Previous notes: In this part of the fanfic I base myself on the role books of Palladium's Robotech. I also take robotech's comics as a source: "Promise" from wildstorm company.
THE BLACK VERITECH
Chapter 14: Divergence
Captain Global ordered all available veritechs and mechas to be ready for combat, the battle in space continued and nothing was known about Breetai's fleet after the destruction of the Dolza base.
The wait was the most distressing that Knight or any surviving pilot had experienced, but then around noon Breetai himself communicated with SDF-1, the battle for zentraedi supremacy was over and the Zentraedis allies had emerged victorious.
All the military personnel breathed a sigh of relief when they heard the news. In fact, Global himself announced the end of the war to the civilians, although he did not inform them of the unfortunate fate of the planet.
Global communications had disappeared, the captain knew that all private or military satellites had been destroyed, so he asked Breetai's fleet to position itself on the planet and scan the entire surface from space in order to get a clear idea of the damage to the planet.
What he saw globally shook him up, the planet suffered destruction that covered 70% of the planet's surface.
Global immediately called an emergency meeting with the ship's commanders and Dr. Lang. Rick, Max and Knight had also been called up to be the leaders of their respective squadrons, along with other squadron leaders, which of course no longer meant a large number due to casualties.
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The meeting that took place the next day was more informative than anything else. Lang and Exedore reported that despite the destruction, the planet was lucky.
“Due to the lack of protoculture, only 80% of Dolza's ships with reflex weapons fired on the planet, and these discharges were made at only 20% of their destructive capacity," reported Exedore.
“Due to the sudden attack, the Zentraedi ships did not select their targets, focusing on the areas that gave off the most light, i.e. the most important cities.”
“The area to be attacked was divided into two parts, 50% in the continents, especially in the northern hemisphere; the other 50% was on the islands in the oceans, Dolza believed that military bases were on islands around the planet's oceans, a matter of space warfare logic, the Micronians did not think that way and therefore the continents were spared from further damage” Exedore told them.
“According to the data sent to us by Commander Breetai, the west coast of North America, southern Europe, eastern Russia and northern Africa along with the Middle East were devastated and rendered uninhabitable by radiation for the next 10,000 years," Lang reported, and several of those present swallowed saliva, making the planet's valuable oil and gas reserves overnight unusable.
“Captain, what can we do?” Lisa asked worried.
“At the moment we can do nothing, fortunately the ship landed in one of the radiation-free zones on the planet, the other point in the northern hemisphere that was spared from destruction were the Nordic countries and Japan," Global reported.
“The Grand Canyon in Alaska was responsible for the destruction of 250,000 Zentraedi ships, which caused Dolza to order the ships over Japan and the Nordic countries to head for Alaska and destroy the entire site with conventional laser fire due to the loss of protoculture to launch reflex attacks," reported Exedore.
“From all over the planet, the Caribbean, Central and South America were left without damage, except for the cities with more than a million inhabitants that were destroyed, the damage in this part of the planet was less, Exedore will explain the reason for this.”
“Thank you Dr. Lang, Dolza was informed that enormous amounts of energy were being concentrated in the Brazilian Amazon, the readings of these energies were similar to the one present in the grand canyon of the base in Alaska.”
“Were there other grand canyons besides Alaska?” Rick asked.
“In fact," replied Global, "I understood that several Grand Canyons were being built around the planet, apart from the Grand Canyon of Alaska, only the Grand Canyon of the Amazon was operational, the others were in the early stages of construction.”
Lisa was impressed, now she understood why her father was so stubborn about using the SDF-1 as a decoy, it was to buy time and get all those robotech weapons ready before the enemy decided to invade Earth, however, Dolza moved the attack forward.
“Dolza ordered several zentraedi ships to go to the Amazon and capture the Micronian base, he was curious about the Micronians' weapon. The ships landed but suffered much damage and now they cannot escape from the planet, but now the problem remains that it is in South America that the greatest number of hostile zentraedis are found.”
“Can't Breetai's fleet do something?” Knight intervened.
“This must not leave this room," said Global and proceeded to light his pipe. “Ninety percent of Breetais fleet left in pursuit of several hostile zentraedis ships, which is why it is impossible for him to help us at this time.”
