We had met the enemy, and he wasn’t us. Then we wound up in front of some of “us,” and they were the enemy.
Lisa Hayes, Recollections
“PLEASE CONTINUE YOUR REPORT, COMMANDER HAYES,” THE captain bade her.
They sat in high-back chairs along the gleaming conference room table, all in a row. A short time ago they’d been greeted as heroes, but now—despite Captain Gloval’s comforting presence—Lisa felt very much as if she were sitting before a board of inquiry.
Lisa, Rick, Ben, and Max looked across the long, wide table at the row of four member officers of the evaluation team. Only one of them held rank in one of the combat arms, Colonel Maistroff, an Air Group officer with a reputation as a martinet and stuffed shirt.
The others were intelligence and operations staffers, though the bearded and balding Major Aldershot was supposed to be something of a mainstay over at G3 Operations and had earned a Combat Infantry Star in his youth. The team studied the escapees as if they were something on a microscope slide.
Gloval, presiding at the head of the table, was encouraging Lisa. “You are certain that what you’ve made is a fair estimate? At this Zentraedi central base there are really that many more ships than we’ve already seen?” The comlink handset next to him began beeping softly; he ignored it.
Lisa thought carefully. So many things about their captivity in the planetoid-size enemy base, a spacefold jump away—somewhere else in the universe—were astounding and unnerving that she rechecked her recollections again, minutely.
Rick looked over to her, and their eyes met. He didn’t nod; that might have tainted her testimony. But she saw that he was ready to back her up.
“Yes, sir, at least that many. And quite possibly millions more. I made a conservative estimate.”
Gloval, hand on the phone, looked to Rick. “Truly?”
Rick nodded. “Yes, sir. That many.”
Gloval listened to the handset for a moment, then replaced it in its cradle without responding. “Based on all combined reports,” he resumed, “our computers place the total enemy resources at somewhere between four and five million ships.”
“Sir, forgive me, but that’s ridiculous,” one team member said. From the security branch, he was the officer who’d been all for destroying the escapees’ pod. “Our projections are based on the most accurate data and statistical techniques known.
“No species could accumulate that sort of power! And even if they could, they couldn’t possibly remain at the primitive social and psychological level of these aliens!”
“Now, granted, we’re seeing a great deal of military display here,” the intel man, a portly fellow in his early thirties, added. “But how many of those ships have actually proved themselves to be combat-ready? A comparative handful! No, Captain; I think what we’re seeing is just a bluff. And I think your people here have been taken in by it. My analysis is that Commander Hayes and her party were permitted to escape so that they could bring us this… hysterical report and demoralize us.”
“Permitted?” Ben Dixon was halfway out of his chair, the big hands clenched into fists, about to leap across the table and pummel the intel officer. “D’ you know how many times we almost got killed? How close we came to not making it? When was the last time you saw any action, you—”
“Captain!” the intelligence officer burst out to Gloval by way of complaint.
“That will do!” Gloval thundered, and there was sudden silence as Max Sterling and Rick Hunter pulled Ben back.
Having shown his Jovian side for an instant, Gloval lapsed back into a reasonable voice. “Gentlemen, let’s hear the entire report before discussing it.” It wasn’t a suggestion, and everybody understood that. The debriefing team subsided.
Lisa had thought her words out carefully. “In the course of our captivity, we observed that the aliens have absolutely no concept of human emotions. They’ve been groomed entirely for war. And their society is organized along purely military lines.
“It appears that they’ve increased their physical size and strength artificially through genetic manipulation and that they also have the ability to reverse the process.”
The others present were studying the few video records she’d managed to make surreptitiously during captivity, but Lisa’s memory, with Rick’s, Ben’s, and Max’s, provided vivid and chilling recollections. They’d witnessed Zentraedi trans-vid records of the destruction of an entire planet, seen the gigantic Protoculture sizing chambers the aliens used to manipulate their size and structure, felt the deathly squeeze of Commander-in-Chief Dolza’s fist around them.
