Prologue
Scott Bernard took off his helmet, shaking his head and waving his blue hair. He surveyed the landscape; he was in the middle of a small clearing surrounded by forests, and mountains were illuminated by the dying sun.
Even after two years fighting the Invid and their collaborators, even after everything, Earth still didn't feel like home to him. He'd been born in the frontier that no power other than God Himself had fully explored.
Space.
The vast oceans and massive forests here had nothing to the beauty of a Martian desert, in his opinion. Even during a cold, unhappy winter, the mountains and frozen valleys didn't match the poles of Mars. Of course, he hadn't explored Earth's poles, but then, he didn't know anyone - not even the patronizing Earth-boy Rand - who cared to.
It was hard to comprehend how far he'd come in two years, and not just militarily.
He'd despised the Invid even before the destruction of the 21st Mars Division. After the death of Marlene at their hands, he'd hated them with a passion far past anything even remotely rational. He'd relished the death of every Invid he'd killed, glorying in their destruction, almost looking forward to combat to pay them back for his loss.
For the sake of the resistance band he'd lead during that time, he'd sometimes curbed that enthusiasm, but for a long time, his quest for vengeance, as well as his determination to complete the mission he'd set out from Mars to do. His obsession to kill every Invid in existence and destroy Reflex point - the two goals weren't necessarily exclusive - had been the propulsion that had driven him, along with the military discipline he'd learned - and that he'd used to mask his pain.
Then, he met Marlene all over again.
Or rather, Rand and Rook had met a girl in an ghost town, and brought her with them to the place they were using as a camp. At that point, the wreckage of another REF force sent to set up as base had put him in a deep depression that not even his companions had been able to break. However, after an Invid attack put them in danger - and nearly killed the girl - he had been inspired to fight again.
For the next year and six months, he'd fawned over the girl he'd taken to calling Marlene, after his old girlfriend. At first, she behaved like the typical person suffering from memory loss; she didn't even know how to talk, just mimic words like a parrot. She learned soon enough, and although she never took up arms, she became the very heart and soul of the rebel fighters.
Then, after one battle resulting in the deaths of hundred of Invid, the truth came out.
An Invid pilot with a human body managed to survive long enough to escape from his destroyed fighter. His blood, an ugly bug-green, spilled from his veins as he died... and the same blood spilled from a cut from Marlene's arm moments later.
It had shocked Scott beyond anything else the Invid had done. The very woman he'd fallen in love with had been an Invid herself; in fact, her given name was Ariel. She hadn't known of it until a short while before hand, as she had told him. Her Invid sister, Cera, had told her awhile before the dramatic reveal, but she'd tried to deny it, refusing to believe it until the very blood inside her betrayed her true origins.
Lancer had been shocked as well to find that Cera was also an Invid; he'd met her near an abandoned base used in the Second Robotech War. At that time, unaware she was an Invid, he'd at first thought she was a human traitor. Unlike her ruthless brother, Corg, Cera felt more than just rage and hatred, and refused to fire on Lancer or anyone near him.
In the final battle of the war, the troop had fought it's way inside Reflex Point, Cera and Ariel/Marlene choose to value their relationships with their human opposites over their own race, Scott managed to kill Corg in a duel over the Invid hive, which had taken much of the edge out of the alien resistance, and Lancer and Cera teamed up to defend the Regess, the Invid leader, from Shadow Fighters that tried to infiltrate the hive. Minutes later, the Regess and her entire race fled Earth as the REF unleashed it's stock of Neutron-S missiles, weapons designed to devastate half the planet in exchange for the complete annihilation of the Invid. In the act of leaving, the Invid had destroyed the missiles, at once both freeing Earth from the nightmare rule it had suffered for thirteen years and sparing it from destruction, as well as ending the war.
It hadn't ended the fighting, though. And Admiral Hunter was currently lost somewhere in space, alone, with the only known source of Protoculture available to beleaguered humanity.
