Adventure and Excitement in Outer Space... First class accommodations on
the only hotel off the planet, and a view unparalleled anywhere on Earth.

    - from a travel brochure for the Royal Ten Hotel

"Indigo Leader, this is Seven. I'm getting a few glitches all the sudden."

"Roger, Seven... anything serious?"

"Not so far, but I think its getting worse."

Sam, listening to the comm chatter of his escort Veritechs, hit a couple of controls on the panel in front of him. Indigo Seven popped up on the radar display, a small dot fifteen kilometers above and behind his shuttle. Sam was on his twelfth flight since the beginning of the war... so far without incident. This was the first time the RDF had assigned an entire half-wing of eight Veritechs as escort, though. Sam couldn't decide if that made him feel safer or more worried.

Sam Wellington ran through a quick check of all the ship's systems he could access from the cockpit, and then called back to Moyo in the weapons pod for a status update. Moyo reported that the two laser cannons the Jackalope class shuttle was armed with were charged and ready.

Sam had been flying cargo planes (both in and above the atmosphere) since before the Zentraedi first appeared over a decade ago. He knew that he was just a career cargo pilot, forever separated from the elite fighter jocks, but Sam was satisfied with his place in the RDF. The adrenaline of Earth launch and the majesty of the view from orbit were more than reward enough... at least until recently. The last few weeks had introduced a level of tension to his flight time that he hadn't felt since the Zen War.

He listened to the radio chatter carefully, hoping that the problem was just a maintenance issue on the trailing Veritech. As if the scattered enemy pods weren't bad enough, a couple of convoys had gone silent over the past several days, only to be found drifting hours later, the crews dead and frozen. Their on-board systems, from the smallest emergency life-support battery up to the Protoculture cells, were completely devoid of energy.

Over the next two minutes, several more of the outer Veritechs reported glitches. Then Indigo Seven's transponder went dead.

Sam let go of the flight stick, briefly wiping his sweating hand on his leg before once again taking control. Seconds later, several of the displays on his console flickered unexpectedly... Sam's heart sped up yet again.

"Moyo... I'm getting some glitching up here. You seeing any problems?" He was a little surprised his voice sounded steady.

Before Moyo could respond, space far ahead lit up with a single Veritech's laser fire. The calm comm chatter of Indigo Squad erupted into a frenzy of questions and reports. Indigo Three, the Veritech out on point that had been firing, vanished from Sam's console. He heard Indigo Leader say something about crystals, and space all around erupted in distant flashes of light. It was all coming from the Veritechs, though... whatever they were firing at, it wasn't returning the favor. There weren't even any explosions....

Another Veritech went dead, then another. He tried to call Indigo Leader, but communications had degraded to mostly static. Several minor console systems crashed. Sam quickly tried to bypass the problems, but another, then another system went down... he could only stay a step behind the disintegrating electronics.

"Oh hell." Moyo's voice had been quiet, but the tone brought Sam's head up from the mess on his cockpit displays. Out the front window, he could see hundreds of distant stars moving out the window, all pulsing through several colors in time with each other. It was beautiful... like a dance of ethereal fireflies, twisting and reacting in unity. They were getting brighter.

Then Sam felt the unique vibration that accompanies the firing of a laser cannon. Moyo had gone live.

Sam's thoughts reoriented... They're getting closer! Within seconds he could see them clearly, a swarm of crystalline diamonds, each about four meters long and banded in hot colors that raced down its length. Though they were all moving independently, every crystal pulsed in time, giving the swarm a menacing sense of organization.

Sam tried to evade, while the cannons behind him continued to shake the cabin every time they fired. The crystals didn't show up on radar, and every direction he turned he saw more... they were completely surrounded. He watched as a laser bolt flashed out over his cockpit, striking a crystal that was getting too close for comfort. It shattered into dust, only to be replaced by dozens more behind it.

Sam's entire cockpit went dark, as if someone had just flicked the "off" switch. He watched crystals take up station around the shuttle, a faint flicker of purple lightening connecting each one to his ship. Every mechanical sound in the cabin disappeared... every ship system shut down from lack of power.

A couple of minutes later, in perfect synchronization, every crystal surrounding the shuttle flew away.

It quickly became obvious that every ounce of power had been drained from the cargo ship, even down to the batteries in the emergency flashlights. Moyo joined him in the living cabin behind the cockpit... it was the most insulated part of the ship. The most serious problem they faced was not lack of oxygen... unlike a Veritech, the shuttle had plenty of air in its cabins and cargo hold to last the two people for several days. By that time they would be dead anyway... the heat inside the shuttle was already bleeding out into space. The emergency systems on the ship assumed that there would be battery power to run the backup heaters... without them, it was going to be getting cold very soon.

Kyle started the day in a small sleeping cubical, a coffin-shaped tube with soft padding on the sides, a small cabinet on the end opposite the door, and a viewscreen set into the ceiling. It was one of dozens in an automated hostel on Armor Ten, the only civilian port in orbit.

