Macross Frontier: Vermillion

[Vermilion]

A quick note: This fic is more or less some love being thrown out for the NUNS forces who all seem so woefully inadequate, save for Diamond Force, throughout the course of events of MF, specifically following Vermillion Squadron, who are mentioned and never seen in any real capacity throughout the rest of the show. Some events may be portrayed slightly differently from the show, for the sake of additional drama, but the main cast here is entirely original, thanks to the efforts of some other folks from 4chan. I do apologize for the massive wall of text, if people feel the chapters would be better split up across multiple posts, please let me know! This story will also be appearing on FF.net, and I will link the name of the account when I get that settled up as well.

Macross Frontier: Vermillion
Chapter One: Don't Be Late

“Attention all NUNS personnel, a situation is developing in the Outer Defensive Perimeter, Forward Quadrant, of the Frontier. All pilots are to report to their craft for immediate launch. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.” Captain William Jeager sighed with disappointment. The sense of urgency in the voice that emitted from the wrist watch was hard to fake. He was going to have to miss the broadcast for her concert. He couldn't obtain tickets to the show as is, but that was hardly a surprise, all things considered. Sheryl Nome was definitely the biggest thing to happen to the Frontier in quite some time. Well, her and potentially this. He wasn't quite sure yet.

“Captain, scuttlebutt says Lima 8 went down about fifteen minutes ago, and we lost a mess of drones.” That was Captain Scott O'Conner, Vermillion 2, the other go-to guy of the squadron, bursting into the rec room with the news. Jaeger's wingman and one of the best friends he'd ever made while in the service. String of confirmed kills as long as both arms, that guy. He had just about everyone's back in a fight.

“Scutlebutt faster than the actual chain of command? I'd say this was new, but we all know better.” Jaeger finished off the last bit of soda from a glass, and looked at the rest of his boys and girls in the rec room. Vermillion had the privilege of not being on Alert Five, which meant they didn't need to be suited up and sitting in the 'pits of their VF's for three hours, but it did mean they'd have to move a lot faster to get ready. “Awright Vermin, lets go see what the bad guys want this time.” There was the usual mock complaints from the team as people scrambled up and over chairs and tables from the doors. A green haired Meltran stomped her foot angrily on the makeshift Karaoke stage.

“This is NOT fair, Planet Dance was-”

“You'll get your chance after this, Sana.” Jaeger said quickly as the herd sprinted for the flight prep bay. “For the record singing is as of this moment prohibited if Lady is NOT the one doing so, at least until we get back.”

“You're terrible!” Sana accused.

Normal suits went on over their casual gear easily enough, and nobody had the time to really strip down all the way to gear up nice and proper. That was often how it was in emergencies like this.
“This is gonna suck, Cap'n sir.” The pilot in question was looking for a place to put his guitar down gently. Finding one, he set it there almost reverently, sighing, then gasping with surprise as the Meltran and a much shorter woman with a shock of short orange hair brushed against it. “Hey Lady ya mind watching it!? That thing's authentic-”

“Little busy!” Marina 'Lady' Renard, a first lieutenant, and former test pilot for LAI, and the unofficial mascot for Vermillion Squadron. They were trying to get her to dye her hair red so it would match the squadron logo colors, but so far no dice. Strings had been trying to find a way to get her drunk enough to agree to the prospect, but for someone of her stature she had ridiculous tolerance for alcohol.

“You say things are gonna suck every time, Strings. Ya gonna cut that frigging mop of hair off already or what?” O'Conner asked, the first at the door and beckoning people to get their asses in gear.

“Is it against regulations?”

“No, but you'll bitch about it in flight today.”

“I don't always!”

This was the sort of thing they all trained day after day for, and despite the usual grumblings from Strings and a few others, they were geared up and ready to go, headed to the flight deck. The Captain of their carrier came up on the PA. “Ladies and Gentlemen, we've been given an official War Warning from Local NUNS Command. Waiting for Presidential Authorization of our readiness stance going forward, as of now we are under Code Victor status, initial contact report confirms our targets are using heavy EM jamming, and Command is setting our protection levels to 7. Purple Squadron is to launch immediately, Vermillion will follow as soon as the deck is ready.”

