Metal Fire

by Jack McKinney

  "And see to it that Zor Prime is with your sentries," a second of the Masters thought to add, his voice betraying some ulterior motive.

  Full out, the Hovertanks moved through the labyrinthine corridors of the fortress, their halogen lights piercing the darkness.

  "Get ready," Dana told her teammates through the tacnet. "It looks like we're going to have to fight our way out."

  She hadn't actually seen anything up ahead, but as they ascended the ramp which returned them to the proper level, the mecha lamps illuminated a full line of Bioroids in the corridor ahead.

  Zor Prime was leading them-the lavender-haired pilot of the red Bioroid, who had been haunting Dana's thoughts since the encounter at the Macross mounds. Diminutive against the fifty-foot high metal monsters behind him, the elfin alien was standing calmly at their fore and holding his hand up in a gesture that told the Humans to halt. When the Hovertanks accelerated instead, Zor's hand dropped decisively, a signal to his troops to open fire.

  Dana tried to put the alien from her mind and called for evasive maneuvers. "Concentrate on tactical driving!"

  The Bioroids opened up on the approaching Hovertanks with their disc guns, filling the corridor with white light and noise that could wake the dead. The Earth mecha weaved between hyphens of searing heat, criss-crossing in front of one another and returning fire to the wall of aliens standing between them and freedom.

  Dana had a fleeting image of Zor as she swerved her Hovertank around him, unable to loose fire against him or run him over. But shortly there would be another image that would replace this last. In the dancing headlight beams the team saw two of their teammates sprawled lifeless on the corridor floor in puddles of their own blood.

  Dana yelled: "It's Simon and Jordon! We can't leave them like this!" Angelo disagreed. "It's too late to do anything for them,

  Lieutenant-we've got trouble up ahead."

  A final Bioroid was standing guard at the exit. They certainly could have run it down without problem, but it would be a lot more profitable to take the thing alive.

  Dana thought her tank through reconfiguration to Battloid. As she and Bowie rode up into the giant techno-warriors head, Dana readied herself at

  the controls.

  "You can't take him alone," Bowie said. "He's too big!"

  "He's not bigger than my Battloid," Dana reminded him. The Bioroid leapt, and Dana urged her mecha to follow. She thought the Battloid's metalshod hands into motion and grabbed the alien mecha by its pectoral armor.

  Then the Valkyrie and its prize flew through the unmended opening.

  Dana didn't bother to look back.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I think l breezed through the rest of the recon in a kind of trance, my thoughts so wrapped around the Eureka! Bowie's encounter with Musica had booted up in my mind. The Masters' fortress had defolded from its hyperspace journey with particles of the Fourth Dimensional Continuum still adhering to it, iron filings to a magnet-like memory itself, alive in the Human brain despite an elapse of chronological reckoning. Immediately I set to work on a new theory based on the hypothesis that time, like light itself, was composed of quantapackets of stuff I then called chronons. What I eventually arrived at-years later-was nothing so much as a reworking of Macek's turn-of-the-century theorem (then unknown to me): if you can take the time and travel, you can surely travel and take the time!

  Louie Nichols, Tripping the Light Fantastic

  Ten out of Lieutenant Sterling's original thirteen had returned from the reconnaissance mission; based on the casualties sustained by the ground forces and air support who had contributed to the penetration op, this proved to be on the low side average, and Dana found some comfort there. But it wasn't the numbers that remained with her, but the sight of Privates Jordon and Simon lying on that cold floor, bathed in the harsh light from her Hovertank, their lives flowing out of them. That, and the brief moments she and Bowie and Louie had spent in the Romanesque heart of the fortress. Were those twins and triplets Human clones, or had they been fashioned from the body parts Corporal Nichols had stumbled across during the mission? Her heart told her that they were clones, brothers and sisters to the Zentraedi half of her, but Headquarters wasn't interested in her feelings; rightly so, they needed concrete evidence, and the sad fact was that the monitoring devices had ceased to function early on. There was, however, the Bioroid Dana's mecha had spirited from the ship, and surely the pilot of that alien craft would lay all these questions to rest; he or she wouldn't need to

  say a thing: it only remained to be seen whether the Earth Forces were up against androids or beings like themselves.