Backstabbed. And once, I thought that only the Invid were capable of such a thing.
Scott knew he was lucky just to have survived up to this point, never mind making friends and find someone among his former enemies to love.
He heard a warping sound. Even before he turned around, he knew just what he would see. The glow still surrounded Ariel, though it was fading fast. She still wore the black jumpsuit she'd used during the recent battle. Her eyes lit up with affection upon seeing him.
"Ariel..."
"Scott."
"Do you remember coming here?"
"After the battle for Reflex point was over, with Annie, Rook, and the rest? Yes, I remember well. It was only a few days ago, actually."
"Seems like forever. Everything's changed." He walked over to a ledge nearby, looking out over the landscape. "I'd hoped the old gang could be here, but it's just you and me." He sat down, picked up a small stone, and threw it. "I thought the war would be over and everyone could have peace. Shows what a fool I've been."
"Don't say that, Scott," she said, walking over and sitting down on his left. "It's not your fault, the Children of the Shadow are cruel and cunning beyond what any of us could have expected."
"Ever since humanity laid it's hands on the SDF-1 and the secret of Protoculure, we've had nothing but war. Do we have to give it up just to have a few decades without someone trying to destroy the world?" He threw another stone, this time with much more vigor.
"The Children of the Shadow would destroy you even if you gave up the knowledge of Protoculture; to them, anyone who knows of it's existence other than them is worthy only of extinction."
"Ariel, you don't understand. Even when I was a child, we had to fight the Robotech Masters, followed at once by the war with the Invid. And now, without even twenty-four hours' peace..." He slammed his fist on the grass. "My life has been full of war since the beginning. Only recently have I been able to see that there's more to life than just the military and fighting."
"And now you're afraid we might never be able to spend our lives together, am I right?" Ariel put a hand on his shoulder. "My mother told me something very important before she left Earth with the rest of the Invid."
As he turned to face her, she said, "'Hatred can only breed more hatred. It is not what we seek.'"
"Thanks to the Haydonites, that cycle of hatred is going to continue."
"Evil cannot prevail forever, my love. Eventually, all foul things come to an end."
"I hope that's true," Scott said, looking into the sky. "We need Protoculture so badly and our fleet has taken so much damage I'm not sure whether we'll survive long enough to see the end of the Haydonites."
Ariel put both arms around him tightly. "We will win, Scott. I know in my heart that we can prevail."
He hugged her back, but he didn't answer. He had too many doubts about the future of the war to be hopeful.
However, he could enjoy this moment of peace. He could, and he would.
Vince Grant knew he was in trouble. Even before his wife surged through the doors of the medical station, he knew he was in trouble.
Considering the fact hat he was stuck in bed with a busted leg, he wasn't going to be able to do much.
To think, I've faced hordes of Invid, had to deal with Haydonite treachery, faced death a thousand times or more, yet none of that compares to what I feel right now...
"Now, Jean," he said, "Let's not be -"
"I don't want to hear it," she said in a voice like iron. As she approached his bedside, she looked like an angry lioness. "You knew you weren't supposed to have been out of bed. And after everything I've said, everything I've done for you, you had to go play the hero onboard Space Station Liberty!" Her voice had risen quickly to a high pitch.
"Now Jean," he said once more, trying again to sooth her. "No one else had the codes to-"
"You could have been killed. You could have died!"
Vince remembered the recent battle at the Space station. He'd been lucky to survive it; after receiving a warning from the Invid known as Ariel - a member of a race whose last known relations with humanity had been hostile - and the loss of contact with Liberty, he'd rushed his ship there, only to find the REF was being slaughtered by a new enemy, the Haydonites.
During the war, the Haydonites had joined an alliance with Humanity in order to liberate the various worlds in the Invid empire. After the fall of the Invid homeworld, Optera, what was left of the REF fleet had begun an offensive against the Invid's final strongpoint on Earth in order to reclaim their own home planet.