“Huh.” Was all Jaeger managed to say in response.

“I knew this was gonna suck.” Strings muttered.

“Code Victor, sir?” Sana asked, tucking her lengthy green hair into her flight helmet carefully, eyes locked onto Jeager. Everyone did. It was in that moment that Jeager, the man who had all of the answers, the old man, Pops, whatever that called him, all of the things they expected of him, realized that he really didn't have all of the answers. The thought made him angry.

“It's something to do with the 117th.” O'Conner chipped in for Jaeger. “Fingers prolly has more information. Victor is a code name for Vajra, which is another code name they go by. Something like that.”

“Basically unknown.” Jaeger added. “We got a very short memo about these things about three months ago? Galaxy encountered some and pretty much cleaned their clocks. No word about 'em since then. Expect them to be serious business, and watch eachother's asses. Get to your ships people!” With that, the gang broke off to their respective craft. A red light lit up the whole bay, indicating that helmets were now required to be on by all deck personnel.

“Hey Will. Whaddya think, man?” Scott looked at him with a very serious expression.

“I don't know.” Jaeger answered truthfully, before moving to his own fighter. Purple Squadron was being raised to the linear catapults. In about a minute, Vermillion Squadron would be next out the gate. Settling into his VF-171, he took in a deep breath. If the Squadron was his family, then this was his baby. Since the mass adoption of the Nightmare Plus, he'd fallen for its own unique charm. It was no Messiah, but that thing was still in testing, years away from his own hands at best. The Nightmare did a fine job of living up to it's name against anything he'd faced with it so far. There was a lot about NUNS he could say he didn't care for, as far as a bureaucracy was concerned, but at least they'd pushed through the recent rearmament plan fairly quick, and given their pilots a nice toy for their trouble.

“Hey Jaeger! Don't be late!” Purple One called out over the general comms channel, in a falsetto that was supposed to come close to a certain pop singer, though falling drastically short.

“Now you're just teasing me, Purple honey.” Jaeger was finishing his final preflight checks from the pit, checking over the status of the other nineteen craft in his wing. Everything looked good so far. What didn't look good was that he had next to no idea about what they were about to fly in to.

“Vermillion Squadron, you're to immediately form up with Purple Squadron at the Final Defense Line Western Quadrant, initial contact with enemy forces has confirmed we have an incoming strike directed at the Frontier.” That was Ensign Pierce, the carrier's 'voice' as it were, and sounding as though she was watching her favorite sports team take a vicious beating on the field. In a way, that was exactly what was going on. My God. How long has this mess been going on? Tuning in to the local defense net, Jaeger wanted to see if he could gain an inkling as to what they were walking into.

“Omega Squadron, lost!”

“Black 4, check six, three on you-”

“GET HIM OFF ME, GET HIM-”

“-the hell is going on?! My missiles aren't-”

“-we just lost the Rodger Young!”

“One goddamned shot! That was a fucking CARRIER we just-” That was more than enough for Jaeger, and as far as he was concerned, enough for his squadron.

“Stay off the main net Vermin, and stick to our own. Do not leave eachother uncovered under any circumstances, understood? Seems like missiles are having some difficulty, so get ready for a knife fight.” His fighter was now automatically maneuvering onto the deck elevator. Purple team was already headed in. Long second passes as he raised up to the linear catapult, and found himself staring at what looked to be Armageddon.

Explosions blanketed the local space like brightly glowing confetti, hundreds, if not thousands of trails from different sources raced across the 'sky' in pursuit of one another. The point defense systems on the carrier, Belleau Wood, was already at work, firing what he was hoping were precisely aimed bursts at confirmed threats. In his ten years of military service, William Jaeger hadn't been witness to the disintegration of combat discipline among an entire fleet, but here he was, ready to get flung into the thick of an actual FUBAR situation. “Vermillion One, ready for launch!” He barked, hoping he didn't sound as shaken as he was feeling. “Recommending accelerated launch procedures! Vermillion! Get off this boat and get ready for immediate local field defense!” With that, he disengaged the auto launch procedures and converted to Gerwalk, the VF-171 obeying his every command flawlessly as he burst up from the deck, eyes scanning for hostiles.

