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  The doors of the rebuilt White Dragon slid open as Minmei approached just short of closing time. Still the center of the city as it had been on Macross Island and later in the SDF-1, the restaurant was packed even at this late hour.

  "Hi! I'm here," she called, cheerful again, the argument with Kyle long behind her now.

  Aunt Lena was cleaning up. Tommy Luan, the barrel-chested mayor of Macross, and his fusty wife, Loretta, were having tea.

  "Oooh, you're back!" said Lena, a warm smile spreading across her face, the mother Minmei had lost.

  "Heyyy!" called the mayor, equally happy to see his long-lost creation. She greeted Lena with an embrace.

  "Welcome back, darling! But shouldn't you be rehearsing for your

  concert?" Minmei was the daughter Lena had never had as well as a replacement for the son she seemed to have lost.

  "Uh huh," Minmei told her and let it drop. "Mr. Mayor, how are you?" "I'm just fine, Minmei."

  "Good seeing you, dear," said his stiff wife. A head taller than her husband, she had a long, almost emaciated face underscored by a prominent chin. She wore her wavy auburn hair pulled back into an unattractive bun and kept the collar of her blouse tightly fastened at the neck by a large blue brooch.

  Loretta and Tommy were almost as unlikely a couple as lithesome Lena and squat Max, who was just stepping from the kitchen now, his cooking whites and chef's hat still in place.

  "Heyyy, Minmei," he drawled.

  "Uncle!...Would it be okay with you if I stayed here tonight?"

  "Of course it'd be okay! M' girl, you can even have your old room back again."

  "Oh, thanks, Uncle Max," Minmei said, suddenly overcome with a feeling of love for all of them, happy to be back in the fold, away from the lights, crowds, attention...Kyle.

  "Isn't that great?" the mayor crowed. "She hasn't changed a bit, even after becoming famous!"

  Three male customers had left their table to surround her, wondering what she was doing there, taking advantage of the casual nature of her visit to ask for autographs.

  "Success hasn't spoiled our Minmei." "She's still our little girl," said Max.

  Which is just what she wanted to feel like at the moment: to be the one taken care of instead of the one who always had to keep things going. But she said, laughing:

  "Oh, no! That makes me sound like a little child who hasn't grown up at

  all!"

  "Oh, I didn't mean it that way!" Max recanted, joining the laughter.

  After signing autographs and having something to eat-Lena refused to take no for an answer-Minmei excused herself and went upstairs to her room. There were no questions about Kyle; it was as if he were no longer part of the family.

  Lena and Max hadn't changed a thing even after the relocation of the restaurant from the hold of the dimensional fortress; they must have put everything back where it had been-even the whimsical pink rabit's head bearing her name that she had tacked to the door.

  Once inside, a flood of memories began to overwhelm her:

  Her first night in this very room when she'd arrived on Macross Island from Yokohama-the balcony view from these very windows of the reconstructed SDF-1; the Launching Day celebration and the madness that had ensued; the years in space, and the strange twists of fate that had brought her fame...And through it all she saw Rick journeying along with her, accompanying her, though not always by her side.

  She looked up at the corner of the room damaged by Rick's Battloid on the day fate had thrown him a curve. The cornice of the room had been repaired, but the place never seemed to hold paint for very long, as though the spot had decided to memorialize itself.

  Minmei crossed over to her bureau, opened one of the drawers, and retrieved the gift Rick had given her more than three years ago on her sixteenth birthday. The titanium Medal of Honor he had received after the battle of Mars. She recalled how he had appeared beneath her balcony only minutes before midnight and tossed the gift to her. "It says what I can't say to you," Rick had told her then.

  The memory warmed her heart, thawing some of the sadness lodged there. But suddenly she felt far away from the joy and love of those earlier times; something inside her was in danger of dying. She sobbed, holding the medal close to her breast:

  "Oh, Rick, what have I done?"

  CHAPTER THREE

  What do I remember about those days in New Macross?...Anger, strident conversations, despair-it almost seemed as if Protoculture's shape-shifting capabilities had taken hold of fate itself, changing and reworking individual destiny, transforming and reconfiguring lives...

