her lip, and Isamu had his head in his hands trying to convince the colonel one last time that he simply could not go back to Eden. It sounded weak and petty, trying to get out of something just because he didn't want to go. But this was one time where the circumstances came before ego.
          "It's not negotiable, Dyson," the colonel said. "You get yourself down here now. I'll worry about the trial – I doubt anything will come of it on your part. If anything, Yang and I will get the blame, and possibly Bowman, but he's dead, so nothing there. You're perfectly safe."
          "That's not the point," Isamu muttered. "I-"
          "I wish we could use your wife's illness as an excuse," Johnson said, sounding sympathetic for once. "But this is a direct order from the UN Spacy JAG, and barring death, you're required to appear."
          Isamu grunted. "Maybe I should kill myself then."
          "Don't be stupid," Sylvie said, and Johnson cracked a laugh.
          "Sounds like you've found another officer with just as hard a head as you, Dyson. I like her."
          Isamu rolled his eyes. "She has her days. This is not one of them. I can't send a representative…?"
          Johnson shook his head, leaned into the screen. His eyes were genuinely sympathetic. "I really am sorry to hear about Myung, Isamu. I wish I could do something. But I'm only a colonel and this is out of my hands."
          Isamu sighed. "I know. Thanks."
          "General Korhyk knows. I talked to her last week about it."
          "Last week, huh," Isamu said. "You couldn't have told me last week? You had to wait a whole fucking two weeks?"
          "Isamu," Sylvie said quietly, "last week you weren't here. You were at the hospital."
          Isamu blinked. Thought. "Oh."
          The colonel waited. Sylvie leaned across his desk, hands on her hips. "You don't have much of a choice," she said. "You're going."
          Isamu opened his mouth to argue, and she held up one hand. "I'm here. I'll take over your job. I'm pretty much your deputy anyway. I'll check on Myung, too. Don't worry about her."
          "You've got a good deputy," Johnson rumbled from the comm. "I don't feel so bad now."
          "Sir-"
          "You'll be getting your tickets via email in a few minutes," the colonel said, cutting him off, and Isamu knew there was no more arguing. "Let the ticketing agent know if you can't make the time for your flight, and they'll rebook you. I expect you down here in two days or less. And don't tell me you got lost getting to base, because you worked here for six years, and we haven't changed that much."
          Isamu scowled. Johnson waited.
          "Yes, sir," he muttered, and the colonel smiled.
          "I'll be waiting, then." The screen went dark.
          "Trial?" Sylvie said instantly.
          Isamu slumped in his chair, still scowling. "It's a load of shit. Apparently there's some big controversy over Project SuperNova that only got discovered now, though heaven knows they've had six years, they could have come up with something in that time. I don't even know what they're talking about. Cheating, supposedly. I never cheated, and as far as I know, neither did Yang."
          Sylvie looked pointedly at him. "No?"
          "Stop staring at me like I'm some criminal," Isamu snapped. "No. Guld did, but he's dead. Dammit. They should leave the dead man out of this."
          More emotion leaked into his voice than he had intended, and he knew Sylvie realized that, because she dropped her defensive stance, letting her hands hang loosely at her sides. "You can count on me, sir," she said quietly. "Myung is safe here."
          "I know," Isamu replied, not looking at her. "I'm not worried about that. Colonel Johnson says there's no way I'll be found guilty, but I know these UN Spacy folks. They're sneaky bastards. What if I am found guilty? What will happen to Myung then?"

Varauta System, Third Planet, Varauta City, University of Varauta

          "I was hoping to take you out to the dig today," Lao confessed as he fell into step beside Mylene on the walkway leading to the cafeteria. "But apparently they still haven't determined that it's 'safe' for the visiting students yet, so you're stuck here on campus for another week."
          Mylene shook her head. "It's all right. I'm having fun. Besides, there's always the city to explore. I could stay out there for hours."
          "I keep forgetting that cities are so different on your colony," he said, and she stifled a laugh. Lao was intensely interested in colony life, and Mylene was happy to share with him. From what he'd told her, he'd been born on Earth and then had moved directly here when it was announced the planet was accepting colonists. No colony ship, no years in space. It was a foreign concept to her, just as colony life was a foreign concept to him.