“Verm Lead! Incoming on Home Plate, her three o'clock low!” O'Conner was to his left, already spotting the first threat, bursting away at the red contact. Jaeger followed closely, back into fighter mode, one eye on the radar, another on the space around them.

“Vermillion is on the prowl!” Lady announced a moment later. His own radar reported the twenty craft squadron was indeed up and away. They were already taking up positions near their wingman, and each of those pairs shifted into positions to allow for optimal fields of overlapping fire, while putting themselves outside of the effective range of Belleau Wood's point defenses. They were all probably shocked by what they were seeing, but they did what they needed to by reflex now. Proof that if you drilled at something long enough it would be instinct when you really needed it.

“Lady take half the team and stick close to Home Plate! What we've rehearsed people, my guys form up on me, Two once you smoke this guy we rejoin with Purple!”

“Copy! Strings, tighten it up, you and I are covering the bridge.” Lady's Nightmare took up a defensive position above the primary bridge of the Belleau Wood. Strings joined up a moment later, covering her blindspots.

“Right where the action is gonna be. You trying to get me killed?” He complained mockingly.

“Make sure you whine some about your hair before they wax you.”

“Screw that, I'll use you as my human shield first!”

“All NUNS pilots! Island One is reporting enemy forces have breached the final defensive perimeter and are in the city!” This was from Command Central, on the Frontier itself. This was really happening. Jesus. Contact couldn't have started more than five, ten minutes ago at most. What the hell were they up against?

“Verm lead, where ya at hot stuff? We're getting our asses kicked! The frigate line is gone man, I'm taking what I have left to the Frontier to repel the boarders! Join up with what you can spare, I'm leaving a few to help your second element with defense around Home Plate!” Purple one sounded half pissed, half crying. He'd never heard that from her before.

“Lead, I've lost him! This guy's damn good!” O'Conner reported a moment later. Having broken away from his wingman for a brief moment, Scott was alone, and the Vajra somehow managed to turn the pursuit around. This is unreal.

Jaeger snapped into action. Target was humanoid, red, spikey looking, some kind of cannon strapped to it's back. As it pursued Scott, it took a passing shot at a nearby frigate, and the stick it carried was as nasty as the look advertised. A thousand men and women, gone in an instant.

“Two, jink right!”

Scott complied immediately. Closing in as much as he dared, Jaeger opened up with his twin autocannons. Armor and skin sloughed off of the back of the beast, but it still remained whole, spinning around suddenly to face him, it's canon lighting up and aimed at his face. Jaeger rolled over, going to gerwalk and putting as much thrust through the legs as he could, going for a clean belly shot. This seemed more effective, causing it to stagger somewhat. It's own canon shot went off, missing the carrier by a good five hundred meters. The Vajra tried to boost away in another direction, but was unable to pick up the same speed it displayed before. Like some kind of wounded animal. It evaded for a few moments more before it blasted apart under the combined effort of six other craft from Vermillion team.

“That's a kill.” Sana reported rather blandly.

“Lead element, form up on me. Lady you have command back here.” William's throat felt dry. He was already feeling the stress. No time to dwell on the things' absurd level of toughness. “Purple One, we're on the way!”

“THE SONS OF BITCHES! THE GODDAMN SONS OF BITCHES! Anytime you wanna join up Vermillion, civilian casualties confirmed, a shelter just got blown wide open!” Any semblance of self control was gone from Purple One's voice. Her ID signal was coming from inside the Frontier. His element of Vermillion was a minute out at best speed, but even he could see the smoke inside Island One's dome. Most of the capital ships around the Frontier ceased their AA barrages, as they stood a better chance of hitting the massive colony ship rather than hitting the bugs. Most of the fighting was either at the outer defensive perimeter, or within the colony. How did this get so far out of control?

“Hang tight, Purple, we're closing in. Command, Vermillion Element One is reinforcing Purple Squadron.”