  Lisa Hayes, Recollections

  The sun rose into cirrus skies above New Macross City, autumn's first crisp and clear day. The stratospheric dust and debris that for two years now had led to blue moons, sullen sunsets, and perpetual winters was at last dissipating, and there was every indication that Earth was truly on the mend.

  Minmei, dressed in a white summer-weight skirt and red sweater, stepped out of the White Dragon and took a deep breath of the cool morning air. She felt more rested than she had in months; the comfort of her own room and the company of her family were warm in her memory. A newsboy, brown baseball cap askew on his head, rushed by and dropped off the morning edition; she greeted him cheerfully and started off down the street, unaware that he had turned startled in his tracks, recognizing the singing star instantly and somewhat disappointed when she hadn't stopped to talk with him for a moment.

  She had a lot on her mind, but for a change she felt that there was all the time in the world to see to everything. The band would be expecting her for rehearsal, but that was still hours off, and she wanted nothing more than to walk the streets and say hello to the city in her own way. That's no EVE projection up there, she had to remind herself, unaccustomed to sunny skies. She had been a creature of the night for too long, victimized by her own needs as much as she was by Kyle's grandiose plans for the future.

  Last night's argument seemed far removed from this new optimism coursing through her. If Kyle could only be made to understand, if he would

  only stop drinking and return himself to the disciplines that made him unique in her eyes...Sometimes he appeared to be as displaced as the Zentraedi themselves, yearning for new battles to wage, new fronts to open. He detested the presence of the military and continued to blame them for the nearly total destruction of the planet. Minmei pitied him for that. The military had at least managed to salvage a place for new growth. And as for their presence, the threat of a follow-up attack was a real one-not manufactured, as Kyle claimed, to keep the civilians in line. The Earth had been ravaged once, and it could happen again.

  But these were dark thoughts to have on such a glorious day, and she decided to put them from her mind. There was beauty and renewed life everywhere she looked. Skyscrapers rose like silver towers above the rooftops, and Lake Gloval, looked as though it had been sprinkled with gems....

  In the outskirts of New Macross Rick had already commenced his morning run, in full sweats today, a beige outfit Lisa had given him for his birthday. The city was still asleep, taking advantage of the chill to spend a few extra moments cuddled under blankets, and there was no traffic to fight; so he jogged without any set course in mind, along the lakefront, then into the grid of city streets. Flat-bottomed cargo crafts ferried supplies to and from the supercarriers still attached to the SDF-1, while launches carried night-shift work crews away from the SDF-2, back to back with its mother ship and rapidly nearing completion.

  Breathe in the good, breathe out the bad, he chanted to himself as he ran-and there was a great deal of the latter he needed to get rid of. If asked what he was so angry about, he probably wouldn't have been able to offer a clear explanation. Only this: He was tense. Whether it had something to do with his situation with Lisa, or Minmei's situation with Kyle, or Earth's with the Zentraedi, he couldn't be sure. Probably it was a combination of everything, coupled with an underlying sense of purposelessness that had given ris
e to this unnatural cynicism and despair.

  "Both races seem to enjoy fighting," Exedore had said. He regretted now that he had turned the briefing into a debate-he would have felt differently had he been able to make his point-but was still certain of his feelings: that the Zentraedi, for all their genetic similarities to humans, were no better than programmed androids. All one needed to do was look around to see that he was right: The Zentraedi were hungry for war-biologically hungry. They were deserting their positions, sometimes violently-the recent incident in New Portland was a case in point-to take up with their fellow malcontents in makeshift compounds in the wasteland, off limits to humans, who would not be able to withstand the lingering radiation. Perhaps a mistake had been made in attempting to band together despite the gains to New Macross thanks to the literary larger labor force? But Rick was certain it was only a matter of time before all the Zentraedi followed suit and returned to war.

  He exhaled harshly and increased his pace.

