Metal Fire

by Jack McKinney

  A trio of Hovercrafts pursued Dana as she skimmed the tank across the ship's armored surface, annihilation discs winging past George's unprotected head as he studied the computer readouts. Had her helmet not been essential for rapport with the mecha, Dana would have handed it back to him.

  "Have you coordinated the data yet?"

  "It keeps shifting," he yelled into the wind.

  "Keep trying," she urged him, piloting the tank through four lanes of disc fire.

  They had already made one pass over the fortress and she now veered the tank around for a second, taking out a hovercraft as she completed the break. There was no time to place her shots and she was sorry for that; but if Sullivan's computer did its job, the end would more than justify the means. Relying on the mecha's lateral guns, her hands locked on the handlebar-like control and trigger mechanisms, she thumbed a second and third Bioroid to destruction.

  Meanwhile the second fortress was eclipsing the sky overhead,

  threatening to sandwich her small craft between it and the grounded ship. Tactical units were loosing cannon rounds against its plated underbelly, only adding to her predicament as the shells often ricocheted and detonated along the Hovertank's course. Dana had also noticed Logans overhead before the fortress blocked her view; possibly the remnants of Marie Crystal's Black Lion squadron.

  "The vulnerable area will be exposed when the fortresses attempt a ship-to-ship link up," Sullivan said at last. "That'll be the time to hit them!"

  Dana looked up, trying to calculate how much time they had left before the fortress rendered her and her new sweetie a memory. The ventral surface of the ship was an ugly sight, like the mouth of some techno-spider about to devour them.

  "I'm patching the information directly into your onboard computers, Dana. The rest is up to you."

  "Leave it to me," she started to say, accelerating the mecha through the narrowing gap formed by the two ships. But suddenly a Hovercraft had appeared out of nowhere, raining rear energy hyphens at her. Then a Bioroid swooped in from her port side, forcing her dangerously close to some sort of radar glove, a small mountain on the hull of the ship. As she swerved to avoid it, she lost George.

  She heard his scream as he flew out of the rumble seat, and craned her head around just in time to see him caught in the metalshod fist of a Hovercraft pilot.

  Dana swung around hard, but lost sight of the alien craft. But Marie Crystal was on the net telling her that she had seen the rear collision and had the enemy right in front of her.

  Dana couldn't figure out what Marie was doing in the gap, but she didn't stop to think about it. She shot forward and attained the open skies again, scanning for Marie's Logan-mode Veritech.

  Below her, one of her teammates had just reconfigured from tank to Guardian mode and loosed a bolt at one of the alien sky-sleds. Dana had a sinking feeling as she traced the shot's trajectory: it caught the Bioroid that

  was holding George, sending it careening into a fiery spin, and on a collision course with Marie's fighter.

  Crystal broke too late, impacting against the out-of-control sled and falling into a spin of her own. Dana didn't know who to watch: the Bioroid holding Sullivan or Marie. Suddenly the tank that had fired off that fateful round-Sean's tank was reconfiguring to Battloid, and leaping up to catch Crystal's ship. Despite her fascination, Dana involuntarily averted her eyes; but when she looked again, both Veritechs were reasonably intact.

  Then all at once there was an explosion at nine o'clock. She turned, as her mecha was rocked by the shockwaves.

  The Bioroid was history.

  And George Sullivan was dead.

  She screamed his name and flew into the face of the angry fireball, hoping, expecting to find who knew what. And as her scorched tank emerged she recalled his last words to her: The rest is up to you.

  Inside the grounded fortress, the Masters watched a schematic display of their descending rescuer, a hundred yards overhead now and already extending the grapplers and tendrils that would secure the link-up.

  "We are ready," Dag reported.

  Shaizan nodded eagerly. "Good. Deploy the Zor clone toward their strongest defenses...We must make certain that he is conveniently captured by the Micronians..."

  One minute Angelo Dante was sitting in the cockpit of the Gladiator doing his lethal best, and the next thing he knew he was airborne, turning over and over...