“Captain! Red Victors are breaking the pressure dome at three major incursion points!” Sana cut in.

“We blow through them at the nearest point and reinforce Purple, get ready for urban combat! We'll have to count on the rest of the fleet to do something about the other two breaches. If we don't repel them from Island One we lose no matter what we do out here.”

His ten VF-171 formed up in a loose semi spherical formation, diving at the closest breech. There were two more of the red bastards, apparently holding open the gaping wound, and a small swarm of smaller bugs pairing up and flying inside effortlessly despite the air and other materials being sucked out. For the moment, they didn't seem to notice the incoming threat.

“Go for the reds first. Speed of heat, lets go!” Jaeger snarled, feeling the adrenaline rush. This whole time the whole NUNS defense force had been jumping around wherever these things wanted them to. They'd obviously been running the show for the whole mess, and now it was time to show them how things were supposed to be playing out.

The initial strike went much smoother than he expected. The first red went down in a hurry. The second seemed to recoil from the death of its brother, but was now alert and ready for a fight. Five smaller bugs formed up in front of it, and launched themselves at the Vermillion with nearly suicidal fervor.

“Here they come!” warned Vermillion Eight.

The Vajra fired first. One of the leading smaller bugs performed a snap roll, loosing a small cloud of missiles from it's body, leaving fiery orange trails that snaked at the Captain in varied, almost schizophrenic patterns. The other four copied their leader move for move, their own missiles taking a wider spread, aiming to box in the oncoming VF team. Almost simultaneously, the ten Vermillion unloaded a spread of micro missiles, and split into their assigned pairs. Jaeger somersaulted his fighter into Battroid form, engaging the incoming missiles with the autocannons, Scott at his side, covering his six as a gray bug swept over their heads with astonishing speed, looping back around for another pass at the two relatively unmoving VF's. Having taken out the most threatening missiles, Jaeger spun the Battroid around and got his first up close look at the smaller breed of Vajra. It looked as though it were swimming at him, like some sort of bizzare fish insectoid hybrid. It's 'tail' glowed bright blue, but suddenly dulled as it brought it to bear as it were some sort of spear.

It's trying to freaking STING me! As he thought this, six different proximity alarms lit up the cockpit. Singling me out? They know I'm the leader? He was at the center of a killzone the likes of which he'd never seen prepared so quickly by any of the pirate trash they ran across. Most of the action he'd seen from roaming bands of unintegrated Zentraedi bands could best be described as a bloodthirsty mob of trained fanatics, nothing this precise and organized.

“Captain, go ballistic, your vertical!” Warned O'Conner . Jaeger's 171 rattled from a near miss as Scott began claiming more incoming missiles, these fired much closer than the first spread. His eyes scanned for targets, and as he boosted away he sniped a few more missiles, vivisected a gray with a long gunpod burst, went back to Fighter, and searched for their commander. At least, he hoped the red one was a commander.

“That's two and three!” Sana called out, as two more small bugs met their end from her gunpod.

O'Conner's VF danced just out of the path of an oncoming small bug, pinpoint barriers alight on his mecha's fists as he charged its closest brother, taking a swing at the thing, taking off one of its 'legs', but that only seemed to make the thing angry, and its tail punched right through the chest plating of the Battroid, before it scrambled away as Sana and her wingman drove it off with sustained cannon fire. Wounded, it trailed something blue mixed with something else fiery, and exploded against the Island One dome a moment later.

“GODDAMNIT!” Scott shouted through gritted teeth. “WILL, CHECK YOUR SIX! RED VICTOR, I'VE GOT NO SHOT!”

To Jeager's credit, he'd expected this. They clearly had him singled out the moment he put his element into a head on confrontation. Tapped comms maybe? He didn't have much time to think about it. It was practically on top of him, it's main cannon glowing ominously at him. Switching back to Gerwalk, he blind fired a few bursts from the gunpod, looking to buy some more time, but it flew through the barrage effortlessly, and sewed up the gap to point blank, a clawed arm reaching for one of the legs of the 171, as if to pull itself on top of the fighter. The whole ship lurched to one side, slamming Jaeger's head against the canopy, stunning him for a moment as the Vajra restrained his fighter. Looking up in a haze, he could see four green points of light staring into the cockpit at him.