"What's worse, Exedore told me that in the event of defeating the hostile zentraedis in space, their protoculture reserves would be reduced to almost 99%, and I doubt that of the four million zentraedis ships that came into battle, more than ten will be operational, including the Breetai ships, ships that will only have enough power to serve as giant communication satellites and nothing more.”
Everyone was silent at the seriousness of the news they received from Global.
“Now I understand why the Zentraedis didn't want to destroy the fortress," whispered Max.
“However, I can assure you that so far we have found no trace of the protoculture matrix that is supposed to be hidden in the ship," said the commander of the Daedalus.
“That's right, I asked the commanders of the Daedalus and the Prometheus to look for the matrix protoculture after the report you gave me after returning from Dolza's base, but they found nothing," Global said looking at Lisa, Rick and Knight.
“Perhaps Zor Prime, the creator of protoculture, expelled to the vacuum the protoculture matrix before crashing the ship here," Exedore told them, then told them a brief story of Zor and how he developed protoculture until the arrival of SDF-1 on earth.
"I'm sorry for the gaps in my story," apologized Exedore, "the robotech masters never told us much about the history of protoculture, what I told you is all I could find, the zentraedi were an army that mobilized at the borders of the empire to protect the robotech masters, we don't even know the exact coordinates of the robotech home planet.”
“Excedore, do you think the robotechs will send reinforcements to finish off the Earth?” Claudia asked.
“I don't know about that.”
“One problem at a time," said Global, "the first thing is to secure the surrounding area to see whether or not there is enemy activity near the ship, then we will look for urban or rural centers that have survived the destruction within a radius of the ship, and finally try to communicate with any base that has remained in South America, I am very concerned about the presence of the zentraedis in that area, Exedore tells me that they are hostile to the human race.”
“Then we will face a war of attrition," said one of the ship's commanders.
“I'm afraid we no longer have men to send to fight," lamented Global, "so it's imperative that we secure the points I mentioned earlier.”
The rest of the meeting focused on observing and assessing the damage suffered on the planet according to the images obtained by Breetai's ships.
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The next day, Global at a press conference informed the civilians of the situation on the planet, for the time being they would have to stay on the ship as there were no resources to accommodate them off it.
The news was not taken with good cheer by the civilians and there were demonstrations led by Kyle, who incited the population with the excuse that the report that Global gave them was a lie and that they had every right to leave the ship.
Global ordered the Daedalus and Prometeus marines to take care of the protesters and arrest them, but the arrest could only be made for 24 hours so as not to break the law.
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The next day, Global called another meeting in which tasks were distributed to secure the area around the ship, commissions were established to deal with various aspects such as the construction of an urban area around the ship, as well as an industrial area to meet civil and military requirements, all of which would be powered by the ship's power generators at first, then build their own power plants for this purpose.
Other commissions would be dedicated to covering and securing a perimeter of defense as well as looking for rural or urban populations that had survived the Holocaust.
“If we find survivors we will do everything we can to prevent them from migrating from cities to rural areas or vice versa," Global reports, "otherwise we will create a time bomb that we cannot control in the long run.”
“Captain Global, we must establish compulsory military service, it is the only solution to replace the men we lost in the battle," suggested Knight and Global got nervous but had to agree with Knight, there was no other possible solution.
"Sir, I also think we should allow forced recruitment of underage children, I think 14 years of age would be an ideal age to do this," Knight said.
“That would be illegal," said Lisa, "we can't do that.”
“And what do you suggest, Lisa, we don't have any more men or women to cover the quota we need to do everything we have to do.”
“I don't think the politicians will allow it," Rick told him.
“What politicians you mean, everyone fled and we have no news of anyone from the high command of the United Earth, in fact if they are still alive they will surely hide like cockroaches because they denied the general public until the last minute the presence of the Zentraedis and for this reason not millions but billions of lives were lost that could be saved," Knight replied.
"In fact, I believe that in this meeting we should discuss how we, the military, should take over and be the leaders who dictate legal and political matters around the planet, otherwise everything will fall into chaos because politicians will never agree and jurists will put obstacles in our way with the excuse that we restrict civil rights," Knight continued.
“I think we can save that for later, Lieutenant," Global said calmly.
“No, we can't do that, sir, and the reason is that we can't protect the civilians on the ship if they don't see credible and sustainable political and military leadership Kyle. continues to incite the population to rebel or make a movement of peaceful resistance and everyone listens to him.”
