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The Protoculture Wars
Derek Sherman
Robotech:
Alternate Points
Of View
David
Marshall
This book is dedicated to the following people:
Aubry "Neoculture" Thonon (aubry.thonon@qed.qld.gov.au)
K. Wiley (kkwiley@uccs.edu)
Alex (profnut@nyongwa.montreal.qc.ca)
Steve (epustay@aol.com)
Kirstin (adathono@cc.uq.edu.au)
The Ever-Mysterious Izabelle "IZI" Fate (whom I hope to *never* meet in real life)
And everyone who ever wrote a fanfic that I liked :)
Legal Stuff
This work is c 1994-1996 by Derek Sherman, except for the portions directly related to other characters. It should be noted that Robotech and all things Robotech-related are owned by Harmony Gold.
Feel free to copy this book and distribute it as long as:
A) The copyright notices are left in;
B) If it is printed in a fanzine or any other free,
nonprofit publication, could you mail me a copy
please?
C) It may *not* be printed in a commercial publication
without the prior assent of *all* the copyright
owners, myself included.
I apologize to Aubry for lifting some of the previous section from his part of this "collective fanfic", but I'm not very good at dedications or legal-type stuff.
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Chapter 05
[Time Hack - Saturday, 27 June 2009, 1620 hours, SDF-1 Medical Bay]
Deep inside the SDF-1, David Marshall lay stretched out
on a gurney, oblivious to all the commotion around him.
Wounded people, military and civilian both, were crammed
into cubicles and curtained areas as overworked medical
personnel worked feverishly to save their lives.
A doctor snatched up the folder that lay on David's
chest. He quickly scanned the information scibbled within
and turned to the group of nurses and aides that were
accompanying him. "First and second degree burns to the
hands and neck, deep laceration to the left thigh, probable
concussion." He lifted the edge of the bandage that was
wrapped around David's leg. "Hmmm.... he'll need stitches
and a unit of plasma. But he'll live." The doctor nodded to
one of the nurses. "See to it."
"Who do we have here?" the doctor murmured as he read the
folder for the next patient. "Lieutenant Christina Leeds."
He checked for a pulse, sighed, 0nd signed one of the
papers inside the folder. "This one's had it. Wheel he over
to the temporary morgue and find out if she has any next of
kin."
He straightened as the dead woman was wheeled away. "A
pity. We're going to need all the pilots we can get our
hands on."
***
"David! Hey, David! Wake up, you lazy-ass!"
David groaned and tried to push away the hands that were
shaking him out of his peaceful slumber. Blinking wearily
against the light, he turned to see his roommate standing
over him, grinning. "Whazzup, John?" David mumbled, rubbing
his eyes. Then he noticed that John was already in his cadet's uniform. "What time is it?"
"It's oh-six-thirty, David. If you don't get a move-on,
you'll be late for you solo at oh-eight-hundred." John
poked him savagely in the ribs. "And you know how Captain
Yonchak gets if you don't show up at least thirty minutes
early."
Slapping John's hand away, David pulled himself to a sitting position and stretched. "Six thirty? God, I still have an hour to go yet."
John snorted. "Yeah, right. Just like you have two hours
to get ready for inspection last week." He made a show of examining the buttons on the front of his uniform. "You got there ten minutes late, if I remember correctly."
David opened his mouth, paused, then closed it with a sigh. "I suppose you're right. But this is different - this
is *flying*, not some stupid classroom garbage that we'll never use in real life."
"Whatever you say, buddy." John picked up his dress cap. "Just make sure you get there on time. I'm scheduled to go up right after you, and if you don't show up Yonchak will chew on *my* ass."
***
Doctor Aman examined the sutures that had been used to
close the ragged wound on David's leg. "Very nice job, very
nice. He'll be stiff and sore for a while, but he should
heal nicely."
***
David held his head high as he walked into the training room. Many of the cadets in David's class were already present, and he spotted John sitting near the front, an empty seat beside him. Tucking his cap under his arm, David headed for a seat in the bac
k row.