“You're kidding me.” In reply, the eyes flashed a brighter green. It was a good run, William. The bear got you this time.

Suddenly, the monstrous visage turned away from him, as if it saw something in the distance. The fighter rattled once again, and the Vajra broke free, racing for the now self sealing hull breach.

“Captain!” Sana cried out.

“I'm good, I'm good! Chase it down! It might try to seal us off outside!” Checking his own damages, he grimaced slightly as he switched back to Fighter. A display flashing OUTPUT WARN in yellow blinked over his portside engine status, and a series of smaller reticles marked off places on a basic schematic where the Vajra had triggered some hull stress warnings along the main fuselage.

“Lead, I can't stay with you, HOTAS control is gone.” O'Conner sounded utterly crushed. “Little bastard did end up getting something vital, half my verniers aren't responding.” Shit.

“Sana, get him back to Home Plate, Element One will continue into the Frontier and reinforce Purple Squadron.”

“Yes sir. I've got your back, Captain O'Conner.” Sana's Nightmare broke away from the rest of the pack to retrieve the disabled Vermillion Two.

“Get some, you guys!” he shouted angrily at the rest of the team.

The Victor was already inside, and the hull breach was getting dangerously small. Jaeger was the third of six craft that made it in, Vermillion Six claimed he needed a new pair of shorts. The other two pulled away at the last moment, having been unable to reach the pressure dome before it sealed up entirely. Unable to follow, they fell back to support Sana's retreat with Scott.

“Purple One?”

“We're here, Vermillion. We're here.” Her ID tag pinned her another minute away. “We're down to six, our sector is secured for the moment.” The woman suppressed what sounded like a sob.

“Hang in there, keep your eyes open, got a red bug that slipped away from my team somewhere around here. Lady, how are things by the carrier?” Her face appeared on a secondary comm display.

“We've been a bit busy sir. Stack, Gallows, and Milk KIA, Home Plate took a near miss and is inbound for Island One for repairs. Outer perimeter is reporting intermittent contacts with the enemy, and we've got leakers here and there...well hell, sir. I don't know what the hell.”

“Three, huh?”

“Yeah. I'm sorry, Captain.” She frowned.

“You did good.”

“Element One?”

“Two is disabled and pissed, and we've gotten split up, but we're okay for the most part. Sweeping Island One now.”

“Phone home some more, Captain, we were getting worried!”

“Uh huh. Eyes open, Lady.”

“Always.” She winked at him before signing off.

He found himself gripping the flight stick a bit harder now. Three lost. Didn't even get to see it happen. He gave the surroundings another glance before dropping altitude to get a better look at the streets. Where is that red bastard?

“Verm Lead, got a visual on your dance partner!” Verm Four, Sleeper, announced.

There's the asshole, Jaeger thought. It looked different in the artificial sunset over the recreated city of San Francisco, wings it hadn't displayed before spread out and flitting rapidly, like some sort of misshapen dragonfly. Looks like you're a lot like us, not necessarily made for atmo. Thats fine with me. It seemed be looking around for something, paying no heed to a rapidly approaching team of Nightmares at it's rear, and the remnants of Purple Squadron in front of it. Stay still, you bastard.Reticles indicating a cluster of micro missiles seeking lock waved back and forth over the target, but failed to achieve it. Come on!

“GRAYS!” Sleeper shouted. MSSL WARN pinged insistently on the HUD and Jaeger went ballistic, climbing and popping countermeasures before going Battroid, looking for the missiles. One of his pilots was mid transformation when his ship was lanced by a bright orange beam shot and vanished in a ball of flame and debris. Foot thrusters blaring, Jaeger backpedaled the Nightmare and swept a burst from the gunpod at some of the missiles, the altitude indicator telling him he was much lower to the city streets than he expected, seeing the portside engine indicator flashing a red ENG FAIL.

