Robotech:
Snipes In Wonderland
By J. Austin Wilde
Fission Park Press
J. Austin Wilde, K.B.C.S.
Minister of Propaganda and
Super Critical Reactor Axe Man
Fission Park Press
jaustin@aloha.net
Many thanks to all the snipes who crawled out of the bilge to C&C
this work. I dedicate this ‘fic to you!
For those of you who follow such things, I’m using the Jack McKinney
continuity for a timeline of major events. The characters in Snipes will
probably never meet the established characters of Robotech except in
passing. This story isn’t about mecha pilots, or idol singers, or Bridge
Bunnies. It is about the men and women who fought the hardest battles
of all -the battle to keep the SDF-1 in fighting order.
If you’re wondering about the title of this ‘fic, a ‘snipe’ is a
nautical term for an engineering type; one who usually works below
decks in the fire rooms and engine rooms of ships. The ‘In Wonderland’
part comes from the nickname of the A1W prototype training reactor
plant at the Naval Reactors Facility, Idaho National Engineering
Laboratories; outside of Idaho Falls, Idaho. A1W was the USS
ENTERPRISE prototype reactor plant. A1W was known to staff
and students alike as “Alice In Wonderland,” and if you were ever
to tour the plant for the first time you would feel a little like
Alice through the looking glass. Alas, like Snipe’s Castle, A1W is
no more.
The situations, mecha, and some of the characters portrayed in
this work of fanfiction are the property of Harmony Gold USA.
So there.
<<This fanfic employs some rather harsh language, you have been
warned.>>
_______________________________________________________
Prologue
"Standing by for Test Series 336 Alfa, all watchstanders make
reports to Central," the Engineering announcing circuit 2MC cried.
The voice of Commander Giles Lochland echoed throughout the
cavernous Engineering Spaces of the SDF-1.
Men and women scurried about the decks and catwalks as the
exotic systemry hummed at a higher pitch. No one really pretended to
understand what half of the systems did, but if they were ever going to
learn they would have to try them out.
"Commence Data Run 336A, time 13:06, mark!" Lochland
announced on the 2MC; the Public Address type loudspeaker network
that allowed him to communicate with the crew in the engineering
spaces.
Power Systems Technician First Class Milo Wasserman noted
the rising power levels in Number Four Reflex Furnace, his primary
responsibility. His panel was of human manufacture, rigged by bundles
of armored cable runs into the alien technosystems he monitored. All
of the original displays were in the glyphic language of the people who
had built this ship. His panel was an attempt to convert that language
and number system (the aliens used a base 27 system to the humans'
base 10) into something the human crew could use.
"Are these tests ever gonna be done?" Power Systems Tech 3rd
Class Jimmy "Stick" Stave asked.
Milo regarded the skinny eighteen year old with a tired look.
"Kid, just wait until we get this pig into space. You think we're
busy now, just you wait."
"Chief said things would get better after the launch."
"And you believed him?" Milo retorted.
Milo returned to his panel. He felt old having a watch section of
eighteen and nineteen year olds to look after. He was twenty-five
himself. Stick was probably the youngest looking of the entire
Engineering Department, and Milo suspected that he had lied about
his age to get in. The Global Civil War had taken care of most of the
paper trail that could prove Stick's age to contrary.
Stick just wasn't going away. Milo craned his head over his
shoulder to regard the diminutive petty officer.
"You still here?"
"Hey Milo, you want some more coffee?" Stick asked.
"Are you trying to stay out of Central or something?" Milo
returned. Stick was the Engineer's Messenger in this watch section,
and was supposed to be in Central to run errands and such.
"Yeah. All the big wigs are in there right now, including Lang.
That guy really freaks me out."
Milo shrugged. "Well I might understand how you could feel that
way about Lang. You aren't alone in that respect."
He finished his data run and sent his logs to the controlling area
for the SDF-1’s engineering spaces, known as Central, via optic tie
bus.
"What kind of coffee are we talking about?" Milo asked, holding
his black mug emblazoned with the RDF fighting kite in his hand.
"Thomas made some Kona Cinnamon Vanilla," Stick replied. "You
can smell it all the way to Fold System Forward."
Milo winced. "Anything else besides that foo-foo coffee?"
"There's always Standard Robotech Joe," Stick offered warily.
Standard Robotech Joe was the name given to the military coffee that
came in ten kilo steel cans. Most of the stuff was held over from
World War Two.
"Gimme some SRJ, black and sweet."
"Aye!" Stick cried at having a mission. He took Milo's mug and
ducked under a run of twenty centimeter diameter piping that made
up the Reflex Furnace's Tier Three Cooling System.
"Completed Test Three Three Six Alfa, time 13:11," the 2MC
crackled.
Milo got back to work.
It was only two days to Launch Day, and they had a long way to
go.
_________________________________________________________
Episode One:
Launch Day.
"Commencing power ramp to ten percent. All Section Leaders
make reports to Central."
Milo looked up from his mug of SRJ to hear the 2MC over the
steady thrum of power from the titanic Reflex Furnaces of the SDF-1.