And something else had happened, something Lisa could only bring herself to refer to obliquely. The enemy leaders had been repulsed, but fascinated, by the human custom of kissing. At their demand, and to ascertain what effect it would have on them, Lisa and Rick had kissed, long and deeply, on an enemy conference table as big as a playing field.
None of the four escapees had mentioned the kiss. Lisa still wasn’t sure exactly what it was she’d felt afterward. She suspected that Rick was also a little confused, in spite of his love affair with the girl called Minmei. Max and Ben had kept silent. Rick’s friends as well as his wingmates.
Lisa finished, “And I think this last part is very important: While they examined and interrogated us, they constantly made reference to something they called ‘Protoculture.’”
The intel officer who had almost been attacked by Ben Dixon tilted his chair back arrogantly. “That’s pure fantasy.”
His security buddy added, “And were there any little green men?”
Major Aldershot glanced around at him stiffly, the ends of his waxed mustache seeming to bristle. “I will point out that the commander is a much-decorated soldier. This insulting levity is unbecoming from someone who has yet to prove himself under fire.” It was the most he’d said all morning.
“What is this ‘Protoculture’?” Gloval put things back on track. Lisa hesitated before answering. “It’s apparently something that relates to their use of Robotech. I’m not sure, but they think that Protoculture is the highest science in the universe and that somehow we possess some of its deepest secrets.”
Colonel Maistroff said with a sly grin to the other evaluation team officers, “Too deep for me!” and guffawed at his own joke.
The intel and security officers roared spitefully along with him as Lisa’s cheeks colored and Rick felt himself flush in anger.
“Silence!” Gloval barked. It was instantly quiet. “This is a very grave moment. This alien armada has pursued and harried us across the solar system for almost a year and yet has never made an all-out attempt to destroy us; perhaps we do possess a power in the SDF-1 that we don’t fully understand.”
That was a good bet, the way Rick saw it. Even the brilliant Dr. Lang understood only a fraction of the alien ship’s secrets, and he was the one who had masterminded its reconstruction from a burned and battered wreck.
Maistroff fixed Lisa with a gimlet stare, red-faced at being rebuked in front of junior officers. “Commander Hayes, is that all?”
Lisa met his glare. “Yes, sir, that’s all.”
Ben whispered to Rick, “I don’t think they believe us.” Ben wasn’t exactly point man on the genius roster, and the idea that such a thing could happen had never occurred to him until the debriefing was well along.
“It’s probably the dishonest expression on your face,” Rick whispered back absently.
Maistroff placed both hands flat on the table and turned to Gloval. “Do you really believe this wild tale? It’s enemy trickery! Hallucinations!”
Gloval began stoking up his evil-smelling briar, tamping the tobacco slowly with his thumb, pondering, “This information must be correlated and reported to Earth immediately, whether I believe it or not—”
Maistroff interrupted him, saying tightly and too quickly, “I’ll send a coded message right away—”
“—Colonel Maistroff.” It was Gloval’s turn to interrupt. “No, you won’t.” He lit his briar while they all gaped at him.
Gloval said, “We’ve got to break through the enemy elements that stand between the SDF-1 and our homeworld.”
The evaluation team was aghast, Maistroff shouting, “We can’t make it!”
Rick looked around and saw that everybody on his side of the table thought it was a magnificent idea. Gloval rose. “At our current speed, we are only two days from Earth, and they must have this information.” He started for the hatch.
Maistroff scowled at Gloval’s back. “And then what?”
The captain answered over his shoulder. “And then nothing. We just await orders while we relax, Colonel Maistroff.”
He cut through all their protests. “That will be all, gentlemen.”
Gloval turned to the escapees. “And as for you four…” They all shot to their feet at rigid attention.
“At least for the time being, you’ll be relieved of duty. You’ve earned a little R and R. You’re dismissed.”
