“You’ve got company, Blue Velvet!” Max shouted the pilot’s call sign twice more, but got no response. The Alpha was preparing to land when the creatures opened fire and blew it off course.
Max watched helplessly as the Veritech grazed the edge of the pyramid and exploded, raining fiery debris down the Hall’s steep side.
“Hit them!” Max ordered.
Missiles dropped from the Veritechs’ undercarriage pylons and ripped in twisting tracks toward the Inorganics, only to detonate harmlessly against the Hall’s repellent dome. But the enemy could fire through the shield and did, catching a second VT before Max could order the team away. He was trying to decide what to do next, when one of his wingmen came on the net. “Skull Leader, I’m picking up two friendly blips down below.”
Max listened for the coordinates, tipped his Alpha, and leaned over to take a look. “You sure they’re friendly?”
“Affirmative. The IFF says they’re Hovercycles. They’re approaching the Hall.”
Hovercycles, now what the…Max said to himself. “All right,” he said, “let’s go down and see what’s cooking.”
“Wha-hoo!” Jack shouted, throttling the Hovercycle down a slope of arid ground and onto one of Tiresia’s central spokes. “Life in the fast lane!”
“Idiot,” Karen muttered to herself, goosing the handbar grip in an attempt to catch up with him. “He’s going to get us both killed.”
The cycles were face-effect vehicles, with conventional grips, right-angled bars rising up and back from a single shaft, and a front Hover-foot that resembled an old-fashioned carpet sweeper. The seat and backrest was a sweeping, padded affair, and although the cycles were built for one, the rear storage deck could accommodate a second rider if need be. They were fast, silent, and maneuverable, but essentially weaponless.
“What are you trying to prove?” Karen said, coming up alongside Jack’s cycle. “Is this a rescue op or a joyride?”
Jack glanced over at her and began to lay out his philosophy about how self-confidence was what mattered most; but instead of listening she was just looking at him wide-eyed, and the next thing he knew, she had her handgun raised and aimed in his general direction.
“Duck!” she yelled, firing off two quick bursts that nearly parted Jack’s carrot-colored hair.
“Jeez!” he said, when they’d brought the cycles to a halt. “Whaddaya think-”
“Take a look at that.”
Jack twisted around in the seat and spied the Inorganic Karen’s shot had neatly holed. Still on its feet and slumped against a wall, the thing reminded him of a character from an old cartoon. “Tasmanian devil,” Jack recalled, snapping his finger, as the Crann slid to the smooth street.
“Is it alive?” Karen asked, looking around warily.
“Not any more.”
“But what is it?”
“I don’t know,” Jack said, bringing the Wolverine off his shoulder, “but there’s three more of them coming our way.”
Karen reholstered her sidearm and followed Jack’s lead. Suddenly, half-a-dozen blue energy bolts were zipping past her, impacting against a wall and sending up a shower of white-hot gunk. A blast of superheated air washed over her, stinging her eyes and nose while she brought the assault rifle to bear on the drones.
Jack was already firing; his rounds had managed to connect with one of the Inorganics, and Karen watched as the thing flashed out and crumbled, as though hollow. An in start later the other two went down, breaking open like ceramic figurines.
“Let’s get out of here!” Jack yelled, as bolts began to rain down on them from surrounding rooftops.
Karen kept up with him, piloting the cycle onehanded while she loosed an arc of rear fire, dropping two more Cranns with well-placed sensor shots. “What now?” she said, her voice raspy from the heat, smoke, and all the shouting.
Jack motioned up the street, toward a small mountain of a structure. “Straight ahead.
That’s the Hall. The message originated from somewhere underground. I figure there’s gotta be a way down.”
“You figure,” Karen said in disbelief. “I’m for turning back.”
“Uh-uh. But I am for turning!”
Karen looked up: ten or more Inorganics were blocking the street. Their weapons were raised.
Perplexed, Cabell regarded the weapon Rem had given him; he fumbled with the rifle’s selector lever. “Like this?”
