fanfic_name = What If

chapter = Chapter XVII

author = Knights Templar

dedicate = Everyone who read this!

Rating = AP15

Type = Adventure

fanfic = What If

A/N: Well thank all of you who are combat and war lovers of Robotech, because I am about to unleash my Force of Arms chapters, that's right I said chapters. The next four chapters will be told from varying point of views, they will be as follows: Jacob and the defense of the asteroid defensive line, Rick and the defense of the Mars Base/Industrial Complex, Lisa and Donald Hayes at the battle for Point Z, the last point before Earth, and all four in the final battle to save Earth, Humanity, and the friendly Zentraedi forces.

* * * * * *

Jacob paced his office; it had been a week since he had been transferred Second Quadrant Defenses. An he had to admit when he had arrived he had a lot of work to do. The fighter pilots there hardly seemed ready for a fight with the Zentraedi. His only consolation was the fact he was getting a large transfer of veteran fighter pilots and newer craft, like the Armored Valkyries and the newer Frigates, faster and with more guns then a battleship of old.

A knock at his door brought him out of his deep thought. He looked up to see Airman First Class Lynn Minmei in front of him. It never stopped surprising him to see her, Lisa's one time big rival in a RDF uniform. She walked up to him, the weeks of RDF training showing on her as she was now slim and toned, and presented him with a perfect salute.

"Airman First Class Lynn Minmei reporting as ordered Captain," Minmei said in a monotone voice that suggested successful military training. Her eyes were straight forward, her arms right at her side, her salute perfect in everyway he could see just by glancing at it. Jacob rolled his eyes, and gave her a playful smile.

"Lynn, you know you don't have to report in so formally, it's been a week and you know how I feel about stupid protocol like that, it doesn't make a difference to me." He said while gathering his papers and shoving them into a leather briefcase and closed and walked up to Minmei who gave him a wonderful smile. He rolled his eyes, and just grabbed her arm and told her to come with him.

"Come on Minmei, lets go get something to eat, we have to go over all these damn reports and stuff like that, so I figure I might as well make it somewhat enjoyable." Jacob almost ran to the mess and found a table in the back and a waitress came up to them and they ordered food and started to deal with reports and Minmei briefed him on what had been going on from Intelligence.

"Captain Slater wasn't happy to hear that you sent me instead of yourself going to the briefing, he asked me if you were 'to busy playing around with the other pilots to take care of your own duties and that's why you hired a movie star to come to these meetings for you,' I told him that you had other important things to take care of." Minmei said with finality.

Jacob raised a dubious eyebrow, "Did you ask all the questions I told you to?" He said looking past his sandwich and report eyeing her with a dubious look on his face as if to say, 'you're are not good enough,' but Minmei gave another triumphant smile. Jacob gave a groan.

"Yes sir, I asked him about the projected number of Zentraedi ships supposed to come in our sector, an all he told me was, 'Too fuckin' many to destroy all of them,' I couldn't help but laugh." Minmei said with innocence that Jacob couldn't help but wonder how she maintained in a world and time such as this.

"Anyway," Jacob said as he continued to eat his sandwich and Minmei ate her egg rolls, rice, and sesame chicken. Jacob stopped eating for a second as he felt something brush his leg, he paused and assumed Minmei was just shifting her weight, then he felt it again, an he looked at her and continued to stare until she noticed, and realized what she was doing.

"Oh gracious me, I'm sorry I was just bouncing my leg off the chair I didn't realize I was brushing my leg against yours." She flashed him an innocent smile and for a minute he noticed that there was pain, fear and vulnerability in her eyes. Jacob raised an eyebrow but went about finishing his meal when all the sudden he got a page. He looked at his pager and saw it was Admiral Akili Haddad and Jacob knew what this meant.

He looked at Minmei and she recognized the look and she got up and gathered up his reports and handed them to him but he rejected them and told her to come with him. She looked at him incredulously and wondered why she was being told to come to a big brass meeting.

