As I have elsewhere stated, preliminary tests on the three Micronian subjects indicate that their anatomical makeup and physiological systems are very similar to those of the Zentraedi; I hasten to add, however, that I am here referring to “wet-state” subjects rather than mature and viable ones. [Editor’s note: There is as yet no adequate Panglish equivalent of the Zentraedi term. Some linguistic camps favor “pretransformized,” while others have pushed for “neocast” or “neocloned.” See Kazinsky, Chapters Seven and Eight, for a lively overview of the continuing controversy.] Subsequent psychoscanning, in any case, brought to light the dissimilarities which are the focus of this report. These include: (1) significant anomalies throughout the neocortical regions and topical convolutionary conduits, (2) structural anomalies in the vascular and neural networks of the infundibulum, the pyramidal tracts, and the hippocampus, (3) pineal insufficiency, and (4) reticular imbalance of the pons and attendant cerebellar pathways.
Exedore, from his Military Intelligence Analysis Reports to the Zentraedi High Command
Micronians think too much!
Khyron
PREVIOUS DEALINGS WITH MICRONIANS HAD LARGELY BEEN A matter of eradication. But now Exedore actually had three live specimens to analyze and examine. And the results of tests thus far conducted were as surprising as they were baffling and discomforting. Genetically, anatomically, and physiologically, the Micronians appeared to be almost identical to the Zentraedi. They were of course culturally and behavioristically worlds apart, but the physical similarities suggested a point of common origin lost to time and history.
Exedore studied the prisoners from his sealed-off operating station inside the ship’s laboratory—who knew what contagious diseases these beings harbored? The scanner umbrella which in effect kept them isolated and confined to the specimen table was probably sufficient in itself for this, but Exedore was taking no chances.
Breetai, however, wanted no part of the laboratory or the operating station. Exedore brought him up to date on the findings in the command center, illustrating facts and speculations with data readouts, x-rays, scans of various sorts, and relevant historical documents, all of which flowed freely across the center’s many monitor screens.
Breetai took particular interest in the female of the group. He shifted his attention from one screen’s anatomical depictions and turned to the specimen table monitor. The Micronian female appeared to be unconscious or asleep, the other two as well.
“Is it wise to keep the female and males together?”
Exedore had the camera close on the table. “It is apparently their practice, Commander. It will certainly benefit us to observe their interactions.”
A look of surprise came over Breetai’s face, and Exedore now turned his attention to the monitor. The Micronians were beginning to stir.
The two Zentraedi watched intently.
The black-haired one was first to rise—the tough little pilot who had manned the mecha Breetai had destroyed. The female recon pilot was next, but together they couldn’t seem to rouse the third and largest member of their party.
“This one has a very slow metabolic rate and is less intelligent than the others,” Exedore said by way of explanation.
Something curious began to happen just then: The female and the male were arguing. Breetai signaled his adviser to activate the audio monitors. The words came fast and furious and were for the most part unfamiliar to Breetai, but he understood enough to get the gist: They were blaming each other for the failure of their mission and their eventual capture.
Breetai was amused.
“They fight with words as aggressively as they fight with mecha.”
“A result of the commingling of males and females, sir—an ancient practice long ago abandoned by the Zentraedi.”
“I see… anger without discipline.”
“Precisely that, Commander.”
As Breetai continued to observe the argument, however, he was overcome by a feeling of sickness; he felt debilitated and phobic. He ordered Exedore to deactivate the monitor and collapsed down into his chair.
“My head is spinning. I can no longer stand to watch them.”
“I feel the same,” said Exedore. “However, we must not allow any of our personal reactions to interfere with the mission at hand.”
Breetai lifted up his head. “Well, suppose you tell me how I should proceed with these creatures.”
“The Micronians should be brought to Dolza himself. There they should be subjected to the most rigorous interrogation possible.”
“That will require a fold operation and the expenditure of substantial quantities of energy.”
“It will be justified, Commander. The Micronians’ own words will doom them to defeat.”
* * *
Lisa couldn’t believe her ears: Who in the known universe did Hunter think he was talking to?
She and Hunter and dead-to-the-world Dixon were on some sort of alien grid platform, curtained and contained by a nebulous rain of electrical energy directed from an overhead generator. But through this translucent umbrella could be glimpsed the enormous machines, scopes, scanners, and data analyzers that constituted the laboratory beyond. One portion of the energy canopy afforded them visual access to an exterior bay of the ship. And somewhere out among that starfield was the SDF-1 and a world the three of them might never see again.
