A/N: This is an alternative universe story so some of the things didn't happen as in the Macross timeline.

First, the Earth will not be completely destroyed by Dolza. Some of the bigger cities will be mostly or completely destroyed but I can't have only the people aboard the SDF-1 as the only survivors.

Second, Dolza escaped from the battle. The story will take time after the Reconstruction but before the failed date. The factory satellite attack will have happened already (actually very recently) but not the rescue mission for Minmay. Roy is alive in this story, furthering the AU aspect of it.

Another change I did was with Rick's physical appearance. I am making him be 6'0, so he is still shorter than Roy who is 6'4.

I most point out (and a deep thanks to my beta DWParsons for making me realize this) I will be using the Meltrandi/Zentraedi denominations but I am following the American Robotech series and not the Japanese movie/series.

Again, Lots and LOTS of thanks to Dwparsons for making sure that everything is correct and to keep me in line. You really help out a lot.

For those of you guys that were following my other story A Spacefold Away… Sorry about that. I will EVENTUALLY pick that one up but it will be on hold for a while. I am also thinking of reposting it eventually. For now, I will (try my very best) to update this one with more frequency. Enjoy!

Beady black eyes shifted across the room taking in the comings and goings of the people that had been called to the meeting. He watched their interactions with fascination as they readied the room for the meeting. His dwarfish face under a mop of unruly and quite frankly, garish red hair, lit up as he studied the micronians. His culture after all was so different. He watched as a female directed two young males and even though she appeared to have a higher rank, she still blushed when one of the men directed a comment to her. The Zentraedi ambassador looked on unabashedly. Even after the two years since the final battle against their Emperor Dolza when he had joined the micronians, he still did not understand the interactions between the complex creatures.

For example, take the Admiral. Exedore shifted a bit on his seat so he could have a better look at the leader of these micronians. He was the leader of the very people that had defeated the Zentraedi, the fiercest of warriors and yet he was constantly berated by a tiny slip of a girl every time he tried to engage in that micronian custom of lighting his pipe. The Admiral was a single, mostly solitary man but when asked about his family he claimed that he loved the crew like his very own. Love, Exedore had come to find, was a complicated feeling in the micronian culture.

Exedore saw the Admiral straighten into the attention pose as he saluted one of the new comers. Turning his head a bit, the Zentraedi ambassador nodded respectfully at the former commander of Skull 1. Roy Fokker returned the salute with a reserved air as he folded his tall frame in one of the chairs. A slight wince gave away the pain that would forever plague the newly appointed Captain. Exedore knew that the cause of this pain was an old battle wound. Even though it had happened before his time here, a bit over two years ago, he had learned what happened. From listening to the female micronians, and a few of the males, engage in a pastime they called gossip, he knew the Captain had been seriously injured in an accident. After this near death experience his views in life had been seriously affected.

Exedore remembered the day when he had heard the man ask the Admiral to be relocated to a non-combatant post. Extremely puzzled at this request, Exedore had waited until the commander had left to ask the Admiral why the man was willing to be relocated. The answer had not clarified anything. Admiral Gloval had simply answered that even if Roy Fokker loved flying, he loved his girlfriend Claudia Grant even more. Therefore he was willing to sacrifice his first love in order to live and be able to love Commander Grant for all of his life. To a Zentraedi, this was baffling. There was after all, no choice in the matter. Either you were a soldier or you died in the field. There was no life outside the battles and there was no way that a soldier would willingly choose to be taken out of the battles.

So far he had learned that people can love others as a family even if they are not really from the same flesh. He had also learned that love can make you change your whole life based on the fear of losing that which you hold dear.

Laughing voices pulled him from his thoughts and he looked towards the entrance to see Captain Hunter come in with Captain Sterling and Miriya Parino. All three saluted the Admiral with respect and turned to smile at Captain Fokker. He was surprised to see that the last person to come in was Captain Hayes but seeing the reports she was carrying he understood why she had been late. After all he knew the First Officer had been given many tasks by the Admiral in order to prepare her for what was about to come.

