THE BLACK VERITECH
Capítulo 4: Pilot again
Knight was happy that Rick was safe, but it was nothing compared to how happy Roy was.
“So I have to stay in the hospital for a week," Rick said sadly.
“That's how it is, champion," Roy said, "since you gave your rations to that girl, you're in bad shape.”
“How's Minmei?” Rick asked.
“Don't worry, Rick," Knight told him, "as Roy said, she wasn't as bad as you, she's already been checked out and is at her uncles' house.”
“Thank goodness," said Rick in a downbeat mood.
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The week flew by and Rick left the hospital, was amazed to see that the city of Macross was rebuilt inside the ship, there was a lot of garbage in the streets because just a day before there was a demonstration of civilians when they learned that they were in Pluto's orbit and that the transposition system had disappeared from the ship.
“Poor captain, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes," Rick said to himself, as he watched a burnt doll representing global.
.
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Days went by and Rick found himself in a melancholy, aimless stroll through the city of Macross.
“Rick, can I have your plane?” Knight asked him happily as he hugged the remains of Rick's plane.
“Of course," Rick said, a little upset by his friend's fanaticism, "thanks for bringing my plane to this place.”
“You're welcome, Rick, it took me a while but it was worth it, anyway the crane attendants were saddened by the accident that almost crushed you and helped me with the plane, when we get home I'll take it to my parents and treasure it forever.”
“Of course....”
“Hey Rick, why don't you join the UNSpacy?”
“Join the army?”
“Enlist to be a pilot Rick, stop being sad all the time, fly again like you did before.”
“I don't know, I don't want to be a fighter pilot, I don't want to fight in a war.”
“Don't worry, Rick, once we get back to Earth, you can go back to your civilian life and fly free in your circus of the air again.”
“When there is a war a pilot can't just abandon the army.”
“You know Roy, he'll make something up and you can do it, come on Rick!”
“Let me think about it first.”
“All right, Rick, but don't be too long, huh?” Knight said goodbye.
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The enemy's attacks became more frequent, fortunately they were only skirmishes and served to temper the pilots.
“Roy, these greens are more agile here in space than on earth.”
“You're right, Knight, their ships are made more for space than atmospheric combat.”
Thus, over and over again the enemy launched small attacks, it seemed that in reality their only objective was to harass the ship and not to destroy it.
Knight took advantage of every opportunity to visit Rick, he lived at Minmei's uncles' house, and when he spoke with the girl he realized that although she was cheerful and funny, she had a whimsical personality and wanted to do whatever she wanted. Rick was still apparently interested in the girl and was dragging his feet when it came to deciding whether or not to join the military.
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One day the battle was very hard, because instead of just showing up green and eggshells, the enemies were supported by a group of three huge green ships.
“Hell, I think they've had enough of playing with us, Roy.”
“Calm down, Knight, remember everything I taught you and you'll be fine.”
The enemy's mother ships were firing energy weapons and missiles at SDF-1, when the ship suddenly began to transform.
“Hurry up, boys, get out of the range," Roy said, "the ship will fire its main cannon.”
The veritech of the Skull squadron hurried out of the red area and shortly after, a giant column of energy shot out toward the enemy ships. A colossal glow was born in space and when it went out, there was no trace of any of the mother ships.
“Unbelievable... What was that?” Knight said as he tried to fix the controls on his ship because they were miscalibrated by the energy of the powerful weapon.
That's the power of the Reflex cannon, our ace in the hole against the enemy.
“Skull squadron, return to the ship soon, no sign of enemy activity” he was informed from the bridge and all pilots headed for SDF-1.
As soon as Knight arrived at the hangar, he had to help with the search and rescue of civilians, as many of the Macross city buildings were crushed or thrown into the void along with its inhabitants during the transformation.
“It's horrible," said Knight as he looked at an iron wall in front of him, "this wall wasn't there before, and behind it was a family who lived there, surely now their bodies are floating in space.”
“I heard that they sent a squadron to recover the bodies," one pilot told him, and the two boys looked around with a serious gesture.
“Knight, Knight!” shouted Rick, who hurriedly approached the place.
