THE BLACK VERITECH
Capítulo 6: The enemy is getting smart
SDF-1 left Mars' orbit and was heading for Earth. The civilian population was in good spirits about this event and decided to hold a beauty contest.
“So Rick, you're telling me the mayor signed Minmei up for the beauty pageant.”
“At least that's what she tells me, Knight.”
“I don't know Rick, if she hates it so much, she might as well have unsubscribed, I think Minmei is really enjoying this.”
“I don't know what to think anymore, brother, I don't consider myself jealous but....”
“I understand you Rick, besides, Minmei's attitude doesn't make things any easier.... You told me she behaved very differently when you were trapped on the ship.”
“I don't understand that girl, she's driving me crazy.”
“Rick, wouldn't it be better if you found yourself another girl?”
“Don't joke about it, Knight.”
“I mean it, Rick, how about.... Lisa.”
“Commander Hayes! You gotta be kidding me, she hates me.”
“She doesn't hate you, you just had differences because of the accident with the veritech on Macross Island. The same thing happened to me with Claudia, now the commander doesn't take it out on me.”
Rick dismissed the idea and continued to complain about Minmei's attitude. At the end, the date of the contest was approaching and participants had less and less time to socialize.
The whole ship was talking about nothing else, even the pilots dedicated their entire conversation to the event. Knight, like the Rickotaku he was, scolded them when his subordinates or Rick's subordinates talked about the couple's tense relationship and made jokes about it.
.
.
The day of the contest came and Rick still didn't show up at the open-air concert hall.
“Rick still hasn't shown up?” Knight asked Roy who was outside the concert hall.
“Look, there he comes," he pointed his finger and Knight could see Rick coming with a bicycle.
“What are you doing on a bike, Rick?” wanted to know Knight.
“I couldn't find any cabs! I had to borrow this bike from the barracks," said Rick, who was already calm because he had arrived on time, but the loudspeakers of the ship told Rick to contact the bridge of the ship.
“I wonder what they want?”
“There's a phone booth over there, Rick.”
Rick went to the phone booth and communicated with the bridge, Lisa ordered him to go on patrol to a sector where strange signals were detected.
“Can I go too, commander?” asked Knight, who had entered the phone booth.
“I have no objection, Lieutenant Knight, go quickly," concluded Lisa in a tired tone of voice and cut off the communication.
“Why do you want to go with me?”
“Because the music is horrible, the costumes are horrible, and to top it off, none of the girls are pretty.... In conclusion, I'd rather go with you.”
Rick sighed knowing that he could not convince his friend otherwise and allowed him to accompany him, fortunately they found a taxi.
“Just leave the bike to one of our subordinates, that's what they're for!” Knight yelled at Roy, making him laugh.
.
.
Once in the hangars, the two pilots climbed into a veritech, which wore experimental armor to maximize the number of missiles that could be carried by a normal veritech.
“Are you sure Rick that we can take this prototype armor?”
“Yes, Roy contacted the hangar chief for use.”
Knight, he could only nod, Roy's attitude was very lax in matters of protocol.
Lisa was apparently of the same opinion, as she reprimanded the pilots for taking the prototype just like that.
“We'd better get on with our patrol," Rick suggested, cutting off communication with the bridge.
“Rick, why don't you tune in to the beauty pageant?”
“I thought you weren't interested in Knight.”
“I lied," laughed Knight amusingly and Rick listened to his friend's suggestion, but Lisa interrupted them, ordering them to change their frequency.
“I'm sorry....commander...it seems...there's int...ference," said Rick, simulating interference and then proceeding to cut off communications.
“Very well done, Rick."
“I couldn't let you do it, they wouldn't forgive you this time," Rick said with a smile.
The two friends enjoyed the broadcast when all the veritech alarms turned red. The transmission had been cut off to show an exploration ship of the Greens, just a couple of metres from collision!
“NO!” Rick shouted and made the veritech back off, they had avoided death for just a second.
But death had apparently claimed the lives of both pilots, because the Green ship had fired several missiles at the veritech.
“Rick, take the flight, I'll be the gunner!”
“All right, here we go!”
Rick tried to back off as fast as he could and Knight was firing at the missiles, it seemed like all was lost.
A strong jolt was felt throughout the veritech but thanks to the skill of both pilots the ship was not destroyed.
“Get ready, Knight, it's our turn.”
“I've got them in my sights now, Rick.”
The veritech's armor deployed a large number of missiles, but the Green ship launched all its missiles in order to destroy the veritech's missiles.
“What a good pilot," said Rick.
“None of that, but this prototype is a piece of shit.”
“Let's get rid of the armor and attack head-on before they reload more missiles.”