          The Varautan campus landscaping was lush and green, and the scent of blooming flowers was heavy around the doorway of the cafeteria. Lao held the door open for her as she adjusted her bookbag and grabbed a tray. "I'd actually like to meet your professor, though," Mylene said. "Professor Dyson…" she lowered her voice as several other students swiveled their heads in her direction at the sound of the professor's name. "The doctors still don't-"
          Lao grimaced. "Let's wait till we're seated first, ok? I don't like talking about her in the line."
          Mylene nodded silently, ordering a hamburger over the grill, piling on the fries and catsup, digging around in the ice chest for a soda. It was unhealthy and her parents would have had a fit, which was precisely why she was eating it. Once in a while, junk food was all right.
          She waited for Lao to finish ordering, scooting her bag over for him when he finally arrived at the table with a huge plate of stirfry. "Wow," she said, unable to find any more words, and he laughed, dug in.
          "I don't like to talk about the professor in crowded places here," he continued, shoveling food into his mouth at the same time. "I get weird looks, as you've probably noticed when you mention her name. It's kind of a…" he trailed off.
          "I understand," Mylene told him. "I lived through that too, on the fleet."
          Lao nodded. "The Protodeviln. I’m wondering if this isn't something similar. I'm told they've ordered some Fire Bomber CDs, but I haven't heard anything on if they work or not."
          Mylene tried not to look away, but the mention of that name was just a little uncomfortable. "It might take a while for them to figure out exactly how to cure it, though. Fire Bomber only worked on Protodeviln…"
          "That's true." Lao looked dejected. He always showed his emotions so openly, Mylene thought, wondering if there was some way for her to cheer him up, but short of finding some way to revive the professor, there was not much she could do.
          "What's she like?" she said instead.
          "Eh?"
          "Professor Dyson. I won't be able to meet her for a while, so…tell me about her."
          Lao blinked. "Well, if you want to listen," he said. "There's a lot to tell."
          He reminded her of Gamlin, she decided, right down to his dedication and eager pursuit of the things he enjoyed. Though he did lack Gamlin's rigid sense of honor and a little of the naiveté he'd carried with him like a force field when the two of them had met – but Lao was honorable in his own way. Trustworthy. Just like Gamlin.
          She missed Gamlin.
          "She's from Eden," Lao said at last, seeming to have decided to start at the beginning. "You heard of Sharon Apple?" Mylene shook her head. "It was about ten years ago now…ten or eleven. You probably were too young, but she was all the rage around that time. Sharon was a virtual idol singer, and Myung was her voice."
          "Virtual…?"
          "She wasn't real."
          Mylene frowned. "I don't quite follow."
          "Artificial Intelligence and all that." Lao pursed his lips thoughtfully. "I'm no engineer or scientist or anything, so I can't tell you much more than that. Let's just say Sharon was a robot. Who could feel like humans felt, sing like humans sang."
          "But I thought you said the professor was her voice?"
          Lao nodded. "That was before they completed her emotion chip. Sharon when she was created, right up till she made her big appearance at the Macross Anniversary Celebration, wasn't much more than a holographic movie. They tried to hide the fact that Sharon really wasn't the A.I. they touted her to be, and up till then, the public believed it."
          "So the professor…"
          "Right. Professor Dyson was Sharon Apple."
          How odd, Mylene thought, that a human with a perfectly good voice, who should have been able to get out there and sing like she had sung, would hide behind the façade of a computer generated idol. "Why did she-"
          Lao shrugged. "I don't know. She really doesn't-" he winced at the present tense verb, then rushed on "-doesn't like to talk about Sharon and all of that. I never really forced her to talk about it. I mean, if there are parts of your history that you're uncomfortable with, it's not up to anyone else to make you tell about it, right?"
          But he wanted to know, Mylene realized. Lao was also one of those insanely curious people, and it had obviously cost him a great deal to hide that curiosity from Professor Dyson. She wondered how much of what he knew about Sharon Apple had been told to him by the professor and how much of it he had gone and looked up by himself, because he wasn't much older than she was and wouldn't have been old enough to remember the events so clearly, either.
          "Anyway, Sharon's emoticon chip turned out to have huge problems, and she'd got control of the Macross electrical systems before she was stopped by some UN Spacy pilots. After that, Professor Dyson stopped singing and went into archaeology."
          "She stopped singing?" Mylene repeated dumbly. "And went into archaeology."
          "Yeah." He peered at her. "What-oh. Yeah. You two would-"
          "Go on," she interrupted hastily, not about to let him launch into a compare-and-contrast between her and the professor. Bad enough that there was one failed idol singer escaping into a field dedicated to reliving the past, but two? Were all ex-musicians this desperate to escape their lives?