Hunter, nevertheless, seemed less interested in establishing where they were than in establishing who was to blame for their being there.
“Are you telling me that you wouldn’t have been captured if a man had been piloting the Cat’s-Eye? Because if you are—”
“I’m not saying that. I’m just saying there are some jobs that are better left to experienced pilots. You don’t find VT pilots muscling onto the bridge, do you?”
Lisa glared at him. “I’m your superior, Lieutenant Hunter!”
“Only in rank, Commander Hayes.”
“In rank and military experience!”
Rick made a dismissive gesture. “Don’t give me that Robotech Academy superiority. I’m talking about combat experience.”
Lisa crossed her arms to keep him from noticing that she was shaking with anger. Her foot tapped reflexively.
“Do you need to be reminded of the conversation we had yesterday—the one where you complained about my always being ‘safe and sound on the bridge’? Now I’m out here with you, and I still can’t do anything right in your eyes. It’s a no-win situation with you, mister.”
Rick softened somewhat. “Look, it’s just that I feel more… I don’t know, vulnerable, with you around. You’re always getting yourself in a fix, just like on Sara Base—”
“Hunter!” she screamed. “You’re an idiot! Just who appointed you my personal guardian?”
“Someone’s gotta protect you from yourself.”
She looked around for something to throw at him, but Dixon would be too heavy and there was nothing else on the grid.
“Who had to be towed in after completely destroying the armored Battloid, Lieutenant?”
Rick’s face went red with rage and embarrassment.
“You think fighting those Zentraedi is some kind of cakewalk. Maybe you didn’t see that guy tear my mecha apart with his bare hands, huh?”
“No, I didn’t see it. I was in the sack, remember?”
“Yeah, well…”
“Yeah, well,” she mimicked him, and turned away.
Ben Dixon was coming to, stretching and yawning as though he’d just taken a terrific nap.
He looked around and asked if he had missed anything.
Rick shot Lisa a cruel look and stepped over to his corporal. “Uh, nothing much, Ben. The Commander and I were just discussing an escape plan.”
Lisa smirked and looked out the bay.
“Great,” Ben said. “When do we get started?”
Rick said something Lisa didn’t catch; she was too mesmerized by what was occurring outside the ship: The stars were becoming tentative, strung out, as if trailing threads of light behind them.
My God! She realized what she was seeing. The Zentraedi were beginning a fold operation!
* * *
Back onboard the SDF-1 the period of anxious waiting had ended an hour ago with the restoration of wide-range radar. But a new period of apprehension had just begun. The bridge had lost communication with the Cat’s-Eye recon and the VTs of the Vermilion Team, and now there was evidence of fluctuations in the timespace continuum of that area. Most of the massive enemy ships had disappeared from the scanner screen, but numerous small ships and battle mecha were still swirling around the fortress. Gloval was certain that half the fleet had executed a spacefold.
In all his long years of military command, Gloval had never faced a more unpredictable foe. They had crippled his ship, threatened him with extinction, demanded surrender, and suddenly disappeared off the scopes. Gloval was perplexed.
He instructed Sammie to try to raise Commander Hayes again.
“Negative response, sir. I can’t raise anyone at all in that Veritech group.”
Have we lost them? Gloval wondered. Please, not Lisa!
“Sir, we can’t just give up on them,” said Sammie.
“It could be radio trouble,” Claudia said.
“I’m not about to give up on them,” Gloval said at last. “But we can’t afford to sit here and wait for the enemy to return and make good their threats.” He hung his head. “We’ll give them twelve hours. Claudia, if we’ve had no contact with them by then, I want the ship out of this quadrant by oh-six-hundred hours. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Captain. And about Commander Hayes… and Lieutenant Hunter and his men?”
“Enter their names on the list,” Gloval responded flatly. “Missing in action and presumed dead.”
* * *
Roy Fokker seldom visited Macross City, and when he did it was usually at Claudia’s insistence—dinner somewhere, a movie, or the Miss Macross pageant a while back. It wasn’t that he didn’t like the place, just that he had little use for it. Its presence onboard the SDF-1 had all but undermined the ship’s original purpose. The SDF-1 was to be Earth’s guardian and defender, not surrogate or microcosm, and certainly not decoy. As one of the men (along with Dr. Lang and Colonel Edwards) who had first explored the ship shortly after its arrival on Earth, Fokker had a profound attachment to her. But the spacefold accident and this resulting city had devitalized that attachment, and for the past year Fokker had come to feel more the hopeless prisoner than anything else.
