So Sammie gave me this puzzled look and said, “But we know perfectly well how bad things look, Claudia. But that’s exactly the time when we should go into town and have fun! Didn’t you know that?”
All I could do was explain that us old folks are often forgetful and send the Terrible Trio on their way. Whatever they have, there’re times when I could sure use some.
Lt. Claudia Grant, in a letter to Lt. Commdr. Roy Fokker
BRON, KONDA, AND RICO LOOKED DOWN AT THE STREET CORNER huckster’s portable table, transfixed by fear, awe, and the deeper impulses that their sojourns among the Micronians had awakened.
“Not available in any store!” the huckster ran through his spiel. “Dancing and singing just like the real thing! Batteries not included. Wouldn’t you love to have a Minmei doll of your very own?”
Bron, hands clasped reverently, nodded furiously, proclaiming, “I’d love to have one of my very own!”
He was squatting now, eyes level with the table, as were his companions. The little mechanical dolls in their bright crimson and gold mandarin robes, black hair bunned and braided like Miss Macross’s, didn’t actually dance; their movements were more like penguins’. But that didn’t stop the gathered children and adolescents from scooping them up.
The huckster, a black-bearded, bald-headed, burly fellow, was doing a land-office business. Nobody even wanted to look at bare-chested swordsman dolls or lovable stuffed cutsies anymore. The girls wanted Minmei, the boys wanted mecha—although sometimes it was just the opposite.
“It must be Robotechnology!” Rico muttered to his companions. And a secret weapon, too, he suspected, from its hypnotic effect on him.
The spies had a hopeless long-distance crush on Minmei and an all-consuming yearning to have one of the dolls. But money was still a problem, as it had been since the beginning of their mission.
“We must seize one of them,” Konda decided. “On my signal—now!”
They came surging up, upsetting the table and knocking the huckster back off balance as he squawked, “Hey, watch it! Ahh!”
The crowd milled, and shoved; Minmei dolls slid or were lofted all over the place as the huckster landed on his rear.
“Grab it!” Konda yelled, and Rico got his hands on one, taking it quickly but lovingly. The fearless espionage agents made their escape in the confusion, clutching their crucial item of enemy technology. They could hear the huckster swearing that somebody would be made to pay.
They didn’t return directly to the hideout they’d established, of course; that would have been poor tactics. They had to make sure they weren’t being pursued.
They couldn’t risk having their refuge compromised; it was filled with critical pieces of human instrumentation, things that would give Commander-in-Chief Dolza and the other Zentraedi lords vital intelligence data and perhaps the key to overcoming the Micronians. There was a piano, an assortment of movie posters, a box of kitchen utensils, radios, TVs and personal computers, a food processor, a bicycle wheel, several street signs, a Miss Macross jigsaw puzzle, and a jumble of broken toys from the city’s charity discard bins that the spies so loved.
Every time they thought about their plunder, the spies’ chests swelled with pride. But this! A Minmei doll! A crowning achievement!
* * *
The Terrible Trio paced through the streets of Macross City in the throes of a real crisis.
Kim groused, “Will you look at us? Walking around town with a day off and nothing to do? No place to go? Ugh, how boring!”
“Ew,” Vannessa agreed.
“Yuck,” Sammie concurred.
To top it all off, they were dressed for a real good time: Vanessa wore white slacks and a Gigiwear sport coat with the sleeves shot back, Sammie was in a prim but cute outfit that looked like she belonged in the Easter parade, and Kim wore a revealing citypants outfit set off by saddle shoes and knee socks.
“And not a man in sight!” Sammie piped up. “It’s a lot worse than just boring!”
An abrupt commotion off to one side drew their attention. With pounding feet, three figures came dashing, just about tumbling, around the corner. There were three guys, a big husky one and a tall lean one and a small, wiry one, panting and frantic. They crowded on top of one another as they hid around the corner, looking back the way they’d come.
The three spies had recently plugged the special Protoculture chip given them by Breetai into an unguarded portion of the SDF-1’s systemry. The towering commander had made it clear that the chip was valuable, irreplaceable, one of a very limited number remaining from the research of Zor himself. The chip would slowly draw on surrounding components and the ship’s power to create a pod for their escape. Exedore had been loath to spend the irreplaceable chip even on so important a mission, but Breetai had decided that the spies’ return must be assured. And so, they must be sure they weren’t pursued.
“Anyone following us, Bron?” the little one said between gulps of air.
“What’s the merchant doing?” the tall, lean one panted.
Gasping for breath, the husky one said, “He seems to be sitting there, trying to get the other dolls back.”