Auxiliary systems chimed musically and the lights flickered as the
Furnaces took up the load from External Power.
Several members of the Damage Control Party stood by in silvered
proximity suits. The alien furnaces had never been taken above ten
percent power, and no one was sure what would happen if they did.
Of course Lang and the others had sworn up and down to the
politicians that everything would be fine.
"That explains why we're ready for the damn things to explode,"
Milo concluded to himself.
Today was Launch Day. God willing, at 15:00 the SDF-1 would
rise above Macross Island on it's way into Low Earth Orbit. They'd
perform some engine trials (the main reaction mass drives had never
been above .005 percent thrust on the island), make a quick jaunt to
the moon and back. On the dark side of the moon they would test
fire the Main Reflex Battery, known as the Main Gun to the crew.
Once again, no one was entirely sure what would happen when they
fired it.
Milo didn't even want to think about what was sitting in the
compartment forward of Reflex Four; the Fold Generators. Those
mammoth machines were locomotive sized testament to the ten-
dimensional universe predicted by physicists and cosmologists alike.
In theory they could transport the SDF-1 through time and space to
any point in the universe.
The orbit of Mars would do for now, but _that_ test wasn't for
another two full weeks of space trials.
Outside the battlefortress the big air show and Launch Day
festivities were in full swing. The Veritech Fighters, and the Destroids,
and the other fantastical machines Robotechnology had made possible
were all going through their paces. Meanwhile, deep in the bowels of
the ship the crew was in the middle of the final countdown to launch.
Doctor Emil Lang and his staff were making a tour of the spaces.
Milo set down his mug to make way for them.
"Gutenmorgen Vasserman. How is everyzing?" Lang asked. His
odd all-pupil eyes absorbed the light of the compartment.
Milo gestured to his watch section. "We're standing by sir, just
give the word."
Lang nodded. "Zo... Do you zink ve'll get her off ze ground?"
Milo laughed. "If I have to get out and push her, sir."
"Good! I haf every confidence in your abilities Vasserman. You're
vun of ze most experienced operators in ze Department. I'm zure ze
Western Alliance Navy regrets losing you."
Milo shrugged. "If you say so, sir."
Lang continued on through the spaces with his entourage. Lochland's
voice issued over the 2MC.
"Doctor Lang sir, contact Central."
Milo went back to supervising his Section. Stick was there, having
been exiled to the spaces to serve as an operator after annoying
Commander Lochland continuously in Central. Milo Wasserman
wondered how he been stuck baby-sitting him.
"What's going on, Milo?" Stick asked.
"They're getting ready to take us up to 20 percent. They need to
get Lang's concurrence first, and then call the Captain for permission."
"I thought the skipper was at the Launch Day party." Stick replied.
"He is. So siddown and shut up, 'cause we're gonna be waiting for
awhile."
One of the other watchstanders, a Fusion Maintenance Tech 2nd
Class named Rod Fowler sat down on the deck with his logs across
his lap. He had a look of mischief on his face, and the numerous
practical jokes unleashed in the SDF-1's Engineering Spaces most
often sprang from his fevered brain.
"Hey Wasserman, we gonna get this pig off the ground?" He asked
idly.
"So they tell me," Milo answered.
"Aren't you supposed to be the CMO4 right now?" Stick asked
Fowler. CMO4 stood for Chief Mechanical Operator, a roving
supervisory mechanic in the Number Four Reflex Furnace
Compartment. The CMO4 answered directly to Wasserman,
who was the Number Four Top Watch, or '4Top'.
"If so, why aren't ya rovin'?" Stick continued.
Fowler threw his logs at Stick. "Shut yer ass, nub!"
"Stick's right, Rod." Milo said. He then scowled at the skinny
enlisted rating. "For once," he added. "If ever there was a time to be
keeping an eye on things, it's now."
"Aye," Fowler grumbled. He retrieved his logs from the deck plates
and shot a death look at Stick, who wisely retreated around a huge
magnetic blocking valve.
"As for you, Stick, get me some coffee and quit fucking with my
watchstanders!" Milo yelled.
"I'll wait for Fowler to go down to Middle Level first," Stick said
from behind the safety of the blocking valve. There were pros and
cons to being the smallest guy in the department, and for the moment
being able to go where no one could reach you was a boon.
"Hurry your ass Stick, or you'll wish it was Fowler who was after
you," Milo growled.
Stick climbed out from behind the valve. "I'm goin', I'm goin'!"
Milo looked back to his panel. Everything seemed normal, power
levels were steady at ten percent. The enormous energy produced by
the enigmatic Reflex Furnace was being channeled through the ship's
electrical power distribution system. The electrical operators had
reversed External Power, and in effect, the SDF-1 was now lighting
Macross Island.
Not that the energy produced by the Reflex Furnace was actually
electricity. Whatever the animating energies were that gave way to
Robotechnology, they were not actually coursing through the ship's
External Power cables and into the island's grid. They were however
driving conventional 3 Phase AC generators at 60 and 400 Hertz.
