What they never asked themselves was whether Khyron would have behaved as he did if it hadn’t been for the accursed Micronians! I hated Micronians, too; we all did. It was just that Khyron was better at it.
Grel, aide to Khyron
REACTING FASTER THAN BRON, KONDA JUST MANAGED TO GRAB Rico’s sleeve and keep him from falling beyond reach. Then Bron was there to help pull his companion back out of the abyss.
It was a long drop, into a type of machinery they hadn’t seen in the battle fortress before. Rico lay puffing and gasping, white-faced. “What kind of insane place is this?”
* * *
Elsewhere, the titanic booms that were the battle fortress’s bow were rotated to either side by monster camlike devices. Whole sections of hull moved and slid, opening the ship’s interior to the vacuum of space as precious atmosphere escaped. Giant armor curtains slid into place to seal the gaps, but not before there was grievous loss of the very breath of life. The SDF-1’s life support systems would eventually replace it, but the inhabitants of Macross would be living under the same atmospheric conditions as Andean Indians for a while—if they survived.
Enormous pylons the dimensions of a city block rose from the floor and descended from the ceiling, crushing the buildings in their way. The grinding of servomotors shook every bolt and rivet in the ship.
Scraps of buildings, torn loose by the outpouring of air, were whirled around like leaves in a cyclone. Macross City was being leveled.
The three spies went dashing down the middle of a broad, empty street, dodging a falling sign here, a broken cornice there. Utility poles toppled, whipping live power lines around like snapping, spitting snakes. Konda puffed, “I think it would be advisable for us to take cover as soon as—”
He never got to finish. Just then, the ship’s internal gravity fields shifted from the effect of the massive power drains of the transformation.
The three went floating into the air among drifting automobiles, scraps of roofing material, uprooted trees, and spinning trash barrels.
* * *
All through the great fortress, modules shifted, and billboard-size hatches closed here, opened there.
The full-ship transformation had the two Thor-class flattops, Daedalus and Prometheus, swinging out from the SDF-1’s sides by the elbowlike housings that joined them to the ship. The midships structure that housed the bridge and so many other critical areas rotated, coming end for end into the center like a spinning torso.
Inside, cyclopean power columns met and latched as cables snaked out to connect with them and complete the new configuration.
Gloval fought to stifle his impatience; the ship was nearly helpless while undergoing transformation, but there was absolutely no way of hurrying it. And there was no alternative: The SDF-1’s main gun couldn’t be fired in any other configuration because the ship spacefold apparatus had simply vanished after that first disastrous jump from Earth to Pluto. The transformation was a kind of glorified hot-wiring, bringing together components that would otherwise be out of each other’s reach.
“Starboard wing section transformation seventy-five percent complete,” Vanessa said.
“Port wing section transformation complete,” Kim added. “Now connecting to defensive power system.”
“Enemy vessels approaching in attack formation,” Lisa said, her face lit by her screens. “Estimated intercept in fifty-three seconds. Ghost and Vermilion teams on station to engage.”
The battle fortress had become a tremendous armored ultratech warrior standing, straddle-legged, in space, awaiting its enemies. They swooped at it eagerly.
“The enemy’s within range of our main gun, sir,” Kim said.
From Vanessa: “Fighter ops reports all Veritechs clear of the line of fire.”
“Transformation complete, Captain,” Sammie told Gloval.
“Fire!” Gloval growled.
The safety shield had been retracted from the main gun’s trigger. Lisa pressed the red button hard.
Tongues of starflame began shooting back and forth between the booms that constituted the gargantuan main gun, whirling and crackling like living serpents of energy.
The blizzard of energy grew thicker, more intense. Then it leapt away, straight out from the booms, merging and growing brighter until suddenly there was a virtual river of orange-white annihilation, as broad and high as the ship itself.
The hell-beam tore through space. The first ten heavyweight warships from Khyron’s contingent flared briefly, like matches in the middle of a Veritech’s afterblast. In a split second their shields failed, their armor vaporized, and they were gone.