  Just down the street from the White Dragon, only a few blocks from Rick's present course, a delivery van pulled to a stop in front of a two-storied building with a red and white striped awning and a rainbow-shaped sign that read CLEANING. At the wheel was Konda, one of the three former Zentraedi spies.

  "Rico! Gimme a hand with this!" Bron called out from the sidewalk, a full basket of laundry in his brawny arms.

  The door to the shop opened, and the founder of the Minmei cult stepped out, affecting oversized and unnecessary eyeglasses, convinced that they enhanced his appearance. Rico had also let his hair grow and was dressed in a short-waisted blue and white uniform that fit him like a leisure suit.

  The three former secret agents had secured jobs with the cleaning service several months ago, their fascination for clothing as strong now as it had been when they first experienced Micronian life in the holds of the SDF-1.

  "Hey, guess what happened?" Konda said, leaning out of the van.

  Rico was quick to respond, leaving Bron (a good fifteen pounds lighter than he'd been two years ago) to fend for himself. "What happened?" he asked excitedly.

  "Guess."

  "What?" Rico repeated, enjoying the game but still vague about the rules.

  "Minmei's back in town-she stayed at the restaurant last night!" "No kidding!"

  "I got it straight from his honor the mayor himself."

  Rico made a puzzled gesture. "But I saw in the paper that Minmei's got a concert in Stone City today." He wanted to believe Konda, but still...

  "Well; if she leaves early enough today, she can still make it," Konda offered as an explanation.

  Rico snapped his fingers. "Rats! If I had known, I would have gone to the restaurant last night to eat." He dug into his pants pocket and produced a small notebook, which he immediately began to leaf through. It was possible he'd been mistaken about the Stone City concert. "Hmmm...let's see...It looks like I've forgotten her concert schedule in my other notebook." If Konda's information was correct, then perhaps Minmei would be spending another night at the White Dragon.

  Rico reveled in the idea of "having a mission." He and his sidekicks had had their share of dull evenings lately. Things didn't seem to be working out too well between the three of them and Kim, Vanessa, and Sammie. He was at a loss to explain the reasons for this but reasoned that it had something to do with procreation, that mystery of mysteries so important to Micronian females. Not everyone could be as fortunate as Miriya Parino and her mate...

  Just then Bron appeared behind him, a neatly folded stack of sheets in his arms.

  "Hey! We're supposed to be dry cleaners, not gossipmongers." Bron took his job very seriously, judging it to be one of the most important things a Micronian could attend to-next to cooking, of course. The care and

  maintenance of uniforms especially. "Now, either you ship up or shape out or I'm gonna just have to-huh?"

  Bron shouldered Rico aside and advanced a few steps along the sidewalk, staring at a woman pedestrian headed their way.

  "Hey...Am I dreaming?" he-said. Then: "It is!" "Huh?" said Rico, tempted to remove his glasses. Konda leaned from the van. "Is that..."

  "Minmei!" the three of them said together, unable to believe their luck. "Hi." She smiled, raising her hand. She hadn't seen any of them in

  months-since her last open-air concert in New Macross, where they had had front-row seats and carried artificial flowers.

  Rico and Bron ran to her, Konda quick to bring up the rear.

  "Minmei, would you...well, would you like to autograph this?" Bron said, offering her his pile of pressed linen.

  "Hey, Bron, that belongs to a customer," Rico pointed out, confident that his knowledge of Micronian protocol would impress Minmei.

  But Bron ignored him. "So what! I'll buy the customer a new one!"

  This found favor with Rico and Konda, both of whom reached for the sheets simultaneously, touching off an instant tug-of-war for what hadn't already fallen to the sidewalk.

  Minmei backed up, worried about how this battle might escalate; but finally she laughed and dug into her purse for a pen.

  Elsewhere in the city a more violent battle was under way.

  Mayor Tommy Luan had been attending to his morning ritual (putting on a tie, then taking it off ), when he saw something fly past his second-floor bedroom window-something large and red that had about as much business being in the air as a tie had around his neck. He moved to the window in time to see a compact car crash to the street and explode. Pedestrians were screaming and fleeing the scene. Some idiot's driven off the roof of the parking garage, Luan told himself as he made for the stairway.