The Invid hadn't liked that, and had fought back with the utmost intensity and fanaticism, in some cases launching kamikaze runs against REF ships. Despite the use of the new Shadow technology, which rendered REF fighters and ships invisible to Invid sensors, the Invid had fought on regardless, using visual sight and blind shooting to fight back. On the ground, they managed to fight the REF forces to a standstill. Their numbers in space had overwhelmed the human fighter screen, and the battle became one of desperate survival. General Reinhardt had authorized the use of Neutron-S missiles, superweapons of unimaginable power, to blow Reflex Point - and, incidentally, half the planet - to Kingdom Come.
Suddenly, in a burst of light, the Invid abruptly abandoned the planet, vaporizing the missiles as they left.
Although surprised by this hasty departure, the REF quickly reclaimed control of the planet, dethroning petty tyrants and re-establishing at least a provisional government to handle affairs there.
Vince hadn't witnessed any of that, though he'd seen the vids. Just prior to the battle, contact with Admiral Hunter was lost, with the last moments of that contact displaying a disaster in the making. Reinhardt had authorized Vince to take his ship, the Icarus, to rescue him. When they reached the site, the SDF-3 had suffered damage from an alien attack, along with the science vessel, Deukalion... along with a black hole that hadn't existed in that sector before.
An alien ship, one that was neither of the REF or the Invid, attacked the Icarus. In a running battle, he'd tried to bring the SDF-3 back to Earth with them in a space fold, only for another alien ship to suicide itself against the SDF-3 to prevent that from happening. He'd managed to bring the Deukalion, along with the Admiral's warning not to use the Neutron-S missiles.
They'd arrived to find that the battle was over and that the Invid had fled. A group of the alien fighters had followed them into the fold; before they were all destroyed, one of them had landed a hit that broke Vince's leg. However, that wasn't the end of the trouble. Scott Bernard, a freedom fighter formerly of Mars Division, had been found in the company of an Invid, Ariel's warning went unheeded; she and Scott Bernard had warned of an attack by "the Children of the Shadow," an utterly ridiculous name, in General Reinhardt's opinion. At any rate, the Invid were still classified as enemies, and the warning was taken to be a trick by the Invid... until contact was lost with Space Station Liberty. Vince had volunteered to go and find the source of the trouble.
He and the rest of the crew had found it. A Haydonite fleet had already wiped out 89% of the REF forces present in the fight with little damage to themselves. Using disruptor waves and weaponry, they destroyed most REF ships before they could even use their own Shadow devices and weapons. Few Haydonite ships had been destroyed up to that point.
All this was only known after Vince had sent his own fighter squadron to find out what they could. In the process, one of them, Alex Romero, had lost his life to save his squadron-mates. The loss had hurt Lieutenant Maia Sterling, second daughter of Max and Miriya Sterling, quite hard.
With Ariel's help, as well as that of the android Janice, a hybrid of human and Haydonite technology, Vince had evacuated the remaining staff on the station on the colony ship Ark Angel. That was only after setting all the Neutron-S missiles inside the station to detonate. The Haydonite fleet was wiped out in the explosion and creation of a new black hole, but the REF had suffered a crippling blow despite that victory.
It was partly because of the... heroics involved that Jean Grant was so furious at the moment.
It's not like I didn't see this coming. He remembered a brief moment onboard the station.
"My wife's going to kill me."
"Looking forward to it, sir."
Yes, even then he knew that, if he survived the battle, he would have to have the wrath of his wife. Logically, he knew that his actions had been necessary; only officers had clearance to arm the missiles, which were the only chance to deal the alien traitors a hard blow. Perhaps both logically and illogically, his wife didn't see it that way. Not yet, at least.
"I could have died in any battle before now," he said after a minute's reflection. "What made this..."
"You know damned well why, Vincent Grant," Jean said, approaching him. "You should have been in bed, resting, with your leg well on it's way to recovery.