Kyle grabbed a towel from his flight bag and slid out of the sleep-pod, though not without a twinge from his mostly healed ribs. He headed towards the hostel showers, noticing that all except a couple of the other sleeping tubes were empty. This war wasn't helping Armor Ten's tourist business any, but at least it meant that Kyle had the showers to himself.

Unlike the quarters on the military ships, where most of the crew usually took quick sponge baths, the bathroom here had a bank of five full-sized showers. Kyle luxuriated in the hot spray of water and steam. As long as MBS is paying the tab, I better enjoy it!

Yesterday, Kyle had met an MBS shuttle heading up out of planetary gravity well, escorting it to the civilian platform where the reporters on board could base themselves. MBS was then kind enough to spring for a night in the hostel, rather than forcing him into the cheap barracks. Though a long ways from the luxuries of a typical hotel room on Earth, it was still the best sleep Kyle Bartley had enjoyed in the five weeks since he launched from the RDF base at New Albuquerque.

After reluctantly finishing his shower, Kyle dressed in a freshly cleaned flightsuit (another service provided by the hostel), and checked out. A short walk took him up to the Promenade, a small group of shops and restaurants that catered to the tourists. He bought food (a breakfast burrito and something rather unlike orange-juice), eating and watching Earth slowly turn outside the restaurant windows.

Armor Ten began its life as the last of the original ten A.R.M.D. Platforms to roll off the production line before the Zentraedi arrived. It had then become the first major casualty in the conflict, holed by dozens of Zentraedi plasma cannons in the opening shots of the war.

For the next four years, the hulk had floated in Earth orbit, a derelict with most of its living spaces opened to the vacumn of space. Though the damaged platform's structural backbone was still sound, it was deemed too expensive to repair by the military.

Then, the RDF found the Factory Satellite, with its massive enclosed repair bays. A consortium of Macross City businessmen took a chance. Ever since the SDF-1 returned to Earth after the Rain of Death, the rest of the world had absorbed the stories of the Macross City survivors, all wanting a taste of the adventures those few had lived aboard the alien fortress. The businessmen decided to give those who could pay for a trip off the planet a chance to experience the excitement (for a price, of course). They bought the orbiting wreak, paying to have it towed to an auxiliary bay in the FactSat where it was then repaired and modified.

Since the damaged platform didn't need reflex engines or weapons for its new role as an orbiting tourist attraction, they managed to make it spaceworthy for much less than the RDF cost estimates. They concentrated on modifying the interior, turning the functional layout of repair bays and crew quarters into a couple of hotels and a shopping promenade. When completed, Armor Ten was then towed into a stable low orbit that gave it constantly changing views of the planet below.

In the few years since, the refurbished platform had struggled to make a profit, occasionally becoming a fad location for the idle rich, but most of the time never coming close to breaking even.

There was one service the civilian port provided for the orbiting military forces, though a highly unofficial one... the Black Market. Like all the major structures above the Earth, Armor Ten had a shop, where people could buy anything from cigarettes to Veritech upgrades. Unlike the official military shops, however, the civilian-run stores on Ten were not obligated to sell RDF approved items. As a consequence, you could find luxury items not available anywhere else in orbit, as well as used or modified equipment that wouldn't necessarily pass military specifications. Though there was (almost) nothing illegal about the Armor Ten Promenade, it had quickly been dubbed "The Black Market" by the military forces in orbit.

Kyle thought about researching a story on Armor Ten and how it had been affected by the conflict, but with a full team of MBS reporters now stationed here, it hardly seemed necessary. As the cloud-covered continents majestically passed beneath the viewport next to his table, Kyle's thoughts once again turned to Vala Norri. It had been two weeks since the RDF handed him a new Veritech, but it was Rick Hunter's comments about Vala that continued to echo in his mind. Without her, he would probably be a frozen corpse right now.

After breakfast, Kyle walked to the repair shop, checking on the progress of his VF-1J. Since it came from the RDF, his new Valkyrie had the standard tan and white colors. The Black Market was the one place in orbit you could get a custom paint job. Kyle had selected a purple color scheme with (of course) his trademark chess knight on the tail. Knight-One was planning on flying in style....

The call came in while he was examining the completed work on his ship. Kyle was as surprised as the civilian tech who forwarded the call to him... you don't tend to expect to get a direct call from someone as powerful as General Leonard.

"Um, General.... what can I do for you?"

"Mister Bartley, I was hoping you could do a small favor for me. We have a transport coming up from Earth in about two hours, near Armor Ten. I was hoping that you could join the escort."

Kyle thought for a moment before replying. "Why me? The Southern Cross has plenty of qualified pilots. You don't need me to protect the convoy."

The beefy face on the viewscreen produced a small smile. "The shuttle is carrying the final pieces for a new Veritech weapon Professor Zand has been working on. I don't want to take any chances with this shipment. Over the past few weeks, you have proven yourself to be very adept at surviving... whatever appears." Leonard appeared thoughtful for a brief moment, before his smile grew a bit. "As a more personal incentive, I'll also offer you one of the first units to roll on to the shop shelves."

Kyle didn't need to think about it... if nothing else, this would make an interesting story. In fact, Kyle suspected that the story was the real reason Leonard called. "Send me the coordinates, General. I'll be there."