"Cadet Marshall, why this is a pleasant surprise." David
snapped to attention at the sound of Captain Yonchak's
southern drawl. He glanced over to where the captain was
standing - standing nearly six feet tall and built like a
tank, the captain was hard to miss.
The captain glanced at his watch. "I *AM* impressed, Cadet Marshall. Nearly forty-five minutes early. I think this is a new record for you."
"Sir, I know how much you hate it when I'm late, sir!" David barked. "So I'm turning over a new leaf, sir!"
Captain Yonchak paused long enough to allow the snickers to die down before replying. "I'll believe that when I see it, Cadet. Now take a seat."
"Yes, sir!" He headed for a seat in the back corner of
the room.
"Cadet Marshall?"
David paused. "Sir?"
The captain smirked at him. "Why don't you sit up front
here, next to Cadet Phillips? If you wouldn't mind?"
He sighed. <Of course I mind, you cocky...> "Yes, sir!"
As he settled into the seat next to John, who was trying
hard not to smile at him, David couldn't shake the feeling
that it was going to be a long day.
***
On the bridge of the SDF-1, Ensign Vanessa Leeds received
word that her older sister, Christina, had been taken to
sick bay after her Veritech crashed on approach. She
resisted the urge to leave her post and informed the
messenger that she would be down as soon as her shift was
over.
***
John caught up with him half-way across the tarmac. "You ready for this, buddy?"
David grinned at him. "I've been ready for this all
year." He gestured over to the row of T-15 training planes.
"One of those babies has my name on it."
"In pencil, maybe."
***
Connected to an I.V. tube and various monitors, David's
unconscious body was wheeled into an curtained-off area and
left to heal on it's own.
***
"Angel one to Angel flight. Set course two two zero and climb to angels fifteen. Let's head for home."
David keyed the radio. "Angel two, roger." He waited
until Peterson acknowledged the order as well before
banking slowly to port, keeping in perfect formation behind
Cadet Smith, who had been placed in charge of the solo
flight. <Tomorrow...> David mused, bringing his plane's nose up slightly. <Tomorrow it'll be *my* turn to lead the flight. I'll show Yonchak that I've got what it takes then.>
A slight change in engine pitch caught David's attention. A quick check showed that the starboard turbofan was losing power. "Angel Two to Angel one." He throttled back on the port engine. "I've got a small problem here."
"What kind of problem, David?" Smith slowed his aircraft as well, sliding to port of dropping back so that he was alongside David's plane.
"I'm losing power to the starboard fan, Jim. It's down ten percent and continuing to drop." David throttled back a bit more. "I'm throttling down on the port turbofan."
"Roger that, David. I'll alert the base."
David concentrated on balancing the output from his aircraft's engines as Jim informed the base of his predicament. Suddenly, a warning buzzer sounded. "What the...?"
"David!" Peterson called out. "You're trailing smoke!"
***
The trio of ensigns were strangely silent as they left
the bridge at the end of their shift. They all were worn
out from the day's events. First the alien attack, then the
botched fold operation that stranded them near Pluto's
orbit, the feverish attempts to save as many civilians as
possible before the air in the shelters ran out, the
unending series of problems that presented themselves as
the crew of the SDF-1 took stock of the situation...it had
been rough on all of them. One of them, however, had one
last thing to take care of.
Vanessa Leeds bade her friends goodbye and headed for the
ship's hospital.
***
"It's no good! My hydraulics are just about gone now, too!"
David fought against the panic that he knew he should be
feeling.
"It'll be alright, David." Jim responded, trying to sound calm. "Can you adjust your course at all?"
"Only in small increments. About a degree or two at a
time. Any more than that and the plane begins to yaw." David looked over to where Jim's plane was parallelling the path of his own. "Can't adjust the altitude much, either."
Jim's reply was cut off by another voice. "Angel two, this is Eagle one, over."