"Come on, honey," he said, trying to mollify her, "how else would we have stood a chance against the Haydonites?"
"How did you know that you would have made a difference? I'd told you to stay in the hospital wing. Instead, you go gallivanting off on a mission that you just happened to have knowledge that helped. And while I understand how much that mattered.."
She slapped him across the face. Vince made no effort to block the blow, though he brought his hand to his face as the pain came on it's heels.
"No more crusading, not until your leg heals. If you go into battle, I want you to have the best chance of survival you can get, and a broken leg is an obvious disadvantage."
"Yes, dear. You have my word."
"Hmph." But he could see that her rage had begun to subside. She began examining his broken leg. "At least you sustained no further damage to your leg. I guess I don't have anything more to complain about." She gave him another look over. "Nothing else seems to be wrong with you either."
The door to the ward opened again. Vince turned to see Lieutenant General Gunther Reinhardt walk in.
"General..."
"Mrs. Grant, please, I need to speak with one of my best ship captains, especially one who survived the battle at Space Station Liberty."
"Sir, you do me too much credit," Vince spoke out. "A lot depended on Skull Squadron and my bridge officers."
"You still have knowledge that will be invaluable to us. A lot of captains and their crews didn't come back."
"Yeah," Vince muttered, remembering Louie Nichol's surprise and horror at the casualty rate amongst the REF.
Reinhardt stood by the bedside and looked down at him. "Tell me everything."
"Sir, I told you..."
"You told me the general stuff; how our Shadow tech systems were designed to have a fatal flaw by our former allies and current enemies, the Haydonites, how you were able to use a Neutron-S missile to destroy their fleet. You didn't give me the smaller details, like the firefight you had with a pair of Haydonite mecha inside the space station and any weaknesses you noticed during that fight."
The general turned to Jean. "You can give him a more detailed diagnostic later; he's in good enough condition to answer my questions, which as all I'm going to do."
"Well, I suppose..." Jean backed away slowly. "But please..."
"I won't ask him to do anything strenuous, I swear."
Jean finally backed down. She turned around and walked out.
"Now then..."
"General, the fight lasted only a few seconds, not long enough to notice much. I did see their machines kill three infantrymen like they were nothing before we engaged them." He thought back a ways. "We caught one by surprise, killing it before it had a chance to respond. The second one was still operating even though the Haydonite piloting it was outside his machine, talking to Janice. The Haydonite charged us, and simultaneously it's vehicle rushed Scott. It's hood fell off after Scott shot it, and the vehicle was about to step on Scott when I stepped in and shot the Haydonite. After the Haydonite ceased functioning, the vehicle died off as well. That's it."
"So, the Haydonites don't need to manually pilot their mecha in order for them to operate?"
"It looks like they don't, although there may be a increase in combat efficiency when the pilot is inside."
"Sounds like their machines need them in order to function; if the Haydonite dies, their toys stop working." The general brought his hand up to his chin, turning away briefly in thought. "And what about their ships?"
"General, I was more worried about the damage done to our own fleet, but from what I could see, we didn't get many of them. Much of that was due to the big Trojan Horses they gave us, but I did see our weapons being deflected by a shield of sorts. I did see one of their ships blow up, but only after several of ours concentrated their fire. And they were popping our ships with single shots."
"I see. That's distressing. Hopefully, the removal of all the Shadow devices will bring us back to a level playing field. That is, if we can find the SDF-3 and secure the Protoculture Matrix. The General looked out the window, at the moon's landscape. "I hope Janice's calculations were correct, because if not, we're going to be out of fuel and out of time... not to mention out of the war and likely out of existence."
Louie Nichols grabbed a wrench and tightened a loose bolt on an old hovertank. The middle-aged veteran went about his job as he'd been doin it for years. It had been a long time since he'd worked on his old Sparta-class tank, though.