Jacob hurried out with Minmei running behind him to catch up, he turned suddenly and looked at Minmei and saw a vulnerable young girl who was not even old enough to buy alcohol legally and realized that she had been through so much, "Minmei, listen, if this is what I think it is we are in for the big attack. This could mean the death of all of us out here," he told her wondering why he suddenly cared about whether she lived or died.

His mind answered quickly, 'It's because you're human and you care about other humans,' he tried desperately to shake the thought from his mind, he knew what her other duty was, she was to man a anti-ship gun on this base. He shook his head and knew that that had to be one of the most dangerous spots on the whole base.

They arrived quickly to Admiral Haddad's office and Jacob and Minmei saw the other Captains of the separate sections. Captain Lopez of the RDF Fleet station here that comprised of four hundred and fifty ships of all kinds, Captain Browning of the Destriod and Defense force, and then finally he Captain of the fighter wing stationed for defense of this section.

Roughly there were over five hundred and fifty thousand men and women stationed in this particular zone and were given the near impossible charge of defending what was anticipated to be the most heavily assaulted sector of the entire defensive ring. That's why these men and women were here, they were the best that could be offered up first.

Admiral Haddad looked at Jacob and a anguished expression came over his face, "Captain Evers, out Intelligence puts the enemy ships approaching this sector at two hundred thousand vessels of all kinds." Jacob quickly did the math in his head and came up with the number of three hundred thousand battlepods. Jacob shook his head grimly. It was worse then expected.

He thought back to the figures he had seen and realized that he had roughly one hundred and twenty thousand Veritech Pilots. He made a sour face and knew that most of them weren't the veteran flyers that were stationed further to the back. Admiral Haddad looked at Jacob and realized that this young man, easily twenty years his junior was now tasked with the most demanding and cruel job of his young life.

"Captain Evers, the Zentraedi will be within our outer, un-manned defensive perimeter within the hour, I need you and your fighters out there now, I need the defensive perimeters set up and prepared for the hammer, and I want all gun emplacements and cannons primed and ready, I want to show these bastards that we will make them pay for trying to attack us," Admiral Haddad said to the men, it would have seemed like a rousing speech had not everyone known that they were merely being offered up to the wolves to buy time.

Jacob nodded and walked out of the room after offering Admiral Haddad a salute and a nod that clearly said he should expect company soon. Jacob walked out as soon as he was clear of the offices he struck the wall repeatedly, and violently. Minmei was slightly shocked and watched as he left a hole in the think flimsy wall.

Jacob turned and put his back on the wall and looked at Minmei, she seemed so frail and innocent on her RDF uniform. Jacob gave her a one more once over and looked at her and realized for the first time that she was very attractive, but he had no time for such thoughts.

Jacob went to the Command Station and went over to the Base Public Announcement system and picked up the mic, "My fellow comrades, we are about to engage on a mission of utmost importance for the survival of our peoples. All the Earth has put their faith in our ability to kill as many of the enemy as we can, so I say we make good that trust and faith and make the enemy pay for all the space they take. Never stop fighting, never give up, and don't go quietly. Never say never, and never say die," Jacob stopped and let his words sink in and then started again, "You are all the best that we have that command would be willing to station this far out on a limb, you are the best, and I feel honored to be serving with you, and I bet that if everyone one of your families could see you now, they would be proud of you to. Never forget who, or what you are, I am proud to have served by you." Jacob put down the mic and left, with the command crew sitting in silence digesting his words.

Jacob walked out and made his way to his quarters and Minmei followed him the whole way and when he got to his place he turned and looked at Minmei and he saw deathly fear on her face, he saw that she was so frightened that she hadn't said a word since they had left the briefing and he pulled her into a hug and told her it was going to be ok, he didn't know why he cared, but he did. Jacob felt a little awkward being so tall and having the vaunted Minmei, so small in his arms.

