Suddenly, a new Triumvirate
Dana, Nova, Marie,
Each zigzagging from her side toward
The center of the triskelion.
Mingtao, Protoculture: Journey Beyond Mecha
“The Bioroids were all tied in to the assault ship,” Rochelle reported. “Signal Intelligence and ground observers, sensors, and after-action reports all agree,” he added. “The Bioroids were forced to retreat when Sterling got a round into the ship and disrupted their command capability. At least we’ve got some idea how to handle their mecha.”
But it was obvious the enemy would be much more careful next time. Emerson rubbed his face wearily, feeling the bristles and looking forward to some sleep. “At least there’s a little good news.”
“Yessir. Um—” Rochelle broached a very delicate subject. “About Lieutenant Sterling abandoning her post and disobeying orders—what d’we do?”
Everyone knew Emerson was Bowie Grant’s official guardian and Dana’s unofficial one, but that had never made any difference as far as the young people’s treatment in the Southern Cross military. Emerson knew what he would do to any junior officer who had done what Dana had, and after a moment’s hesitation conceded to himself that it was only just.
Dana was singing loudly and, as usual, badly off key. The shower spray came down at her steam-hot, and she massaged out bruises and sore muscles. She bit her lip once or twice, pausing in her song to fight back images of the red Bioroid.
Maybe these thoughts were some alien weapon? In any case, she mustn’t fall prey to them again!
The battle had been bad enough, but there was also a row of sleepless nights ahead, repairing and running maintenance, getting in replacements and shuffling the TO&E and doing yet more training, to get the 15th combat-ready again in less time than it could possibly take.
There was a pounding at her bathroom door. She could hear Nova Satori’s voice over the rushing water, “Just can the arias, Lieutenant, and get a move on.”
Dana reluctantly left the shower, winding a towel around her, and emerged from the tiny bathroom cubicle in a cloud of steam. “What d’you think, Nova? Do I have a future in show business?”
The MP lieutenant sneered. “Sure, sweeping up after the circus parade. Now, hurry up; we’re late.”
Dana was perfectly content to dawdle; Nova refused to tell her where she was being taken, or why, but it seemed pretty plain. “Aw, take it easy! You’ll have me back in your lockup soon enough!”
Nova was leaning against the wall with arms folded. She blurted out angrily, “The ceremony’s already—” She stopped, saw that Dana had caught it, shrugged to herself, and went on. “I’m taking you to receive a promotion for valor.
“They’re bumping you to first looie.”
“Come in, Space Station Liberty! Space Station Liberty, Space Station Liberty, this is Earth Control, Earth Control, please acknowledge, over.”
The transmission had been going out ever since the Masters appeared to begin their probings of Earthly defenses. The UEG and Southern Cross were certain that Liberty was still there in its Trojan Lagrangian point—Number Five—out near Luna’s orbit. All indications were that the crew was still alive. In some way the scientists and engineers were still trying to understand, the Masters seemed to be watching everything on the spectrum out Liberty’s way. An op would no sooner try a frequency than it was jammed, at least as far as Earth-Liberty links were concerned.
With the flagships’ arrival in Earth orbit, even the relay telesats had gone dead, and in the wake of that first barrage from Captain Komodo, the satellites had been blasted from the sky. Earth-based commo lasers were useless, what with the distortion caused by the planet’s atmosphere.
But the communications people doggedly kept trying. Space Station Liberty, with its unique Robotech long-range commo gear, was Earth’s only hope for eventual contact with the SDF-3 and Rick Hunter’s expedition. More, Liberty’s personnel were Human beings, cut off from their home planet; Earth must make every effort on their behalf. A rescue mission out to Liberty was impossible, though. Earth lacked the ships, equipment, and facilities to mount such an expedition in the foreseeable future, now that its main aerospace installation had been so badly ravaged by the Bioroids.
But a research team over in the encryption systems shop at Signal Security came up with a makeshift solution. Earth and Liberty could phase their equipment to jump frequencies, seemingly at random, from one to the next, in milliseconds, and get in brief communications on each one before the Masters could jam it. The result would be resumed communications with Liberty and, it was hoped, Moon Base survivors.