“Rick, are you all right?”
“I am, Knight, you know, I've made up my mind, I'm going into UNSpacy.”
“Welcome brother," Knight said with a smile and shook his hand.
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Rick's training was just as hard as the one Knight had to face, but in the end Rick managed to graduate and become a fighter pilot. Roy couldn't fit in with the joy and organized a party at Minmei's restaurant. The girl was very cuddly with Rick, but Knight suspected she was only in love with the pilot's uniform.
The next day, the skirmishes began and Rick soon got used to the combat because the missions were constant. The enemy was an undiscerned, especially their tactics as they let SDF-1 approach Saturn's orbit.
“A counterattack?” Rick asked.
“Yes, it seems so, I heard that Dr. Lang developed a kind of shield like in the star trek movies," Knight told him.
“And where will the counterattack take place?” wanted to know, Rick.
“Roy told me that it will be in Saturn's rings, we will go to the dark zone of the rings and ambush them. With the reflex cannon and the shields, we'll send those greens back to the planet they came from.”
“I hope the plan works out so we can go home without having to worry about having more fights.”
“You're right, if everything goes well, we'll take advantage of Saturn's gravitational force and we'll be on Mars in a jiffy, and from there straight to Earth.”
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The day of the attack arrived and the ship and its pilots took refuge in the dark area of Saturn's rings. The pilots had to navigate through the dark zone, relying only on their instruments as there was nothing to be seen outside, and what's worse, Claudia and Lisa had apparently caught up with Knight, sure for having faked an interference when she went to look for Rick. And speaking of Rick, it seems Lisa also took it out on him, probably because he crashed a veritech the day the Greens attacked.2
“This is going to be a long mission," Knight told Rick.
“You're right, the commanders aren't very happy with us," said Rick.
“Well, I better not distract you and let's get on with the mission," concluded Knight.
The veritechs emerged from the dark zone and both Rick and Knight were disappointed, the plan was supposed to be to destroy all the enemy's motherships, but they could only see one mother ship heading towards them.
“What happened? There were supposed to be more mother ships," Rick asked.
“Maybe they read our strategy, Rick," Knight replied.
“Roy, what do we do?” asked Rick.
“There is nothing to do but continue with the plan, stop the Greens and the egshellss until they tell us to withdraw so that the ship can fire the reflex cannon.”
“Understood.” All the pilots answered and confronted the enemy.
The plan was going perfectly, but after a while the pilots wondered why they were still not firing the reflex barrel.
“Roy, what's going on? Why they haven't fired the main cannon yet," Rick complained.
“Claudia, what's going on? Fire the cannon at once, my men won't be able to hold out any longer covering these coordinates.”
“I'm sorry Roy, but apparently there was a problem with the barrel when it was transposed and it won't be able to fire.”
“And you tell me now! What the fuck is Lang and his team doing!”
“Roy, you'll have to intercept the mother ships and give us some time.”
“You heard guys, change of plans, let's go to the mother ships and destroy as many turrets as you can," ordered Roy and all the pilots headed for the big ships.
“Rick, I can't believe the size of this thing, it's huge!” exclaimed Knight in amazement.
“I know, it dwarfs SDF-1, and to think that our ship is a giant compared to our other ships.”
The pilots did what they could but the ship had many turrets, missile launchers and torpedo boats, and they fired their cargo at the SDF-1.
“Is that the famous shield they developed?” Knight asked with derision as he saw three discs-shields moving across the front surface of the SDF-1.
“I knew you couldn't trust all those brainiacs, especially that Lang," Knight complained, "didn't you, Rick? Rick?”
Knight called Rick, and he showed up after a while coming out of one of the hatches of the alien ship.
“Were you inside the ship?”
“It looks that way.”
“Good thing you got out because it looks like SDF-1 is going to hit the alien ship.”
“It'll ram her!”
“It seems so, so we'd better go.”
SDF-1 attacked the alien ship using the Daedalus as if it were a giant arm and thus destroyed the enemy ship from the inside.
“It's incredible," said Rick and all the pilots returned to SDF-1.
CONTINUARÁ...
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