Jacob told her to go get ready and walked into his room and started to get ready for the fight he knew would be the greatest ever in human history. It would take everything that the Earth and Allied Zentraedi had to win, and even then victory was in doubt. He pulled his gloves on and made sure the wires were connected and grabbed his helmet and walked out to see men and women scurrying about.

Jacob paid them no mind as he walked to his Veritech in the Main Hanger bay and saw hundreds of other fighters being launched into space. He walked over to his and saw his crew chief and few others scurrying about his plane loading all sorts of new weapons onto it and making sure all the armor was on the plane that would provide it's tactical advantage.

Jacob walked over and saluted his crew chiefs and told them to get to there positions and wait for those who were going to need reloads on munitions and such. Jacob climbed into his fighter, crossed himself and said a prayer.

Hail Mary, full of grace.

Our Lord is with you.

Blessed are you among women,

and blessed is the fruit of your womb,

Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God,

pray for us sinners,

now and at the hour of our death.

Amen.

Jacob crossed himself once more and pushed the throttle as far as he could and felt himself being propelled into the reaches of space and saw to his wonderment, thousands upon thousands of Veritechs, almost ninety-five percent of whom were armored, and thousands of the Frigates that had dealt so much damage to the Zentraedi. Jacob powered up and flew up to as close to the front as he could. Jacob felt a swelling of pride leading a huge force against the Zentraedi in a battle he knew he had to make last as long as possible.

Merghal, commander of Zentraedi attack force that was to hammer through Point 1783.09 moved his fleet forward in a standard pattern used for assaulting a planet, all clumped together, ready to used massed firepower. But Merghal was about to get a sudden surprise. The energy level of almost all the asteroids in front of them began to rise and suddenly hundred of huge energy beams erupted forth from the asteroids and struck the massed Zentraedi ships causing massive damage, destroying thousands of the ships in one fell stroke.

But Merghal forged ahead leaving the damaged ships behind and pressing forward with all this available battle ready ships and suddenly more of his ships started to explode, and even his huge battleship was struck and massive damage was being cause to his fleet before they could even shoot back at the enemy. Another salvo of firing came into the massed Zentraedi ships further adding to the carnage.

Merghal realizing his position commanded his ships to start to fan out and make room so that they wouldn't be so clumped together. As they drew closer, the enemy salvos increased as did smaller fire, an now missiles were being launched at them. Merghal realized that before he even engaged the enemy that he had lost over ten thousand ships to the enemy; an they weren't even in the actual briar bush yet.

Merghal ordered a hundred of his ships to precede the actual fleet to see what was in the human defensive trap. Merghal watched with interest as the ships glided in and soon they ran into a huge cross-fire that eradicated dozens, almost half of his ships went up before they even realized there plight. It didn't take long, he had to give the microns credit, and they were good gunners.

But now he was faced with a dilemma, he could stay out of the defensive system and get hammered by the cannons, missiles and beams there, or bash there way through and try to achieve their objective. Merghal made a decision, "I want all battlepods launched and I want them to go in before us, then once the defenses are sufficiently worn away, we will proceed into the Asteroid Belt." He nodded, liking his plan and congratulating himself on a plan well thought out and a battle won.

As Merghal watched his fighter, battlepods and officer pods streak towards the belt he was shocked to see them blowing up like roman candles, hundreds disappearing before they arrived at the outer most defenses. He felt himself anger and ordered the ships forward, all guns prepared to fire.

The Zentraedi ships moved in, taking withering fire all the way in with hundreds of thousands of the enemy dying before the real battle even started. But the battle at the outermost part of The Belt didn't last long under the intense barrage of the Zentraedi. But not a human died.

Jacob smiled, they had just destroyed what estimates put at close to twenty thousand enemy vessels before they even engaged the real defenses of The Belt, they would be in for a surprise when they encountered the defenses farther to the back of The Belt. But for now Jacob sat and waited, watching as the automated and remotely controlled defenses tore the Zentraedi to pieces.