He had a lot on his mind. A lot had happened since the Second Robotech War, but bad generals and enemies with some measure of superior technology hadn't. Not all the generals and admirals were bad, of course, but Louie could remember the orders Commander Leonard had given all too well.
Frontal attacks were useless, if not downright wasteful, against an enemy with superior technology. He'd seen enough to know that REF ships were currently outmatched and probably outnumbered. Leonard hadn't cared. He'd sent over four hundred of the Army of the Southern Cross' best pilots to their doom in a futile assault on the Robotech Masters' flagship, and sent in wave after wave of Tristar-class cruisers and mecha at the enemy until the ASC was bled white. If the commander would have listened to men like Rolf Emerson more often, the Invid might not have been able to take over the Earth at all.
He pulled himself out of the hazy world of what would have been. Leonard and most of the Southern Cross' generals had been killed in the war, after which all semblance of a united government had disappeared. The Invid invaded a year later, and what was left of the Southern Cross was wiped out, forced into hiding, or forced to carry on as resistance fighters.
What remained of the Fifteenth Tactical Armored Squadron had managed to flee with whatever mecha would fit onboard their ship a day before the invasion. Since then, they'd been fighting the Invid with the REF, fighting and freeing worlds from Invid tyranny.
Louie finished with the bolt and began tinkering with the wires under the vehicle. The Sparta - formally the VHT-1 Veritech Hover Tank - wasn't the most efficient military vehicle ever designed; the driver was vulnerable, and all it took was for the driver, who was in an open position, to be shot for the tank to be out of commission. That said, it had decent armor, and it's gun was more than capable of punching through almost anything the Masters and the Invid had, and the pilot could choose between Battloid, Guardian, and Vehicle mode, giving it a flexibility that made up for it's defects. It was outdated, of course, and despite modifications it wasn't the best vehicle for space combat. Alpha and Beta fighters were much more powerful, and, these days, far more plentiful.
But Louie found that he couldn't abandon his old mecha for a more up-to-date machine. He'd fought in three wars - including the current one - and this tank, while a painful reminder of the first war, was also a link to the old squadron, to the comrades he'd fought with. And it was a unit he had modified personally; he didn't want all that tinkering to go to waste.
"Alright, I guess that'll do for now," he said, sliding out from under it. He stood up and admired his handiwork. The paintjob reminded him of the both the glorious days of the Second Robotech War, and of the darkest hours of that desperate struggle. He remembered the betrayal of his peaceful intentions, as his creations for a video game went into technology meant for killing aliens. The GMP had been hated as well as feared, and incidentally the only thing keeping Earth from falling into a truly feudal society... which, after the end of the war and the death of Commander Leonard, it had anyway.
"This model of hovertank is inefficient and obsolete, Dr. Nichols. I do not understand why you continue to maintain it."
He turned. The hybrid robot Janice had just walked into the room, and was looking at him and his old machine with curiosity as well as some slight confusion.
"Just an old memory I just can't let go of, Janice. Besides, with the modifications I've made, it has a few surprises up it's metaphorical sleeve."
"I was sent to call you to a briefing, called just minutes ago by General Reinhardt. He particularly wants all officers from the Icarus to attend."
"Well, I guess I can't really refuse."
"Might I remind you, the consequences for insubordination of that type would include being sent to the brig for an indefinite period of time -"
"I know, I know." Sometimes, Janice took things all too literally. It was something that could be both time-consuming as well as amusing. "I'm coming."
I wonder what the General has to say. Whatever it is, it feels like I'm going into battle again.
"Settle down, folks." Reinhardt stood on a platform, with a podium before him. "Janice has managed to get a rough estimate of where the SDF-3 might be. I hardly need to tell you all how important the Protoculture matrix is, considering our reserves are even less after the battle for Space Station Liberty."
