On Macross Island, in the shadow of the SDF-1, Roy didn't have time to notice the tiny racing plane making a pass over the ship's bow, thousands of feet above him. The public address system carried an announcement to the tens of thousands gathered there.
"And now we present an amazing display of aerial acrobatics, demonstrating the amazing advances we have made through Robotechnology. Lieutenant Commander Roy Fokker, leader of the Veritech fighters' Skull Team, will describe and explain the action for us."
Roy made his entrance to enthusiastic applause; he was known to and well liked by most people on Macross Island. Tall and handsome in his uniform, the blond hair still full and thick, he stopped before the microphone stand. He gave a snappy salute, then fell into parade rest and began his address.
"Today, ladies and gentlemen, you'll see how we've applied human know-how to understanding and harnessing a complex alien technology."
Overhead, a half dozen swift, deadly Veritech fighters peeled off to begin their performance.
"Keep your eyes on planes two and four," Roy went on as two and four lined up for the first maneuver, engines blaring. "Flying at speeds of five hundred miles per hour, only fifty feet above the ground, they will pass within just a few yards of one another. Robotechnology makes such precision possible."
Roy looked out over the crowd with satisfaction. All eyes were gazing up in amazement at the onrushing fighters.
But the show would build from there. Precision flying was nothing compared to the other forms of control Robotechnology gave human beings over their new instruments. At long last average citizens would get to see Guardian and Battloid modes in action, Robotechnology applications that until now had been used only in restricted training areas or drills far out at sea, when the Veritechs were launching from the decks of the Daedalus and the Prometheus.
Those people in the throng, the ordinary citizens of Macross, were the ones who deserved the first live look at what the SDF-1 project had brought forth. They'd earned that right-much more than all the politicians, who had merely voted how much time and work and money would be spent-time and work and money that were invariably not the politicians'.
Today, all the rumors and speculations about Robotechnology would be put to rest, and the people of Earth would find out that the reality surpassed them all.
Roy was thinking about that happily as he spoke, waiting for the inevitable gasps from the crowd as the first high-speed pass was executed. It took him a few seconds to realize that the people below the speakers' platform weren't gasping.
They were laughing.
Roy whirled, craning his head to look up. Two and four had been forced to peel off from their pass by the sudden appearance of an interloper, a gaudy little stunt plane, absurdly out of place among the modern miracle machines.
A circus plane! "Oh no-o-o!" Roy didn't have to guess who it was; he'd arranged for the invitation himself, and he was regretting it already. He grabbed the microphone out of its stand and flipped the switch that would patch him through to the aircom net.
"Rick! Is that you, Hunter?"
The little Mockingbird gave a jaunty waggle of its wings in salute as Rick banked slowly overhead. His reply came patched through the PA system.
"Roy! It's good to hear your voice, old buddy! They tell me you're a lieutenant commander now. The army must really be desperate!"
Furious, Roy yelled into the mike. "Are you crazy? Get that junk heap out of here!" He forgot that he was still patched through the PA, so that the whole crowd followed the exchange. Of course, as loud and angry as Roy was, the people up front would've had no trouble hearing him anyway.
The people below thought it was great, and the laughter started again, even louder. Roy was shaking one fist at the little stunt plane, holding the mike stand aloft with the other, like Jove brandishing a lightning bolt: "Hunter, when I get my hands on you, I'm gonna-"
Roy didn't get to elaborate on that; just then the bottom half of the telescoping mike stand dropped, nearly landing on his foot.
Roy caught it just in time-at thirty, he was one of the oldest of the Veritech fighter pilots, yet his reflexes hadn't slowed a bit-but couldn't quite get it to fit back together. Fumbling, forgetting what he'd been about to say, he was ready to explode with frustration.
He abruptly became aware of the laughter all around him. The crowd was roaring, some of them nearly in tears.
One young woman in front caught his eye, though. She looked to be in her mid teens, slender and long-legged, with a charming face and hair black as night. She was standing behind a kid, possibly her brother, who was laughing so hard, he seemed to be having trouble breathing.
At some other time, Roy might have tried to catch her eye and exchange a smile, but he just wasn't in the mood. His face reddened as the laughter washed over him, and he unknowingly echoed Lisa Hayes's sentiments of a few moments before: Why today, of all days?
Roy covered the mike with his gloved palm and stage-whispered to one of the techs. "Hey, Ed! Switch this circuit over to radio only, will you?" It was going to be awfully hard to chew out his men about com-procedure discipline after today.
It took only a second or two for Ed to make the change.
"What're you trying to do, Rick, make a perfect fool of me?"
Roy could hear the laughter in his old friend's voice. "Aw, nobody's perfect, Commander!"
Roy was just about grinning in spite of himself. People who didn't watch their step every moment were liable to become Rick Hunter's straight men. Roy decided to give him back a bit of his own. "You haven't changed a bit, have you, kid? Well, this isn't an amateur flying circus; my men are real pilots!"
"Amateur, huh?" Rick drawled. He looked off in the distance and saw the Veritech fighters in a diamond formation for a power climb, preparing to do a «bomb-burst» maneuver. "I'm gonna have to make you eat those words, Commander. Comin' in."
"Stop clowning around, Rick-look out!"
Mockingbird swooped down in a hair-raising dive, barely missing the speaker's platform, so low that Roy had to duck to avoid getting his head taken off. A lot of people in the crowd hit the dirt too, and most of them cried out in shock. Roy caught another glimpse of the pretty young thing in the front row; she seemed thrilled and happy, not in the least frightened.
Roy spun as the Mockingbird zoomed off, building on the acceleration it had picked up in its dive. Suddenly, as the little aircraft was safely away from the crowd, covers blew free from six booster jet pods mounted around the turbofan cowling at the rear of the ship, and powerful gusts of flame lifted it into a vertical climb. The crowd went "Oh!"
Leaving streamers of rocket exhaust, the Mockingbird went ballistic, quickly overtaking the slower-moving formation of Veritechs.
"Get out of there!" Roy yelled up at him, not even bothering with the mike, knowing it was pointless. «Headstrong» was a word they'd invented with Rick Hunter in mind.
Rick cut in full power, came up into formation perfectly, becoming part of the display, as the Veritech fighters completed their climb and arced away in different directions, like a huge version of the afternoon's skyrockets.
The crowd was applauding wildly, cheering. Roy shook his fist again, furious-but a part of him was proud of his friend.