Rico turned, gloating over their prize, holding the little toy up to inspect it gleefully. “Look: Minmei!” The other two bent near, feasting their eyes on it. “Ah!” exclaimed Rico. “Robotech—Robo—uhhh.”
He’d noticed something; when Bron and Konda looked up, they too saw three young Micronian females standing nearby, studying them strangely.
Rico was the one among them with a certain presence of mind. He stood up at once, whisking the doll behind his back, sweating profusely. “Um, hello! W-w-we’re strolling!” The other two nodded diligently in agreement, showing their teeth in unconvincing smiles.
Sammie pointed at them and declared. “Yeah? It looks to me like you’re playing with a Minmei doll!”
“D-d-dunno what you mean!” Rico insisted. But the three spies were terrified that their valiant mission had run its course, defeated by the malevolent Micronian genius for war and intrigue.
Sammie shrugged. “It’s just that I’ve never seen a grown man playing with a doll before.”
“Adults don’t do it?” Bron burst out, trading astounded looks with his cohorts.
Sammie sniggered. “Silly man! Only kids play with dolls.”
The spies reflected on the perversely complicated, often contradictory behavioral code the Micronians maintained—no doubt as a safeguard against infiltration by outsiders. A matter of warped genius, and now it had worked; they had blundered and come to the attention of what appeared to be three patrolling secret police.
Vanessa resettled her glasses and took a closer look at the three nerds she and her friends had stumbled across. “What planet d’ you come from, anyway?”
Bron went, “Duh,” and almost fainted. Konda blurted, “We come from right around here!” and Rico did the best he could, although he was sure they were about to be apprehended and tortured. “Yeah, we work right across the street.” He’d heard somebody say it a day or two before, and it seemed to be some kind of verification or identity-establishing phrase.
The spies had learned about “work,” a noncombat function considered demeaning and suitable only for slaves among the Zentraedi yet somehow desirable and even admirable among the deviate Micronians.
The Terrible Trio looked where he was pointing. It was one of the loudest, most garish spots in Macross City, ablaze with lights and raucous music. The sign over it said, DISCO BAMBOO HOUSE.
Kim clapped her hands. “You mean you work at the disco? We go to the Bamboo House all the time!”
Sammie gave them an even closer look. “I wonder why we’ve never seen any of you there?”
Bron began, “Uh, what is a dis—” before Rico got an elbow into his middle and he subsided.
Sammie grabbed Rico’s wrist. These three guys might be slightly strange, but what the heck? Weird as they were, they worked at the disco, and that would at least mean that they could dance.
“I’ve got an idea,” she said, batting her eyelashes. “Why don’t we all check it out together?”
“What a wonderful idea!” Kim threw a fist in the air in elation.
Vanessa figured it was better than another few hours of trudging around town. “I want the big, handsome one,” she said, winking at Bron. All the color left his face, and his knees knocked.
Sammie was towing Rico into the street; he didn’t dare to resist too much or put up a fight.
“Come with me,” she pouted.
“Can’t we talk this over?” Rico bleated.
Was this as innocent as the females were making it out to be, or were they superlatively well trained counterespionage agents with a clever plan to drive the Zentraedi spies into paranoid madness and thus make them easier to interrogate?
Bron whispered to Konda, “D’ you suppose this disco thing is some Micronian method of torture?”
Kim and Vanessa were looking at them expectantly. Konda hissed, “We must perform our duty as Zentraedi!”
Their chins came up, and their mouths became ruled lines; they advanced bravely to endure whatever sadistic, ultimate torment the experience called “disco” might hold in store.
* * *
The cruiser that had been completely destroyed was only a minor part of Khyron’s titanic flagship, a part that was now slowly being replaced by the organic growth characteristics of Protoculture.
In the command post bubble overlooking the flagship’s bridge, Khyron stood alone, raging at the figure on the projecbeam screen. He’d driven out all his subordinates, even the faithful Grel, determined that they would not witness his helpless fury before the mockery of the woman warrior Miriya.
“How dare you question my leadership abilities?” he railed at her. “Just who do you think you are?”
She stood projected before him, erect and lithe, a tall woman with a flowing mane of green-black hair. She drew herself up even taller. “I am the backbone of the Quadrono Battalion, and the finest combat pilot in all the Zentraedi forces.”
Khyron snarled, “Your ego will one day cause your destruction, Miriya.”
One corner of her mouth tugged upward. “Just as yours caused you to be defeated by the Micronians yet again and made you an object of ridicule to all those whom you command, Backstabber?”