He pulled up a diagram. "This is where Admiral Hunter was testing a Neutron-S warhead, as well as the black hole that resulted from it. Here," he added, drawing a line on the screen, "is where the Haydonites attacked the Icarus, and the last known location of the SDF-3. Although it suffered heavy damage, it's possible that the crew might have been able to repair it in time to escape the black hole's pull, and reactivate weapons systems. If that was successful, they would probably have stopped in a star system a few lightyears away, most likely here."
Vince heard Louie shift in his seat. "What is it?"
"It's just that unusual anomalies were detected in that system, captain."
"What sort of anomalies? Do you think it could be the Haydonites?"
"I guess it could be," Louie said, as though that thought hadn't occurred to him," but I don't think so. If the readings were got from there are correct - and by their very nature, they can't be - the star in that system orbits the planet."
"Wow. Somebody messed up on whatever system detected that."
"We'll be sending a small battlegroup, including surviving ships from the recent battle, to find the SDF-1," Reinhardt continued.
An officer in the front row put up his hand.
"Yes?"
"Sir, with all due respect, shouldn't we send in the entire fleet to do this job?"
"If we had sufficient resources to both defend Earth and pull off this mission, I'd assign a lot more ships to the mission, believe me. But we can't leave the Earth defenseless. The Haydonites would slaughter everyone, and we know they have weapons capable of busting planets, with the evidence of the Neutron-S missiles at the fore. Most of the fleet will remain here, in defensive positions. Skull Squadron will be going along."
"And how will they be able to stand up to the enemy without the benefit of Synchro cannons?"
"We've reverted to using the old reflex cannons; they might do a little less damage, but they have a better chance of piercing the enemy's shields, and they aren't going to self-destruct when hit by enemy fire. All Shadow tech systems have been removed and replaced by older but more reliable weapons and systems." The General looked around the room at his audience. "That's what we've got. Your individual commanders will fill you in on the details. Dismissed, and may God grant that you all return safely."
"At least we don't have to worry about our own technology turning on us," Vince said as he and Louie left.
"Reflex cannons will give us something comparable in weaponry, Captain," Louie replied. "But they won't make up for everything we're throwing out. Honestly, even if we had the Protoculture matrix, I'm not sure we have the numbers..."
Vince turned, surprised. "Are you saying we can't win this war?"
Louie stiffened like a man who'd heard that sort of tone before; considering who he'd been serving under during the Second Robotech War, that wasn't surprising. "No captain, but our losses from both the Invid and the Haydonites has left us in a crucial position."
"This mission will take some of the heat off. That is, if we're successful."
A few days earlier...
"Ugh, it's no use." Admiral Rick Hunter slammed his fist down on the arm of his chair as his comms officer spoke up. "There's no signal."
"All the while, we're getting tugged into a black hole; I want options, now!"
"Engineers are working on the engine. They'll have it fix shortly."
"We need the fold system operable if we're to get out of this." Rick tried not to think of the inevitable death by cosmic vacuum cleaner. "Get anyone you can on those, and get the weapons systems back online ASAP!"
"We're already trying, sir. A number of laser turrets are back up and running, and the Synchro cannon is in the process of being repaired."
"Well, that's good news, anyway." Rick turned to regard his bridge officers. "That won't help us if we get sucked into that monster we created."
"It isn't the first time you've gotten into trouble."
He whirled around. Lisa Hayes-Hunter was standing just behind him, having just come through the door. "And I thought I was going to retire in peace," she continued.
"Believe me, my dear, I thought so too." He had. Both of them had believed that after the war mankind would be free of alien invasions. For whatever reason, apparently they'd been wrong. "All the same, I'd appreciate a little assistance right about now."
"I guess I can oblige." She sat down at one of the consoles. "I had the same job on the SDF-1, and I haven't grown all that rusty since."
"Hmm." It was hard to think of the tough-as-nails bridge officer from the SDF-1 resigning from the military. Unfortunately, during a battle against the rogue REF commander Thomas R. Edwards, their ship had taken a beating, and Lisa took on terrible injuries. She miscarried a few days later. Since then, she'd lost most of the spunk she'd had back in the RDF days. She still had a tongue capable of lashing anyone foolish enough to cross her, though. That was never going to change.
