Devil's Hand

by Jack McKinney

  Exedore had described Tiresia’s architecture as approximating Earth’s Greco-Roman styles, with some ultratech innovations that were Tirol’s alone. This is precisely what Wolff found as his Pack entered the city; although hardly a learned man, Wolff had seen enough pictures and renderings of Earth’s ancient world to corroborate the Zentraedi ambassador’s claims.

  “Um, fluted columns, entablatures, peaked pediments,” he radioed back to the GMU.

  “Arches, vaults…buildings that look like the Parthenon, or that thing in Romethe Colosseum. But I’m not talking about marble or anything like that. Everything seems to be faced with some nonporous alloy or ceramic-even the streets and courtyards.”

  But this was only half the story, the facade, as it were. Because elsewhere were rectilinear and curved structures of modernistic design, often surrounded by curious antennalike towers and assemblages of huge clear conduits.

  And much of it had been reduced to smoldering rubble.

  “I’m splitting the squadron,” Wolff updated a few minutes later. Straight ahead was the central pyramid, still a good distance off but as massive as a small mountain in Tirol’s fading light. He switched over to the mecha’s tactical net. “A team will follow me up the middle. Winston, Barisky, take your team over to the next avenue and parallel us. But stay on-line with me. One block at a time, and easy does it.”

  “Roger, Wolff Leader,” Winston returned.

  “Switching over to IR scanners and moving out.”

  There was still no sign of the Invid, or anything else for that matter, but Wolff was experiencing an itchy feeling he had come to rely on, a combat sense he had developed during the Malcontent Uprisings, hunting down renegade Zentraedi in the jungled Southlands. He checked his cockpit displays and boosted the intensity of the forward scanners. At the end of the broad street where it met the hub were a pair of stacked free-floating columns with some sort of polished sphere separating them. He was close enough to the pyramid base now to make out a stairway that ascended one face; the pillared shrine at the summit was no longer visible.

  Just then Winston’s voice cracked over the net, loud in Wolff’s ears.

  “We’ve got movement, Wolff Leader! Multiple signals all over the place!”

  “What’s your position, Boomer?” Winston gave the readings in a rush. “Can you identify signatures? Boomer, do you copy?”

  “Nothing we’ve seen,” the B-team leader said over a burst of angry static. “Bigger than either ship those flyboys registered. Much bigger.”

  “On our way,” Wolff was saying when something thirty feet tall suddenly broke through a domed building off to his left. It was an inky black bipedal ship, with cloven feet and arms like armored pincers. The head, equally armored, was helmet-shaped but elongated in the rear, and sandwiched between two nasty-looking shoulder cannons. Wolff watched spellbound as orange priming charges formed at the tips of the cigar-shaped weapons. An instant later two radiant beams converged on one of the Hovertanks and blew it to smithereens.

  Wolff gave the order to return fire as four more enemy ships emerged from the buildings and a fifth surfaced in front of him, right out of the damned street!

  The Hovertanks reconfigured to Gladiator mode and singled off against the Invid, the streets a battle zone all at once, filled with heavy metal thunder and blinding flashes of explosive light. Wolff saw another of his number go down. On the tac net, Wilson reported that his team was faring no better.

  “Go to Battloid mode. Pull back and regroup,” he ordered. Then he tried to raise the GMU.

  In the GMU’s command center, Vince Grant received word of the recon group’s situation: four, possibly five, Hovertanks were down and Wolff was calling for reinforcements or extraction. His Pack had been chased to the outskirts of the city, where they were dug in near the remains of what the colonel described as “a kind of Roman basilica.”

  “Tell him to hold on, help’s on the way,” Grant told the radio man. Then he swung around to the command center’s tactical board. At about the time Wolff’s Pack had been ambushed, Invid troops had begun a move against the mobile base itself. Deafening volleys were rolling in from the line, echoing in the sawtooth ridge at the GMU’s back.

  Night had fallen, but it was as if someone had forgotten to inform Tirol’s skies.