“No, no, Cabell,” Rem said, close to losing his patience. “Like this,” he demonstrated, activating his own weapon.
Cabel mimicked Rem’s movements. “Ah, I see…and you hold it like, er, you put your right, hand, um, let’s see, you-”
“Give me that thing!” Rem snapped, snatching the rifle from the old man’s hands. Cabell was offering him a imbecilic shrug. “You’ll probably vaporize your own foot.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it for a moment,” Cabell agreed. “I’m sorry, I’ve never had any talent for the fine art of combat. Why, back when the Masters were first-”
“Save it, Cabell. Are we going or not?”
Cabell took one long last look around the room. Still-functioning remotes had permitted them to view the Humans’ recon attempt, and later, their failure to breach the barrier shield the Invid computer had deployed. But with Inorganics closing on the subterranean lab now, there was no time for further monitoring of the situation. Cabell had insisted that they not be caught in the lab. The Pollinators would be his gift to the Invid; with them and some seedling Flowers, perhaps they could refoliate ravaged Optera, end this incessant killing…
“Well, what have we here?” Cabell said suddenly.
Rem came back into the lab, cursing, and found the scientist pointing to one of the screens. Here were two Humans just outside the force field, a male and a female, straddling strange-looking Hovercrafts.
“Could they be searching for us, Rem?”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Rem answered him, tugging Cabell into the corridor. They could hear the Inorganics nearby, blasting through corridor walls and breaking into rooms.
“But they could be looking for us.”
Rem continued to drag Cabell down the corridor. “Fine, fine…”
Cabell reached for one of Rem’s weapons. “Then let’s just go out and meet them.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Finally all the principal players had been introduced to one another: Masters and Invid, Zentraedi and Humans. Humans and Invid, Humans and Masters. Surely this was Protoculture’s doing; but what would make the contest especially bizarre was the fact that not one of those players had all the puzzle pieces. It was a mad, mad, mad, mad world.
Dr. Emil Lang, The New Testament
The Regent was relaxing in his bath when Obsim’s message finally reached him. The sunken tub in his private chambers was as large as a backyard swimming pool, surrounded by ornate fixtures the Regis had detested. You have too many things, she used to scream. Things!-when the very goal had always been to move away from such material trappings. Her goal, at any rate. Freedom from this base condition…her wards to describe their world after the affair with Zor. After Optera, an Eden if ever there was one, had been defoliated by the Masters’ warrior clones, robbed of the Flower that was infinitely precious to the Invid, so essential. They were like starving creatures now, feeding off what nutrients had been stored up in their flesh, but hungry, ravenous for sustenance only the Flower could provide.
The Regent sighed as he climbed from the tub, regarding the sterile green bath fluids with a mixture of sorrow and disdain. To be sure, the bath had been drawn from Flowers and fruits, but a mutated variety from Peryton that had to pass for the real thing, for absent, too, were the Pollinators, those shaggy little beasts critical to the Flowers’ reproductive cycle.
As a result, the Regent no longer bathed to empower himself, but simply to sustain a memory of brighter times.
Brighter times indeed, he told himself as a servant moved in to drape a robe over him. You
have taken a wrong turn, the Regis had warned him. A turn toward deevolution and evil purpose. She was already in Tiresioid form then, desperate in her attempts to emulate Zor’s race. She had begged the Regent to join her in that novel guise, but he would hear nothing of it. His queen, his wife, had been defiled, his world contaminated, and still she would ask for such a thing. When his very heart was burning with a rage never before known to him. Was it any wonder then that he had chosen his own course? The goal-the goal, my dear-is conquest and consumption; and things-warriors and weapons and battle mecha-are pivotal to that end.
To hell with her if she couldn’t understand his purpose!
And yet…and yet how lonely this place seemed without her. Surrounded by nothing but servants and soldiers now, he could almost miss the arguments of those final days. The passion. She had fled with half her brood to carry on with her mad experiments in transmutation, her quest for the perfect physical vehicle to inhabit while she completed her Great Work, a form more suitable for her wisdom and dreams, more supportive than his embrace.
