Metal Fire

by Jack McKinney

  "For cryin' out loud, she's an alien!...Uh, no offense, of course," he hastened to add.

  "No offense taken," Dana told him. "I know your type can't help it. But I don't care if this girl Musica is 'Spiderwoman,' Angelo. You can't tell someone to just turn her heart on and off like a light switch."

  "Her heart, Dana? Her heart?"

  Dana had her mouth opened to say something, but she noticed that Bowie was crying. When she put her hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off roughly, stood up, and ran from the room.

  Dana started to chase him, but thought better of it halfway down the corridor. Did her father have to put up with this from his squad? she wondered. Did her mother? And where were they, she asked the ceiling-where?!

  Lieutenant Marie Crystal had slept well enough, thanks to the anodynes she received at the base hospital after the crash of her ship. But the pills' effects had worn off now, and she couldn't locate a joint or muscle in her body that wasn't crying out for more of the same medication. She

  reached out for the bedside hand mirror and took a glance at her disheveled, pale reflection. Fortunately her face didn't look as bad as the rest of her felt. It was deathly hot and dry in the room, so she cautiously got out of bed, shaking as she stood, and changed out of the hospital gown into a blue satin robe someone had been thoughtful enough to drop by the room. She left it open as she climbed back under the sheets; after all, it wasn't as if she were expecting visitors or anything.

  But no sooner had that thought crossed her mind when she heard Sean's voice outside the door. Having literally landed in the arms of the Southern Cross's ace womanizer was perhaps only a shade better than having piled into a mountain, but it was something she was going to have to live with for a while. She hadn't, however, anticipated that the trials were to begin so soon.

  Marie ran a hand through her short, unruly hair and pulled the robe closed; Sean was running into some Nightingale flack at the door.

  "Couldn't I just have five minutes with her?" Marie heard Sean say. "Just to drop off these pretty flowers that I picked with my own teeth?"

  The nurse was resolute: no one was permitted to enter.

  "But I'm the guy who practically saved her life! Listen: I won't talk to her or make her laugh or cry or anything-really-"

  "No visitors means no visitors," the nurse told him. Just whose side is she on? Marie began to wonder.

  "Well isn't it just my luck to find the one nurse in this whole hospital who's immune to my many charms."

  Now that sounded like the Sean Marie knew.

  "Here," she heard him say now. "You keep the flowers. Who knows, maybe we'll just meet again, darlin'."

  Marie's pale blue eyes went wide.

  She was wrong: landing in the arms of his Battloid was worse than having crashed!

  General Emerson was in the war room when Leonard finally caught up

  with him. He had been dodging the commander's messages all day, victimized by a dark premonition that Leonard had somehow learned about the alien pilot. And as soon as Leonard opened his mouth, Emerson knew that his instincts had been correct. But strangely enough, the commander seemed to be taking the whole thing in stride.

  "I've been told that you're keeping a secret from me, General Emerson," Leonard began, with almost a lilt to his voice. "I thought I'd come over here and ask you myself: is it true that another Bioroid specimen had been captured?"

  "Yes, Commander," Rolf returned after saluting. "As a matter of fact, Professor Cochran is running a complete series of tests on him."

  Leonard suddenly whirled on him red-faced with anger.

  "Just when were you planning to tell me about him, General?!" Techs throughout the room swiveled from their duty stations.

  "Or perhaps you were considering keeping this information from me!" Leonard was bellowing.

  Rolf didn't even get the chance to stammer his half-formed explanation.

  "I'm taking the prisoner out of your hands, General. He'll be analyzed by military scientists, not renegade professors, do you understand me?"

  Rolf fought to keep down his own anger while Leonard stormed off, his boot heels loud against the acrylic floor in the otherwise silent room. "We mustn't let this prisoner be destroyed," he managed to get out without yelling. "We learned nothing from the last one. This time we must proceed impartially, and Miles Cochran's our best hope for that."

  The commander had stopped in his tracks and swung around to face Emerson, regarding him head to toe before responding. And when he spoke his voice was loud but controlled.