  “Ground forces are sustaining heavy casualties in all perimeter zones,” a com tech updated without having to be asked. “The enemy are employing mecha that fit yesterday’s profiles, along with teams of one-pilot strike ships.”

  The commander studied a computer schematic as it turned and upended itself on the screen. Vince tried to make some sense of the thing. A deadly kazoo, he thought, with forward guns like withered arms and an undercarriage cluster of propulsion globes.

  Whatever they were, they were decimating the forward lines. He had already lost count of the wounded and dead.

  “Wolff on the horn, Commander,” a tech said. “He’s requesting backup.”

  “Get his present location,” Vince told the woman.

  The tech bent to her task, but got no response. She tapped her phones and repeated Wolff’s call sign and code into the net.

  Vince leaned over the console and hit the com stud. “Go ahead, Colonel. We’re reading you. Colonel.”

  “God, I don’t believe it!” Wolff said at last.

  “Colonel,” Vince said more loudly. “Respond.”

  “They’re…they’re going after my men, pulling them out of the tanks…”

  Several command-center techs turned to watch Vince at the com station. “Who is, Colonel?”

  The net was silent for a moment; then Wolff added, “Cats, Commander. Some kind of goddamned cats!”

  Grant lifted an ashen face to the room. “Notify Breetai that his Battlepod team has a green light.”

  “Bah,” Cabell muttered, switching off the remote sensor’s audio signal. “Our Bioroids were a better match for the Invid than these Earthers. It’s a mystery how they defeated our Zentraedi.”

  Rem kept his eyes on the monitor screen while the old man swiveled to busy himself with other matters. Almost two dozen Human mecha had entered the city, but there was scarcely half that number now. They had successfully turned the tide against the Command ships that had surprised them, but Invid reinforcements had since appeared on the scene. The remains of countless Hellcats littered the streets the Humans had chosen for their last stand.

  “But Cabell, isn’t there some way we can help them?”

  The scientist showed him his palms. “With what, my boy? We are effectively trapped down here.” He motioned to the Pollinators who were peacefully huddled in a corner. “Would you drive these ferocious creatures against them?”

  Rem made an impatient gesture. “We can tell the Humans about the Royal Hall.”

  “Break radio silence?” Cabell asked. “And draw the Invid right to us?”

  “Would you rather the Invid inherit our world?”

  Cabell stroked his beard and regarded the youth. “How like him you are…”

  Rem beetled his brows. “Who?”

  “Uh, why, your father of course,” Cabell said, turning away. “He, too, would have thought nothing of such a sacrifice. But listen, my boy, how can we be certain these Humans are any better than the Invid? After all, we know the Invid’s capabilities. But the Humans’ ways are unknown to us.”

  Rem gestured to the screen. “Perhaps this will change your mind, Cabell.”

  Skeptical, Cabell faced the screen: a score of Battlepods had arrived to back up the Terran tanks.

  “Zentraedi mecha,” the brain announced. “Regult and Glaug.”

  “Yes,” Obsim said, registering some surprise. “So there is a connection between these invaders and our old foes.” He looked back and forth from the communicator sphere to the living computer. “Perhaps we are in some jeopardy, after all. Computer: evaluate and advise.”

  “Extrapolating from previously displayed battle tactics…” the
brain began. “Defeat for our ground forces in seven point four periods unless reinforcements arrive from Optera.

  Substantial damage to aliens’ mecha and casualties in excess of six hundred; but not enough to threaten their victory.”

  “Advise, then.”

  A bundle of raw energy ascended the floating organ’s stem and diffused in the region of the midbrain. “Conserve our strength. Take the battle to the invaders’ base. Sacrifice the troopers to keep the invaders from the city. And await the arrival of reinforcements.”

  Obsim mulled it over. “Is there more?”

  “Yes,” the brain added a moment later. “Protect the brain at all costs.”