The only problem was, somebody had to get the word, and the meticulously worked out schedule of freq jumps, through to Liberty.
“Now, I’m not going to b-s you,” the briefing officer said to the young unit commanders ranged around the big horseshoe table. “Getting a tight-beam commo laser up into orbit and punching through a signal to Liberty is going to be one hairy mission.”
He looked around at the leaders from Cosmic Units, TASC, ATAC, and the rest. “Supreme Headquarters is calling for volunteers. Personally, I think it should be done by assignment, but there it is. So far, only Lieutenant Crystal of TASC has consented to go on this mission.”
Dana knew very well whom he was waiting for. Along with the Black Lions, her 15th had the only real combat experience in dealing with enemy mecha, and the heavily armored Hovertanks were the most effective weapons Earth had. Like any soldier who had been around for a while, she knew that one of the basic rules of existence was never to volunteer. Still, a little something extra would be expected of the ATACs; she knew that when she applied for training, and so had everybody else in the 15th.
She swallowed and rose to her feet. “You can deal us in, sir.” Marie lifted one eyebrow and gave Dana a half smile.
“Very commendable,” the briefing officer nodded. “But we’re going to have room for only three Hovers. You pick.”
Dana got the point of what a critical assignment she had volunteered for when she discovered that the mission briefing was to be given by General Emerson himself.
He wasn’t sweet, gruff Uncle Rolf then; he was all business and military precision. His only concession to their former relationship was when, shaking her hand—as he had Marie’s and the others’—he gave her a short, minimal flash of smile and growled, “Good luck, Lieutenant Sterling; go get ’em.”
She decided to take Angelo and Bowie. Bowie accepted it without any show of emotion, with barely a word of acknowledgment. Angelo had to put on an elaborate show, with a lot of talk about going head-on against an enemy armada single-handed, but Dana had confidence in him ever since he went along with her “personal initiative” decision to race to the rescue at Fokker Base.
The rest of the 15th showed some disappointment about being left behind, but kept it to themselves, even Sean. Dana reminded herself to be wary of the ATACs’ own heartbreaker, but she was beginning to feel that she could rely on him, too.
Emerson and Green stood studying the image of the enemy dreadnaught. “Are you sure Sterling and Crystal are qualified to command this mission, sir?” Green’s voice echoed through the command center. “They do seem rather young for so much responsibility.”
Emerson nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, but they’re the best we have at leading our most powerful mecha, and they’re the only two unit commanders alive who’ve engaged the Bioroids. And both did it effectively.”
Emerson pursed his lips for a moment, then added ominously, “If anyone can do it, they can.”
A command center captain named Anderson pointed out changes in the readouts; the enemy mother ship was in motion again. “They’re moving into a lower orbit again, looks like.”
All the launchpads for the real heavyweights were still out of commission. There were only two left that could accept shuttles, and so the mission was built around that limit; the launchpads were reusable, of course, but not in a short enough turnaround time to be of any help. Repair to damaged pads was going on around the clock, but that was of even less use today.
The two tiled white shuttles sat like delta-winged crossbow quarrels on the inclined launch ramps. Marie was in the pilot’s seat in the number one ship, the Challenger IV; only a few hundred yards away sat the Potemkin.
Her copilot, Heideger, was an experienced captain from Cosmic Units. It was only over Cosmic’s objections that a TASC officer had been given command, but Marie was glad to have Heideger as her first officer anyway; the man really knew his job.
They were completing the long preflight checklist. “We’re now on internal computers,” Heideger said. The flight deck door slid open and Dana and Bowie entered. They were unarmored, the expected g-load being what it was, and Dana carried—Marie couldn’t believe her eyes—a magazine! As if this were some commuter hop!
“You’re late,” Marie bristled.
“We were securing the tanks—” Bowie began, taken aback.
“Stow it, Private, and get to your station!” Marie spat.
Now it was Dana’s turn to bristle. “He was following my orders, Lieutenant. Or would you like a few dozen tons of Hovertank bouncing around during launch?”
Marie drew a deep breath. “Dana, zip your lip and siddown! We’re already in pre-ignition.”