His motivations for visiting the city today, however, had nothing to do with entertainment or a lover’s obligation; he was here because duty demanded it of him. Rick had been MIA for almost two weeks now, and there were people who had to be told.
Two weeks missing in action, Roy told himself. Was it still too early to grieve, or was it too late? Wouldn’t he be able to feel the truth one way or another in his heart? Their friendship went so far back… Pop Hunter’s flying circus, the fateful day Rick had turned up on Macross Island, their first mission together—
What was the use of tormenting himself? When he did search his heart for feelings, he found his “Little Brother” alive—this was a certainty. And yet, his mind would ask, what were the odds they would ever see each other again? The SDF-1 was a million miles from that area in space where Rick and the others had last been heard from, way beyond the range of any VT. And did it ease the pain any to think of him as a prisoner? The Zentraedi weren’t likely to hold him hostage, not when they had an entire planet at their disposal. So maybe it was better to believe the worst, accept his death and get the grief behind him. Then he could at least remove himself from this timeless agony and begin to court the future once again.
It might have been the need for partnership in grief that led Roy to seek out Minmei. He, too, had been attracted to the blue-eyed Chinese girl from the start, and he liked to think that there was some special bond there, even though Minmei rarely acknowledged it by words or actions. But that wasn’t her style, anyway. Especially now that she was on the brink of stardom. In fact, the “Queen of Macross” was going to be headlining a concert at the Star Bowl on Monday night.
Soon she was coming down the sidewalk toward him, flanked by two of her woman friends and looking the starlet part in some sort of green military-chic shorts outfit, complete with epaulets and rank stripes. Roy recognized it as the piece she’d worn for the Defense Force enlistment posters that had begun to show up all over the city.
Roy had been waiting for her outside the White Dragon. As she approached, he straightened up to his full height, tugged down on his belted jacket, and waved to her.
She came at him with a big smile, increasing her pace and excusing herself from her friends. Right off, she wanted to know if Rick was with him.
He returned the smile, strained though it was, and suggested they take a walk together. She looked at him questioningly.
“Why, Roy? What’s happened?”
“Come on, walk with me a minute.”
She pulled back when he tried to take her arm.
“I don’t want to take a walk, Roy! What’s happened? Where’s Rick? Has something happened to Rick?”
Roy faced her, placing both hands on her shoulders, towering over her. He met her eyes and held them as he explained.
Halfway through the explanation she was shaking her head, refusing to believe him. “He’s dead!”
“Minmei, listen, please don’t think he’s dead—we don’t know that for sure.”
Roy was doing just what he had promised himself he wouldn’t do. And she was inconsolable. She twisted free of his hold.
“I don’t want to hear anymore! You’re a liar, and I hate you!”
She glared at him, turned, and ran off.
Her friends offered him sympathetic smiles. Roy stood with them, feeling utterly helpless. He sucked in breath and tears and clenched his teeth.
* * *
Minmei ran to their bench in the park.
It was a special bench, set apart from the others in Macross Central, tucked away on a small subtier of its own overhung by the full branches of an oak tree and surrounded by flowering plants and thick bushes. It was almost a secret place, curiously unfrequented by park users, with an incredible view of the city spread out below and the closest view possible through the enormous starlight in the ship’s hull. Rick used to say that it was their balcony “with a view of forever.”
They spent many long hours here—after their two-week ordeal together, before Rick had joined the Defense Force, and before Minmei had been crowned “Queen”… She had listened to Rick talk about the horrors of space battle, his victories and defeats, his fears and dreams. And he had listened to her fears, her plans for the future, her song lyrics, her dreams.
And now—
Why did this have to happen? Why, when everything in her life was so wonderful, did tragedy have to visit? Why did this collision of dream and reality always have to occur?—as if no good fortune was possible without a balancing amount of evil. What sort of god would have set such a mechanism in motion?
Face to face with that portion of the universe revealed by the starlight, Minmei began to cry. Later she would bang her fists against the rail of the balcony and curse those stars, then sink back against the wooden slats of the bench and surrender to her sorrow. And ultimately she would retrieve from her handbag a penlight she carried there, and, aiming it toward the ship’s bay, she would click it on and off, again and again, a light signal into “forever” of her undying affection for him.