Lang and many other scientists had scribbled across endless dry
erase whiteboards about whatever it was the Reflex Furnaces were
producing. Milo and the numerous others who attended the Robotech
Engineering School in 2007 had scratched their heads and moved on.
Robotechnology was perhaps the only discipline (outside of religion)
in history where you had to accept just about everything on faith.
He was about to make his hourly tour and check on the other
watchstanders in his section when his indicators all jumped into the
red. An alarm klaxon blared and red revolving lights began flashing.
He scanned his panel, trying to figure out what the hell was going
on. Power levels were climbing rapidly, systems only half understood
came on line without any outside prompting. The Reflex Furnace
began to rumble in the near subsonics as it jumped to 70 percent
output in under two seconds.
Fowler appeared at the top of the ladder from Middle Level.
"What the fuck's going on?"
Milo stabbed at the overrides. There was no response.
"The thing's freaking out!" He answered. He continued stabbing
at the touch sensitive display. "I think Central has locked me out!"
The deck plates began to shake as an ominous sound rolled up
from the depths of the battlefortress. Massive servos whined and
multiton disconnects engaged somewhere forward of Reflex Four.
"Quench all Furnaces locally!" Lochland cried over the 2MC.
"Central ain't doin' shit!" Fowler cried. "Nobody's got control of
this fucker!"
Milo stabbed at the Quench switch again and again. There was no
response, and the Furnace output climbed to 90 percent.
"It's not working!"
“Now what?!”
"I think we can do this manually!" Milo cried. "Come on!"
He dashed past Fowler and down the ladder into Middle Level.
An operator named Lopez was trying to engage the manual trips the
Restoration Crews had installed for just such an emergency.
The trips were manually operated magnetic blocking valves that
would secure plasma flow through the Furnace and interrupt power
distribution, known as a ‘Quench’. They also wouldn't budge.
“Can’t trip ‘em!” Lopez gasped. “They’re locked open!”
“They’ve got Closing Power available!” Fowler yelled back,
looking at the series of white lights on a nearby display. “What the
fuck?!”
“Line up to hand pump them shut!” Milo ordered. It was possible
to use hydraulic pressure through an emergency hand pump station to
position the magnets manually in order to secure plasma flow.
Lopez grabbed a laminated copy of the hand pump procedure that
hung by a lanyard at the hand pump station. They had walked through
the procedure a few times in training, but he had never performed the
evolution for real. Another operator known as Doomsday scrambled
up from Lower Level to assist.
Lopez finished lining up the valves and set a huge orange breaker
bar into the hand pump well. He and Doomsday began to work at the
pump. Some of the Damage Control party jumped to lend a hand.
"What's power at!?" Milo gasped.
"96 percent and ramping up!" Fowler cried.
"Where's the power going?" Milo gasped again. Six men were
straining against the trips to no effect.
"No idea, man!"
The howl of the Reflex Furnaces became deafening. Harmonics
and resonances that rattled their teeth and made their eyes swim in
their heads coursed through the deck plates at their feet. The massive
meter thick bulkheads seemed to warp and close in on them.
The air pressure changed dramatically in the compartment, and
for a moment Milo thought something had just ruptured. A sudden
heat washed over them.
Without further warning, Number Four Reflex Furnace powered
down to ten percent.
Alarms ceased wailing, to be replaced by curses of surprise and
amazement by watchstanders on all three levels. The universe returned
to normal.
"What the fuck was that...?" Fowler asked in the relative quiet.
"Beats the shit out of me," Milo replied.
The 2MC crackled for attention. "All hands check spaces for
damage and injured personnel. Repair Bravo lay to Main Reflex Battery
Controls. All Section Leaders lay to Central immediately."
Milo looked to Fowler. "You're in charge, Rod. Make sure
everything's squared away."
“Sure man, as soon as I change my shorts,” Fowler replied.
Milo climbed back up to Upper Level and across a catwalk to
balcony ledge that circled the huge compartment. He stepped through
an airtight door and into a man-sized passageway. Most of the
Engineering spaces were scaled to accommodate the giant aliens that
once crewed this ship.
When he reached Central, it was pandemonium. All of the Top
Watches were there, the Furnace Supervisor (Milo’s immediate
superior), the Fold Supervisor, the various Division Officers and
Chiefs, and Lochland, who was the Assistant Engineer and second
only to Lang in the department.
They were arguing back and forth as to what had happened.
Lochland kept yelling for quiet, but didn’t get it until a crusty old
Master Chief named Felder bellowed that he was going to rip the balls
off the next guy who piped up. Felder may have been an old cuss, but he
was a _well built_ old cuss. The guy could practically bench press a
Buick.
Lochland continued from some point before Wasserman had arrived.
“All we know for certain is that certain automated routines within the
ship’s primary AIs superseded control authority from the Engineering
AI systems and activated the Main Reflex Battery.”
“Damn straight they did!” Someone called. Felder looked around
with narrowed eyes for the offender.
