***************************************************************************** Robotech !!: Voyager ALPHA* ***************************************************************************** PART I: PART II will be posted later this morning... * And when I say, "ALPHA", I don't mean that monstruosity that MW threatened to attack me with... by Christopher Willmore For Michael White, who'll be bald after he reads this (from tearing his hair out...) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The SDF-1's detached bridge hurtled through space, powered only by the photons gathered by its solar sails... It's really a pity the crew didn't have a steam engine available - they could have made much better speed by harnessing the hot air they were generating... "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!" sobbed Commander Lisa Hayes. "Macross is destroyed! My friends... My family... They've all been blasted into tiny multicolored dust particles!" "It's not THAT bad," chided Captain Gloval. "Think of it this way, Commander Hayes: If we hadn't gotten rid of the rest of the SDF-1, the Zentraedi would have continued to pursue us. Who knows? They probably wouldn't have let us back on Earth, and in time the situation would probably escalate into a full-scale war..." "Huh? Are you feeling well, Captain?" asked Rick. "You're not speaking quite sanely, Sir." Gloval nodded solemnly, partially because he was incapable of any other action, and partially because it was past his bedtime, and he was tired of keeping his head up. Lisa looked around. So, they had one shameless whore, a resurrected Veritech pilot, someone who thought she was the Queen of Macross, which she called her 'Castle in the Sky', one stud-muffin, and... and... How DID one classify Gloval? "Sir?" she asked. "Have the food supplies been checked?" "They have, Commander. Why do you ask?" "Considering what we've all been seeing recently, I thought they might have been... Touched..." "They're fresh." Lisa pinched herself. It hurt. Darn. That meant she was awake. "Sir?" she asked again. "Yes?" "Are you SURE you kept your 'magic mushrooms' well away from the emergency rations?" "QUITE sure, Lisa." thought Rick. "Hey!" shouted Commander F**ker. "Are you implying I'm a HALLUCINATION? Believe me, I'd rather be back where I came from, scoring on Nina, than stuck here with a bunch of WIMPS who won't even DIE so I can show 'em round the Netherworld!" "Huh?" (That was Rick.) F**ker sighed, and gave up. Lisa stared out the viewport, trying to sort out the thoughts in her head. Suddenly, something startled her. She strained her eyes, refocused, then turned to the Captain. "You are ABSOLUTELY sure the food wasn't tempted with your 'medicine'?" "I wouldn't waste it like that, Commander Hayes." "Then how do you explain... THIS!" with a sweep of her arm, she gestured to the space immediately outside of them. "What the?" (Doesn't matter who said this. They all thought more or less the same thing.) "Looks like a... a cross between a cat and a rabbit..." said Rick. "...and it's eating a carrot..." said F**ker. "IN OUTER SPACE?!?" exclaimed Lisa. "KAWAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIII!" said Sheeta and Minmei. Captain Gloval blinked. "I'll be right back," he said. "I have to check my stash." The others nodded, dumbfounded, as he left into a side-room. "Um... Lisa?" asked Rick. "Yes?" "Do you see what I see?" "I hope not." "It's... growing..." noted F**ker. "And it's even CUTER when it's BIG!" shouted Sheeta and Minmei. "...and it's sprouting wings, and..." before the late pilot could continue, the transformation accelerated to a breakneck pace. In no time flat, the cute cabbit had transformed into a huge, menacing spaceship. "Aw....." sobbed Sheeta and Minmei. "Not cute anymore. Spaceships. Bleargh." Rick blinked. A lot. "Huh?" he asked. "Huh?" he asked again, for dramatic emphasis. "Must be some new kind of Veritech..." pondered F**ker. "But, why the f**k would they want that wimpy animal as the battloid mode? Hmm... Wonder what it looks like in guardian..." "A new Veritech?" Rick's eyes lit up. "I'll test it!" "WARNING! WARNING! ENTERING METEOR SHOWER!" the ship's computer announced. "But we don't have our deflector shields!" exclaimed Lisa. "Gasp!" she gasped. "Gasp!" said Minmei. "Gasp!" said Sheeta. "Cool!" said F**ker. "Huh?" said Rick. Soon, large chunks of mineral compounds were coming towards the SDF's bridge and the 'experimental cabbit veritech'. Before they could reach them, however, the Cabbit-ship powered up and fired a huge energy beam, which powdered the space rocks. "That's one heck of a Veritech," said Rick and F**ker. Sheeta's eyes just widened. "Um... Am I seeing things, or... Never mind. Poor choice of words. Of COURSE I'm seeing things." said Lisa. "What I mean is, does our mass hallucination include a huge glowing tree in the middle of that spaceship?" Sheeta's eyes nearly popped out of her head. she said to herself. She extended her hand, and closed one finger. "Yep," said Rick. "Must have something to do with how it was able to fire that energy blast..." said Sheeta, putting down a second finger. "Oh, I don't know," said F**ker. "That thing's BIG... When you have something the size of a small city, you can stash plenty of generators on board..." noted Sheeta, and put down a third finger. She made some mental calculations, and then shouted, "LAPUTA!!!" "Yes?" asked Minmei, who'd been giggling and staring at the ship all this time. "Not YOU!" said Lusheeta. "The ship! It's my castle! LAPUTAAAAAA!" Apparently, the cabbit-ship heard her. It turned to face the girl. Sheeta opened her arms and tried to hug the thing through the unbreakable glass-like clear plastic alloy. The ship noticed, and sped away at full throttle. After a brief run-in with Azusa back on Earth, it had become wary of anything that tried to hug it and give it a new name... "Laputa..." sobbed Sheeta. "There, there," Hayes comforted her. "That was just a magic-mushroom- induced hallucination. I'm sure we'll find the real Laputa soon." A pause. "Assuming, of course, that you're not a figment of my diseased imagination, as well." The captain stumbled out of the supply room. "Nopes..." he said. "The schtuff's all there..." He ran into a wall. Rick grinned. "Could I have some, Sir?" he asked. "Nopesh, nopesh, nopesh..." said Gloval. "All gone. ALL GONE! ALL GONE! BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!" He promptly collapsed, unconscious. "I KNEW I should've kept the key..." said Lisa. "He just doesn't know when to STOP!" "Now," said Rick, "about our situation...." "WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!" shouted the computer. "LARGE METEOR APPROACHING! WARNING! WARNING! WARNING!" "Current course?" asked Lisa. "INTERCEPT." "Steer us out of it's path, then!" "STEERING FUNCTIONS NOT AVAILABLE UNDER SOLAR SAIL MODE." "Oh, sheet..." said Hunter. "Yes?" asked Sheeta. The meteor was closing in... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't despair! I'll have the conclusion to VOYAGER posted later on this morning... Just couldn't wait until then to give you THIS... Enjoy! -Christopher Willmore