Jacob waited just long enough till the Zentraedi were within perfect striking range and he gave the command, "All units, by my command, ATTACK!" All one hundred and twenty thousand Veritechs and Frigates charged forward with a collective war cry. Jacob thumbed the Hotas and squeezed off a flock of missiles that connected with the massed and vulnerable battlepods. Suddenly all Jacob could see what missile contrails and them streaking towards the Zentraedi.

Jacob watched with a satisfied look at hundreds of explosions filled his view and thousands and thousands of missiles continued to pour from the now firing interior defenses. The lead elements of the Zentraedi were trapped in crossfire, and were utterly doomed to be destroyed.

Jacob started to turn and burn trying to evade the swarms of Battlepods that were finally getting to engage the enemy they found so resourceful and elusive. Jacob hardly stopped to take aim as he started to squeeze off bursts from his gun pod below him and battlepods began to go up in blossoms of fire and death.

A huge blast of light illuminated his right side and he saw a cannon spew forth fire and death and blow away a dozen or more clumped Zentraedi ships. Jacob throttled up and aimed his ship for a large, unusually large Zentraedi battle ship leading the way, hammering everything in its path. Jacob started to make a run for the ships hull and saw a few other Veritechs and Frigates closed in with him and as soon as the were at level with the hull he saw two Veritechs go up in a flash, ending their lives.

Jacob found what he thought was the command, or communications center, whichever it was. He had never taken the time to study the schematics of the Zentraedi ships; an even if he had this one seemed different from the rest. Jacob loosed a flock of missiles and saw the other fighters do so as well and saw the Frigate launch its missiles too.

Jacob pulled up, banking and weaving to avoid the thick and heavy enemy fire. Jacob looked over his shoulder to see the Frigate explode and another Veritech die with him. Jacob saw the secondary explosions and was surprised to see the skeleton of the ship. This was unusual since most of the time the ship would cover the gap before anything could really go wrong.

Jacob smiled and decided he needed to make one more pass and pulled back on the stick and back on the throttle pulling a half loop, or something close to an Immelman Maneuver. He started to streak for the large open gash and just before he was on top of it let loose his heavy, ship buster weapon. It seemed to stop in space before the retro rockets kicked in and sent it streaking towards the opening and watched as it scored a hit and exploded sent a large crack running down the side of the battleship.

The chain reaction continued and soon the ship exploded and taking with it all surrounding Zentraedi vessels and fighters. The other Zentraedi seemed to hesitate but even this cost them as they were continuing to be cut down with vessel after vessel being knocked out or destroyed.

* * * * * *

Commander Lao-zhing, or better know as Commander Lao to his troops. He stood at his post manning an emplacement of guns. He wasn't in command of just one gun, but was in command of six. He smiled each one of these 750 mm, armor piercing, and high explosive round. The round would be the size Ford Escort at speeds of Mach five.

He walked to the comm. room and say techs flying around wildly. He was a bit surprised and shocked. He ran into the room and saw his techs beginning the warm up phase of firing and Lao was shocked as to why he wasn't told. "What's the situation?" He demanded and they looked at him and he knew what that meant.

He ran to a comm. station and rang up his Veritech screening force and got Lieutenant Young. "Lt. Young, what the hell is going on? I thought you'd keep them away long enough for us to get ready!" Young was about to talk, but his face suddenly fazed off into death and all he heard was a death scream.

Lao switched to a camera based where Lt. Young was supposed to be, but all he saw was a squadron of Zentraedi Cruisers and hundreds of Battlepods making for his position and he knew he had only a few moments before they were on him. He watched as the remaining Veritechs, the whole wing, being destroyed quickly and soon they were all dead. H switched to a new camera and saw Veritechs fleeing from the Zentraedi advance being destroyed liberally a few getting away; it was chaos, nothing that would even resemble a fighting retreat. He ran to the red button jokingly marked with a piece of tape that said, "If you are hitting this, we're fucked!" Lao slammed down on the button.

