SPECIAL PROTOCULTURE OBSERVATIONS AND OPERATIONS KOMMANDATURA
(DESIGNATION—“JAMES” PERSONNEL ONLY)
In view of the adverse relationship between Major General Emerson and certain members of this unit, the transfer of the Orbital Warp Blast—generating data to his flagship will be effected in such a way as to preclude all mention of or reference to the origins of the aforementioned data.
(signed) Zand, Commanding
The 15th’s ready-room was dark. MOST OF THE TROOPERS were out on pass or on ATAC guard duty or dozing. A few, like Robotechnofreak—another term for it was “mechie”—Louie Nichols, were taking care of maintenance or tinkering with their Hovertanks down on the motorstable levels.
Bowie Grant sat playing the piano softly. Sometimes he went into the melodies he had played for Musica, and the ones she had played for him. But tonight he kept coming back again and again to the ones Emerson had taught him as a child, when the General introduced him to the piano and fostered Bowie’s love of music. Bowie played his own compositions, the early ones that had made Emerson so proud. There was no one in the dimness of the ready-room to hear the music, or to see his tears.
Below, though, in a long, black military limousine parked under the open windows of the ready-room, there was an audience.
Major General Rolf Emerson sat in the back seat with the window down, listening. He didn’t recognize the alien tunes, though he suspected what they meant; he knew each note that Bowie played from their shared past, however, and understood those completely.
Emerson’s efforts to contact his ward had been rebuffed, and the general respected Bowie’s right to be left alone.
Perhaps I never should have made him enlist; perhaps he shouldn’t have had to serve, Emerson reflected. But then, it would be a better Universe if none of us had to. But it’s just not that kind of Universe.
“That’s enough. Take me back,” he told his chauffeur, hitting the button that raised the window.
Take me back …
This time it was a cascade of roses, tumbling down onto Nova in a fragrant red avalanche the moment she opened the closet in her billet to hang up her cloak. Suddenly she wasn’t bone-tired anymore, not even with the liftoff of Emerson’s strikeforce less than forty-eight hours away.
She let the roses shower around her, giggling and gasping, and tried forlornly to understand all the conflicting emotions and impulses that were starting her own private war. She was knee-deep in flowers.
There was a note taped to the shelf: Depot 7 at 2100.
At the elegant Pavilion du Lac, Marie Crystal pushed away her fourth sidecar. If Prince Charming doesn’t get here with the carriage soon, Cinderella’s gonna be too stinko to care!
Might even serve him right, she thought. She had blown half her savings on a drop-dead white satin evening gown, and the most expensive perfume she could find. Her walk was very different than it was when she was in uniform; she had seen men panting, admiring. And rather than cut a swath through the local male wildlife, here she sat, waiting for her Romeo.
She went out onto the balcony to get a little fresh air, sighing in the moonlight, thinking of Sean, smelling the orchids there.
She had been shot out of the sky and he had mechamorphosed his Hovertank, risen up in Battloid mode to catch her burning, falling Veritech. He had sworn he would love her, and no one else, evermore. Had held her to him as his Battloid had held her VT to it. Had made her love him.
You beast! You toad! I’ve never been in love before …
Below, hiding behind a column on the portico, Sean grinned and got ready to go surprise her.
Marie had shown up early for their dinner date, and she had decided to see how long it would take her to lose patience. It hadn’t taken long; he was barely late at all. But I’ve kept her waiting long enough, he thought guiltily, and got ready to run up the steps to her.
A voice behind him called, “Seanie?”
It was Jill Norton, an old flame, all decked out like a green-sequined sea goddess, throwing herself at him to hug him. “It is you!”
She locked her lips to his, and he had to wrestle her in order to crane his head around and look up at the balcony. Marie was giving him the kind of stare that preceded homicides.
Just like Cinderella, Marie lost a glass slipper on the winding stairs. In fact, she lost both of them. She pushed her way in between Sean and his latest trollop, about to leave, but spun around suddenly and grabbed him by the front of his suit.