Exedore had long ago noticed how professional Captain Hayes behaved. That was one of the reasons that had made him admire the micronian female he had come to know in his time here. He knew even Breetai was impressed with her. This micronian would have made the Meltrandi proud. With her natural reserve, she saluted the Admiral and those in the room. Even knowing how close she was to all who were present, her demeanor had not changed even though the others were not as reserved when she came in. Roy turned to her and winked as he saluted her (something the Captain ignored with a sniff and made the Captain smile even more) and the Sterlings smiled unabashedly at her. The only one who returned the salute with a restraint similar to her own was Captain Hunter. His face was as stony as hers as he returned her salute and his eyes remained frosty instead of warming up as they usually did when he saw her.

Of course he knew that the restraint the man was showing was not his usual greeting. Normally the Captain would smile at the First Officer and maybe joke with her making the normally reserved woman blush. With a knowing smile he realized that the Captains must have had a fight recently. Oh yeah, he knew all about those fights of theirs, after all he was not deaf! In keeping with his research of the strange culture the micronians had, he had discovered an important part of their culture, something called gossip. Truth be told the gossip about Captains Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes was the most widespread and the… how did the female micronians put it, ah yes! The juiciest. Their battles were legendary, almost as much as the battle between the micronians and the Zentraedi and he had to admit, having observed a few of them, almost as fierce.

In attempting to learn about the interactions between females and males of their species, purely for scientific purposes of course, he had learned of various terms by listening in on the conversations of the people in the base. For example, he had overhead that the reason the Captains fought so much was because of "Unresolved Sexual Tension". This had puzzled the Zentraedi for a while as he didn't understand why they wouldn't just resolve it and be done with it. He did not understand how it was resolved either. When he had tried to ask the Admiral what rituals where involved to resolve this impasse, the Admiral had coughed the brandy he had been drinking and he had reluctantly stopped asking questions lest Admiral Gloval would choke again on something.

He had also learned that the reason why Captain Hayes sometimes wore a haunted look in her eyes, especially around the holidays, was because she had lost her fiancée to the war. Exedore wondered why something that happened such a long time ago (after all the Captain had been very young then) would still affect the fierce female warrior that had not batted an eyelash when she confronted their leader Dolza, a veritable giant to the tiny micronian. But alas he had learned that such was the pain of when one looses a loved one.

Exedore was glad he was not programmed to feel those troublesome feelings. Zentraedis and Meltrandis were warriors created by the Robotech Masters and programmed to fight. Feelings had no bearings in their programming. And still there was the matter of Miriya Sterling, formerly known as Miriya Parino, one of the greatest female warriors the Meltrandi had produced. For all of her fierceness, the Meltrandi had given up her glory as a warrior and had decided to tie herself to a micronian because she claimed she loved the male. Even more bizarre is that she had been able to create a micronian on her body just like the females of the micronian species. At his puzzlement, many of his micronian comrades had smiled knowingly and claimed such was the power of love.

Therefore, Exedore had studied and observed the different terminologies of the mysterious puzzle that is love. Aside from the "Power of Love" and the "Loss of a Loved One", Exedore had also learned of another term, "Unrequited Love". Apparently this variety of love was what Captain Hunter suffered from. He had learned, again from overhearing the females that had so much information on his test subjects, that Captain Hunter was in love with the pretty little singer Minmay Lynn. Unfortunately the singer did not love him in return (or so the females claimed in horrified whispers) making him quite miserable. In fact, in comparing the attitudes of both Captains, he had come to the conclusion that "Unrequited Love" and "Loss of a Loved One" caused the same symptoms, extreme sadness, a distracted air, sighing in dejection and the occasional teary eyes in the female of the species. Why anybody would subject themselves willingly to that he did not know. If he took into consideration the giggled comments among his female informants, he had determined that the Captains could cure themselves of their problems if they would only resolve their "Unresolved Sexual Tensions" and just admit that they were actually victims of the "Power of Love" that affected the Sterlings and Captain Fokker and Captain Grant.