As his VF fell, the red bug shrieked overhead at his team, opening up with it's own autocannons, claiming a second kill before they could react to it's sudden rush, giving it some space while raining down autocannon fire on it. Shrugging off the barrage, it bore down at Sleeper, but he managed to dance out of the way, going back into Fighter and climbing away, safe for the moment.

Putting as much power as he could in his remaining engine, Jaeger managed to put his VF down safely and still standing upright. Two blocks away a gray flew around a street corner and lunged at him with great speed, loosing another swarm of missiles at him as it closed in. Firing a few bursts of covering fire, the Captain managed to take out a few more of the projectiles, some fell short, and he managed to stagger his VF out of the way of a few more incoming before the gray crashed into him, flattening the VF to the ground sending it skidding about half a block into an abandoned shopping center. Pulling the trigger reflexively, there was a decidedly liquid sound that emanated from whatever his gunpod was hitting, coupled with a piercingly high screech, and then silence after he let go of the trigger. Part of the head cams were splattered with something blue, and Jaeger had to force the deadweight bug off of the VF.

“Red's comin' atcha!” Sleeper said. Indeed it was. Bleeding from dozens of places, an arm missing, and it's big ship killing weapon broken off at the end, it roared a sound he was certain he'd hear in nightmares to follow if he lived and came at him.

Then the head exploded.

Sniper fire?

“Skull 2, target neutralized.” For good measure, the still oncoming Vajra corpse shuddered from a triplet of sniper rounds before it blew apart.

Skull? Jaeger got his mecha airborne, albeit unsteadily, and searched for the source of the sniping. A friendly ID tag marked off it's position, far enough away that he couldn't make out much. The HUD helpfully provided a zoom window, and what he saw made his jaw drop.

It was blue, more slender than a Nightmare in Battroid. It was unquestionably what just about every pilot in NUNS was whispering about in the halls of their carriers, technicians passing back and forth pirated holo-vids of it's very existence as though it was some high quality pornography.

It was a VF-25 Messiah.

“You believe this?!” Sleeper raged. “How the hell do civilians get their hands on that shit?”

“Skull One to local NUNS forces. Looks like our bugs are calling it a day. We'll coordinate search and rescue efforts with you guys.” A second friendly ID tag was zoomed in on, revealing A VF-25 in what appeared to be a full armor pack. A cheerful beep from his sensor display indicated the craft matched onboard databases and did belong to Strategic Military Services. Civilians.

The remaining Vermillions present were stunned to silence. Command's confirmation that the combat was ended. As quickly as the enemy had come, they were gone without a trace. The order from the Belleau Wood to RTB was met with a curt reply, and the remnants of Purple and Vermillion made their way to the nearest airlock. The flight back home was uneventful. Space was no longer filled with the fires of battle, the trails of triumphant yet defeated NUNS fighters returning to their respective nests. Captain William Jaeger could only stare at the saved and stilled images of the two VF-25's.

* * *

“Anyone else think this is bullshit?” Sleeper asked as soon as he hopped out of his fighter. Technicians scrambled around the flight deck, working on the more critically damaged craft first. Acrid smoke filled the air, and fire crews were on station just about everywhere one looked.

Vermillion Squadron, minus five, gathered around their their Captain's craft.

“You got tore up this time around, sir.” Lady gasped, hand running along the battered hull of Jaeger's 171.

“Yeah.” He half smiled. “It looks worse than it is, if you ask me.”

“You really saw deployed Messiah?” Strings whistled. “Thing is still in testing!”

“Field testing, it seems.”

“So Milk really did buy it?”

“Yeah. Shame 'bout him and the other guys.”

“No kidding.”

“Honestly, the hell was up with these Vajra things?”

“NUNS covering something up?”

“Naw y'think?”

“Debrief in thirty minutes, kids. Get comfortable, get organized, get your gun cam footage, and we go over it frame by frame if neeeded, understood?” Jaeger raised his voice enough to where his people quickly shut up. “Get to it.” Nobody needed any further encouragement, and they immediately got moving, back to their respective fighters.

“Will, sorry about earlier.” O'Conner grumbled. “Shoulda been on Island One with you.”

“Nothing you could have done about it, just glad to see you still in one piece.”