“The Main Reflex Battery fired what we believe was a full strength
salvo across Macross Island. There are no casualties as of yet, but it’s
too soon to tell for certain. We have suffered no immediate damage
and no casualties... I’m going to recommend to Lang that we interrupt
control and indication feeds with the Command Tower in order to
preclude another event.”
“In other words, no adult supervision,” the Main Propulsion
Assistant observed.
Lochland nodded. “More or less, but until we discover exactly
what happened and take steps to isolate this rogue command authority
override its the best we can do. Truth be known I don’t like the idea
of those ‘Bridge Bunnies’ looking over our shoulders anyway.”
The assembled engineers laughed heartily in agreement. The
Engineering Department was one of the few on board dominated by
men, and the testosterone flowed freely.
“Everyone back to your stations except Mister Donovan and
Chief Takeda,” Lochland ordered. “No one’s canceled the Launch
and we still have a job to do.”
Everyone mumbled in agreement and filed back to their posts.
Milo wondered why he even bothered to show up. If Lochland and
the others really didn’t understand what had happened, what did they
expect to be able to inform the rest of the Department?
“GENERAL QUARTERS, GENERAL QUARTERS! ALL
HANDS MAN BATTLESTATIONS! SET CONDITION ALPHA
THROUGHOUT THE SHIP! NOW GENERAL QUARTERS!”
The voice of Lieutenant Commander Lisa Hayes, the Ship’s
First Officer, rang over the ship’s general announcing circuit
intercom, or 1MC. Following her announcement came the strident
warble of the ship’s General Alarm.
**Battlestations?!**
By reflex he ran to his Battlestation, which fortunately was as
Number Four Top Watch. At least he wouldn’t have to worry about
a rushed turn-over with someone on the questionable status of the
space.
Upon his return to Reflex Four he was handed a pressure suit by
Fowler. He took the suit and began putting it on. They had run drills
in pressure suits before, but that was always with the comforting
thought that there was a nice safe atmosphere available in case
anything went wrong with the suit. Now...
“What the hell’s going on?” Fowler asked. He had his faceplate
visor up so as not to clutter the commo channels.
“I guess we’re under attack,” Milo replied, he was getting status
reports from the rest of his section as he dressed out.
“Who? Anti-Unification terrorists?”
The Anti-Unification movement was a well armed and fanatical
group of malcontents who couldn’t see the SDF-1’s arrival for what
it was: A reminder that the petty conflicts of Earth were insignificant
when compared to the great wars in deep space that the ship had
escaped. A war that could easily come to Earth.
The rebels had already destroyed Mars Base Sara and massacred
the colonists. Who knew what they had planned for the Inaugural
launch of the SDF-1, the UEG’s crown jewel and symbol of its
authority.
Another possibility entered Milo’s mind.
**What if those aliens really have come to Earth?**
“Could be anything, but I don’t think it’s a drill. Just keep your
eyes open and your people ready for anything,” Milo admonished.
End of Episode One.
________________________________________________________
Robotech:
Snipes in Wonderland
Episode Two:
Murphy Stows Away
The SDF-1 stood at Battlestations. The men and women of the
Engineering Department waited in hushed stillness for their orders.
The subtle vibrations of the machinery failed to leave them with the
comfortable feelings they once did.
The Rumormill was in overdrive. Stories and speculation that
started in one compartment were blown a hundred times out of
proportion by the time they drifted to the other side of the ship.
-Thanks to roving watchstanders who felt it was their duty to pass
on such bits of information. As always, it was the biggest whoppers
that were the first to be believed.
It was First Officer Lisa Hayes’ voice over the 1MC intercom
that laid the rumors to rest.
“We are under attack by alien forces in sector four-one-two. This
is not a drill, I say again; this is not a drill!”
Milo looked up to the cavernous overhead. Then he looked around
him, and saw that everyone else in Reflex Four was doing the same
thing. Somewhere high above them, outside the ship, was an enemy
the whole world had hoped would never come.
“All stations report status of rigging for General Emergency and
Condition Alpha,” Lochland called over his own intercom.
Milo looked to Stick, who was busy sweating in his pressure suit.
“Stick, go ‘round to all the stations and see what’s up.” He ordered
the skinny eighteen year-old. There was no reason to have him go, he
could call each station on the phones and ask, but it was something
to keep the kid busy before he lost it.
Stick aye-aye’d and hopped down the ladder to Middle Level.
“Whaddya think?” Fowler asked him.
“About?”
Fowler shrugged. His pressure suit made a sighing sound as it
moved against his body. “We just walked into an interstellar war.
How’s it feel?”
Milo checked his suit’s supply of oxygen from an indicator on his
forearm.
“I’m trying not to think about it.”
They waited. That was the worst part of it. Not knowing what
was going on up there. Lochland made announcements and they
performed their duties, but that cold lump in their stomachs from
not knowing was growing, getting colder.
They had just axed about three hundred pages of the countdown
procedure, and any lingering rumors that this was a very sophisticated
crew response exercise were immediately dispelled. The procedures
were Gospel, and Lochland the kind of martinet that fell down on
his face to worship them.