Exedore sighed as his head started to pound. He always started getting a headache whenever he tried to understand these issues. He, Exedore the key strategist to Lord Breetai, the fiercest of warriors who held the most victories, could not understand this simple puzzle the micronians presented. He was not disheartened however since it seemed that the keepers of knowledge of the micronians, the female gossipers in the SDF-1, were stumped by this puzzle as well. With a final glance around the table, Exedore concluded that he would have to wait to hear more from the females in order to draw up more conclusions.

Admiral Henry Gloval waited until all of the people present were seated. He knew that the news he had to impart were not happy ones as it meant that the tenuous peace they had achieved with the aliens was about to be broken again. He knew that his visage was grim and judging by the countenances around the tables, he knew that all of them were bracing themselves for the news. Henry's deep brown eyes settled on the unlikely ally they had made in the battle against his very own people. Exedore looked slightly green around the gills as his beady eyes shifted around the room full of micronians. Henry was slightly worried about his reaction. If the Ambassador from the Zentraedi was that worried, he wondered what kind of chance they stood in this new battle. Shaking his head at the grim thoughts, he stood straighter, trying to impart a feeling of security that he himself did not posses. If there was something he had learned in the many years as an Admiral it was that those who depended on his leadership needed some kind of reassurance from him as well. If they felt that he was not completely sure of the positive outcome of their mission they would fail without even trying. That was the reason why he prayed to the gods above that he was not projecting his insecurity to his pseudo-family.

"I have called you all here today to brief you on an important mission." Admiral Gloval announced as he looked around the table. "As you all know Dolza was able to escape in the midst of the battle almost two years ago." All around the table there were nods and worried faces. "We have found evidence that he went back to his home planet in order to regroup and rebuild his forces."

"What evidence do we have of this?" Captain Lisa Hayes asked her intelligent green eyes clouded with worry.

"We have been monitoring the area around the home planet and we have seen recent mobilization." Exedore explained. "But still we wanted to be sure that this was the case and not a false alarm. A week ago the Admiral sent an unmanned cat's eye to report. It was detected a couple hours after it defolded but we still had enough information to support what the Admiral has just mentioned."

"But Exedore, I thought that the Grand Fleet was mostly defeated. Just a few were left after the battle. How many are we talking about now?"

"They only had two years to reconstruct so we are talking less than a fourth of what they originally had."

All the members in the table looked at each other in worry. None of them were fooled at the extent of vessels this would entail. In particular Lisa, Rick, Max and Miriya knew the extent of what they would be facing. The first three had witnessed beforehand the vast quantity of vessels the Zentraedi possessed and Miriya, being a former high officer in the Meltrandi army, knew of the awesome power her former army possessed.

Lisa turned to the Admiral, her face mirroring her puzzlement. "I don't understand sir, how could the Zentraedi rebuild their forces? If I am not mistaken we took possession of the last working factory satellite the Zentraedi had access to. Was that information incorrect?"

Henry looked towards his Commander in Chief, momentarily feeling a fluttering of pride at her intelligence. "That is a very good question Captain Hayes." He praised her. "The information was not incorrect. That was in fact the last satellite. We have come across another piece of disturbing news." He paused for a second and he could have sworn he heard a very faint groan coming from the direction of Captain Hunter. Understanding brown eyes faced troubled blue ones as he directed his next comment to the young Captain. "It seems the Zentraedi have either taken some allies or have conquered another race that have vast technological knowledge." He nodded towards the technician who stood next to the wall and the lights dimmed as the projector hummed to life. Admiral Gloval stepped aside as an image filled the screen. "These are some images we recovered from the Cat's Eye before it was destroyed. As you can see some of the vessels still retain the Zentraedi components but are now mixed with newer and more advanced parts." He remained silent as the images scrolled thru. When they were done, the lights slowly came back to reveal the horrified gazes of those inside the room. He could completely understand how they felt.