* * *
Khyron’s handsome face was distorted like a maniac’s. “We must press the attack! Move the next wave in!” The Zentraedi warrior’s code could forgive audacity—even direct disobedience—from an officer who won. But defeat might very well be unforgivable and earn him the death penalty.
More heavy ships-of-the-line moved up, firing plasma cannon and annihilation discs. The SDF-1 shook and resounded from the first hits. There were a few gasps on the bridge, but Gloval and the bridge crew concentrated on their jobs.
The enemy dreadnoughts’ blue-fire cannon volleys rained on the SDF-1 as Khyron’s second attack wave bored in.
The three green-white discs of the dimensional fortress’s pinpoint barrier system, each bigger than a baseball infield, slid along the ship’s surface like spotlight circles. The disaster of the spacefold equipment’s disappearance had left the vessel unable to protect itself completely; the pin-point system was the stopgap defense developed by the resident Robotech genius, Dr. Lang.
Now, the female enlisted-rating techs who operated the pinpoints sweated and flickered their eyes from ship’s schematics to threat-display screens to readouts from the prioritization computers. In a frantic effort to block enemy beams they spun and twirled the spherical controls that moved the pin-point barrier shield loci across the ship’s hull.
The circles of light slid and flashed across the battle fortress’s superalloy skin. Enemy beams that hit them simply dissipated, changing the locicircles into a series of concentric, rippling rings for a split second. Then the circles came back to full strength, racing off to intercept another shot.
No one had ever done that kind of work before, and the three young women were good at what they did—experts by necessity. But sometimes, unavoidably, they missed…
* * *
The SDF-1 shuddered at another impact. “Starboard engine has been hit,” Claudia informed Gloval without looking up from her console.
Gloval said nothing but worried much. Even now, a decade and more after the SDF-1’s original appearance and crash landing on Earth, nobody understood very much about its enigmatic, sealed power plants—not even the brilliant Lang. What would happen if an engine were broached? Gloval didn’t spare time to worry about it.
The bad news was coming fast. “Industrial section hit.” “Sector twenty-seven completely nonfunctioning.”
Claudia looked to Gloval. “The pin-point barrier is losing power.”
Gloval didn’t permit himself to show his dismay. Now what? he thought. We’ve fought so hard, endured so much, come close. “Keep firing the main battery!” he said, aloud.
Lisa knew how to read him so well after all these years. Look at him, she thought. It’s hopeless! I know it!
“Lisa, didn’t you hear the order?” Claudia was yelling, a little desperately.
“Yes,” Lisa said resolutely. She pressed the trigger again. Another unimaginable flood of utter destruction leapt out to devour the second Zentraedi wave.
In her command center, Azonia watched a dozen proud Zentraedi warships vanish from the tactical display screens.
“That imbecile Khyron! What does he think he’s doing? He has no authority whatsoever for this attack!”
Yaita, her aide, said laconically, “No, Commander.” Then, “Therefore, what are your orders?”
In an event of this magnitude there was opportunity for the right junior officer to get herself noticed, perhaps even mentioned in dispatches to Dolza’s headquarters. Interfering with the unstable battle lord risked a confrontation, perhaps even combat, but by nature Yaita was a risk taker.
Azonia, even more so. “I shall have to force Khyron to break off his attack myself.”
Yaita said, “You mean to divert part of the fleet blockade? But the enemy vessel might find a way to break through!”
“It can’t be avoided,” Azonia said coldly. “That ship must not be destroyed. Its Protoculture secrets are the key to the Zentraedi’s ultimate victory.”
* * *
Vanessa relayed the information, “The aliens are bringing up reinforcements, Captain; nearly two hundred heavy warships.” She looked up from her console. “Analysis indicates that’s too many for us to handle.”
“The barrier’s weakening rapidly,” Sammie said.
“We’re losing power,” Kim added.