Before he could move, she kissed him as hard as she could—she put all her love and all her wanting and all her hurt into it. Sean was starting to think he might survive the encounter when she pushed him away and rocked him with a slap that almost took his head off.
In the poorly lit corner of Depot 7, Dana practically had to put an arm-bar on Komodo to get him to show himself and approach Nova. As he walked over, he kept turning around to make sure Dana was still in the shadows for moral support.
However, his worst fears came true when he turned to Nova and got a backhanded fist, knuckles cocked, that sent him whirling onto the cold duracrete facedown.
“Stay away from me, Zor!” she shrilled. “You hear me, Zor?” But inside, she feared that she might really have hurt him.
Komodo pushed himself up partway. “Lieutenant Satori, I hear you.” He wiped blood from his mouth.
“Oh my god! Captain Komodo!”
He levered himself up. “Zor, eh? Now I get it!” He lurched off into the blackness, sobbing, running nearly doubled over, as if she had given him some eviscerating wound.
She looked around and saw Dana standing, a small pale figure, under a nearby worklight. “I might’ve guessed, Sterling. Now do I have to part that little blond puffball hairdo with a loading hook, or are you going to tell me—”
She was interrupted by her own wrist comset. The only way she had been able to get some time to herself for the depot rendezvous had been to sign out for a purported tour of the GMP patrols, to check up. So she was on duty.
“Lieutenant Satori, we have a report of an individual, thought to be a woman, driving very erratically and recklessly in a military jeep.”
Nova was on her Hovercycle and away before Dana could get a word in edgewise. Dana went and vaulted into the getaway jeep that was waiting, Lieutenant Brown behind the wheel. Dana knew Brown from his brief instructor days at the Academy, and Brown was an old close friend of Komodo’s.
Accosted by Komodo, Brown had explained why Nova had come to see him: not a matter of passion, but rather of apology. Then, he joined in on the plot to get Komodo and Nova together, and volunteered to act as chauffeur.
“Go!” Dana howled, pointing at Nova’s disappearing Hovercycle as it vanished through the loading bay doors.
“Don’t turn on the light, Zand. Just sit down.”
Rolf Emerson’s voice was soft in the darkness of the office in Southern Cross HQ, but it still filled Zand with fear. How had he gotten in? Not only were there guards and surveillance equipment, but Zand himself had hidden powers that should have prevented any such unpleasant surprise.
And yet, there stood the Chief of Staff for Terrestrial Defense, in the glow spilling into the darkened office from streetlights and moonlight. “I won’t stay long,” Emerson added. “Just close the door, sit down, and listen.”
Zand did, leaving his office dark. He thought about sounding an alarm; Emerson certainly outranked him, but this kind of unauthorized visit was nothing that even a general’s stars would justify. However, there were old animosities between the two, nothing Zand would like to have brought to light. And so he sat, waiting.
“I’m leaving in the morning; you already know that, no doubt,” Emerson said, sounding tired. “I just wanted to say this—”
Suddenly he was at Zand’s side, his strong hand around Zand’s throat. Emerson shook him like a rag doll as the Robotech scientist made strangling sounds.
“You will leave Dana alone while I’m gone, do you hear me? If I come back to find that you’ve tried anything, anything, I’ll kill you with this same hand and let the Judge Advocate court-martial me.”
For all his mild appearance, Zand could easily have shaken off the grip of virtually anyone else; the Protoculture powers he had given himself through dangerous experimentation made such physical tricks simple.
But for some reason, Zand’s enhanced powers simply didn’t work on Emerson. It was as if the general was immune to Zand’s abilities. Emerson knew very little about Protoculture; he had no conscious access to its vast gifts. Emerson had no idea that he was throttling a superman.
He shook Zand. “Do you hear?” Zand managed to nod, breath rattling. Emerson let him go. There would be fearsome bruises on his throat by daylight.