"It took some time to correctly identify the parts as the RDF had not encountered this kind of alien technology but others have. Dr. Lang?" He nodded to the man to his right.

Dr. Lang rose after thanking Admiral Gloval. His eerie pupiless eyes swept the room. "After making sure these pieces were not Zentraedi, Meltrandi or from the Robotech Masters, we decided to contact other scientists that have made it their priority to study phenomena such as these. I was in contact with some of the same scientists who first studied the SDF-1 when it made its landing on Earth. The conversations were… disturbing to say the least." He turned to the Admiral asking permission to speak, at his nod, he continued. "Apparently we were not the only ones that had been fighting alien forces. In fact some of the attacks that had been attributed to rogue Zentraedi were in fact other groups of alien invaders."

Gasps and murmurs could be heard around the table and Admiral Gloval rapidly raised his hand forestalling the questions. "I soon spoke with the different factions and I found out something of a conspiracy that was created to keep not only the civilians ignorant of these attacks but us as well."

"But who could have done that?" Rick Hunter asked.

The Admiral's eyes slipped towards haunted green eyes and he knew she had a good idea of who it had been. "It was apparently a practice that started with the old United Earth Government and is still being kept up by the current one."

Lisa looked down to her notes to escape the sorrow in her commander's eyes. A feeling of rage and impotence suffused her. Detachedly, she watched as her hand crumpled the piece of paper it had been holding. How dare they! How dare they keep that information from all of them? Had they learned nothing from the mistakes of their predecessors? It had been her father and the rest of the United Earth Government who started keeping secrets from the crew of the SDF-1 and the civilians inside of it and on Earth. And look at what it had accomplished, a barren land that they had had to rebuild almost from scratch.

She pulled herself out of her bleak thoughts to hear the account of how many of those factions had survived in spite of Dolza's attack to Earth. It had been in fact some of those factions who had saved some of the Earth's population from complete extinction.

"We have narrowed the list of alien supporters the Zentraedi could have. Based on their mecha we are pretty sure we are on the right track. We will now have to face not only the Zentraedi but these new threats as well."

"Do not despair as we have in fact come up with a solution to our dilemma. Seeing that the Zentraedi have seen fit to ally themselves and in the light that there are others who fight the same fight we do, we have decided to also take some allies in this new battle." Admiral Gloval announced breaking thru the gloomy atmosphere with a ray of hope. All of those around the table looked at him with so much trust that he was humbled by the sentiment. He swore to himself he would do anything in his power to make this be a fight that they could win. "The Admirals and I have decided to form an elite group which will fight alongside these other groups in order to defeat Dolza and this new threat. I must admit, we will have a long road of discovery ahead of us because as we uncover things, we are left with many more questions with no answers. It will be up to this group to uncover them with the aid of our new allies. In order to make our efforts more effective, we have decided to let this group operate on its own and lend support as it is needed. As it is, I have requested all of you to be part of this elite force. I have the outmost confidence in all of you."

The Admiral paused as he let this piece of news sink in. He had not been merely flattering them as he truly believed they were more than capable of handling the job. After all, they were the best he had.

"I have recommended Captain Lisa Hayes to be the leader of the group." He said nodding at Lisa who acknowledged the news with a widening of her eyes and a slight flaring of her nostrils as she sucked in a surprised breath. "You will coordinate all the attacks with the help of the leaders of the other divisions." Turning to the pilots, he said, "All squadron leaders will have command over their squadron and any air support the other divisions posses." Rick, Max, Miriya and Roy nodded. "Seniority dictates that Captain Fokker will lead all air divisions. I will travel with you to the initial debriefing but then I will return here to coordinate supporting attacks. You might wonder why we are not providing ground support," he paused as the others nodded. "One of the groups you will be joining has a strong ground force but we have found that they are all lacking an organized air force. Therefore we shall be providing it."

