Macross 30: Voices Across The Galaxy

Chapter 8: The Vajra's Guardian

"As I thought, I'm the only that cares about that stuff..." sighed Aisha.

---

Down in the hangar, Rion had just finished briefing Roy and Mina on the capabilities of the VF-25 Messiah. The look on Roy's face matched the feeling in Rion's gut; they were going to have a hard time of it, even if it was just a single Messiah. Their current force consisted of Rion's VF-0S Phoenix, Roy's VF-1S Valkyrie, Mina's VF-11C Thunderbolt and Aisha's VF-19E Excalibur. Not exactly a balanced force.

"We have two things going for us, " said Roy as Aisha entered the hangar, dressed in her pilot suit, "The bogey doesn't seem to want to use lethal force and we outnumber it. If Mina and Aisha in their faster fighters can corral the guy, Rion and I can barrage him from a distance.

"Sounds like a plan to me," said Aisha, "Everyone get to your Valkyries and let's get out there!"

A few minutes later, the quartet was soaring towards point X61, their Valkyries laden with as many weapons as could be carried.

For Rion's part, he was equal parts excited and nervous. Having piloted the YF-25 Prophecy, he was the most well aware of the group about what the Messiah line was capable of and part of him was desperately wishing that he was flying something, anything other than an old VF-0 against a Messiah. Another part relished the challenge of trying to take on a superior opponent.

"Rion, from what you said the other day, it seemed like you've fought the Vajra before?" asked Mina.

"Yeah, and now I'm fighting them here as well."

"I know that the Frontier and Galaxy fleets fought them but we didn't get all the information from that before the Aura happened," added Aisha.

"I fought them briefly around the time their war with Frontier was coming to end. But then they just vanished so I don't know as much about fighting them as I'd like."

"What we do know is that they're fast for being as big as they are, have natural armor that's equivalent to a Valkyrie's energy conversion armor and are armed with energy weapons and missile-like objects that they fire from their bodies. That about right, Rion?" asked Roy.

"Yeah, unfortunately that's all I've got."

"And here I thought fighting Zentradi battle pods and powered armors was tough," replied Roy.

"Regardless of what we do or don't know, we need to get to Point X61 and figure out what's going on," Aisha said, grimly, "Still, I can't help but wonder why the knight is so intent on protecting the Vajra?"

"Maybe you're right, Aisha, and the knight really does love Vajra that much," added Mina. Rion couldn't help but sigh a bit that even Mina was getting on this tangent now. Really, the Vajra were just big, dumb space bugs, right?

"It's faster to ask the knight in person, so let's go," he said, pushing his throttle forward a bit more.

---

A few minutes later, they arrived at Point X61 and were almost immediately set upon.

The small swarm of Vajra consisted of both the small and large soldier-type Vajra but as they engaged them, Rion noticed the same erratic movement patterns he'd seen the other day, almost like the Vajra were kind of dazed somehow.

"It doesn't seem like the knight is here; I'm not reading any Valkyrie IFFs in the vicinity," said Aisha.

"Then we'll worry about him after we take care of the Vajra," said Rion, "Siegfried 1, engaging the Vajra!"

Rion's initial worries that he'd have a hell of a time trying to fight Vajra in a Phoenix were somewhat unfounded. The erratic behavior he'd noticed earlier translated to a lack of combat capability and both he and Roy found themselves on fairly equal footing with insectile aliens.