The last time Zand felt Emerson’s grip on his throat was thirteen years ago. That was at night, too, when Emerson burst into Zand’s lab upon discovering that Zand was running bizarre experiments on the young daughter of Max and Miriya Sterling. He was exposing Dana to Protoculture treatments and substances from some strange alien plant. Emerson had heard it had something to do with activating the alien side of her mind and genetic heritage. The general was Bowie’s guardian, but was a good friend to Dana’s parents.
Zand had believed he would die that night, that moment; Emerson’s strength seemed illimitable. Or perhaps it was simply that none of Zand’s acquired powers worked in Emerson’s presence? Zand avoided him from that time to this moment, and Emerson had made sure, no matter where he was or what he was doing, that Dana was beyond Zand’s reach.
Gasping and wheezing, rubbing his throat, Zand tried to make some sense of it. How could a mortal like Emerson block the Shapings of the Protoculture this way? And in such complete ignorance of what it was that he was doing? It was as if the overwhelming frustration of it all was some tithe Zand had to pay to win that ultimate triumph, that incredible prize, that he saw promised to him by the Shaping.
It was even more humiliating that Emerson didn’t even realize with whom he was dealing. To Emerson, Zand was some half-demented Protoculture mystic from R&D, who had deviated from the saner paths followed by Dr. Lang, and ended up deranged.
“I know you’ve been keeping tabs on her through back-channels and informants,” Emerson said quietly. “Don’t ever do it again. If I have to come and see you a third time, Doctor, it will be to take you off the roll call for good!”
Zand didn’t even realize that Emerson had moved away from him until he heard the door open and close. The heir to Emil Lang’s Protoculture secrets, and master of new, more perilous secrets of his own, massaged his tortured windpipe. One thing was clear: Emerson was an obstacle that would have to be dealt with first.
Dana Sterling was vital, because she stood at the center of all Zand’s star-spanning schemes.
Marie wove her jeep through the streets and byways of Monument City.
What a little idiot I’ve been! I knew what Sean was like. I heard all the stories, yet I still believed he’d change just for me!
She ignored lights, ignored speed limits, ignored all peril to herself and others, sideswiping whoever didn’t stay out of her way. The night and imminent death drew her on.
Her jeep bounced through an alley and onto an access road that would take her to the cliff overlooking the city. She wasn’t thinking clearly about what she would find there, but something told her it would be better than what she was feeling now, and she liked the feeling of the accelerator under her stockinged foot. She only wished she were in her mecha.
It took her some time to realize that a GMP Hovercycle and a jeep were behind her. Over a loudspeaker Nova Satori’s voice was commanding her to halt.
Marie stepped on the accelerator.
As the chase barrelled out onto the cliff headland, Nova tried to sideswipe her to a halt. Marie’s jeep jounced off a rock, and slewed at the cycle. Marie had an instant’s view of Nova’s terrified face as she fought her handlebars. Marie hit the brakes and over-corrected, and her jeep went sliding toward the cliff, tailgate foremost.
But Dennis Brown was there first, with Dana belted in the rear and covering her eyes. The VT pilot brought Marie to a stop by letting Marie’s jeep slam taillights-first into his own, broadside. The two vehicles plowed along in a spume of dust; Brown’s left front wheel went over the edge, and the undercarriage grated along.
The jeep tottered there, but held. Dana and Brown sighed simultaneously. Marie hung against her steering wheel, crying like a lost child.
Dana, Brown, and Nova were still trying to sort things out when the distant sirens and flashing lights caught their attention.
Brown tched. “It’d sure be bad for morale if we let the Gimps find the hero of the TASCs in this condition.” He lifted Marie out of the jeep gently and set her down on the ground.
“But—Lieutenant Brown!” Nova objected, as he slipped behind the wheel of Marie’s jeep.
“It’s simple,” he said, revving the engine. “Frustrated pilot bumped from big mission gets hands on jeep and whiskey, understand?”
Nova did; she owed him one. It would be just as he said. “It means the brig, you know.”
Brown shrugged at Nova. “A couple days. They need me in my VT too much to do more. Besides, I’ve got nothing better to do with my time.”