"How about the rest of the staff? We will need a Communications Officer." Lisa asked since the Admiral had not mentioned anything about Claudia.

"I was told you would be provided with a person who will work both as Communications Officer and as Radar technician."

"Begging your pardon sir, I do believe that I will need more assistance than that."

Gloval mulled it carefully. He had no idea how long this fight would take them. He hoped it would not be as long as the original battle had been but he had to be realistic. He hated to part with both of his best officers but as he looked at Lisa's stony face and Roy's almost pleading grey eyes, he made a final decision. "Very well I can provide Captain Grant." He said, containing a smile at the visible relief in both Lisa and Roy's faces. "You shall not be getting anybody else from my staff Captain Hayes so do not push for any more." He said with mock sternness and was rewarded with a small smile from his First Officer.

"Thank you sir, I will not ask for more."

"We will be meeting again tomorrow at 0800 hours in order to discuss the needed mecha we will provide. I want you all to be ready in two days for your departure. Pack whatever you need as if you were moving at least for a year. Your homes will be secured and everything you need will be provided. We will be heading to a training ground facility in order to develop new strategies and so that of the different groups can train together and join forces. Any questions?" They all shook their heads, their minds overwhelmed with the information given. "Well, you are all dismissed."

"Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Thank you!"

"Uh, get off me!" Captain Lisa Hayes exclaimed in exasperated disgust as Captain Roy Fokker held her in a bear hug. Lisa was turning quite red in the face as people passed by them in the hallway and snickered at the Captain's antics. Max and Miriya couldn't help but stifle a laugh at the Lisa's peeved expression in contrast to Roy's comical blissful face as he rested his cheek on the crown of her head. They almost broke into gales of laughter as she tried to claw her way out of his embrace but he wouldn't budge. They knew that not only was the Captain grateful that her intervention had caused his girlfriend to be relocated with them but he was doing it knowing he was driving the normally unflappable woman up the wall.

"Is there a reason why you are draped all over my best friend?" Came a drawled voice from behind them. All of them turned, Roy dragging Lisa along as he still had not released her, to see Captain Grant tapping her foot impatiently as she waited for an answer. Her eyes betrayed the seriousness of her face as they twinkled with barely suppressed laughter. To her credit, her expression never wavered, even when they all could hear Captain Hayes' teeth gnashing in annoyance.

"I am hugging your friend here because she has saved me, er… us, from absolute loneliness while we are away on a mission." Claudia looked at him in bafflement. "Let me take you to lunch and I will explain everything to you. What do you say?" He said with a charming smile and a roughish wiggle of his eyebrows.

Claudia couldn't help but smile at that and said. "Well, since you plead your case so nicely, I think I will but don't you think you should let go of Lisa dear? Or are you thinking of becoming permanently attached to her?" She asked drolly as her best friend sputtered in exasperation.

Roy let go of Lisa as if she was a hot potato and moved towards his girlfriend in a flash putting the dark skinned beauty between them. The 6'4" blond smiled a beatific smile at green eyed woman as his eyes opened in a perfect imitation of an innocent puppy. Even if Lisa was well cured of the patented Roy Fokker charm, she couldn't help but snort in amusement at his expression. With a mock glare in his direction, she said:

"Captain Fokker, you try that again and you will find yourself transferred to trash collection duty."

"Yes, sir, madam, sir!" The commander said in mock reverence as he saluted her.

Rolling her eyes in exasperation, Lisa left, heading towards the Admiral's office.

"Wow, I can't believe you actually got away to tell the tale." Rick told his big brother who was busily making besotted eyes to his long-time girlfriend now turned fiancée.

Roy snorted at his little brother in all but blood. "Come on Rick! You especially should know that Lisa is much more bark than bite. If that were not the case, you would probably have not survived till now."

"You got a point there." Rick said with a grimace as he remembered their last row. "I hope she would have a much better sense of humor when it comes to dealing with me though."