“All stations prepare to engage Gravity Control System,” Lochland
announced.
“Okay people, look sharp!” Milo called to his section. “This is
it! I want you to keep an eye out on all systems, ‘cause I don’t need
to remind you that this has never been done before!”
His boys checked their displays as the Number Four Reflex Furnace
began to thrum with power. As long as another unexplainable power
transient didn’t occur, everything should work out fine. The Damage
Control parties went on self seal and engaged their onboard air
supplies as a precaution nonetheless.
“Prepare to engage Gravity Control System on my mark!”
Lieutenant Claudia Grant called from high above them in the
Command Tower. The reflex furnaces, true to their name, began
to hum even louder in preparation.
“Ten...Niner...Eight....”
The ship seemed to shift on it’s mammoth keel blocks as the
Gravity Control System (GCS) pods spun up. The GCS pods were
scattered throughout the ship and were classified into two groups;
Propulsion -or gravity drive, and Environmental -providing inertial
dampening and artificial gravity when the ship was in space.
“Seven...Six...Fiver...”
The Reflex Furnace trembled as power ramped up to 60 percent
in under a quarter second. The ship began to vibrate as forces of
gravity tugged at it from many different vectors. Silent prayers
mingled with appreciative curses as the crew waited at their stations.
“Four...Three...Two...One...Mark! Full Thrust on Propulsion
GCS!” Claudia cried.
The SDF-1 gave a massive shudder, and then lurched into the air.
Milo Wasserman held on as the battlefortress suddenly pitched
up into the sky. His heart seemed ready to burst with pride. The
ship, his ship, could fly!
“Environmental GCS systems engaged,” Lochland announced.
The ride became a little smoother.
“Hey it works man!” Fowler said with surprise. “I never thought
we’d get off the ground.”
About that point is when the alarms began to wail.
“What did I say!?” Fowler cried.
Milo checked his displays. All conditions in the Reflex Furnace
were normal, although power demands were fluctuating slightly. The
ship began to vibrate badly.
“FIRE IN GRAVITY NINE! CLASS CHARLIE FIRE IN
GRAVITY NINE! REPAIR ONE-THREE LAY TO GRAVITY
NINE! FIRE IN GRAVITY NINE!” The 2MC barked. It was an
automated emergency response system whose voice was followed
by more alarms.
On instinct everyone in Reflex Four went on self seal and
plugged umbilical hoses into manifold connections spaced throughout
the compartment. Gravity Nine was a GCS compartment forward
of them and six levels up. Because the ship was rigged for Condition
Alpha -meaning maximum airtight integrity, there was no chance of
smoke or poisonous gases reaching them in Reflex Four. That didn’t
stop anyone from sealing up and plugging in.
“FIRE IN GRAVITY THREE! CLASS CHARLIE FIRE IN
GRAVITY THREE! REPAIR ONE-SIX LAY TO GRAVITY
THREE! FIRE IN GRAVITY THREE!”
“FIRE IN GRAVITY FOUR! CLASS CHARLIE FIRE IN
GRAVITY FOUR! REPAIR ONE-ZERO LAY TO GRAVITY
FOUR! FIRE IN GRAVITY FOUR!”
“FIRE IN GRAVITY ONE! CLASS CHARLIE FIRE IN
GRAVITY ONE! REPAIR ONE-ONE LAY TO GRAVITY ONE!
FIRE IN GRAVITY ONE!”
There would have been more, but at that point someone in Central
killed the automated response system and began directing the Damage
Control parties over the phone circuits.
“Jesus Christ! The whole ship’s on fire!” A Fusion Maintenance
Tech nicknamed Doomsday yelled.
A terrible screaming sound tore through the ship. The sound of
tons of superhard armor being torn asunder, and of dozens of
mammoth support struts snapping like twigs deafened them and
brought sharp pangs of panic to their hearts. The SDF-1 began to
lurch sickeningly around them.
Milo realized at that point that the ship’s entire Gravity Control
System had catastrophically failed. SDF-1 began it’s long fall towards
Macross Island. There was nothing to keep ten million tons of
spacecraft airborne.
“Brace for impact!” He yelled to his section over the suit intercom.
He was barely heard over screams and cries of panic. He grabbed
onto a large length of coolant piping and remembered to keep his knees
bent.
The indistinct roar of emergency fusion driven HEPLAR thrusters
kicked in from somewhere below them. It wouldn’t be enough to keep
them aloft, but it might slow their descent. Maybe.
SDF-1 came down hard on the keel blocks, which gave as much
as their shock suppression systems could take before shattering like six
hundred tons of glass. Reflex Four and the rest of the ship was
engulfed in blackness as the lighting failed. Bodies flew across the
compartment and the screams of men and women echoed in headsets.
The ship settled in on the ruined tarmac of the airfield at a
sickening fifteen degree list to port. The lights flicked back on,
as well as battery powered emergency lamps, known as ‘battle lanterns.’
Sparks erupted around them from tertiary systems that couldn’t take
the abuse. Milo picked himself up off the deck and made sure no one
was seriously hurt.