“All right, Rick, you ram the ship, and I'll fire at the front so we can get through the enemy hull.”
Once the plan was formulated, the veritech got rid of the armor and proceeded to charge the enemy ship, the Greens no longer fired missiles, but their lightning weapons, fortunately, Rick's expertise on the fly, coupled with Knight's aim caused the enemies to be intimidated and their aim to fail.
The veritech weakened the hull of the ship and entered through the front of the enemy ship, a bold maneuver without a doubt, which caused the enemy crew members to abandon the ship.
“Rick, look... I think they were monitoring the beauty pageant.”
Rick and Knight were staring at the enemy screens in amazement, as a loud explosion detonated in the place, so loud that Rick and Knight lost consciousness.
.
.
“Rick... Are you okay?”
“I think so, how do you feel?”
“I have a headache, but other than that I think I'm fine.... Look, it looks like the enemy ship destroyed itself, it's a miracle we're still alive.”
“I wonder how long it's been.”
“Surely a good couple of hours, look, the beauty contest seems to be over," said Knight sore when Minmei's image appeared on the screen, the girl turned out to be the winner.
“Minmei, you won, you're Miss Macross...” Rick said surprised, but Rick's sad look made clear his doubts about how his relationship would turn out from now on.
“I'm sorry, Rick.”
.
.
Rick and Knight were rescued, asked to report on the enemy's intentions and told everything they had seen inside the enemy ship. Global congratulated them on their daring and sent them to rest for the day.
“I told you, Rick, there was no need to tell Global the whole truth.”
“You were right, Knight, but I still felt bad about lying to the Captain that it was our fault for tuning in to the beauty pageant, which almost got us killed.”
“And what did you want to tell him, that we simulated an interference in communications to skip our duty? Global would have shot us.... Well maybe not Global, but Claudia and Lisa, and after finishing them, Roy would surely continue," said Knight suppressing a shudder at the idea.
Rick's fears came true when he saw how Minmei no longer had time for him. Frustrated he had gone to the city park, Vanessa, Kim and Sammie approached the pilot. Knight who was walking by saw the scene.
"The girls seem to want to prick Rick a little," Knight thought funny, that's when Rick answered a call from one of the tele-robots in the park, apparently it was Minmei.
Knight was surprised to see the girls get behind Rick at lightning speed.
"Oh girls, don't be so mean to my poor friend, Minmei will see you and take it out on him.... On second thought, go on, unbutton your clothes a little bit," Knight thought, going from worried to funny.
Apparently Rick was arguing with Minmei and the girls decided to leave so as not to make things worse. Knight decided not to bother Rick and went to the girls, whom he only knew by name.
“Girls, wait!”
“Well, well, well,” Kim said with a seductive smile on her face, “if it isn't none other than Lieutenant Knight himself.”
Knight stood up to the girls, but they laughed at him.
“Please, Knight," Vanessa said, "there's no need for you to salute, because neither you nor we are on duty.”
“But why aren't you in plain clothes?”
“I considered coming in in uniform to impress a girl.”
“Whoa," said all three at the same time.
“And can you tell me which girl that is?” smiled Kim, who was playing with a fold of his clothes.
“I can't tell you girls.”
“Oh, what a downer, Knight," said Kim, and Vanessa and Sammie laughed.
“Come on, tell us," asked Vanessa.
“Please” Sammie pleaded with him.
“Well, on one small condition.”
“Whatever you want," Kim said to him, and Knight got serious and with an attitude between solemn and gallant approached the officers.
“Kim, Vanessa, could you introduce me to your friend? I don't know her full name," he told them as he looked at Sammie in a penetrating and handsome way.
Kim and Vanessa exchanged glances and laughed, but Sammie was stunned.
“But what does Lieutenant Knight say? you know our friend's name" Vanessa said amusingly and wiping a tear away.
“But of course I can introduce you to her," Kim interrupted her, and pushing Vanessa away from the middle, she took Knight right in front of the little officer.
“Lieutenant Knight, this is Officer Sammie Porter," Kim tried to say as seriously and professionally as she could. “Sammie, meet First Lieutenant Jr. Knight, decorated with the Titanium medal for bravery and the medal for best approach to a girl in the history of...” Kim wanted to continue but the laughter did not leave her.
Vanessa was laughing, too, but she stopped when she saw Knight holding Sammie's hand and kissing her the same way someone did in the romantic movies.
“It's a real pleasure, Sammie," said Knight and the girl blushed, but she did it even more when Knight came over and planted two sweet kisses on each cheek.
“Whoa, whoa, not so fast, Lieutenant," said Kim, who was now blushing too.
“Excuse me, it's my French-Russian custom.”