  Dana had run these issues through her mind during the debriefing and since. Unable to sleep, she had left her bunk in the middle of the night. Sunrise found her and half the 15th in the barracks ready-room. They had all argued back and forth, unable to come to any consensus, so varied were their individual experiences inside the fortress. The squad was slated for patrol in less than an hour, and she desperately wanted to convince them that her instincts were correct.

  "How can I be expected to shoot at people who might very well be my own relatives?" Dana had put to them finally. She had drawn her sidearm, and now had the distant, silent fortress bracketed in the pistol's sights. Sergeant Dante entered the room just then, and finding her thus, put a hand on her shoulder.

  "I, uh, don't mean to interrupt," he said, out of real concern for the room's permaplas window.

  Dana turned to dislodge his hand, and frowned as she reholstered the handgun.

  "Target practice, eh? Too bad there's no aliens around to aim at."

  Dana expected as much from Angelo. The mission had only served to convince him of the truth of his earlier beliefs: the aliens were nothing but bio-engineered creations that had been programmed for war. She knew that he felt the same about the Zentraedi, despite the fact that their Humanness had not only been proven, but was accepted by the very men and women who had once fought against them. Sean, Louie, and Bowie were acting like they weren't in the room.

  "You're unbelievable, Sergeant," Dana said, disgust and disbelief in her voice. She looked to the others for support, but found none. She knew that Bowie agreed with her, especially now that he had had some sort of encounter of his own inside the ship, but he was too timid to make a stand. The vote was still out on Louie: like the staff at HQ, he was going to need clearcut evidence before saying anything. Sean, as always, had no opinion

  one way or another.

  "I suppose you think we should shoot every alien on sight, huh? Would that make you happy?"

  Angelo smirked. It was so easy to get to her. But that wasn't really his purpose; he merely wanted to get to the Human side of her. "Well, we'd be a lot safer, Lieutenant. And I don't think anybody on their side's gonna hesitate to fire at us."

  Angelo had turned his back to her and was walking away, when a messenger entered unannounced through the room's sliding doors.

  "Sir," the aide said stiffly, offering his salute. "General Emerson requests your presence. I'm to escort you and Corporal Nichols to Dr. Beckett's lab immediately."

  Dana told the messenger to wait outside. She turned temporary command of the team over to Sergeant Dante, feeling as though she had lost a minor battle.

  The Robotech Masters felt the same.

  The three had summoned their Scientist and Politician triumvirates to the fortress command nexus after the Earthlings had made their daring escape.

  "I expect a full report on damage to our ship and an update on the Micronian position," said the Master called Bowkaz. "Micronian" was a term the Masters used when speaking to any of their numerous clones, a holdover from Zentraedi times.

  There was an unmistakable note of desperation in his voice, a fact that at once distressed and pleased the three Scientist clones-androgynous figures, with exotic features and long hair in brilliant colors.

  "Most of the damage is isolated to the Reflex power modules," reported the honey-hai
red Scientist. "The Micronians will probably attack again. We should escalate our combat profile."

  "How could the situation have come to this?" Dag asked rhetorically. Like his companion Masters he was hawk-nosed and liquid-eyed, monkish

  looking in the long gown whose triple collars mimicked the Flower of Life's tripartite structure. "It was never our intention to destroy the Micronians or their planet."

  One of the young Politicians spoke to that. He resembled the Scientists in form and figure, save for the fact that he was dressed in togalike wrappings, and of course had been bio-engineered for political rather than scientific functions.

  "The Micronians feel threatened by our presence here," he reminded the Masters now.