“Fire in Reflex Four Middle Level!” He heard someone, possibly
Lopez, shout over the suit commo. Acrid smoke began welling up the
ladder well.
Milo grabbed a portable Halon extinguisher from a bulkhead
mounted rack and made his way past a suited figure scrambling up from
Middle Level. It was Stick. He was about to yell at him not to run when
he saw that Stick was headed for another extinguisher.
Milo ran down the steep ladder well facing outward away from
the rungs as any dyed-in-the-wool snipe would. His left hand scrambled
over pipes and stanchions for balance as his other hand held the
sixty-five pound extinguisher in a death grip. Smoke and fumes filled
Middle Level, making it impossible to see more than a foot in front
of him.
“Where’s the fire!?” He called over the commo, his breaths hard
and fast echoing in his pressure suit’s helmet facebowl. He plugged
in to a manifold connection close by. It wasn’t entirely necessary, as
his suit had an internal four hour air supply, but then he didn’t know
how long he was going to need to be on self-seal, either.
Lopez appeared through the clouds of smoke.
“Papa-Four-Twelve!” Lopez cried, referring to a power distribution
panel along the aft bulkhead of Reflex Four Middle Level. “The auto-
interrupt didn’t cut the power!”
Milo understood. “Fowler!” He called into the suit commo. “Cut
the feeds to Papa-Four-Twelve!”
“Four-Twelve, aye!” Fowler replied. From the sound of him in
Milo’s headset, he could have been standing next to him. Instead he
was still in Upper Level. “I can’t see shit so I’m cuttin’ out all of
them!”
Milo acknowledged. As far as he could remember, nothing terribly
important was powered from the main power feeds to Middle Level.
He made his way through the smoke, homing on the bright pink sparks
that burst through the gloom.
He saw the panel bursting forth sparks and billowing clouds of
poisonous smoke as he approached. It wasn’t burning very hot, so he
slammed the extinguisher on the deck to ground it and raised the horn
to the panel. He pulled the safety pin, breaking the plastic tamper seal.
“All feeds secured!” Fowler called over the commo.
Stick appeared behind Milo, lugging the heavy extinguisher as best
he could.
The panel stopped sparking, but that was only because electricity
had been secured to it. He squeezed down on the operating handle,
and a gout of icy halon gas erupted from the horn and sprayed into
the ruined electrical panel.
He gave it a few good blasts, waited for a silvered DC man to
approach with a thermal-imager known as a ‘Nifty,’ and backed away
to let the man have a look. The DC man nudged him forward and
tapped on his right arm, the signal to use another blast.
Milo discharged the rest of the extinguisher into the panel. He
yelled through the mask for Stick to bring up the next extinguisher and
stand by. The DC man with the Nifty checked the panel again.
“Fire’s out!” He called. “No hot spots!”
“Fire’s out, aye!” Milo repeated. “Stick, you’re the reflash watch!”
Stick acknowledged and took Milo’s place kneeling on the deck
next to the panel. Milo looked around the compartment for Lopez.
He found him checking his other power and control panels with the
back of his gloved hand to see if they were burning inside.
“Everything else is cool, Wasserman!” Lopez called loudly through
the mask. The commo channel was too cluttered with emergency and
damage control reports already to bother with less than vital messages.
“Fire’s out!” Milo yelled back. “Rig your space and see if you can
find any other damage. I’ll see about getting this smoke cleared.”
“Aye!”
Milo clambered back up the ladder, sweating profusely inside his
suit. He needed to get reports on the rest of his space and pass them on
to the Furnace Supervisor and to Central. Doomsday was manning a
sound-powered commo circuit while Fowler and the Frankensteinian
Bolt-Neck scanned through a hand-held electrical schematic of Reflex
Four Middle Level.
“How’s the panel look?” Fowler asked at a yell. The compartment
was still filled with voluminous clouds of smoke.
“Wasted,” Milo replied curtly. “How bad do we need it?”
“We can get by,” Fowler said studying the schematic. “All the gear
using that feeder panel is ABT protected. All we gotta do is isolate
the burned out panel and cut the power back in to the ABT.”
Milo nodded. The ABT, or Automatic Bus Transfer, would
automatically shift equipment connected to it to whatever source of
power was still available.
“Make it happen,” he ordered. “Get someone to stand by the panel
until we can get it properly tagged out, but I want power restored to
Middle Level as soon as possible.”
“No problem boss,” Fowler said. He felt his way through the smoke
and shined a maglite onto the main feeder distribution panel. He found
the appropriate breaker switches and reenergized every panel but P-4-12.
Milo looked to Doomsday. “Any other casualties reported?”
“Not in Reflex Four, Top.” Doomsday answered quickly. “There’s
a couple fires burning in Three and in Atmosphere Machinery Aft, but
nothing else close. All the GCS compartment fires went out when the
automated systems cut out reflex power to them.”
“Good. Report to Central that our panel fire is out, a reflash
watch is set, and there is no other damage or injured men to report in
Reflex Four.”