  He hit the ground with a thud that knocked the breath from his lungs and left him unconscious for a moment. When the world refocused itself, he recognized what was left of his mangled Hovertank, toppled on its side and burning.

  Dante got to his feet, promising to tear the aliens apart, even as a

  sledded Bioroid dropped in for the kill. It was that gleaming red job, Angelo noticed, already outside himself and braving it out, the hero he was born to be. But just then a strange thing happened: a pinpoint blast from the fortress bull's-eyed the Hovercraft, sending sled and pilot into a fiery crash in the craggy outcroppings near the Earth Forces front lines.

  Dante heard an atonal scream of agony issue from the craft as it fell. "They shot down their own guy!" a puzzled Dante said out loud,

  figuring he would live to see another day after all...

  Dana tried to erase the fiery image of Sullivan's death as she piloted the Hovertank back toward the fortress once again. Split-screen data schematics were running parallel across the monitor screen of Valkyrie's targeting computer, directing the mecha's weapons systems to the coordinates that would spell doom for the fortress. And by the look of things, there wasn't much time left.

  With the rescue ship overhead now, the grounded fortress was actually lifting off, still the target of countless warheads that were exploding harmlessly against the alloyed hull-its complex network of close-in weaponry silent-and apparently drawing on all the reserve power available to it. The entire ridgeline appeared to be effected by its leave-taking; a deafening roar filled the air, and the ground was rumbling, sending rock and shale sliding down the steep slopes of those unnatural tors. Massive whirlwinds of gravel and debris spun from the underside of the ascending ship, as though loosed from traps set an eternity ago.

  As Dana closed on the twin fortresses, she could see that four panels had opened along the dorsal side of the first, revealing massive socketlike connectors, sized to accept shafts-glowing like outsize radio tubes-that were telescoping from circular portals in the bulbous, spiny anchor shown by the second.

  "Faster!" Dana urged her Hovertank, the cockpit screen flashing, the parallel series of schematics aligned. Then the mecha was suddenly reconfiguring to Gladiator mode, retroing to an abrupt halt, the cannon

  already traversing and ranging in. Having surrendered to the dictates of the computer, Dana could do nothing but sit back and pray that she had arrived in time.

  The fortresses were linked in an obscene technomating, one atop the other, ascending and accelerating now, scarcely a three-meter wide gap between them.

  Dana's mecha fired once, its energy bolt finding that narrow interface and detonating squarely against the linkup anchor. On all sides, explosive light erupted from the empty space between the ships, and the upper fortress seemed to shudder, list, and collapse over its mate.

  But the ships continued to rise.

  "It can't be!" Dana shouted over the net. "Why didn't it work?!" Even as she said it, though, she knew the answer. The computer was flashing its internal debriefing to her, but she didn't need to double-check the screen for what she knew in her guts: she had been a split-second too late, two-hundred yards out of the required lethal cone.

  Dana had one last look at the fortresses before they disappeared into battle clouds and smoke, a close encounter of the worst kind.

  CHAPTER TEN

  I think I sensed something about the alien pilot even before Cochran turned to me with the results of his findings. Even now I can't say where that feeling originated or where my present thoughts are directed. I only know that the mo
ment seemed full of import and grand purpose; something about the alien triggered a change in me that is beginning to overshadow my entire life.

  From the personal journal of Major General Rolf Emerson

  General Emerson's official car (a black Hoverlimo with large tail fins, a purely decorative vintage front grill, and an antique, winged hood ornament) tore from the Ministry's parking lot at a little after three o'clock on the morning following the liftoff of the enemy fortresses. Rolf was in the backseat, silent and contemplative, while his young aide, Lieutenant Milton, felt compelled to issue cautions. Monument City felt like a ghost town.

  Emerson had logged two hours of sleep when the call from Alan Fredericks of the GMP had awakened him: something interesting had been discovered near the liftoff site-an alien pilot, alive and apparently well.