  By the time he reached street level, flames and thick smoke had

  engulfed what was left of the car. But he had scarcely stepped from the building when a second explosion filled the air, more ground-shaking than the first. Luan saw a second black cloud rise over the rooftops from somewhere nearby and ran toward the direction of the smoke, revising his earlier hypothesis. Was this a sneak attack or some new terrorist group at work?

  As he approached the intersection, an airborne girder took out a streetlamp, sending up a fountain of sparks and stopping him in his tracks. From around the corner came two Zentraedi giants, one brandishing a long pipe and carrying a large sack stuffed with who knew what. Luan had begun a slow retreat down his street, but the two saw him and began to pursue him. Spent after a block, the mayor stopped, collapsing to his knees in front of his home.

  The Zentraedi stood over him, threatening him with the pipe. "I beg you-h-have pity,"

  "I'll spare you if you give me everything you've got!" growled the pipe wielder instinctively, with no real purpose other than intimidation in mind.

  "T-that's easier said than done," Luan answered him, trying to figure out just what he might possess that would appeal to a sixty-foot warrior.

  Inside the house, Luan's wife, Loretta, having glimpsed the terrifying street scene from the living room window, had already raised the base on the phone. The clenched fist of one of the aliens filled the plate window behind her.

  "Right...right," she was saying, growing panic in her voice. "They've suddenly become very violent and extremely dangerous. They're trying to take our food and our possessions and everything we-"

  Something took hold of her, cutting off her breath.

  Now she was being lifted off the floor and carried through the front door, her narrow shoulders and fragile neck pinched in the grip of giant fingers. The warrior, who had gone down on both knees to fish her from her home, held her ten feet above the sidewalk, choking the life from her while he roared into her face.

  "Whaddaya think you're up to? Sit down!" he said gruffly, slamming her to the concrete. This knocked the wind out of her and dislocated her back. Through the pain she recognized that she was sitting in a most unladylike position, her pleated blue skirt up around her thighs, but there was nothing she could do about it. Then suddenly Tommy was beside her, holding her and spitting at the alien
s:

  "You monster! You've hurt her." Luan wrapped his beefy arms around his wife. "Be strong, darling. We're going to get you to a hospital as soon as we-"

  "You're not going anywhere!" the two Zentraedi bellowed, moving in to cast a grim shadow over both of them....

  Rick was breathing hard, pushing himself into a sprint, when he heard his name called. He forced himself to stop, doubled over with hands on his knees, panting for a moment, before he turned around. Lisa! He had purposely avoided his usual route for fear of bumping into her, and now here she was not ten feet away, shapely in her blue skirt and orange V-neck sweater. There had been some awkward moments between them these past few weeks. She had stopped coming by his quarters-even (in a roundabout fashion) returned the key he had given her. She thought he was seeing Minmei again, but he wasn't. Not really.

  "What are you doing up so early?" he asked as she approached. She stammered, "Um...well, I wasn't sleeping too well."

  "Why not?" Rick said, feeling a sudden concern. "Something's wrong."

  "Wrong? Whaddaya mean?"

  Lisa stared at him. Was he ever going to be able to talk to her? "I don't know," she told him. "I'm not really sure..."

  "Well, working on patrol has made me pretty sensitive to what's going on-there's some tension, but we can handle it."

  Was he talking about tension between the two of them, or did he mean tension among the Zentraedi? Lisa asked herself. Patrol was making him sensitive...to what? She wanted to believe that this was Rick's way of

  apologizing.

  "I'd better be reporting in," he said, motioning toward the SDF-1. "It's breakfast time."

  Lisa smiled to herself. It was like pulling teeth...but she wasn't going to give up on him. Not yet.

  "Mind if I walk with you? I don't feel like going back to the barracks by myself, okay?"

  "Come to think of it," Rick said as they started off, "you may be right about there being trouble."