The General Quarters alarms sounded and Lao ran out of the comm. room and made his way for his gun. He started the auto load process and watched as the automation process loaded a huge round into to breech and waited for the Zentraedi Cruisers got within range. He gave another look and started to shout out coordinates. He gave a smile, "Fire!" He shouted and the huge guns recoiled sending huge rounds at the Zentraedi Cruisers.

Four of the six rounds missed, with only one striking an enemy ship slowing it down slightly because it wasn't a direct hit and another smashing into an asteroid with such force that it didn't explode, but was holed. Lao started to call out new coordinates but the enemy ships opened fire and struck his base, he didn't pay any mind to the shaking as he continued to call out the enemy position.

Lao waited for another second and raised his arms and brought it down fast and felt the base shake as each gun fired in echelon, he only felt five shakes so he assumed that one of his guns had been knocked out. This time he saw one of the enemy ships explode. Lao decided he had had enough of targeting for his soldiers so he decided to let fire at will. He felt the guns start to fire and felt the rumbling of the heavy guns. He backed away satisfies as he watched the rounds punch into the Cruisers.

He felt the Asteroid shake and realized that it wasn't the guns but it was the Zentraedi firing at the base. He walked out of the Fire Control Room and saw smoke coming out of the Magazine storage area. He ran to the room and to his utter horror he saw a fire building in the room.

Lao ran to the fire and tried to put it out with the extinguisher and saw that is wasn't enough, so he launched himself onto the fire and started to roll around on it. He felt his body get excruciatingly hot and felt his skin start to burn and he could smell himself dying. But he continued to roll on the fire. But he soon realized that it was too little, too late. The fire was on top of the magazines and right before his pain filled eyes as the magazine exploded.

The Base shuttered and the initial explosion was small, but as the Zentraedi closed in as the secondary explosion erupted from the base engulfing the nearest Zentraedi Cruisers. As the rubble floated around and the Zentraedi started to move ahead, leaving behind twelve destroyed cruisers.

* * * * * *

But instead of falling back as Jacob hoped they continued to forge ahead and the fighting continued and Jacob could hear reports of a single heavy gun emplacement taking out a dozen Zentraedi ships before being destroyed. It was acts of bravery like these that Jacob knew would help humanity and its friendly Zentraedi Allies win the day.

Jacob flew his Veritech back to one of the temporary bases and landed and saw that even before he stopped the tech crews were already outfitting his ship with new missiles, replacing his old gun pod, an giving him a new anti-ship missile. Jacob saw one of them run up to the cockpit and he opened it and the man handed him a bottle of water, "Don't need you getting dehydrated, sir," the grizzled, and frayed man said.

* * * * * *

Admiral Haddad ran in his devastated base to the main comm. system and pushed the dead man out of the chair. He turned on the comm. system and looked out at the space around him and saw hundred and hundreds of Veritechs and five times the number of Battlepods.

He continued to watch the battle with a slight wonderment and sense of awe as he watched the Veritechs fight and flee. He knew it was time. He picked up the mic and gave the comm. system on more try and the equipment finally started up and he pushed the mic button and raised it to his mouth.

"To all RDF personal, I repeat to all RDF personal, this is Admiral Haddad, you must at this time make a run for Mars. Also, all RDF personal must evacuate the base, Wings 18-34, you must hold off the Zentraedi as long as possible. I repeat hold the Zentraedi off as long as you can to help the personal get away." Admiral Haddad put the mic down; he left the doomed room but didn't make his way for the evacuation shuttles. He was going to see Allah to defend his principles and all human kind.

He ran to a gun emplacement and saw a petite Asian woman manning one of the medium guns almost single handedly and he grabbed her and told her to run to the evacuation shuttles and he saw the terrified look on her face and she started to run for the shuttles. Admiral Haddad turned back to the gun and finished loading it and fired the gun at nothing in particular.