<Yonchak.> David mused. <Just what I need.> "This is Angel two."
"What's your status, David?"
David blinked. "By the book" Yonchak had broken normal
radio proceedures and called him by his first name. That
indicated how bad the situation was. "Uh... I've lost the
starboard turbofan altogether, sir. And my hydraulics are
failing, too. I've got minimal control - I can keep this
thing going in a straight line, but that's about it."
There was a heavy sigh. "Alright, listen up. You've got
two options now. You can either ride your aircraft to
ground on the other side of the Lake, " meaning Lake Erie,
which would also mean that he would be crash landing on
Canadian soil "...or you can set your autopilot to bring the aircraft down in the Lake itself, and eject while you're still over dry land. It's your call."
David nodded slowly. *HIS* call. *HIS* responsibility. He
shivered, knowing that there was really only one choice to
make, since relations between the US and Canada had
deteriorated over the past few years, what with the repeal
of the NAFTA treaty and the calls to to impose trade
sanctions against Canada for their tacit support of the
Anti-Unification Forces.
"Roger that, Eagle one. Setting autopilot now."
***
Vanessa stood quietly in the make-shift mortuary, staring
at the white-sheeted form that lay on the gurney before
her. She fought hard to keep the tears that welled up in
her eyes from cascading down her cheeks as she nodded slowly to the nurse that had led her here.
The sheet was pulled back, exposing the body beneath.
Vanessa gazed down on the corpse's all-too-familiar
features, the tears flowing freely now. "Oh, no..." she
moaned. "Oh, Christina... no. NO!"
Vanessa Leeds threw herself across the body of her older
sister and wept.
***
"Eject! Eject! Eject!"
David pulled down hard on the ejection straps, bracing
himself against the g-forces that slammed him down into the
seat a moment later. The noise was undescribable, but
thankfully extremely short. Before he knew it, he was
jerked savagely as the parachute deployed. Then, silence.
"Thank God that's over." David groaned, watching his
crippled aircraft as it continued along it's shallow dive
into a watery grave. "They're never gonna let me live this
one down." He looked around for the other two members of
his flight, spotting both of them flying around him in a
wide circle. He waved his arms to indicate he was alright.
His joy was short-lived, however.
As he watched, horrified, the plane he had just ejected
from began yawing to the right. A slight twist at first, it
quickly became a cork-screw dive. "What? No! NO!" he
shouted, knowing that there was nothing he could do to halt
the aircraft's headlong descent as it dove down towards the
heart of the town below.
"NO!"
***
Vanessa stumbled awkwardly down the hospital corridor,
her vision blurred by unshed tears. Her thoughts were
jumbled, her entire body numbed from the shock of seeing
her sister lying dead on that gurney.
She pushed and shoved her way through the growing crowd of people - some injured, some looking for lost loved ones, some merely gawking at the death and suffering - until she felt another wave of tears and nausea welling up inside of her. She pulled asi
de a curtain and stepped behind it, to
hide her tears from prying eyes.
David swan in a sea of darkness. His head ached. His leg
ached. The more he thought about it, the more he realized
that his entire body ached. He could people talking, a myriad voices blending together into a wash of noise that made distinguishing individual conversations all but impossible. Nearby, he heard sobbing. He almost felt like
sobbing himself, images of the dream that had haunted him
for the past six years vivid in his mind's eye. It took
tremendous effort on his part to fight down the emotions
that swelled within him, but he succeeded. Only then did he
try to open his eyes.
Groaning softly, David blinked against the harsh white
light that filled his curtained cubicle. He looked around
for the sobbing woman, but there was no one in the room
with him. <She must be in another room, or whatever these
things are.> David realized.
He listened to her for what seemed like an hour before she
quieted. Sighing, he gazed up at the metal ceiling, pondering the mess he had gotten himself into. Slowly, effortlessly, he drifted off to sleep. This time his dreams were populated by aliens and giant robots - and a young woman's face, so peaceful and se
rene, even in death.
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