Voices from launch control were talking to her and to Heideger. Marie turned back to her instrument panel and began tapping touchpad squares; Dana and Bowie got to their seats just as the main engines began firing up. All systems were green.
Dana sat at a station somewhat behind Heideger, facing outboard, at the astrogation officer’s station, which doubled as a gun position. In case of attack, her field of fire would protect the shuttle’s port-midships area. Bowie was the next one aft, at the communications position, which also controlled the port-stern guns. Angelo Dante was at the starboard-midships guns, and a shuttle crewman was across from Bowie at the starboard-stern guns.
Dana affected boredom with the final countdown procedures. She had been on launches before, in training, and regarded them as overdramatized and unnecessarily complicated—just the sort of thing the Cosmic Units and the TASC types loved. Tankers believed in results, not ceremony! The whole thing brought out her rebellious streak.
Heideger swung around to take care of something else, punching up revised orbital ballistics, and saw that she had opened the fashion magazine on her lap. “Lieutenant, this isn’t like ATACs; pay attention, because we work for a living around here, and everybody has to be alert!”
He turned back to his duties at once, and Marie, though she heard it, was too busy to give Dana a chewing out. Dana, as always, reacted to somebody else’s orders with stubborn defiance. She opened the magazine and thumbed through the latest looks from around the world.
What d’you know; they were wearing empire-waisted, opaque stuff down in Rio, with metallic body-paint designs underneath—very daring. The rage in Osaka was all synthetic eelskin and lace. Micronesians were going in for beaded numbers with a total coverage about equivalent to a candy-bar wrapper!
The pre-ignition burn went on as the launchpads raised the shuttles up to their correct launch angle. All systems checked out. Marie found a moment in which to hope she hadn’t done the wrong thing by not arguing against Dana’s presence on the mission. The kid’s got guts, but she’s bullheaded. And now she’s ’zoided out with this magazine riff. I just hope she can keep her mind right upstairs the way she does on the ground.
The shuttles came vertical as their primary engines flared and alpine mounds of rocket exhaust rose. At a precise moment the gantries released them, and the two ships lifted off, slowly at first, quickly gathering speed. Dana felt herself pressed back deep into her acceleration seat.
Suddenly her magazine slipped from where she’d tucked it between her knees. It flopped open and pasted itself across her face like a determined starfish attacking a choice oyster. She struggled against it, her yells muffled by the magazine. Has anything more embarrassing ever happened to me? Nope, can’t think of any.…
“Told ya,” she dimly heard Heideger say in disgust. No one could help her; they were all weighted by the heavy g’s. The best she could do was lever the magazine up and breathe around the edges.
Suddenly a voice said, “This is the Potemkin, Lieutenant Borgnine speaking—Oh!”
She realized that his transmission had somehow been routed to her console as well as to Marie’s and Heideger’s. So, Borgnine was looking right at her. “Um, are you all right?”
“Just a second,” Dana tried to say, but it came out, “Mnff uh ff-uh.” Meanwhile, at the end of an eternity, the engine burn was over, and she felt a moment’s zero-g as the shuttle’s artificial gravity cut in.
Dana lowered the magazine, blood rushing back into her white face in a furious blush. She had a feeling she was in for some black and blue from her close encounter with haute couture.
“I’m fine!” she tried to say brightly.
Borgnine’s copilot, who looked about thirteen years old, leaned over to inform his boss, “Computers say we’re coming up for a new course correction.”
Borgnine frowned. “What? That’s much too soon. Marie, what d’your internal computers show?”
“We’ll check it out and get right back to you,” she said. Ideally, they would have bucked the problem back to Earth, but the Masters’ interference had already put them beyond communication range.
Marie took time out to chuckle, “Hey, Dana! How’d that facial feel?”
Both shuttles jettisoned the spent solid-fuel boosters as the crews worked to find out why Borgnine’s computer was acting up. The Potemkin’s autopilot seemed adamant that a course correction was needed, and the overrides didn’t seem to be dissuading it.
“I have more bad news,” Bowie said quietly. “The invaders are comin’ our way. Only this time there are two of them, two mother ships.”