"Reflex furnaces coming online. Sir, there isn't enough energy to make a space fold. Even if we had the energy, the fold system would likely be burned out from the effort."
"And if we don't use it, we're burned out - the hard way. Divert all energy to the fold system, except that for our weapons and shield. Get us out of here."
"Sir, enemy ships approaching."
"Open fire! I want our gunners to give us as much time as they can."
"Firing, sir."
Rick watched as blue streaks of light flew out toward one of the mysterious enemy ships. Most of them were absorbed by the shield, but a few late-coming beams managed to get through the weakened barrier. Explosions rocked the enemy vessel.
"Should we launch fighters?"
"No, they'd just be sucked in by the black hole. Keep our fighters in the hangar bays."
The enemy ships returned fire. Their beams glowed like hellfire as they made their way through the vacuum. The SDF-3's Omni-Directional Barrier managed to prevent any of their fire from hitting, but..."
"Admiral! Their fire has critically weakened our shields!"
"What is the status of the fold system?"
"Almost up, sir."
"Divert power from weapons."
"Generating fold sphere," came the report.
Rick watched as the transparent sphere suddenly came into being around the ship. Alarms began to sound almost immediately as the black hole's gravity began to take effect. And, in the distance, the alien ships fired again, in a simultaneous volley.
"Get us out! NOW!"
There was a deafening metallic scream, then something tugged, hard, on Rick. Everything went black...
Present day
Princess Celestia watched the moon slowly rise into the sky. Her sister, Princess Luna, worked in silence, though her horn was brightly shining with the colors midnight blue and white. As the moon reached the desired location, the blue alicorn slowly eased off, until the light from her horn faded to nothing.
"As very well done job, as always sister," Celestia said, putting her right foreleg around her younger sibling.
"It's really nothing special."
"To me, it always has been."
"So many of our subjects believe us to be deities, and yet the only remarkable thing about us is that we are able to do exactly what unicorns were doing back in the days before harmony came to the three tribes. We are not goddesses."
"That's all the better. Would you believe it, some think being able to live forever is a gift without any bad side whatsoever."
Luna shuddered as memories of friends over a thousand years ago came to her mind, came and faded to black. "Foolishness." She sighed. "I'd give almost anything for the old glory days, before... Her."
"It's not entirely your fault. If anything, I share the blame for not realizing how embittered you felt, and for doing nothing to alleviate it. I should have done something."
"You don't realize how evil she could be, or how charismatic she was." Luna sighed again. "These days, I feel like I have only you and the Bearers as friends."
"You gathered quite a lot of fans last Nightmare Night; one in particular, a colt named Pip, asked me in a letter to make absolute sure that you returned to Ponyville this year."
That finally brought a small smile to Luna's face. "I suppose I can hardly refuse, if he's so insistent." Her head slowly turned upwards, into the night sky. "Despite my control of the moon, I still harbor great curiosity about what's out there."
"Beyond our world?"
"Yes. What lives beyond our planet, and what would they be like?"
"I don't know, dear sister." Celestia stood up, and she too stared into the night sky. "Perhaps we'll find out someday..."
This story has no relation whatsoever to my original Robotech story; I was watching "The New Generation" when I got the idea for this. Seeing as the sequel for the movie "Robotech; the Shadow Chronicles" hasn't come out, I decided to come out with one of my own (Disclaimer, I DO NOT own Robotech, and this is a non-profit story made by a fan of both MLP and Robotech). Basically, a bit of fanboyism made me do this, and I apologize to anyone who has seen the Sentinels movie or comics, as I have no experience with those and I'm making this up off of the Robotech Saga Wiki and Wikipedia, as well as the Shadow Chronicles movie and the Third Robotech War.