Two hours and seven minutes later, Kyle made comm contact with the shuttle and its four escort Veritechs. He was in his newly painted Valkyrie, and feeling good. It took another ten minutes for them to climb up to his orbit. Kyle then matched speeds as he exchanged pleasantries with the Southern Cross pilots, setting the autopilot to keep him stationed two kilometers above the transport craft. As expected, the shuttle set a minimum burn course towards Armor Thirteen.

A bit less than three hours later, the small convoy was finally getting near its destination. The transponder signal of the SC platform was about a half-hour away at the cruising speed of the Jackalope class shuttle.

The new signal first showed up as a faint blip at the very edge of his radar. His flight computer immediately signaled a warning, though... an automatic response to a distress beacon.

Kyle immediately called up positional information, his hands dancing across the console controls while he also called Armor 13 over the radio. From the reply, he learned that a small RDF convoy was supposed to be passing through the area on its way to Armor Seven, but the Southern Cross had not received the scheduled radio contact.

Kyle knew it might ruin his chances at the SC story, but his reporter instinct was calling him. He made sure the escorting Veritechs on the Southern Cross transport could get it home, and then hit the afterburners. He rocketed at full throttle towards the blinking signal of the distress beacon.

It took half an hour to reach the missile-sized drone. When he reached it, though, Kyle discovered the beacon was alone. There were no ship transponders within several hundred kilometers. After a couple of minutes of thought, Kyle decided to take a chance. He sent out an single active radar pulse... if there were any enemy ships nearby, he had just announced his presence.

The return signals showed ten contacts within a thousand kilometers of the beacon. It took Kyle another ten minutes to reach the nearest, which turned out to be a VF-1A Veritech, cold and drifting in a lonely orbit. Though he couldn't get any readings from the fighter's flight computer, a quick pass ten meters from the cockpit proved that the pilot was quite dead.

Over the next thirty minutes, Kyle found three more Valkyries, all completely drained of power. All had continued to float along the paths they had been travelling at when their systems were drained, their trajectories slowly curving due to the gravity of the planet below. He eventually ended up at the center of the expanding globe of drifting ships, where two Jackalope shuttles floated, still nearly in formation with each other.

One of the transports was obviously dead... Kyle could see the pilot in the cockpit, covered in frost from now frozen air. The other shuttle, however, was a bit surprising. Every window on the craft was covered in reflective surfaces.

The first indication Sam and Moyo had that someone had found them was when the shuttle rocked from a small impact. Sam Wellington clutched his electric blanket around him as he floated into the cold cockpit. His heart leaped when he saw several emergency systems responding to an influx of power.

Once Sam and Moyo had realized that every ounce of juice had been drained from their ship, they had started a panicked search of the cargo bay, looking for anything they could use to stave off the cold seeping into the living cabin. It was complete luck that they happened to be carrying a shipment of small solar panels. It took them an hour to paste the square tiles across every window in the shuttle, starting with the portals that were facing the sun. Tiny wires crossed the shuttle interior, hooked to a small electric heater and two powered blankets.

Though it was only a temporary solution, it managed to generate enough power to keep them from freezing for a few more hours. Sam peeled off a couple of the solar panels from the cockpit windows, finding a lone Veritech with a repair line connecting it to the shuttle.

It had only taken Kyle a minute to decide to connect to the shuttle. Even if the crew was dead, a power transfer might get the transport's computer on-line... any information would be useful right now.

He was thrilled when someone replied to his comm signal. The reporter in him wanted to dance when Sam Wellington gave him an quick overview of what happened to the convoy. The opportunity to learn about the rarely seen crystals was a reporter's dream.

It took nearly two hours to tow the shuttle to Armor 13... by the time he was a hundred kilometers from the platform, he had picked up an escort of two Ghost Squadron Valkyries, while dozens more headed past to bring back the rest of the dead convoy. By the time Kyle landed in the Southern Cross port, he had used most of the Protoculture fuel from his tanks, but the story told by the crew of Omega One more than made up for the cost.

"You do seem to have a knack for finding the unexpected, Mr. Bartley." Kyle, standing in the Southern Cross shop after spending over an hour talking to Lieutenant Wellington, turned around with a start. Behind him he found the disconcerting figure of T. R. Edwards.

Kyle forced a smile on his face. "I try, Commander."

"You didn't escort our transport all the way here, but you left for a good reason." There seemed to be a touch of sarcasm underneath the faint smile, but Kyle figured he was imagining it. "I think it is reasonable to keep our end of the bargain."

The half-metal face turned to the shopkeeper, who looked nervous under the single-eyed gaze. "Set Mister Bartley up with the new disc cannon. Make sure it gets installed ASAP... I expect he will need to be chasing his next story soon." Edwards turned towards the door, though he glanced back before walking out. "Enjoy our new toy, Bartley... come back to visit us anytime."

Kyle turned back to the shopkeeper. The two of them shared a brief look, both obviously uncomfortable around the Southern Cross Squadron Leader. Then it was back to business as usual, as Kyle returned to his shopping.