  "I'm sure our people could do just as well, General. But it seems to me that you've taken a personal interest in this prisoner. Am I correct?"

  "I have," said Emerson, and Leonard nodded knowingly.

  "Is there something more I should know about this particular

  android?"

  Rolf was tight-lipped. "Not at the moment, Commander."

  "Well then, since you're so...determined...But keep in mind that this one is your responsibility, General. There are too many variables in this situation already."

  Emerson saluted and Leonard was turning to leave, when all at once a novel blip appeared on the threat board. The power play forgotten, all eyes focused on the screen. Every terminal in the room was clacking out paper. Techs were hunched over their consoles, trying to make sense of the thing that had just appeared in sublunar orbit out of nowhere!

  "What is it?" demanded Leonard, his hands pressed to the command console. "Someone answer me!"

  "A ship, sir," said a female enlisted-rating. "And it appears to be moving in to engage the enemy!"

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Major Carpenter and crew left today. "Lang's shot in the dark," as some are calling it. But I have already let it be known that the responsibility is mine, and one part of me is even envious of their leavetaking. Simply to attempt a return to Earth, to quit this malignant corner of space, this crazed and maniacal warfare against our own brothers and sisters and the unstopable creatures borne of the Tirolians' savagery and injustice...It is clear to me that my destiny lies elsewhere, perhaps on Optera itself, Lisa my life and strength beside me.

  The Collected Journals of Admiral Rick Hunter

  The ship that had materialized prom hyperspace and created that blip on the threat board was long overdue in arriving in Earthspace. Ten years was hardly a measurable quantity by galactic standards; but to a planet brought once to the brink of extinction and now enmeshed in a war that threatened what little remained, ten years was an eternity-and the appearance of the ship a godsend. Unfortunately such feelings were soon to prove premature...

  Lost in space for the past five Earth-years-lost in corridors of time, in continuum shifts and as yet unmapped mobius loops-the cruiser had finally found its way home. Before that, it had been part of the Pioneer Expeditionary Mission-that ill-fated attempt to reach the homeworld of the Robotech Masters before the Masters' sinister hands reached out for Earth. The Mission, and that wondrous ship constructed in space and launched from Little Luna, had had such noble beginnings. The Protoculture Matrix thought to have been hidden inside the SDF-1 by its alien creator, Zor, had never been located; the war between Earth and the Zentraedi terminated. So what better step to take, but a diplomatic one: an effort to erase all possibilities of a second war by coming to terms with peace beforehand.

  But how could the members of the SDF-3 have known-the Hunters,

  Lang, Breetai, Exedore and the rest-how could they have foreseen what awaited them on Tirol and what treacherous part T. R. Edwards would come to play in the unfolding of events? Earth itself would have no knowledge of these things for years to come: of the importance of a certain element indigenous to the giant planet Fantoma, of a certain quasi-canine creature native to Optera, of a budding young genius named Louie Nichols...

  For the moment, therefore, the cruiser being tracked by Earth Defcon seemed like the answer to a prayer.

  The ship was a curious, one-of-a-kind hy
brid, fabricated on the far side of the galactic core by the Robotechnicians of the SDF-3 before the schism between Hunter and Edwards, for the express purpose of hyperspace experimentation: the SDF-3 hadn't the means to return to Earth, but it was conceivable that a small ship could accomplish what its massive parent could not. Those conversant with Robotech warship classifications could point to the Zentraedi influences on this one, notably the cruiser's sleek sharklike form, and the elevated bridge and astrogation centers that rose like a dorsal fin just aft of its blunted bow. But if its hull was alien, its Reflex power center was pure Terran, especially the quadripartite design of the triple-thruster units that comprised the stern.

  The cruiser's commander, Major John Carpenter, had distinguished himself during the Tirolian campaign against the Invid, but five-years in hyperspace (was it five minutes or five lifetimes, who could say which?) had taken their toll. Not only on Carpenter, but on the entire crew, every one of them a victim of a space sickness that had no name except madness, perhaps.