“Curse her!” he seethed, taking quick steps toward the antechamber.
A messenger genuflected as he entered, lowering its head and bringing an arm to its breast. The Regent’s Hellcats were restless, pacing the room, sniffing and snarling. He put them at ease with a motion of his hand and bade the messenger rise and state its purpose.
The messenger handed over a voice-imprint and withdrew. The Regent activated the device and listened, running it through again and again until satisfied that he had memorized Obsim’s every word, every nuance.
Tirol under attack-by what Obsim had initially believed were Micronized Zentraedi, but were now thought to be a coalition of Zentraedi and some unknown Tiresioid race. A race of beings with Protoculturedriven starships and mecha! This was the astonishing thing.
Protoculture could only be derived from the Flowers, and the potent Flowers were indigenous to Optera, and Optera only. Look what had become of those seedlings Zor himself had tried to implant on Karbarra, Spheris, and the rest.
“What could it mean?” the Regent asked himself. An undiscovered world, perhaps, rich in the Flower that was life itself, ripe and waiting to be plucked.
He summoned the messenger to return. “Make haste to inform Obsim that reinforcements are on their way.” He turned to his lieutenants next, his stingraylike hood puffed up, betraying his agitation.
“The Regis is not to learn about these matters. This new world will be our…our present to her.”
But only if she agrees to listen to reason, he kept to himself. Only if she accepts the path of conquest!
The Regent’s huge hand closed on the voice device, splintering it to bits.
Jack and Karen stood transfixed at the edge of the Royal Hall’s shimmering shield, unsure of what they were up against. They had given the enemy drones the slip for the moment, but there was no time to dally.
“I say we try to go in,” Jack was saying.
Karen gazed into the field’s evil translucency. “And I say you ought to have your head examined.”
“Maybe if I just touch-”
Jack reached his hand out before she could stop him, and in a flash was flat on his back unconscious.
Karen screamed and ran to him, kneeling by his side, wondering if there was anything she could do, her hands fluttering helplessly. “You stupid idiot!”
Jack came to and looked up at her stupidly, then shrieked as the pain caught up to him.
His left hand flew to his right wrist, clutching it as though aware of the torment above.
Karen pried Jack’s fingers loose and pulled his hand to her. It was blanker than a newborn’s, void of prints and lines. She told him to lie still, ran to the idling Hovercycle, and returned with a first-aid kit. She hit him with a preloaded syringe of painkiller and waited till it took effect.
Jack’s face was still beaded with sweat a moment later, but the drugs had done their job; he offered her a weak smile and forced his breath out in a rash. “Now, what was that you were saying?”
“About you needing to have your head examined? Forget it.” She showed him his effaced palm. “You’re going to need a whole new personality.”
“No big deal,” Jack muttered. “The old one was about used up anyway.”
“I’m glad you said it.” Karen laughed, helping him to his feet. “Now let’s get back to base.”
They started for the cycles, only to swing back around to the sound of metal-shod feet.
Five Hellcats came tearing around the corner, for some reason slithering to a halt instead of leaping. The drones fanned out and began to stalk the two Humans as they backed themselves slowly toward one of the Hovercycles. Karen had her blaster drawn.
“Nice kitties,” Jack said in a calming voice. “On three we leap for the cycle,” he told Karen out of the corner of his mouth.
“But-”
“Don’t worry, I can drive. You keep those things away from us.”
Karen thumbed the handgun’s selector to full auto. “Ready when you are,”
“One, two…three!” he yelled, and they both bolted. Two of the Hellcats jumped at the same time; Karen blasted them out of the air, pieces raining down on the Hovercycle as Jack toed it into gear and took off.
A third Hellcat tried to keep pace with them, but Karen holed that one, too, right through the thing’s flashing eyes. She had one arm around Jack’s waist, loosing rear fire as he threw the cycle into a turn and raced down a side street.
“Where to?” she yelled.
