“I’ll tell ya somethin’ about your Lynn-Kyle,” Max said. “He might be anti-military, but he’s no pacifist. What’d ya think, Gandhi could do spin kicks?”
The Collected Journals of Admiral Rick Hunter
KYLE WAITED, SERENE AND UNMOVING.
“No! No!” Lisa breathed, seeing them close in on him. It would be too much like having gentle Karl Riber beaten up. But there was nothing she could do; it was all she and the Terrible Trio could do to hold their own against the peripheral crowd members.
Rick wondered later if Max Sterling knew all along—or had at least guessed—what was to happen next and had deliberately thrown that first opponent Kyle’s way. Max, in his supremely humble way, assured Rick that such a thing was preposterous. Rick might have believed him more if he hadn’t seen the things Max could do in combat.
The first two were a pair of stumblebums; barely moving at all, Kyle disposed of them contemptuously with foot sweeps, evasions, leg trips, and beginner’s-class shoulder throws.
That drew the attention of the men waiting for another crack at Max and Rick; more and more of them came at Kyle.
Minmei’s cousin seemed to have chosen a particular spot on the floor and decided to defend it—not from preference but rather as an exercise of will and proficiency. Certainly, the fight didn’t seem like much of a challenge—at least at first.
There was a lot of aikido in his style, plus bando, some judo, uichiryu, and a lot of stuff Rick couldn’t identify. It wasn’t until he was pressed very hard that Kyle used his feet, and after that there were teeth and blood on his area of the White Dragon’s floor.
Defending himself on several fronts, Kyle didn’t seem to notice the roughhouser closing in behind him. Lisa happened to see it, and she had the weird impression that he knew what was coming and chose to undergo it as a sort of test, as if he wanted to be hurt.
Be that as it may, the big bruiser got Kyle in a full nelson, and somebody else tagged him good and hard on the mouth. Kyle didn’t seem to feel it much; he shrugged down out of the hold with some fluid move, sidekicking the man who’d done the punching so that he went down and stayed down.
Then Kyle whirled and brought the flat of his hand in an unsweeping blow along the face of the one who’d held him. The man reeled back, face leaking crimson but not as badly as he would have been if Lynn-Kyle had been truly angry.
Kyle had taken just enough of the pressure off Rick and Max so that they were doing okay again. They’d both taken more than a few shots and at one time or another had, between them, squared off with just about everybody on the other side of what had become a minor war. The opponents were bouncing back more slowly now, and many of them were out of it for good.
As for Lynn-Kyle, he was a whirlwind, leaping over and ducking under, spin kicking but never surrendering the spot he’d chosen to defend in the middle of the White Dragon. He jumped impossibly high, out of the way of a powerful kick, got his opponent in a wristlock, and rammed him headfirst into a man who was attacking from the opposite side.
It was an amazing demonstration, like some martial-arts fantasy, marking the beginning of Lynn-Kyle’s legend on the SDF-1. But it should be remembered that for the most part he was facing antagonists who’d already been around the dance floor once or even twice—and in some more insistent cases three times—with Rick and Max.
At one point, Rick put away a shaven-headed tough who’d been trying to gouge his eyes, working fast, jabbing combinations with knuckles that were long since lacerated and bleeding. He turned and saw Kyle, leaping high, lash out with the sword edge of his left foot and down another opponent.
Rick wiped blood from his face. “Hey, Kyle! Why don’tcha hand him a pamphlet?”
Rick went back to his own fight. Kyle made no response but wondered if the VT pilot knew how deeply that jape—and the dissonance of this violence—upset Kyle’s inner harmonies.
The fight didn’t so much end as slow to a halt; at last there was no one to come at them again. Rick was left sitting on the floor, huffing and puffing, bone-weary and sore all over. Max was panting, too, leaning against a wall, blood seeping from a swollen, split lip, his ribs starting to ache where somebody’s knee had gotten a piece of him.
Lisa and the Terrible Trio were standing by the line of brawlers they’d taken out of the action, having neatly composed some of them as if for sleep. Lynn-Kyle stood squarely on the spot he’d chosen to defend in the middle of his family’s restaurant.
“You okay, Rick?” Max panted.
Rick was too tired to do anything but nod slowly, tonguing a tooth that felt like it had been loosened. He felt a certain dread: There were some inflexible laws aboard the SDF-1, mandated by the insanely unlikely circumstances of so many civilians and service people thrown together in such close quarters for such a long time.