Vanessa watched her tactical screens, ready to give the grim details as the enemy closed in for the kill. But she suddenly had trouble believing what she was seeing. “What’s going on? The reinforcements are breaking formation—spreading out and closing in on the other enemy ships!”
* * *
Khyron watched his trans-vid displays furiously as Azonia’s fleet swept in to close with his own reduced forces. “What is that woman up to now?”
The Micronian vessel was nearly his; he could feel it. I will not be thwarted again!
A projecbeam created an image of Azonia in midair over his head. “Khyron, you fool! Dolza has given you no authority whatsoever to destroy the Earth ship!”
Khyron felt that insane wrath welling up in him once again, a fury so boundless that his vision began to blur. He growled like an animal through locked teeth.
Azonia was saying, “As commander of this force, I am ordering you to cease this attack at once and withdraw to your assigned position—or you will find yourself facing Zentraedi guns!”
Studying the tactical readouts, Grel said, “Captain, her entire arsenal is already being aimed at us.”
Khyron crashed his fist on the map console. “That blasted meddling idiot of a woman!”
He may have been called Khyron the Backstabber by some, but he’d never been called Khyron the Suicide or Khyron the Fool. Azonia had the rest of the armada to back her in this confrontation.
Khyron had no choice. With Azonia’s ships blocking their way, his vessels reduced speed, and the SDF-1 began to put distance between itself and its enemies.
“They’re escaping!” Khyron’s voice was a harsh croak. “And so Azonia robs me of my triumph. But I swear: I shall not forget this!”
Grel had heard that tone in his commander’s voice before. He smiled humorlessly.
If Azonia was wise, she would begin guarding her back at all times.
* * *
The immense Robotech knight that was the SDF-1 descended to Earth’s atmosphere, toward the swirling white clouds and the blue ocean.
“I don’t understand it,” Claudia said. “They screened us from their own attack.”
“I know, but we’ll worry about that after we get back to Earth, Claudia,” Gloval answered.
“Reentry in ten seconds,” she told him.
“Steady as she goes, Lisa,” Gloval ordered calmly. All the equations and theories about how the reconfigured SDF-1 would take its first grounding in Earth-normal gravity were just that: theories. Any one of an almost infinite number of things might go wrong, but there was no alternative. Soon the ship’s crew and inhabitants would find out the truth.
“Atmospheric contact,” Claudia reported.
The giant warrior ship descended on long pillars of blue-white fire that gushed from its thruster legs and from the thrusters built into the bows of Daedalus and Prometheus. “Order all hands to secure for landing,” Gloval directed.
Elsewhere, the strain was beginning to tell. Power surges and outages, overloads and explosions, were lighting up warning indicators all over the bridge.
“Starboard engines have suffered major damage from the reentry, sir,” Claudia said. “And gravity control’s becoming erratic.”
“The explosions have caused some hull breaches, Captain, and we’re losing power quickly,” Lisa put in.
“This is going to be some splashdown,” Gloval muttered to himself. At least the loss of atmosphere didn’t matter anymore; in moments they’d either have all the sweet atmosphere of Earth to breathe or they wouldn’t need air ever again.
Claudia counted off the last few yards of descent. Vast clouds of steam rose from the ocean as the waters boiled from the heat of the drive thrusters. Then the ship hit the water.
At first, the ocean parted around it, bubbling and vaporizing. Then it came rushing back in again, overwhelming even that tremendous heat and blast. SDF-1 sank, sank, the waves crashing against its armor, then racing away from it, until at last it disappeared from sight beneath the churning water.
Moments passed, and the sea began to calm itself again. Suddenly, a spear of metal broke the surface; then three more: the long tines at the tips of the booms of the ship’s main gun. The booms rose, shedding water, and then the bridge. The SDF-1’s shoulder structures came up, and then the elbow housings, until at last Daedalus and Prometheus were up, their flight decks shedding millions of gallons of water.
The calculations were right; SDF-1 was an immense machine, but it was quite buoyant and seaworthy. It gleamed brightly as the seawater streamed down its hull.