  “Headless ostriches” was the term VT pilots had given Battlepods during the Robotech War. Bipedal, with reverse-articulated legs and a laser-bristled spherical command module, the pods had been designed for full-size warriors. There was just enough room for a single, fully expendable pilot, and little in the way of cockpit padding or defensive shielding. But Lang’s teams had reworked the mecha, so that they could now be operated by two Micronized pilots with plenty of room to spare. RDF mechamorphs were trained in pod operation, but there existed an unspoken taboo that kept Humans to their own mecha and Zentraedi to theirs.

  But there were no such lines drawn when Breetai’s team leaped in to lend the Wolff Pack a much-needed assist. Battlepods and Hovertanks fought side-by-side hammering away at the Invid Command ships. Pulsed-laser fire and conventional armor-piercing projectiles split Tirol’s night. An entire quadrant of the city burned while the battle raged, and friend and foe added their own fire and smoke to the already superheated air.

  The Hellcat Inorganics had abandoned the scene, as though frightened off by the pods, and now the Command ships were suddenly turning tail.

  Wolff sat in the mecha’s seat, convulsively triggering the Hovertank’s weapon as the enemy ships disengaged and began to lift off. The colonnade of a building collapsed behind him, sending gobs of molten metal airborne. He raised the GMU on the net to update his situation.

  “We’re being overrun,” a panicked voice informed him in response. “Commander Grant says to pick yourselves up and get back here ASAP!”

  Wolff ordered his few remaining tankers to reconfigure, and addressed Breetai. “We’re moving out. The base is ass deep in pincers.”

  “At your command, Colonel,” the Zentraedi responded, pleased to be taking orders once again, to have an imperative to follow.

  Every bed and table in the GMU’s med-surg unit was filled, and still the wounded kept coming. The mess hall was a triage area and battle dressing station now, and Jack Baker had found himself in the midst of it, pulled there from supply to lend a hand. All around him men and women were stretched out on the floor and tabletops in postures of distress and agony. A young woman with third-degree burns across half her body flailed her arms against the restraints a medic was attempting to fasten, while a nurse struggled to get an N drip running. Elsewhere a man drugged beyond pain stared almost fascinated at the bloody stump that had been a leg less than an hour before. Some of the wounded groaned and called on God and relatives for help; but Jack saw others expire with no more than a whimper, or a final curse.

  Jean Grant, the front of her surgical gown red-brown from blood and antiseptic washes, was moving from table to table checking wounds and shouting orders to her staff.

  “Move it, soldier!” Jack heard someone behind him yell. He felt the edge of a stretcher smack against his hip, and turned as two women medics rushed past him bearing a lieutenant he recognized to surgery.

  A warrant officer called to him next, waving him over to a bloodied expanse of wall, three bodies slumped lifelessly against it. “These men are dead,” the officer announced, getting to his feet and wiping his hands on his trousers. “Get them out of here, and get yourself back up here on the double.” The officer looked around. “You!” he said, finding another aide in the crowds. “Get over here and give this man a hand!”

  Jack bent down to regard the dead, unsure where to begin.

  “You take his arms,” a female voice said over his shoulder. Karen Penn was beside him when he turned. She gave him a wan smile and wiped a damp strand of hair from her face with the back of her hand, leaving a smear of someone’s blood on her cheek.

  “I want to get out there,” Jack grunted as he lifted the body. “Some paybacks are in order.”

  “Maybe that’s what this guy said,” Karen bit out. “Let’s just do our job and forget the heroics.”

  “We’ll see.”

  When they had eased the body down onto the floor in the next room, Karen said, “If I see your sorry face show up in here, I’m going to remind you of that remark.”

  “You do that,” Jack told her, breathing hard.

  The SDF-3 was still at its orbital holding point above Tirol. The general staff was kept informed of the situation below by continuous updates from the GMU. One such report was coming into the fortress now, and T. R. Edwards left the TIC’s balcony rail to listen more closely. A tech loyal to the cause was making adjustments for reception, and punching decoding commands into the console.

  “It’s from Grant, sir,” the tech reported, seeing Edwards peering over his shoulder. “The situation has deteriorated and is growing untenable.”

  Edwards glanced around the balcony area. Hunter and Reinhardt had gone off to meet with Lang and some of the council members. “Speak plainly, Lieutenant,” he said, narrowing his eye.