Many of those laws had to do with “No Fighting with the Townies!” Rick figured Gloval was going to be mildly crazy about all of this. Then it occurred to Lieutenant Hunter to think about the bigger picture, about what was happening all over the super dimensional fortress in the wake of the Boogieman’s announcement.
We’ll be lucky if there is an SDF-1 by tonight! he realized.
Lisa and the Terrible Trio were dusting their hands off, making a few first-aid suggestions to the people they’d taken out of the action. It occurred to Rick that without them, he and Max and even Kyle would have gone down, martial arts notwithstanding. Minmei was gazing at Kyle with stars and hearts and flowers in her eyes.
“Oh, Kyle, I’m so proud of you! Are you okay?” She threw her arms around his neck.
Lynn-Kyle only nodded and made a soft, “Mm hmm.”
“‘Okay’?” Rick sniggered tiredly, and spit out a gobbet of blood.
Max had come upright, staring at Kyle strangely. “They barely laid a hand on you.” Kyle only looked down at the floor like some demure maiden.
Men who had been in the fight were helping each other to their feet, staunching blood flows, helping hobbling friends. One tucked an injured hand into his shirtfront with much pain, wiped the blood from his broken nose, and said grudgingly, “He’s the best I’ve seen or fought against. That’s the truth.”
“Yeah,” said Max Sterling reflectively. “He’s got moves I never saw before. Doesn’t make sense.” He went over toward Kyle, and Rick hauled his aching body to its feet, prepared to back up his friend if the ultimate slugfest were to begin.
There was a sudden, particular something in Max’s manner now: an acuity, an unveiled dangerousness, that the aw-shucks everyday Sterling demeanor usually shrouded.
But Max only stood looking at Kyle, and Kyle back at Max. Max said after a moment, “You’re a pretty well-trained fighter for someone who doesn’t like to fight.”
They stood measuring each other. On the one hand was quiet, bespectacled Max, with his natural gifts, miraculous coordination, and speed so superior that he could afford to be humble in all things—already a Robotech legend. Unassuming and kind unless some evil threatened. Max the placid and benign, truer to what Kyle aspired to be, in a way, than Kyle himself.
On the other hand was Kyle, seemingly apart from any worldly consideration or motivation, his incredible martial-arts skills just a reflection of things that relentlessly drove him for spiritual transcendence. People sought him, virtually courted him, sensing that he’d passed beyond everything that was superficial, and wanting—what? His attention and approval? His friendship? He didn’t have them to give.
But people wanted it more than anything. Kyle’s gift was a kind of cold invulnerability that brought him close to being superhuman for the most dire and yet formidable reasons, reasons that combined the very best and the very worst in him.
Those who knew certain spiritual and fighting systems could see the symptoms in him: all things lay within his grasp, excepting only that which he wanted most. So his innermost passions had been brought under control by an act of will, the dark side of his nature subdued in a battle that made lesser contests, mere physical duels, seem childishly easy.
And that made for a powerful fighter who was without fear and who would give obeisance to the very best conventional values—while his inner being fought an endless war.
Some of the people who were in the White Dragon that day later swore that the very air between Max and Kyle crackled like a kind of summer lightning or perhaps the terrifying glow between two segments of a critical mass being brought too close together.
But Kyle lowered his eyes to the floor and said softly, “It was just something that had to be done, I guess.” His head came up, and he looked about at the men he’d bested. “I’m sorry.” A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth down to his chin.
Minmei was deciding how best to show her concern for Kyle, when Lisa stepped up to him, holding a scented, daintily folded little handkerchief in her hand. This was the woman who’d kept a rioter from pouncing on Kyle two minutes earlier by bringing down a chair on his head.
“You’re bleeding! Maybe this’ll help.”
He drew away from it as if it carried plague, but his voice was still soft and measured. “Please don’t bother. I’d rather not have help from any of you people. But thank you, anyway.”
She was shattered. “I see.”
Minmei was quick to see her opening and use it, snatching the handkerchief from Lisa’s upturned palm. “That’s right; Kyle dislikes servicemen.”
Lisa stared at the floor and hoped the hot red flush of anger in her cheeks didn’t show too much. Servicemen?
“Let me help,” Minmei said, dabbing at the wound on his cheek.
Kyle hissed in pain. “It hurts if you press too hard.”