          "She married a pilot…Isamu Dyson. He's one of the military guys here on Varauta." He paused, reflecting. "I don't know much about the military, so I couldn't tell you about him. But he's some commander or something, I think."
          She watched him as he fell silent, chewing on his lip. Was he in love with Professor Dyson? That would be unlikely, she decided, as he seemed to regard the professor as someone larger than life, someone who had been through and done more than he could ever hope to be or do. And yet…
          "She's a real talent," he said in a rush, stuffing food into his mouth as if it was a race against the clock, a desperate battle for time. "She's one of the youngest professors in the field – got promoted even before finishing her degree, has got more job offers than any sane person would know how to deal with though she's only a couple years out of school. I think she's probably the youngest archaeology professor on tenure anywhere in the galaxy. She seems to have a…knack. For knowing which things are which, for putting the puzzle together."
          Anima spiritia, floated the stray thought across her mind, and Mylene shook it away. It could be just raw talent. A lot of people had untapped talent that didn't manifest itself because those people just didn't have the chance to do anything that would let it be shown. She was the same way – she was a good student, she'd realized when she had started school, but before when she was busy singing, she would never have known.
          She hadn't been that good a musician anyway. Not as good as Basara.
          Had Myung been a good singer? Or had Sharon Apple been just one of the millions of idol singers, and had been special just because she was something different, something new and exciting and never before seen? Was that why Myung had agreed to the project?
          "Mylene?"
          "I was thinking," she murmured, and Lao gave her an easy grin.
          "Hopefully the doctors find a way to cure her soon, and then you two could meet. I think you would like her. You seem to have a lot in common."
          "Maybe," Mylene said noncommittally, finishing her burger and slurping down the last of her soda. "Ne, I'm finished. I have to go to the library. I'll see you later, ok?"
          "We just came from-" Lao protested, and she stood, gathering her tray and swinging her bag onto her shoulder.
          "Yeah, I know. But there's something else I want to look up."

Unexplored Territories, Quadrant 9, Macross 7 Fleet, Battle 7

          "This is bad," Max Jenius said, hunched over Chiba's chair on the bridge, staring at the grim, familiar face of Major Konda on the half-screen. Beside him, Gamlin Kizaki stood, arms folded over the chest of his impeccable uniform, shifting from one foot to the other as if he wasn't sure which one would hold his weight, if either. "Stop that, Gamlin."
          "Yes, sir," Gamlin said, nervous jittering stopping a little too abruptly, and Chiba glanced up at him.
          "It's not as bad as it looks, sir, I don't think."
          "You don't think?" Gamlin echoed, dubious. "There were three very important adjectives that I just heard Major Konda utter in the last half an hour, and those were 'unknown,' 'undetected,' and 'unreported.' Please explain."
          Max sighed, standing up. "Advisor Exedore, please."
          "I was listening," Exedore rumbled in his low, sonorous voice. "I do not want to say this, and indeed, if these new sound wave patterns were not close to our location, I would keep my thoughts to myself. But the fleet is not prepared for another crisis at this point and time. I must, unfortunately, agree with the lieutenant colonel."
          Gamlin shifted a little nervously at the title, Max noted. The silver rank on his collar did look a little odd on him, after being accustomed to staring at that major rank for so long, but he'd grow into it. Gamlin always did.
          But no, there was something else. Gamlin was…
          Nervous?
          That wasn't quite the word for it either, but something was definitely off about the former Diamond Force commander's composure today, and it wasn't just this news from the Project M team.
          "Sir?" Chiba said. "I don't want to disagree with your opinion, nor that of Lieutenant Colonel Kizaki or the Advisor, but there are several tests I'd like to run on this new data before we jump to conclusions."
          "Good point," Max said, and Konda nodded on the screen.
          "I'd agree with the doctor. You've given us a lot of your analyzation equipment, but with all your experience with the Protodeviln, there might be something you might be able to get out of these sound waves that we might have missed over here at headquarters." Konda paused for a moment. "We've done all we can so far. We told the admiral yesterday, and I don't know if he's gotten the word yet. He's tied up in the budget crisis."