He pointed a finger at her. “Because you have never faced a capable opponent, you believe you’re something special. But take care, little Miriya! For there is one aboard the alien ship whom you cannot best!”
She heard the would-be taunt with calm interest. “So! A superior pilot, a super-ace, aboard the SDF-1? Interesting!”
She smiled just the slightest bit, dimples appearing at the sides of her mouth, giving her a beautifully hungry, dangerously feline look. “I’d like to meet him!”
* * *
Huh! Everything’s phony! Roy thought, looking around the movie set. Somehow he’d never believed it even though that was what people had always said. But the little Shao-lin temple and its shrine and the trees, plants, and grass were all a variety of cunningly fabricated plastic and other synthetics from the ship’s protean Robotech minifactories.
People were running around yelling, mostly being rude to one another. You could tell who was more important, because the other person would just have to stand there and take it. Roy heard things that would have started major fistfights in a barracks, differences in rank notwithstanding.
A man he recognized as Vance Hasslewood, Minmei’s personal manager and now codirector of her movie, was running around being important. “Let’s set up for the next shot!” “Minmei, Kyle: Relax for a few minutes!” “Wardrobe? Listen, sweetie, those blouses are awful!”
Roy tuned him out, strolling around a phony corner and glancing up a phony staircase. “Well, hey!”
Minmei squealed. “Commander Fokker!” and came racing down the steps to him. She wore a Chinese peasant-style tunic and trousers combination, her hair gathered tightly and done up in a long braid in back.
He looked down on her fondly from his rangy height. “How’s everybody’s favorite recording star?”
She gestured around at the lights and all the other equipment. “Trying to be an actress. I get to play the cute little heroine.”
“Sounds like fun,” Roy lied; it looked like appalling drudgery, but then, it was probably tolerable to people who couldn’t fly.
“Oh, it is!” she enthused. “But—where’s Rick? Is he hiding?” She glanced around.
“’Fraid Rick couldn’t make it this time.”
Her hand flew to her mouth. “He’s not hurt, is he?”
“Not seriously, but he’s gonna have to spend some time in the hospital, and I thought you might like to stop in and see him.”
Roy’s voice took on a slightly harder edge. “That is, if you can spare time from all this.” He indicated the overturned anthill confusion of the movie set with a disdainful toss of his shaggy blond head. “I’m convinced a visit from you would be worth more than all the medicine in the world.”
Minmei had discovered that life on a movie set was a lot less exciting than she’d pictured it—tedious and time-consuming and endlessly repetitive, just the opposite of what she’d envisioned. She still aspired to super-stardom, but the movies’ hold over her was less now.
Besides, even though she was flighty, she wasn’t blind to the things she owed Rick Hunter. The news that he had been wounded brought out the very best in her—so winning that few people could resist it—and perhaps a sense of real drama.
“Of course I will! If it weren’t for Rick Hunter, I wouldn’t even be alive!”
Roy gave her a broad conspiratorial smile. “Atta girl!”
“Commander!”
Roy and Minmei turned together to see Lynn-Kyle striding their way. He glowered at them, an angry young man in a black, white-trimmed jacket and trouser costume. “If you’re through wasting Minmei’s time, I wonder if we could get back to work?”
Roy took his time staring down his nose at Kyle. He’d heard all the stories about the fight at the White Dragon. He wondered if Kyle had heard the adage that a good big man will beat a good little man every time…
But Roy knew even more about women than he knew about martial arts and, it is a verifiable fact, preferred the former. Kyle was playing the heavy without even being coaxed; let it be so.
“Of course.” He smiled blandly at Lynn-Kyle.
A little frown had crossed Minmei’s face at her cousin’s boorishness. Then Vance Hasslewood was yelling for his stars—the first team, as he called them.
Minmei’s mood appeared to brighten; but Roy wasn’t sure, and neither was Kyle. She went running toward the set; Kyle spared Roy a steely look and turned to follow.
Roy left the sound stage whistling happily. He was still feeling pretty smug when the com unit in his jeep toned for his attention. “What is it?”
It was Lisa’s voice. “Commander Fokker, one enemy ship has broken out of the fleet and is heading this way, closing fast. Two Vermilion Veritechs are on scramble, and Captain Gloval directs you to take command of the flight and intercept.”
“Who’s on?”
“Sterling and Dixon,” Lisa answered. “Captain Kramer will have your Skull Team standing by for backup as needed.”
“Good,” Roy told her. “If things begin to boil, I always like those Jolly Rogers around.”
The EVE system was off, and the distant reaches of the stupendous hold were above him. Roy Fokker roared his jeep down through a quiet Macross, wondering what the fight was going to be like this time.