He repeated this not caring if he hit anything, he knew he was dead anyway, but it felt better to go down firing. Haddad fired once more holing a Zentraedi Cruiser without him knowing and then the base finally succumbs to the overwhelming fire of the Zentraedi.

Minmei watched the end of the battle and realized that Admiral Haddad had saved her life, that if she had still been there, she would have been dead. She began to weep and started to feel like that all her innocence had been taken from her.

Jacob took off and quickly found himself a fight. The fighting had since devolved into fighting wherever the enemy was found since such large holes had been torn into the enemy. Jacob couldn't help but suppress a smile. He swooped in and pressed the trigger and felt the ships recoil from the firing of the gun pod.

A Zentraedi battlepod flew apart and another one was struck by a chance round and started to wobble in space. Jacob smiled as the battlepods seemed to be taken off guard by him coming out of nowhere and the pilots he was helping seemed to have a much easier time of it. The pilots told him that they were from the Third Sector of defenses and Jacob seemed puzzled.

"What are you talking about?" Jacob asked them incredulous of what they were telling him. If that was true than that meant that the defense was compromised an they would need to fall back to Mars in order to offer up a good defense from there. Jacob grimaced.

"Well sir, we were in a firefight, we must have strayed out of our sector, but everything is so chaotic that I don't think there is any semblance of defense anymore." Jacob noted that the pilot's voice sounded scared and wondered why they were falling back.

Jacob flew to the front of the front of the fighters, "Well, you know what we have to do now; this is no longer a static defense. This is a fighting retreat. So if anyone has any problems with this, lemme know so I can point you in the direction of the nearest Zentraedi." The pilots laughed, Jacob smiled knowing that he could still make people laugh even when it was toughest.

"Ok Boys and Girls listen up, you are now with me, we're going to make our way to Mars, and there we can join up with the Mars Defense Force. If you have done your job and taken out half the attacking Zentraedi then we've made the job easier. Now we gotta move to Mars." Jacob said not caring who was there, or what there rank was an neither did they as they followed him.

Jacob hit the afterburners and felt himself being propelled towards Mars on one of the safe routes. Jacob knew now was one of the only times he would get any sleep so he let himself drift into sleep with the Veritech in auto-pilot.

Jacob found himself roused by the panicked voices of the other pilots with him trying desperately to wake him. "Captain Evers, wake up please, Mars is under attack an we don't know what to do," said the frightened voice. Jacob rolled his sleepy eyes.

"Ok," Jacob said simply, "form up on me, fly in and lets gut the mother fuckers!" He said with a emphasis on "mother fuckers". He heard a few laughs and as they flew in and let loose the missiles, Jacob heard a few familiar voices.

"Hey, about time you showed up for the party, we've been expecting you for awhile," Jacob heard Roy call out as he dodged a attack by a battlepod and punched it sending it sprawling into the crossfire set up by Mars base.

"Hot Damn, more people to have fun and play with," Rick said sarcastically as sent a flight of Guardian Mode Missiles at two pursuing battlepods blowing them and moving on without a blink of an eye.

"Hey buddy, glad to see you made it out alive," Max said softly as he was yet again at the middle of a group of enemy ships making them all look the fool. Jacob saw Miriya not far away, but she seemed to preoccupied to notice an he decided he had a job to do also as the transformed into Battloid Mode and started to lay down heavy fire destroying a few pods and scattering others.

"Hey guys," Jacob said happily glad to see them all alive, "I figured I'd need to hurry over, you can't do anything right without me here," he added in as he bludgeoned a battlepod. He heard a general laughter. He smiled and repositioned his gun pod to finish doing his job: killing the bad guys.

A/N: Yes a long chapter, I know, but the next few will be just as long if not longer. Anyway, read them enjoy them or hate them, let me know either way.

State = Continuará/To Be Continue

feedback = Sí/Yes