  "But they must realize that our clones are not here to tamper with their civilization," said Shaizan, who was in many ways the Masters' true spokesman, most often called upon to communicate directly with the Elders of Tirol. "The true threat to both our races is the parasitic Invid, who will themselves come in search of the Protoculture."

  Which was and was not true: but the Masters were compelled to make their clones feel that the journey to Earth was more noble than it actually was.

  "We must complete our mission before the Invid arrive," Bowkaz countered. "The Micronians are dangerous and must be destroyed if they continue to obstruct us."

  "I agree," Dag said after a moment of reflection. "The Micronian ignorance of our purpose and their inexperience with the Protoculture makes them a dangerous threat to our cause."

  "And too many of our own Bioroid pilots have been severely injured to mount an effective attack against them at this time," Bowkaz hastened to add.

  "Are our shields holding?" Shaizan asked of the Scientists.

  Schematic representations of the fortress's energy system capabilities came to life on the oval-shaped screen that filled the interstices of the command center's neurallike structure.

  "We estimate a functional capacity of only twenty percent," returned one of the Scientists. "Not even powerful enough to seal breaches in the

  fortress's hull."

  "If we cannot leave and we cannot fight, then what option is left us?" asked a second.

  The three Politicians and the three Scientists waited for the Master's pronouncements. Ultimately it was Shaizan who answered them.

  "We must use the Micronians," he said somewhat haltingly. "First we will take some of their kind and subject them to a xylonic cerebral probe to determine whether or not we can turn them into Bioroid pilots. This will serve a dual purpose: first, it will allow us to strengthen our forces. Second, by allowing one of these reengineered pilots to be captured, we will be able to convince the Micronians that they have been manipulated into fighting their own kind. This will buy us the time we need to effect repairs or call in a rescue ship. In the meantime, we must reformulate our thinking and come up with a plan to secure the Protoculture matrix before it is too late."

  The partially-dissected shell of the captured alien Bioroid lay on its back on a massive platform in Dr. Beckett's Defense Center laboratory. Colonels Anderson and Green, along with several forensic engineers and computer techs, were already in attendance when General Emerson entered with Dana and Louie in tow.

  "I think you're going to find this very interesting," Beckett said by way of introduction.

  He was a nondescript-looking man in his late thirties, with thick, amber-tinted glasses and a crisply starched white uniform he kept tightly fastened at neck and cuffs. Known for the yard-long pointer he was said to carry wherever he went, Beckett had little of Professor Cochran's savvy, and nowhere near the intellectual power of someone like Zand; but he was competent enough, and Louie Nichols let him ramble on for several minutes before saying anything.

  "Let me start by saying that this thing is a complicated network of mechanical parts controlled by biological stimuli, the origin of which is uncertain at this time." Beckett used his pointer to indicate a control panel

  located below and to the left of the Bioroid's head. "However, we think that this module here acts as a sensor device, or overload circuit mechanism." He gave the panel several taps with the pointer.

  "Then if you bypass that relay," Louie interjected, reaching for one of the Bioroid's sensor cables and coiling it around his forearm, "...ah, these should act like some sort of muscle."

  Dana, who was standing next to the corporal, watched the arm of the Bioroid begin to twitch as Louie flexed the muscles in his forearm. Startled, she stepped back from the platform, worried that the thing was going to attack.

  "Don't worry, Lieutenant," Louie said, full of confidence. "It's not going anywhere." He gestured to his forearm and once again flexed; the Bioroid's arm gave another shudder. "It's only responding to the stimulus I'm giving it."

  "Like power-amplified body armor," Dana said, relaxing some. "Bingo," said Louie, taking off his wrappings.

  Emerson, Green, and Anderson looked to Beckett to elaborate. The doctor cleared his throat and said: "Yes...In many ways it functions rather like our own Veritechs, only in place of our sensor gloves and helmets, it seems to be directly attuned to its pilot."

  Beckett instructed one of his techs to project the data he had prepared for the preliminary report. All eyes turned to the wallscreen above the forensic platform. Various schematic representations and readouts of the Bioroid's systems filled the screen as the Doctor spoke.