He winked at her. “Come down ’n’ see me once in a while, huh?”
Then he eased the jeep back and headed off in a spray of gravel. Leaving a high plume of dust and grit, slewing and running flat-out, it wasn’t hard for him to catch the posse’s attention; the strobing lights and wailing sirens followed Dennis Brown away into the night.
Dana tried to decide what to do or say, with the perplexed Nova to one side, the curled-up, weeping Marie on the other.
In the invasion flagship, the Robotech Masters watched their new production line of Invid Fighters being put through its paces. The mecha resembled oldtime naval mines, spined spheres that looked as much biological as technological. They seemed to be grown of mismatched horn, chitin, and sinew.
The Invid Fighters performed their maneuvers flawlessly. They evaded the fire of multitudes of gun turrets, and when the command came, they turned devastating fire on the turrets with pinpoint accuracy.
“And when they conjoin, they will be an undefeatable Triumviroid,” Bowkaz said.
Jeddar of the Clonemasters made his abasing bow. “A Triumviroid, yes, Master. Self-contained and capable of performing the three basic functions of combat: data accumulation, analysis, and response, all within milliseconds.”
The very essence of Robotechnology. Logic dictates that these mecha cannot be defeated!
A weapon as perfect as we ourselves, the Robotech Masters shared the cold thought.
Dawn had brought a break in the clouds; final preparations for the launch of Emerson’s strikeforce were being made, last matters on the checklists were ticked off.
Captain Komodo led his unit out at a run. He had indulged his grief and put aside his humiliation; now it was time to discharge his duty, to live up to his oath of service. But a voice calling his name made him stop short as the rest ran on to the personnel elevator that waited to take the battlecruiser’s crewpeople to their assignments.
Dana caught up, breathless. “I just want to … say, I’m sorry, sorry about—”
He gave her a smile. “Forget it, Dana. Thanks for everything.”
The silence that followed was awkward, as they listened to announcements and instructions for everyone who was going to hurry, and for everyone else to get clear. Dana and Komodo groped for something to say to each other.
Then a hand reached out to touch Komodo’s armored shoulder. “Captain …”
Komodo, pivoting to see Nova Satori standing at his side, looked like a deer caught in headlights. She took his gauntleted hand in both of hers. “I just wanted to say—be sure to come back safely.”
It took him a few false starts to answer. “Nova, yes! I will!” He turned, dashing to catch up with his command. “Don’t worry about that!”
Dana figured Nova was still not in love with Komodo. But what did that matter when a person might die—when a whole world might?
Dana was about to bury the hatchet with Nova, to tell her what a decent thing that was to do, when both were distracted by another lift-off drama.
“Marie! Come back!”
But Marie Crystal already had a head start, and even weighted by her combat armor she got to the elevator well ahead of Sean Phillips. And anyway, Sean had been caught by Angelo Dante, who gathered him up practically under one arm, and dragged him back.
Angelo hollered at his onetime CO, “Be a man, for god’s sake! She’s got more important things on her mind, idiot!”
But Sean struggled free at the last moment, as the countdown went for zero and ground crews and PAs bellowed at the ATACs to get to shelter. Sean dashed for the elevator, but he was too late. The doors closed just before he got there. Marie watched emotionlessly—or did she? Just as the closing doors took her from him, her stone-face expression seemed to change.
Sean curled up inconsolably on the hardtop, and let Angelo, Dana, and Nova lift him up and bear him away.
In the ready-room, Bowie was by himself again at the piano. He played the songs Emerson had taught him, and the ones he himself had composed early-on.
He heard the first rumbles of prelaunch ignition reverberate across the countryside and the city, as his godfather and guardian readied for battle.
The battlecruisers, destroyer escorts, and other combat ships rumbled and flamed and rose, shaking the ground. The thunderclaps of their drives echoed across Monument City. Dana, Sean, Nova, and Angelo watched the strikeforce draw lines of fire into the blue.
The tumult and the glare of it filled the ready-room windows; Bowie hit a last, hateful note, then sat staring at the keys.