Doomsday repeated back the order and sent it off to Central via
his sound-powered circuit. The principles of sound-powered phones
went back almost a century, but still proved viable. It was a simple,
reliable communication system that required no external source of
electrical power. Perfect for when All Hell was breaking loose.
“Bolt-Neck, I want you and...” He gestured through the smoke to
a man in a pressure suit. “Who’s that standing over there?”
The man in question piped up, “it’s Elvis, Top!”
“You and Bolt-Neck follow me and grab up a couple Halons
apiece with you. Fowler, you’ve got the space until I get back.”
“Where’re ya goin’?” Fowler asked.
“To go put out that fire in AMA,” Milo replied, referring to the
Atmosphere Machinery Aft compartment. “We can’t ventilate this
compartment with a fire burning in there.”
“Hey Top, what about here?” Doomsday asked.
“This whole goddamn compartment is fully automated,” Milo shot
back. “We’re just a bunch of trained monkeys in here. All we’re
good for is fighting fires and fixing stuff.”
He grabbed the last halon extinguisher and led Bolt-Neck and Elvis
through the airtight door. DC men of Repair Zero-Nine had set up a
command post two intersections down for fighting the fires that raged
in AMA. Expended halon extinguishers lay along the bulkheads and
large pressurized foam hoses snaked in a nylon wrapped spaghetti
on the decks. The eery glow of helmet lights sent beams of white
light piercing through the haze of smoke and fire gases, and glittered
off the swaths of reflective tape on pressure suits.
“Need any help?” Milo asked the Man In Charge (MIC), a
junior lieutenant who had just taken over the position in the last three
days. He plugged into the officer’s ‘buddy connection’ on the
air supply umbilical. Bolt-Neck plugged into Milo’s buddy connection,
and Elvis into Bolt-Neck’s, making a nice daisy chain of shared air.
“I see you have Halons,” the officer observed. “I can’t get any
more goddamn extinguishers down here, and my foam pressure’s
erratic.”
“Where’s the fire?”
The officer gestured to a ghosty LCD display. “Right here, a bunch
of volatiles came loose when we hit, and sprayed all over the scrubber
heat exchangers. Can’t get close to it without some halon to knock
it down and cool off the men. Foam’s too erratic to risk an approach.”
“No prob sir, lead the way!” Milo said. He gestured for Bolt-Neck
and Elvis to step up. “We’ve got five Halons, think that’ll be enough?”
“I just need to get my hose teams in close enough to work the
fire. Goddamn automatic Halon system didn’t go off. They think a
valve jammed against it’s seat when we hit.”
“I understand sir!”
“Nothing much works around here!” The officer observed. “Fifty
trillion dollars for this piece of shit!”
“Yeah, but it’s _our_ piece of shit!” Milo cracked. He began to
advance down the cramped passageway to AMA. He was sweating
even more in his suit and realized that without the ventilation systems
running there was no way to dissipate the heat of the fires.
He passed a pressure suited corpsman tending to an injured man
while two Life Support Machinery techs (their ‘recycle’ triangle of
arrows painted on their helmets was a dead giveaway of their rates)
carried him on a fold-up stretcher. The man was missing part of his
right arm at the elbow and had a breathing mask strapped to his face
because his pressure suit’s integrity was obviously breached.
“Still with me Bolt-Neck? Elvis?” He called back to them.
Bolt-Neck grunted a reply. Elvis managed a crooning namesake
“Uh-huh.”
They crawled down one more length of passageway before they
reached the AMA compartment. The glow of raging chemical fires
suffused the smoky gloom with an orange light. Shadows of pressure
suited men wielding blast shields, hooked pikes, and fire hoses drifted
through the smoke and fire light. The deck plates were awash with
water and Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF, or spoken A-Triple-F)
that spilled down grated drainage gutters to holding tanks where the
water could be recycled later.
He could see the hose teams struggling to get past the air-tight
doorsto fight the fire. The heat was so intense that the near bulkhead
was starting to glow a dull red. A DC party tromped in from a passageway
forward, their helmet lights bobbing through the gloom, and set up
their fire hose to spray the bulkhead down and keep it cool.
“Man In Charge!” Milo yelled through his mask. He was looking
for a man with three wide strips of reflective tape running down the
back of his helmet.
A tall woman in a silvered-pressure suit turned around. She had the
three stripes on her helmet. He could see her sweat matted bangs
drifting over her face through her helmet facebowl.
“Man In Charge!” Milo called again, waving an arm. “I brought
you a few Halons.”
“Oh thank God!” The woman cried. “Get your people in there!”
He could see that she was an ensign. “On it ma’am!” He told her.
He turned around to Bolt-Neck and Elvis. “Come on, you slugs!”
He trudged through the press of bodies and fire fighting gear to
reach the two nozzlemen on the hose teams. The best they could do
with their erratic foam pressure was keep the fire from spreading.
A man with a blast shield came up to screen them.
Milo tapped the lead nozzleman on the shoulder.