  "It is indeed a type of armored suit that responds to the stimuli provided by a pilot. Through a complex network of bio-mechanical diodes, it actually interfaces with its pilot and carries out the pilot's commands in a matter of nanoseconds." Beckett paused as a new schematic assembled itself. "The difference here is that the pilot, too, seems to have been bio-engineered to interface with the mecha."

  "So that's why they're so maneuverable," Dana said.

  "Then this Bioroid is an extension of its pilot?" asked the bearded

  Green, still unsure what Beckett and this young corporal with the dark goggles were getting at.

  "Exactly," the doctor said. "The circuits of the one duplicate the circuits of the other. We have yet to determine how such an imprint has been made possible, but there is no mistaking the accomplishment."

  "But this is incredible," Emerson said. "You're suggesting a bio-mechanical lifeform."

  Beckett shook his head. "A pilot is required," he started to say before Colonel Green broke in.

  "What's the most effective way to stop these things once and for all?" the colonel demanded.

  Dana, meanwhile, now had the cable wrapped around her own arm. If the Bioroid required a living pilot, then her case for the Humanness of the aliens was made. It would have been redundant to put androids in the bioroids' cockpits...

  She tuned in for Beckett's response to Green's query, holding her tongue until the right moment. The doctor was once again tapping his pointer on the Bioroid's neck module.

  "Well, considering what we now know about the design, I'd say the most effective shot would have to be placed in the area of this control mechanism."

  Rolf Emerson now stepped forward, as if to silence everyone. "I'd like to have your input, Lieutenant Sterling. You and your team have engaged these things hand-to-hand, as it were. Did either of you observe any weak points in their individual defense systems?"

  Dana shrugged. "I was too wrapped up in tactics to notice anything." "Is the Bioroid equipped with any kind of microrecorder?" Louie asked

  Dr. Beckett. "Because if it is," he went on without waiting for a reply, "there must be some sort of internal damage-control monitoring system...Our main computer could access the data and-"

  "We've already seen to that, Corporal," Beckett interrupted, noticeably peeved. "Display the pertinent data," he said to the tech at the console.

  "I think I know why these things have been so hard to stop," Louie muttered to Dana as new schematics scrolled across the wallscreen. "Display the damaged sections individually," he instructed the computer tech, s
tealing Beckett's thunder.

  Louie stepped up to the screen and ran through an explanation of the data for General Emerson and the other brass, but it was Beckett who said: "The Bioroids are unaffected by direct hits unless you can destroy the cockpit."

  "That's the way I read it," Louie seconded, no trace of competition in his voice.

  "All right," said a pleased Colonel Anderson. "I'll make it a standing order to aim only at the cockpit."

  It was the moment Dana had been worried about, the order she feared. "You can't do that, Colonel!" she blurted out, surprising all of them. "You'll be destroying the pilots as well as the Bioroids!"

  Anderson seemed slightly bemused by the outburst. "Well I think that should be obvious, Lieutenant. The android pilot would be destroyed along with his machine..."

  "But they're not androids! It would make for a redundant system," she said, looking to Louie for help. She made mention of their experiences in the ship, the city of clones.

  Green made a dismissive gesture. "But you have no proof that those, ah, people weren't simply androids. What about this android assembly line you claimed to have seen-"

  "Exactly what do we know about the captured pilot?" Emerson asked Beckett. The doctor made a wry face and looked over to Green, who fielded the question, redfaced.

  "I'm sorry to report that the pilot sustained some serious injuries as a result of our rather hasty efforts to remove it from the Bioroid. However, our medical teams are doing everything possible..."

  Green let his words trail off as a messenger entered the lab.

  "General Emerson, your presence is requested in the war room.

  Commander Leonard is receiving a briefing on the captured alien pilot." "How is the pilot?" Emerson asked.

  Eyes-front, the messenger replied: "It stopped functioning over an hour ago, Sir. But the autopsy is complete."