“Wish we could say that about the others.” Scott looked up at the ceiling to the bay for a moment. “Glad Sana was around to get me out of there. Still trying to wrap my head around it. It stung me with it's frigging tail.”

“Yeah well, I got bowled over by one, after its big brother tried to rape me. I think I win in terms of bad experiences today, pal.”

“No way, you didn't ACTUALLY get violated. I got penetrated, Cap'n. Seriously.”

“Your wife ever see the look you get on your face when you talk like that?”

“What look? Screw you buddy.”

* * *

Purple One, Captain Selene 'Mug' Rosarita's vision blurred the moment she got to her office. She had managed to look impassive as she stalked away from her badly damaged mecha, but once she was alone, in her private sanctum, everything came out at once. She kicked a small bookshelf that had already fallen when the ship had been rocked by its near miss, threw a small coffee mug across the room into a wall, easily shattering. Falling to her knees and pulling at her lengthy brunette hair, she let out a long wail of anguish, standing up suddenly to punch the bulkhead with as much force as she could manage.

The pain was immediate, and she gasped between sobs, nursing her hand as gently as she could with all of her shaking. Leaning against the wall, she slowly sank back to the floor, hugging her knees closer to her chest.. Her own XO, most of her squadron dead, all the hard work and effort she had put into becoming a pilot, the year of training, her first successful year of deployment, being hand picked by her previous CO to take Purple when he retired, all of it seemed like a massive waste of effort, of lives.

A thought occasionally crept up in her storm of emotions.

What if we had those VFs?

* * *

“So what else do we know, people?” Jaeger stabbed a finger at the image of a Red Vajra. Two hours had gone by, the last of his pilots finished with their personal accounts of the battle. Time to get to the finer details.

“They're definitely weaker at their bellies.” Lady began. “After Milk and Stack caught it, I managed to catch this one from below. Other than that, I don't think I can personally account for any other kills on reds. I'd say the other four reds we took out were only because they got hit by multiple pilots at once. Even the littler gray ones seem tougher than any Zentraedi power armor I've fought.”

“They seem more aggressive on coordinated pilots.” Strings added. “I can't name us a specific range, but it seemed like any time I was near Lady, they were a lot more active in trying to kill us. Other than general range between targets, I don't know what a specific trigger would be.”

“Well, we usually stick close because it allows us to concentrate more on specific fields of fire if we're defending an objective. You suggesting we play more solo?” Sleeper cut in.

“It's just a thought, I ain't gonna say you're flat out wrong. My gun cams and Lady's prove we came under significantly more concentrated gray assaults when we paired off.”

“I'll have to agree. Captain Jaeger came under considerable fire when we approached Island One. Maybe they can listen to our comms? Determine our leader elements?” Sana stood up and switched the playback device to show another set of videos from her fighter, specifically the moment she was referring to. “Miclones have a phrase, that goes something along the lines of 'killing the head of the snake', am I correct? It was essentially six on one here, the way they targeted you Captain. No disrespect intended, but I am very amazed that you survived. What did you do to get the red one off of you?”

“No clue.” He frowned at that mystery. “Picking off command elements of any sort, anything coordinated as a team gets first priority. Seems they trust their armor to protect them against less than concentrated assaults. We'll meet these bugs again. Assuming any data Command gets from battle analysis gets disseminated throughout the fleet, we'll have a better strategy by then.”

“I'm sure I'm not the only one who had issues with missile lock.” Vermillion Nineteen, 2nd Lieutenant Patrick 'Chewtoy' Shoemaker stated from the back of the briefing room. “Going over my gun cams, I think I only had consistent successful locks over three thousand meters with the Micros and the Piledrivers, some sort of localized jamming. It was notably worse around reds, though within a thousand meters there was one gray I couldn't lock onto. Radar contact was skittish, but generally on the money in regards to location, give or take a hundred meters.” There was a smattering of approval from the rest of Vermillion.