  Rolf asked himself what Fredericks was up to: he had brought the alien to Miles Cochran's lab, and had yet to inform Commander Leonard of his find. With rivalry running high between the GMP and the militaristic faction of the general staff, Fredericks's position was suspect. Perhaps, however, this was merely the GMPs way of making up for the hatchet job they did on the first captured Bioroid pilot. Emerson knew when he recradled the handset exactly what he could be setting himself up for but felt the risk justified. He had asked Colonel Rochelle to rendezvous with him at Cochran's lab, then called for his car.

  "This is going to look suspicious, sir," Milton told him for the third time. "The chief of staff racing out of the Ministry in the middle of the night without telling anyone where he's going."

  "I know what I'm doing, Captain," Rolf said brusquely, hoping to put an end to the man's ceaseless badgering.

  "Yes, sir," the lieutenant replied, sullenly.

  Emerson had already turned away from him to stare out the window once again. At least I hope I know what I'm doing, he thought...

  Rochelle, Fredericks, and Nova Satori were already waiting at Cochran's high-tech lab on the outskirts of Monument City. The good doctor himself, a bit of a privateer who walked that no-man's land between the GMP and the general staff, was busy keeping the Bioroid pilot alive.

  Emerson stared down at the alien now from the observation balcony above one of the lab's IC rooms. Cochran had the handsome elfin-featured young android on its back, an IV drip running, a trach insert in its neck. The pilot was apparently naked under the bedsheets, and surrounded by banks of monitoring and scanning apparatus.

  "Our last captive died through official mishandling," Rolf was telling the others, his back turned to them. "I want to make certain that doesn't happen again."

  "Yes, sir," Fredericks spoke for the group.

  Rolf swung around to face the three of them. "Who found him?"

  Nova Satori, the GMPs attractive raven-haired lieutenant, stepped forward and offered salute. "I did, sir. Out where the fortress was."

  Emerson's eyebrows beetled. "What were you doing out there, Lieutenant?"

  Satori and Fredericks exchanged nervous looks. "Uh, she was looking for one of our agents," Fredericks said.

  Emerson looked hard at the hawk-faced colonel. "And just what was one of your agents doing out there?"

  Fredericks cleared his throat. "We're trying to determine that ourselves, General."

  Satori related her brief explanation, purposely keeping George Sullivan's name out of it. But it was the singer/spy she had been looking for; more important, the terminal he'd been carrying when last seen-something

  Dana Sterling had better be able to account for. Nova had heard sounds coming from one of the downed Hovercrafts and upon investigation had discovered the alien pilot. He was ambulatory then, but collapsed soon after being taken into custody, as though someone had suddenly shifted him to standby mode.

  "And he seems fluent in English," Nova concluded.

  "All the more reason to let Cochran handle this personally," said Emerson. "And as of this moment I want an absolute information blackout regarding the prisoner."

  Rochelle was saying little, waiting for Emerson to finish; but he now felt compelled to address the issue that had been plaguing him since the general's phonecall some hours before. It was a privilege of sorts to be included in Emerson's clique, but not if it was going to mean a courtmartial. "General," he said at last, "are you proposing that we keep this from

  Commander Leonard?"

  Satori and Fredericks were hanging on Emerson's reply. "I am," he told them evenly.

  "Exactly what do you want us to do with the specimen?" Fredericks asked after a moment.

  "I want you to run every test you can think of on him. I need to know how these creatures breathe, think, eatdo you understand me? And I need the information yesterday."

  "Yessir," the three said in unison.

  Just then Professor Cochran stepped into the observation room, removing his surgical mask and gloves, while everyone questioned him. He waited for the voices to die down and looked into each face before speaking, a slightly bemused expression on his face.

  "I have one important fact to report straightaway." He turned and gestured down to the Bioroid pilot. "This alien...is Human."