          "My sympathies," Max said, and meant it. The Macross fleets had nothing to do with the UN Spacy budget, having been cut loose from most UN monetary regulations when they had set out into space. But he remembered when he'd been a young commander in the force and how the beginning of every fiscal year was an exercise in teeth-grinding and waving sad goodbyes to wish lists for that year. The budget never seemed to get larger, he had realized, only smaller and smaller. "And wasn't there something else going on? I remember reading something about the Project SuperNova…? I thought that was over."
          "You'll be getting something on it through classified channels later," Konda said. "That's all I can tell you at the moment, sir. I myself don't know much about it, but I know all commanders will be sent information on it."
          Max glanced at Gamlin, who raised his eyebrows and looked faintly surprised, but said nothing.
          "I'll work on this data, sir," Chiba said, and Max could see the gleeful look in his eyes, that look that appeared whenever there was a new project at hand, some new unexplored phenomenon out there. It was amazing how much the doctor could look like a little child at times. "I should be able to have some results to you by tomorrow morning."
          "Don't push yourself," Max said. "But thank you."
          Konda inclined his head. "If that's all for now, sir-"
          "That's all." Max leaned over the screen. "Thank you for letting us know personally. We're grateful."
          "You have the most sophisticated equipment for this kind of work," Konda returned, "and the Macross 7 is no stranger to crises. I should be thanking you for agreeing to do this for me."
          "Kochira koso, and so on and so forth," Gamlin said from behind him, and Konda gave a laugh.
          "Major Konda, signing off!" The screen blanked and blinked, reformed into an image of the sector of space just to the starboard side of Battle 7, where Emerald Force was currently engaged out on patrol.
          "You have a moment, lieutenant colonel?" Max said softly, and Gamlin looked up. He crooked a finger. "I've something to ask you."
          Gamlin followed him over to a quiet corner of the bridge, next to the lift doors. "Am I in trouble, sir?" he wondered quietly.
          Max laughed. "No, nothing like that. I couldn't help noticing. While Konda was talking with Chiba, you seemed very…on edge. Is there a reason?"
          "Nothing, sir," Gamlin said stiffly.
          Milia had warned him that Gamlin would be somewhat difficult to see through, and he thought he would be used to it, having worked personally with the man during the war. But command responsibility seemed to have only heightened Gamlin's sense of personal honor, if such a thing was possible, and Max could see that it would take a while to prod anything out of the man.
          "You're quite different from Barton," Max said at last.
          Gamlin looked confused. "Sir?"
          "Barton was…how should I put it…very straightforward. He'd say what he thought. He would also tend to say it in a very direct manner. It was like being run over by a car, backwards and forwards."
          "Sir, I-" Gamlin began, looking affronted, and Max held up a hand.
          "I'm not saying anything about you. It's different, that's all, adapting to different styles. If I had asked Barton what I had just asked you, Barton would not have only told me exactly what was bothering him, but he would have also added in fifty other probable reasons, a hundred different ways to fix them, and then tack onto the end that he would get to work immediately and that all the fleet's problems would be solved tomorrow morning without fail."
          Gamlin's mouth twitched in a smile. "I'm beginning to see, sir."
          "That's good," Max said, not bothering to hide his own small smile. "But you see my dilemma. Having worked with someone so vocal as Barton for so long, I'm not quite sure how to read you. I'm sure you are experiencing the same with me, somewhat."
          Gamlin hesitated.
          "There's no shame in admitting that," Max said quietly. "But in order for you and I to understand each other, Gamlin, there needs to be lines of communication. I would like for you, at least, to be comfortable around me. I am sure that you have become quite comfortable sharing your thoughts with Milia, which isn't a surprise."
          "I will try my best," Gamlin said, sounding subdued and confident at the same time in a way only Gamlin could.
          "You're a great pilot," Max said. "You're a great soldier. You've come a long way. It'll be an exciting ride, I think. That's all I wanted to say."
          Gamlin looked down. "Sir?"
          Max had taken a step back to his chair, stopped. He would smile, but it would seem too much like a victory smirk, and he didn't want that. So Gamlin would talk after all. "Yes?"
          "I…what Major Konda was talking about. I don't like it at all. It reeks of something…"
          Max raised an eyebrow. "The Protodeviln are gone from the galaxy, Gamlin. I can't imagine they would return, as we have nothing more to offer them."
          "Not the Protodeviln," Gamlin said. "But there's that same sense I get. Something hovering at the background, something that we don't know anything about. We discovered the existence of the Protodeviln when people started falling unconscious with no explanation. At least we have advance warning this time…but what good will that serve us, in the long run?"