“Okay.” Jaeger looked around the room for a moment. “People, this definitely was well beyond what we normally see out here, but the bottom line is that we performed extremely well under the circumstances. I'm proud of you guys. Before we break this up, some bad news first. With the Belleau Wood taking damage, she's going to be docked with the Frontier for a week for repairs. Purple Squadron got beat up really hard, it's likely we'll be taking in what's left as our own replacements if Command decommissions their designation. Just...watch what you say around Purple folks. Final Respects will be paid at 1800. The good news is that once we dock, unless it's an fleetwide emergency deployment, we'll be on shore leave for the next 48 hours. Take advantage of it. You're dismissed.”

Things seemed jovial enough. Five dead, no injuries reported by the remaining squadmates. That was good enough, wasn't it? All of the frustrations about not knowing more about this threat could be dealt with later, but for now, surviving seemed as good as getting a kill.

“Will, want some help with their personal effects?” Lady asked.

“Yeah, I'll catch up in a minute. Go ahead and get some boxes ready, wouldja?”

“Sure thing boss.” She looked at him strangely for a moment, then went on her way, leaving him the last person in the room. After a long moment, he stood up and went from seat to seat, looking for five specific name plates, and pulled those free.

“Well, damnit.”

-

Well, hopefully you folks enjoy this. Gimme some feedback, tell me what needs to change.

[John117xCortana]

Good chapter. Needs a little more detail but other then that it is ok.

[VhenRa]

Not bad... a Macross Grunt Fanfic...

And them being pissed off at the Mercs with the 25s is brilliant.

[RangerKarl]

Ooh, saw this during the gestation phase on 4chan. How long do you plan to make this story go for?

[wellis]

Very nice fic! At what point in the series does this take place? Is it in the beginning episodes, or more in the middle?

[Vermilion]

Originally Posted by wellis

Very nice fic! At what point in the series does this take place? Is it in the beginning episodes, or more in the middle?

The story of Vermillion is concurrent with the main story of Frontier, from ep 1 to ep 25. Vermillion squadron will be present at every major fleet battle, but will have very little actual contact with SMS, though cameos will happen (like what happened in CH 1). There will also be some other 'side missions' that we don't see happen in Frontier, but ones I would expect an actual military force to be performing as a campaign progresses.

My big goal by the end of the story is to have a group of characters people like to a degree, and to make the NUNS regular forces sound and act more like an actual military units, but not overly so. I've always never cared much for the scenes in any anime where hundreds of grunts get killed, but the hero units just always miraculously come out of the same mess with maybe a scratch for drama purposes. It makes even less sense for me in Macross. Regardless of how far NUNS has apparently fallen, these are still space gets that transform into giant robots and something in between. Much like a real pilot, I would imagine you have to be an intelligent individual with some modicum of skill to be given permission to fly something that hot.

@RangerKarl: I'm to try for at least fifteen chapters. My problem is definitely keeping the combat interesting while also developing the characters. Because of this, I imagine chapters will be fairly slow in the making since I want to avoid serious repetitiveness in my work.

I have to agree with John117, there were details about the fighting I could have thrown in, it's a little sparse looking back now, but I'll try to get better going forward.

[VhenRa]

And one has to wonder WHY they let Alto back into the cockpit after how often he wrecks his VF-25...

[soloista]

VhenRa: Maybe the educational system has drastically been altered by his time.

[Barricade]

Considering that, 7 years prior to Frontier (in the Macrossverse), a Three Star factory ship that was part of the Macross 7 colony fleet could build an ENTIRE VF-11 from scratch in under 3 hours....

Yeah. They could easily afford material losses. Its the loss of pilots that would kill them. So if the pilot, he/she, is any good, even if they end up trashing VFs alot, if they do good, they'll ship out another for them to use with probably only minimal fuss.

Although I bet Alto, behind the scenes, had the mother of all migraines from the sheer amount of paperwork he had to fill out each time he lost one.

[RangerKarl]

Originally Posted by Barricade

Although I bet Alto, behind the scenes, had the mother of all migraines from the sheer amount of paperwork he had to fill out each time he lost one.

That would explain his hair trigger temper quite handily....

[VhenRa]

Oh... That I could see

And tto think... the paperwork for SMS in that probably would be LOWER then mainline Spacy forces.