The man saw that he and his companions were carrying halon
fire extinguishers.
“Fuckin’ great!” He enthused. “Been waitin’ for them!”
“We’re gonna leapfrog it!” Milo yelled to him over the roar of the
blaze. “You’re gonna spray us down until we can get close enough
to hit it with the Halons, then you get your asses in here and kill this
thing.”
“Gotcha!” The nozzleman affirmed.
“Let’s go!” He yelled to Bolt-Neck and Elvis. The man with the
blast shield brought it up to cover them from the flaming bits that
rained down from the overhead. The heat was incredible, more
than the suit could hope to keep up with.
He felt the blast of the fire hoses spray around him and things
got a little cooler, but they were still literally wading through the
flames to reach the volatile stowage racks. His facebowl polarized
against the intense light and he had to call up the tiny imaging sonar
suite in the crown of his helmet to see. Pulses of sound energy
chirped into the fiery compartment and reflected back into a
ghosty image projected on the facebowl.
“This is really fucking hot!” Bolt-Neck cried. “How much
further?!”
“A few more meters!” Milo shot back. He could almost get a
shot in with the Halons. The foam hoses lost pressure for a second,
and the inferno exploded up around them. Milo felt his skin tingle
with the sudden heat.
“Jesus Christ!” Elvis screamed close to panic.
“Go! Run right for it now!” Milo yelled back. If they didn’t do
this now they were going to die.
Milo and the other three charged into the flames. Halons slammed
on the deck with audible *clangs!* Milo ripped his pin out and clamped
down on the operating handle. Halon gas belched forth all around him,
and the flames shirked away from the deliriously cold flood.
“GET THIS FUCKING HOSE IN NOW!” The nozzleman cried to
his hose team. “NOW! MOVE! MOVE! MOVE!”
The hose teams heaved with all their might against the straining
pressurized hoses. They sprayed all around them, coating everything
with AFFF. Steam spewed and metal shrieked in protest and the
whole compartment seemed ready to explode. Milo and his men
were doused in the watery foam and the fires died in steamy gasps.
The compartment was now pitch black and quiet save for the
hiss of water on hot metal. The chorus of high pitched chirps from
the imaging sonars soon became a demented flock of birds. Milo
stood up and felt his skin rub against the suit fabric painfully. He
had a good all over first degree burn going, he was certain.
“Fire’s out!” A Nifty equipped man announced. “We have some
hot spots though, so keep it up with the hoses!” He began directing
the hose teams on where to spray.
Milo asked how his guys were. No one was seriously hurt,
although they shared his burns. He grabbed up his expended Halon
and started for the air-tight door.
“That’s the last of the fires,” he heard a phone talker declare
to the Man (woman) In Charge.
“Good job, man,” the nozzleman said to him with a light clap
of his hand on Milo’s shoulder. “Saved our asses for sure.”
“Anytime,” Milo said tiredly. The adrenaline was wearing off,
and he was coming down hard.
“Come on gents,” he said to Bolt-Neck and Elvis. “Let’s get back
to Reflex Four before anyone misses us.”
They trudged back to Reflex Four through the slowly clearing
smoke and the tangle of fire hoses. Repair teams darted to and fro,
fighting their own battles to bring the vital atmosphere control
machinery back on line. Lights flicked back on as the danger of
more electrical fires passed.
He almost forgot that somewhere above them, the human race
was in a war for it’s very survival. That without the GCS pods, the
SDF-1 was a sitting duck on Macross Island. He almost forgot,
except that Lisa Hayes made another announcement on the 1MC.
“All Destroid combat units lay to topside defense stations to
repel spaceborne assault.”
Oh no. It wasn’t over yet. Not by a longshot.
End of Episode Two.
____________________________________________________________________
Technical Notes:
The widespread use of Halon 1301(tm) gas as a fire extinguishing
agent (vice carbon-dioxide fire extinguishers) may seem pretty
controversial to some of you snipes out there. My arguments for
employing it aboard SDF-1 are these:
1) Halon is highly effective against all types of fires.
(Particularly the high energy fires that would be encountered
on a ship like SDF-1.)
2) Halon provides superior cooling effects over CO2.
3) The dangerous oxygen displacing characteristics of halon in a
closed environment are neglible with the availability of self
contained breathing apparatus.
The use of fire hoses on a space ship may seem a little unlikely to
non-snipes, but I offer you this:
1) Water is still the best extinguishing agent for a fire.
2) A fantastic spacecraft like the SDF-1 would have both the stowage
capacity, and the recycling equipment, to support fire-fighting
efforts using water and AFFF.
3) Water will provide cooling effects long after the halon is expended.
The pressure suits are self contained units with rebreather systems rated
for four hours of *strenuous* activity (damage control, fire fighting,
combat, etc;) They have manifold connections much like submarine EABs
(a demand regulator style forced air breathing mask) to allow the wearer
to use the higher capacity breathing air system of the ship vice his
own personal supply. You never know how long you might be forced to
breathe canned air, and when your rebreather quits is not the time to
find there's no manifolds nearby!