“Peaceful resistance? But it's absurd! If we only want to help them," shouted Claudia indignantly.
“Civilians are afraid of uncertainty, uncertainty that comes with the disappearance of the United Earth Government," Knight said. “Sir, the chain of command at the planetary level was broken, not only the political chain of command, but also the military chain of command.”
“Captain, Lieutenant Knight is right," said one commander.
“Sirs commanders," said Knight, "I suggest that we choose Captain Global as the new Admiral of UNSpacy, RDF and President of the United Earth Government at this time.”
Several commanders applauded Knight's idea, but Global stood up and denied it with his hands but eventually agreed to be an Admiral of the RDF since the UNSpacy did not have a space fleet, and as for the political government, it would be shared with the leaders of the cities that had survived, of course, all of them would now be under military jurisdiction.
Global's first action was to give promotions to his subordinates, but to Knight's disappointment, he only promoted him from lieutenant to captain, the reason Global gave him was that there were few experienced pilots and he needed them at the front and not behind a desk.
At the end of the meeting several points were agreed and several tasks were shared, but legal aspects of the civil restrictions were still pending.
“We cannot violate the civil rights of an entire population, so I suggest we restrict the rights of one person, the one who constantly calls for demonstrations," Knight said.
“Kyle is a very popular star, citizens won't allow him to be arrested for more than 24 hours, and the law protects him in this respect," Rick told him.
“Who says we have to hold him for 24 hours.... Let's leave the damn door open and then it all comes down to cause and effect," Knight replied.
“I can't believe it, Knight, are you suggesting we apply him the escape law?” Lisa said indignantly.
“Knight, don't joke about that," said Rick, but he swallowed spit when he saw his friend's serious expression.
“We have no time to waste in repelling protesters and waging war with hostile Zentraedi forces around the planet at the same time, not to mention all the time that will be consumed by the other pending tasks we have," Knight assessed and a silence took hold of the meeting.
“Captain Knight," said Global, "I'll pretend I didn't hear that comment from you.”
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Knight was frustrated and in the evening he decided to go to the ship's cafeteria to have a juice to calm his nerves when a soldier told him that he had to go to Maistroff's office.
Knight made his way to the site and as he entered he realized that not only the commander of the Daedalus was waiting for him, but also the commander of the Prometeus and other commanders of the ship.
Knight stood up to his superiors and Maistroff invited him to sit down.
“Captain, I liked your presentation on the priorities that the Admiral should have regarding certain problems that he should deal with as soon as possible, and I assure you that I and the other commanders share your position. Like you said, we must have a chain of command or everything will fall apart.”
“I thank you for your words, sir, and I hope I can always serve the chain of command for the good of the RDF.”
“I'm glad to hear it, Knight, so I think you're the right person for my assignment.”
“Sir.”
“You see Knight, even if all of the Global Admiral's plans to restore some civilization to this part of North America are fulfilled, there remains the problem of South America and the Zentraedi presence. We need a trusted commander to go there and establish a chain of command with SDF-1," explained maistroff.
“We can't risk any military command taking on positions that don't concern them and thus hindering the pacification of that part of the continent and at the same time hindering reconstruction plans in North America," said another commander.
“The commanders met and we agreed that you are the right man for this mission, Captain Knight," another commander told him.
“I appreciate your trust, but what could a simple captain do in such a remote area?”
“Don't worry about that, Knight, we'll assign you all the logistics we can and you'll get a new rank.”
“A range that will logically be superior to any commander in the South American zone," Maistroff told him.
“Congratulations Knight, you have just been promoted to Colonel, and you will now assume the position of war commander of the Central and South American and Caribbean Quadrant.”
“I promise you, gentlemen, that I will take office responsibly and carry out my mission as effectively as possible," Knight said to the room commanders.
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The next day, Knight reported the news to Sammie.
“How long will you be gone for?”
“I'll be back to speed up the requirements of the mission, but I'm afraid this is a mission that will take years, Sammie.”
“I'd like to go with you.”
“That's impossible, Global needs you in this place, you're an experienced officer, which is very difficult to find at a time like this.”
“Promise me you'll take care of yourself.”
“I promise.”
“Promise you'll come back, no matter what.”
“Whatever it takes, I swear.”
CONTINUARÁ...
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