  The three Masters summoned their Scientist triumvirate to the command center of the newly ascended fortress. The Zor clone had survived

  and was presently in the hands of the Micronians. The functioning neuro-sensor that had been implanted in the clone's brain told them this much, although there were as yet no visuals. Schematics that filled the chamber's oval screen showed that some damage had been sustained, but all indications suggested it was nothing that need concern them. It was clear, however, that the Scientists did not share their Masters' enthusiasm for the plan.

  "By capturing the Zor clone, the Micronians have played right into our hands," Shaizan said by way of defense. It was certainly unnecessary that he explain himself to the triumvirate, but it was clear that a certain rebelliousness was in the air, pervasive throughout the ship, and Shaizan hoped to lay some of that to rest. "They themselves will lead us to the Protoculture Matrix."

  "And suppose the Micronians should attack us again?" the lavender-haired androgyne asked defiantly.

  "One purpose of the neuro-sensor is to keep us appraised of all their military activities," Bowkaz told him, indicating the screen schematics. "We will have ample warning."

  "Yes...and what happens if the Micronians should discover your precious neuro-sensor? What then?"

  "Discover it?" Shaizan raised his voice. "That's absurd! Recording of the hyper-frequency of the device is far beyond the realm of their crude scientific instruments. The idea is ludicrous!"

  The scientist scowled. "Let us hope so," his synthesized voice seemingly hissed.

  Dana felt Sean's gentle tap on her shoulder and heard a forearm chord of sharps and flats. She opened her eyes to sunrise, distant crags like arthritic fingers reaching up into pink and grey layers of sky. She had fallen asleep at the ready-room's piano, although it took her a moment to realize this, head pillowed on forearms folded across the keyboard. Sean was standing behind her, apologizing for disturbing her, making some joke

  about her guarding the eighty-eights all night and asking if she wanted some breakfast. The rest of the 15th were scattered about the room, arguing and moping about by the looks of it.

  "...And who the hell was snoring all night?" she heard Angelo ask in his loudest voice. "Somebody sounded like a turbo-belt earth-mover with a faulty muffler."

  Louie was off in a comer tinkering with some gadget that looked like a miniature Bioroid. Bowie was sullen-faced in another, distanced from the scene by earphones.

  "I couldn't sleep a wink," Dana told Sean weakly. She remembered now that she had been thinking of Sullivan and his senseless death, been trying to peck out the melody of that old Lynn-Minmei tune...

  "You need to cut loose of that responsibility once in a while," the former lieutenant was telling her. "Let your hair down and have some fun, take life a little less seriously."

  Dana got u
p, reached for the glass of juice she had left on top of the piano, and went to refill it at the dispenser. "There's a war going on, pal," she said, pushing past Sean. "Course you're not the first soldier I've run across who's found the call of the wild more attractive than the call of duty."

  "Look who's talking," Sean laughed.

  "I mean, I wouldn't want to think that the war was interfering with anything, Private."

  "I don't let it cramp my style, Dana."

  Style? she thought, sipping at the juice: Let me count the comebacks to that one...But as she said this to herself, fragments of last night's dream began to surface. There was George, of course, but then he became all mixed up with the images of that long-haired Bioroid pilot she and Bowie had crossed lasers with weeks ago-Zor! And then somehow her mother had appeared in the dream, telling her things she couldn't summon up now...

  "...and I'm definitely not into hopeless romances."

  Dana whirled, not sure whether she should be angry, having missed his intro; but she saw that Sean was gesturing to Bowie.

  "Now here's a guy who was operating just fine up until a few weeks ago. Now he's out there where the shuttles don't run. And for a dream-girl at that!"

  Bowie didn't hear a word of this, which Dana figured was just as well. Sean made a few more lame comments as he left the room. Dana went over to her friend and positioned herself where she could be seen, if not heard.

  "Sean says you're upset," Dana said when he removed the headphones. Bowie made a face. "What does he know?"

  "It's that alien dame," said Sergeant Dante from across the room, his nose buried in the newspaper. "You better set your sights on something a little more down to earth, my friend."

  Dana threw Angelo a look he could feel clear through the morning edition. "Just like that, huh Sergeant? He just snaps his fingers and forgets her."