She drew a quick breath. “Oh, Kyle, please forgive me!”
Punches and kicks hadn’t seemed to bother him that much. “Is he for real or am I crazy?” Max muttered. Rick shrugged; if he hadn’t just seen Kyle take care of some of the more hard-core rowdies aboard the SDF-1, he would have said Minmei’s cousin was a complete wimp.
If it was an act, it was brilliant. The bridge bunnies were oozing sympathy for Kyle, and somebody was going to have to stick a stretcher under Commander Hayes if she got any more emotional over his well-being, while Minmei glared at all the other women jealously and shielded Kyle from them as much as she could. Miss Macross stroked her cousin’s arm with a proprietary air.
Rick turned to Max, feeling the swelling on his own forehead and the throbbing of assorted contusions suffered in the riot. “Max, if you’re asking me, the answer is yes!” Rick told him.
* * *
Azonia, mistress and overlord of the Zentraedi, surveyed the strategic situation from the command post of her nine-mile-long flagship.
Matters were coming to a head. She was determined that this would be the proof of her abilities. A stellar chance! Once she defeated these Micronian upstarts, the universe would be hers. Supreme commander? That would lie well within her grasp, and farewell, Dolza!
Or perhaps she would become the new Robotech Mistress. Others had played that dangerous game, only to lose. But none played it as well as she, Azonia was confident.
She was less than happy at the moment, however, having just been informed that Khyron, the mad genius of war, had again disobeyed her orders.
Azonia rose to her feet from the thronelike command chair on the bridge of her own vaunted, combat-tested battleship, fury striking from her like lightning as though she were a goddess who could smash worlds.
And, in fact, Azonia was.
“What? Are you saying Khyron left the fleet’s holding formation in violation of my orders?”
The communications officer knew that tone of voice and was quick to genuflect before her, then touch her forehead in abasement. “Yes, Commander.”
She was tall even for a Zentraedi woman, some fifty-five feet and more. Her mannishly short hair had been dyed blue, not because she cared for meaningless fads but rather so she would not be thought unaware.
She had exotic, oblique eyes that were piercing beam weapons of intellect that had served Azonia’s rise beyond her contemporaries to the very pinnacle of Zentraedi command. “That is all,” she said coldly.
“Yes, Commander.” The messenger withdrew quickly and very gratefully; beheading the bearer of bad news was a not-uncommon Zentraedi custom, which among other things served to keep the lower orders in their place. She was glad—and lucky—to have her life.
But Azonia had dismissed the messenger from her mind completely; her concentration was all for the problem at hand. Technical readouts and displays told her all the details she needed to know: The Backstabber, with a strike force from his infamous Seventh Mechanized Division had, by Robotech fission, detached a major vessel-form from his own flagship and was proceeding at flank speed toward the spot where the Micronians had landed their stolen starship.
Azonia touched a control almost languidly. Close-up details showed streamers of fire and ionization trailing from Khyron’s craft, its outermost skin glowing red-hot; he was making his entry into the Earth’s atmosphere at a madly acute angle, risking severe friction damage.
Azonia had sufficient experience to know that Khyron and his attack troops were sitting out a roller coaster ride in an oven, all in the name of a possible extra few minutes of surprise.
It was so audacious. It was so willful, so disdainful of anyone’s criticism or interference. So Zentraedi. Azonia resumed her throne, chin on fist. “Khyron, what have you come up with this time, eh?”
She was in some small part envious, sorry that she wouldn’t be there for the fight. With Khyron in charge, there was sure to be a splendid battle, bloodshed—that highest glory that was conquest.
On a previous venture, Khyron had been yanked from his objective at the last moment by Breetai’s manual-override return command, which had caused the Backstabber’s war machines to return to the fleet despite his countermanding orders. Khyron had apparently taken steps to ensure that it couldn’t happen to him again.
By now the Earthlings would be hearing the peal of Khyron’s thunder. Azonia, eyes slitted like a cat’s, savored the moment, knowing she couldn’t lose either way. If the Backstabber won, the credit would go to her as armada commander, she would make sure of that; if he lost and was unfortunate or unwise enough to return to the fleet, she would have the pleasure of executing him herself.
Azonia savored the thought. Violence and death and a certain sensual cruelty were things to command any Zentraedi’s emotions. Khyron was becoming quite intriguing.
Azonia watched the displays with feline glee. Decorate him, kill him; she was equally eager to do either one.