“You are neither French nor Russian Knight," said Vanessa, red as a tomato, but not as much as Sammie.
“My father is French and my mother Russian," Knight replied without averting his eyes from Sammie.
“I didn't know that," admitted Vanessa.
“I like to have an aura of mystery around me," he kept answering and kept seeing Sammie's face.
“Oh Sammie, you got yourself a tall, mysterious brunette... And he's a decorated lieutenant too!” exclaimed Kim amused.
“Aren't you going to tell him anything, Sammie?” asked Vanessa.
“This... I…” tried to articulate Sammie without any success. Apparently Sammie without Kim and Vanessa's drive was very shy.
“Sammie, I was wondering if I could go with you to the park today, of course if that doesn't bother you or your friends," Knight said, approaching Sammie's body dangerously.
“Of course she doesn't mind," said Kim when she saw her friend opening her mouth but no words came out of it.
Knight bowed slightly and put his shoulders forward so that Sammie could appreciate how wide they were.
“What do you say, Sammie?”
“Yes, I'd love to go with you, I mean, we'd love to go with you," she corrected herself, but Kim and Vanessa were already laughing at her friend's shyness.
The fun scene was interrupted by the ship's alarms.
“We'd better get back," said Vanessa.
“But we're not on duty," Kim complained.
“Are you out of your mind? We are the bridge officers, we have to go," Vanessa said, frowning.
“Come on Kim, come on Sammie... I'm sorry Lieutenant, we'll postpone the walk for another day” she apologized and the three girls said goodbye to Knight.
Knight didn't know it but the Green forces had surrounded the ship and were sending them a message, the first of the aliens.
Knight continued to stroll through the park and could feel the ship being targeted by strong tremors that were felt all over the place.
"I'd better go to Rick," he thought and ran to the fountain benches, hoping his friend would still be there.
Rick was at the scene, but he had left the sidewalks to sit by the fountain.
A strong shake shook the entire ship and Rick almost fell to the fountain if it weren't for Knight's help.
“Thank you, Knight, what's going on?”
“I don't know, Rick, but we'd better get to the barracks or the hangars, just in case.”
“You're right, something tells me they'll soon cancel our break.”
The two friends went to the barracks and then to the hangars, in fact, their break ended when they saw how Roy was calling them to give them new orders.
“How bad is the situation, Roy?”
“Not so bad, but not so good either, Rick, did you feel the enemy ships firing?”
“If I feel them? I almost fell, especially with the last one.”
“Well, that last shot hit the radar tower hard," Roy told them, making Rick and Knight look scared, the radar tower was very close to the bridge of the ship, where Lisa and Sammie were.
“How's Lisa?”
“And Sammie?”
“Everyone on the bridge is safe," Roy calmed them as he raised his eyebrows.
"Anyway," continued Roy, "at this moment we are blind because the tower was destroyed... There were no survivors.”
Knight swallowed saliva, knew some of the people who worked there.
“The plan," Roy continued, "is to escort an ejecat ship, to scan the whole place and find us an escape route from all this shitty space debris. Rick, Knight, you and your men will escort the ejecat, Lisa will also be on the ship to instruct you.”
“Do you think we will have the presence of the Greens?” asked Knight.
“It is probable, and now they are not green but zentraedis.”
“Zentraedis?”
“That's right," Roy told them, taking the two pilots to a separate place, "the enemy made contact with the ship and identified themselves as the Zentraedis.”
“Did they make contact? What did they say?” asked Rick.
“They presented themselves and asked for the unconditional surrender of the ship, and did not add anything else.”
Roy returned with the two pilots and ordered them to address their veritechs.
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“It seems that fate made me the one to escort you again," Rick jokingly said once all the ships had taken off from SDF-1.
“It seems so, let's try to get along well," replied Lisa with a friendly smile.
The pilots flew attentive to any threat and this was in the form of attacks by zentraedi ships trying to shoot down Lisa's ship.
Again and again the attacks were repelled, but the mission to find an escape route was interrupted each time. In the end, the six veritech decided to carry out a chase to destroy once and for all the annoying enemies who did not cease in their attack and flight tactics.
“Well, Shiru, that was the last one," said Knight, after tearing down the Zentraedi ship.
“Sir, we are informed that Commander Hayes' ship has been captured by the enemy!” Hyoga informed him alarmed.
“Damn, all these attacks were a decoy! Hurry up and meet Rick!”
The three veritech flew as fast as their engines could and met Rick and his pilots.
“Knight look! They're taking Lisa to that big ship! " shouted Ricky, "we must save her.”
“I follow you brother," Knight replied as he prayed that nothing bad would happen to Lisa or his friends on the dangerous rescue mission.
CONTINUARÁ...
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