          "None of us are strangers to sudden crises," Max said. "We'll manage." He waited, knowing that there was more, that Gamlin was just starting to burrow his way into the real thing that was weighing on his mind.
          "I can't help thinking though," the former Diamond Force pilot said slowly, "that there was something that saved us in the past, something that we didn't take advantage of until too late. That was Song Energy. But even through the military's hardheadedness, there was a group of people that recognized it for what it was, and didn't hesitate to send it out, even through opposition from their own side."
          Max regarded Gamlin thoughtfully. "It is human nature, I think, to resist change. The military is one of the most change-resistant organizations I know, and it is quite ironic that we style ourselves as the cutting edge of technology and progress, when in fact we've been wallowing in the same self-destructive policies since the UN Spacy was formed forty-some years ago before the Zentradi attacked."
          "Admiral Britai knows that," Gamlin said. "I know he does. But…"
          "It's difficult being the commander," Max said. "It's even more difficult being the commander and knowing that most of your power is in name only, because it is the UN that controls the military, and not Britai."
          "Nekki Basara could change that," Gamlin said, jutting his chin out a bit stubbornly, and Max thought, Ah, now we've hit the jackpot.
          "Nekki Basara isn't here," he answered, throwing in the final hand of cards, saying what he knew Gamlin hoped he would say, feeling the words take shape in his mouth before they emerged.
          "Basara saw the dangers we faced before we even acknowledged there were dangers. He also saw the unlimited potential that could be brought out of this. Basara doesn't see the world in terms of enemies and friends – he sees it in terms of what he can do through his music. If he were here on this ship, right now…before anything happens…"
          "Basara was a one-in-a-million chance," Max said softly. "No one was certain that he was the key. Even I, as the one who authorized him that Valkyrie, was taking a shot in the dark."
          "A shot that worked," Gamlin insisted. "Sir, you're one of the finest officers in the Spacy. You're a hero of the Zentradi war, you're the commander of the fleet. You spearheaded Project M and paved the way for Nekki Basara."
          "And you think that if Basara were here, he could do the same for someone else."
          "Someone. Or something. It doesn't matter what, really."
          "I understand what you are trying to say, Gamlin," Max told him quietly. "But I can't have you, as the commander of the army, jetting out into space looking for Nekki Basara."
          "It doesn't have to be me," Gamlin protested. "Any member of Diamond Force could do it, or Emerald Force, even. Of even if you sent out a team, installed Sound Energy detectors in their VFs…"
          "And who out of all of them would have the best chance of finding Basara out there all by himself in the galaxy somewhere?"
          Gamlin looked at his feet. "Me, sir."
          "You see my point."
          "I-" Gamlin began, looking like he was going to argue the point, and Max shook his head.
          "I appreciate you telling me this. I hesitate to say never, because if the situation escalates, then I will agree that perhaps we might need Basara's help, even if it takes some desperate measures. But for right now, in the face of what we have for facts, the answer is no."
          Gamlin nodded slowly. "Yes, sir. Thank you for listening."
          "Gamlin-" Max said, but the other soldier snapped to attention, and was gone through the bridge doors before he could get a word out. He sighed, tugging at his captain's hat with one hand, trudging back to the chair.
          "He will be all right," Exedore said from beside him, one giant blue eye turning to regard Max thoughtfully.
          "Oh, I know that," Max said. "We didn't promote him for nothing. The thing that's on my mind right now is that Gamlin Kizaki is probably right, as usual. We will need Nekki Basara before this is over, and with his penchant for running all over the place, finding him is going to be near impossible."
          "Surely you can do something," Exedore said, creaking slightly as his head swiveled to look at Max. "We will make it through, I am certain. There are several people aboard this fleet who would do a good job of finding Basara."
          "You mean, there were," Max corrected. "There was Gamlin. I can't spare him. There was Mylene. She's on Varauta. There is Chiba, but take him off the fleet with this sound wave anomaly happening and we're basically a sitting duck if the threat turns out to be real."
          "A sitting duck," Exedore mused. "Interesting. I think I saw a duck, once. They are small, yes? Birds? That swim?"
          Max tried his hardest to contain his laughter, but he couldn't help it, meeting Exedore's eyes and noting with some relief that at least the Zentradi's gaze was as sharp as ever, his wit no less dimmed by the passage of the years. "No, you're right, Advisor," he said. "We'll make it through somehow…I just have to figure out what 'somehow' means."

 
back to part six