The four saluted him happily. “Enjoy yourselves,” Gloval said gruffly, puffing his pipe. They did a precise right-face and marched out of the conference room in style. But at the last moment, Gloval removed his pipe from his mouth and called, “One moment, Lisa.”
The others continued on. Lisa paused at the hatch and turned back to him. “Yes, Captain?”
“Personally, I am inclined to believe that your report is accurate. However…”
“Certainly,” she said. “Thank you, Captain. I know you believe in us, and I appreciate that.”
“I’m glad you understand.”
The door slid open again, and she turned and left. Gloval, looking back to the debriefing team, saw that the fact that he’d chosen to tell Lisa what he did, where he did, wasn’t lost on them.
* * *
“I’d rather face the aliens again than that bunch of brass,” Max Sterling told Rick as they walked down the passageway. They were walking side by side, with Ben behind. They could hear Lisa’s quick footsteps as she fell in at the rear.
“Gloval wasn’t so bad, and that Major Aldershot,” Ben said.
“They’re only doing their job,” Rick maintained. “I’d feel the same way in their place.”
“Sure you would,” Lisa put it, a little surprised that Rick Hunter had been so transformed from a headstrong discipline problem to a trained military man who understood why and how the service functioned. “And they’d feel exactly the same way we do in ours.”
“That’s right; why not look on the bright side,” Ben said. Rick looked back to Ben but found himself making eye contact with Lisa. He looked ahead again quickly, in turmoil, not sure what he felt.
“After all, all of us were promoted, weren’t we?” Ben went on, noticing nothing, very jolly. “And we’re going home to a big hero’s welcome! So why not relax and enjoy the rest and recreation Captain Gloval gave us?” He clapped Rick on the shoulder, staggering him.
Rick looked back at him sourly. “You could probably relax in the dentist’s chair, Ben.”
* * *
“Are you sure this is the right way?” Konda asked nervously, watching the elevator’s floor-indicator lights count down toward One.
“We’re headed for the area of greatest activity in this battle fortress,” Rico said confidently. “Surely the most important concentration of military secrets will be there.”
“I still think we should be trying to reach the bridge,” Bron grumbled.
The elevator stopped, and the doors parted. A brilliant ray of light broke on them. The three spies stood rooted, making astounded, strangled sounds.
Before them was Macross City in all its glory. The streets were jammed with traffic; the sidewalks were crowded with busy, hurrying people. Streetlights and signs and headlights shone, as did the starlight projected by the Enhanced Video Emulation system. Display windows were filled with clothing and appliances, books, furniture, and an astonishing variety of other goods.
Rico gulped and found his voice. “There’s so much to spy on! Where should we start?”
Konda drew a deep breath. “Perhaps we should just mingle with the Micronians and observe their habits.”
They gathered their courage and stepped out. Humans were everywhere, alone and in pairs and bigger groups, all going every which way. Some were in military uniforms, but in general everybody was dressed differently. Reassured that he and his companions wouldn’t be noticed, Bron pulled up his knee socks and smoothed the pleats in his skirt.
It took all their self-control not to shout upon seeing male and female Micronians mingling freely. No officers or overseers were in immediate evidence, although it was just as plain as could be to the Zentraedi that such hivelike activity would be totally impossible without some strong central control. Still, there were humans who strode along purposefully while others stood idly conversing and still others browsed along, glancing through the gleaming store windows.
And nobody, nobody, was in step with anybody else.
They started off, observing carefully. Bron said, “Well, I think there’s a good chance we’re going to be observing them for a very long time before we figure them out.”
They came to a window-shopper, a young man staring longingly at a display in a music store, eyes fixed on a red crystal electric guitar that had three necks and a set of speakers bigger than public comcircuit booths.
“What d’you suppose he’s doing?” Bron whispered.
Rico considered, then smiled in sudden realization. “Taking inventory!”
Bron and Konda murmured, “Ahh!” and nodded knowingly.