“Left!” he answered, just as two more ‘Cats leaped to the streets from the peak of a pediment.
Karen twisted on the cargo seat and laid down an arc that seared one of the beast’s legs off. But others were joining in the pursuit; she stopped counting at eleven.
“How’s our fuel?” she thought to ask.
“Going fast,” he said, his bad hand up by his shoulder, comically mouthing the words.
“Any suggestions?”
“Yeah. Remind me to let you go it alone next time something like this comes up!”
“I’ve got them, Skull Leader,” one of the VT team confirmed. “They’re both on the same cyc now, west of the Hall on a connecting street between two of the main spokes. ‘Bout a dozen drones behind them.”
“Have they spotted yogi, Blue Lady?”
“Uh, negative. They’ve got their hands full. Some rough terrain up ahead-craters, devastated buildings…”
“Can you exfiltrate?” Max asked her.
Blue Lady fell silent, then said, “Think I see a way.”
“Coming around to cover you.”
“I’m going in,” the woman announced to her Beta copilot. “Breaking hard and right…”
“Heads up, you two!” a female voice shouted from the Hovercycle’s control pad speaker.
Jack thought he was hearing things and wondered if his brush with the force field hadn’t damaged more than just his hand. Karen was discharging bursts from the cargo seat, but for every drone she killed another two would appear; it was as if some controlling intelligence was directing the chase.
Jack had been forced to take some bad turns back toward the Royal Hall, and was trying to puzzle out a way through the wreckage in front of them when that disembodied voice repeated itself.
“Heads up!”
Even Karen heard it this time, so Jack knew he wasn’t imagining it. “An Alpha,” she said, waving her free hand in his face. He looked up and saw the VT dropping in to match the Hovercycle’s pace and course.
“Looks like you two are a long way from home,” the pilot said. “I’m coming in for a pickup.
Acknowledge.”
“Fine with us,” Jack said. “Hope she’s not changing her mind?” he added when the VT
didn’t respond.
Karen interrupted her fire to peer over Jack’s shoulder. She smacked him on the shoulder.
“You idiot, use the net!”
Jack winced and opened the net, acknowledging the VT. The Alpha dropped and let loose with two missiles that took out half the Hellcat pack; then the mecha split, its Beta hindquarters lowering a stiff ladder.
“Grab it,” Jack told Karen.
They were near the central plaza again in an area of the city that had seen a lot of action, skirting the rim of a huge blast crater.
Karen holstered her weapon, got into a kneeling position on the seat using Jack’s shoulders for balance, and took hold of the ladder, heat from the VT blasting her face all the while.
“Come on, Jack!” she was shouting into the wind a moment later.
Jack stretched out his bad hand, thought better of it, and took his good hand from the front grip. Karen curled herself on the ladder and leaned down to help him. But all at once, two Hellcats came tearing out of an alleyway making straight for the cycle. Jack caught sight of them in time, but forgot about his injured hand as he reflexively reached for the handlebars.
Pain like liquid fire shot up his arm. Out of control, the Hovercycle veered to the right and ramped up the rim.
Jack felt himself leave the cyc’s contoured seat and go airborne. In an instant’s passing, he was once again questioning his sanity, because floating out in front of him he saw some kind unanchored column-two of them, actually, separated by an equally free-floating featureless sphere. Jack impacted the uppermost column at the same moment he heard the Hovercraft crash in the smoky crater below him. His hands, knees, and feet tried to find purchase, but he soon found himself sliding…
He hit the sphere and clung there a moment, wishing he had suction cups instead of hands, then recommenced his slow slide, flesh squealing along the thing’s smooth surface.
“Whaaaaa…” he sent into Tirol’s evening chill.
Jack’s fingertips somehow managed to catch the edge of the lower column. Breathless, he hung there, nose buried in one of the flutes as the Beta circled him. And all at once his hand began to remember something…
He screamed and let go, recalling the hotfoot he had given a cadet back in academy days, and hit the ground with enough force to instantly numb both his legs.
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