  “They’re getting their butts kicked, sir. Grant is requesting air support from the ship.”

  Edwards straightened up and felt the stubble on his chin. “How do we know this isn’t some enemy trick, Lieutenant? Did the GMU use the proper authentication codes?”

  “Affirmative, sir.”

  Edwards was silent while the planetside transmission repeated itself. “But then they broke our code once already.”

  The tech risked a grin. “I think I understand, sir.”

  “You’ll go far,” Edwards told him, leaning in to dial the gain knob down to zero.

  At the same time Edwards was gloating over having eliminated Vince Grant from his life, Minmei was fantasizing about how to get Jonathan Wolff into hers. It was the flower arrangement the colonel had had delivered to her cabinspace that kicked off the fantasy; obviously he had called in the order before he left, perhaps right after they said good-bye in the dropship hangar. She was toying with the flowers now, lost in a daydream, while Janice studied her from across the room.

  “Keep fooling with those things and they’re going to wilt before they have a chance to bloom,” Janice said from the couch.

  Minmei showed Janice a startled look, then gave the arrangement one last turn before she stepped back to regard it.

  “You’re thinking about catching that bridal bouquet, aren’t you?”

  Minmei smiled. “How could you tell?”

  “Because sometimes I can read you like a screen,” Janice sighed. She patted the cushion next to her. “Come over here, you.”

  Minmei fixed two drinks and sat down, kicking off her shoes and curling her legs beneath her. Janice sipped at her glass and said, “Now tell your partner all about it.”

  “Do you believe in omens?”

  “Omens?” Janice shook her head. “First I’d have to believe that the future has already been written, and that’s simply not the case. Reality is shaped and reshaped by our words and deeds.”

  “I’m not asking you philosophically, Janice.”

  Janice took another sip and glanced at the flowers. “You think destiny has thrown you and Jonathan Wolff together.”

  Minmei nodded. “Don’t you?”

  “No. Not any more than I think destiny brought you and me together. We have a tendency to highlight moments we wish to think preordained.”

  “I promised myself I’d never get involved with a military man,” Minmei continued, as though she hadn’t heard Janice. “Not after Rick. And now here I
am worrying about Jonathan, just the way I used to worry about Rick.” She met Janice’s eye. “I don’t want to lose him, Janice.”

  “Worrying doesn’t change anything, Lynn.”

  “Then what does it matter if I worry? Maybe I just didn’t worry enough about Rick.”

  “`They also serve…’” Janice mused.

  “Huh?”

  “Just something I heard once.” She took Minmei’s hand. “Go ahead and worry. We all have our appointed tasks.”

  “I’m sick of having to listen to everyone,” Rick complained bitterly, sitting down on the edge of the bed. He and Lisa had taken advantage of a short break to rendezvous in their quarters. “The council has decided we should recall the GMU and leave Tirolspace.

  Suddenly they’re all convinced this bloodshed has been a misunderstanding. They want to remove our `threatening presence’-those are their words-and try to open lines of communication. Station a small unarmed party out here or something…” Rick exhaled forcibly. “War of the worlds…Even Lang has reversed himself. Ever since his teams started picking apart those Invid mecha we salvaged. All at once he’s fascinated with these butchers.”

  Lisa rested her hand on his shoulder. “Don’t do this to yourself, Rick.”

  He looked up at her, eyes flashing. “Yeah, well, I’m tired of being the one who has to walk around with his guts tied up.”

  “Rick, nobody’s asking you-”

  “My place is with the VTs. I just wasn’t cut out for command.”

  Lisa kneeled down to show him the anger in her own eyes. “Maybe you weren’t, if you’re going to talk like that. But first tell me who we should have in command. And tell me what good you think you can do in combat?”

  “Are you saying I’m rusty?”

  Lisa’s eyes went wide. “Stand down, mister, I’m not saying that at all. I’m asking you what good it’s going to do to add another combatant to the field, when what we need is some enlightened decision making.” She relaxed her gaze. “You’re not thinking clearly, Rick.