The rest of them knew he was referring to the last row the two had recently. Word had it Rick had not handled well the fact that he had been used as a diversion for the attack on the factory satellite and had taken it out on the poor woman. It wasn't as if she had not been forced into it herself, although all that knew her also knew she had given in to the plan of broadcasting their kiss for less altruistic reasons than just furthering their mission. They all had to suppress a sigh at the completely clueless man. To think that at this point, almost three years later, the man had yet to realize that Captain Lisa Hayes was head over heels in love with him was baffling.

Truth be told, all of them were starting to get tired of the whole Rick and Lisa saga, not that it wasn't entertaining and all and the cause of great gossip. All kidding aside, they all loved the two knuckleheads to death and were distressed at the thought that this could drag longer if some action was not taken.

While Rick was completely oblivious to what was happening around him, seriously when wasn't he, the Sterlings, Claudia and Roy gave each other knowing looks. A long stint outside of their everyday setting with only themselves as company and most of them being couples… this mission could very well be auspicious for the outcome of their plan of finally getting the two together. Then maybe that way they could get to cash in on their wagers. After all, it was a well known fact to everybody, except the two of them of course, that there was a giant pool on the outcome of their little feud. Being their very best friends, and having to suffer thru all of their bad moods whenever they had a row, they felt entitled to all proceedings that could be made from them.

"Well, maybe now that we are all going to spend some time together you might find that she does have a sense of humor… deep down… somewhere." Roy said, mumbling the last part. He then laughed as he tried to escape Claudia's elbow as she tried to poke him on the ribs. "Come on Clau! It was only a joke!"

Rick looked at them unconvinced. "I don't know about that you guys but just in case I think I am going home to start packing the Tequila. Have a feeling I will need it to survive this." He said drolly and with a wave, he was gone.

As soon as they saw the shaggy black head disappear down the corner, the four scheming friends looked at each other again, their eyes glinting with determination. If either Rick or Lisa would have seen the expression on Claudia's face, they would have started running the opposite way. As it was, the dark skinned beauty had a smile of pure evil on her face. "Ok, tonight, my place. We are meeting to put our plan in action." At those words, the same evil smile was echoed on all the other faces.

If you made it this far, you might have realized that this is a semi-crossover story. Although I am using some of the other characters, this is first and foremost a Macross story and the main pairing is Rick and Lisa.

I am basically will be tying in the Macross saga (Robotech series) with some of the robot cartoons that were popular in the 80's. Now I know that in the US some of these stories were not as popular or basically were not aired. Don't despair, I will explain enough about them as I go along that you won't be lost. For those of you guys in Latin America, especially Puerto Rico, that are familiar with them, I hope you enjoy!

The stories will be:

Robotech (Macross Series)

El Galactico (Spacekeeters/Starzinger) "Aurora, the princess of the moon, is given a mission by the great scientist Dr. Kitty. Aurora must go to the planet Great King and restore the galaxy energy that has somehow decreased in the universe. The source of all the trouble is supposed to have its origin there. On her way there she will face numerous monsters and mutated creatures so she will have three cyborg heroes to aid her in her mission."

Mazinger Z - This one is a classic robot story.

SuperMagnetron/Magne Robo Gakeen (original Japanese name) this story is about a guy and a girl that can sustain electric charges and they control 2 robots but they can also meld together to form a bigger robot.

Toshi Gordian – Again, don't think this one was aired in the US. This is another robot story about a guy that controls 3 robots. The robots go into themselves like those Russian dolls… you know the one that is a really small wooden doll that goes into a slightly bigger one so and so forth until you have at least 5 dolls inside of a slightly bigger doll.

I put all the names they are known by here just in case you want to do a little bit of research on the characters and the story. I'll try my best to make it as similar to their own plots and characters as I can and I will be doing for the Robotech ones.

Next chapter:

More on Rick and Lisa's snipping at each other. We get to see what they are actually thinking about. I'll include more on the nature of the mission and of the 2nd mission the gang has taken upon themselves.

Hope you like!