  When the ship had emerged from hyperspace and a vision of their blue-and-white homeworld had filled the forward viewports, there wasn't a crewman aboard who believed his eyes. They had all experienced the cruel tricks that awaited the unwary techno-voyager, the horrors...Then they had identified the massive spade fortresses of the alien fleet. And there was no mistaking these, no mistaking the intent of the soulless Masters who guided them.

  Carpenter had ordered an immediate attack, convinced that Admiral Hunter himself would have done the same. And if it seemed insane, the commander told himself as Veritech teams tore from the cruiser's ports-one relatively undersized ship against so many-one had merely to recall what the SDF-1 had done against four million!

  Even the strategy was to be the same: all firepower would be concentrated against the flagship of the alien fleet; that destroyed, the rest would follow.

  But Carpenter's crew put too much stock in history, which, despite claims to the contrary, rarely repeats itself. More important, Carpenter forgot exactly who he was dealing with: after all, these weren't the Zentraedi...these were the beings who had created the Zentraedi!

  In the command center of the alien flagship the three Masters exchanged astonished looks over the rounded crown of the Protoculture cap. Lifting their eyes to the bridge readout screens, the look the three registered could almost have passed for amusement: a warship even more primitive in design than those the Earth Forces had sent against them in the recent past had just de-folded from hyperspace and was attempting to engage the fleet single-handedly.

  "Absurd," Bowkaz commented.

  "Perhaps we should add insult to the list of strategies they have attempted to use against us."

  "Primitive and barbaric," said Dag, observing how the fortress's segmented cannons were annihilating the Earth mecha, as though they were a swarm of mites. "We do them a service by obliterating them. They insult themselves with such gestures."

  Behind the Masters the Scientist triumvirate was grouped at its duty station.

  "We have locked on their battle cruiser at mark six bearing five-point-nine," one of them reported now.

  Shaizan regarded the screen. "Prepare for a change in plans," he told

  the blue-haired clone. "Ignore the drones and deal directly with the cruiser. All units will converge on your coordinates. Our ship will hold the lead...for the glory of the kill."

  The techs, staff, and officers in the war room were still yahooing and celebrating the return of the Pioneer Mission. Supreme Commander Leonard had left immediately to confer with Chairman Moran, leaving General Emerson in charge of the surprise situation.

  "Sir!" said one of the techs. "Pioneer Commander is requesting backup.

  Shall we scramble our fighters and Ghosts?"

  Emerson grunted his assent and nodded, curiously uneasy, almost alarmed by the sudden turn of events. Was it possible, he asked as the techs sounded the call-the return of his old friends, a new beginning?...

  Bowie and Dana, each cocooned in private thoughts, sequels to earlier interrupted musings, were in the 15th's rec room when they heard the scramble alert.

  "All pilots to battle stations, all pilots to battle stations... All ground crews to staging areas six through sixteen... Prepare fighters for rendezvous with SDF-3 attack wing!"

  Dana was on her feet even before the final part of the call, disregarding as always the particulars and details. Rushing past Bowie, she grabbed his arm and practically hauled him into the barracks corridor, where everyone was double-timing it toward the drop-racks and mecha ports. She hadn't seen such frenzy, such enthusiasm, in months, and wondered about the cause. Either the city was under full-scale attack or something miraculous had happened.

  She saw Louie racing by and called for him to stop. "Hey, what's all the ruckus about?!" she asked him, Bowie breathless by her side.

  Louie returned a wide grin, eyes bright even through the ever-present goggles. "It seems the cavalry's arrived in the nick of time! We've got reinforcements from hyperspace-the Pioneer's come home!"

  Dana and Bowie almost fell over.

  Something miraculous had happened!

  "We need a miracle, John," Commander Carpenter's navigator said hopelessly. "We've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at them. Nothing's penetrating those shields."

  The two men were on the bridge of the cruiser, along with a dozen other officers and techs who had wordlessly witnessed the utter destruction of their strike force. That those men who had lived through so much terror should perish at Earth's front gate, Carpenter thought, half out of his mind from the horror of it. But he was determined that their deaths count for something.

  "Have the first wing make an adjustment to fifty-seven mark four-nine," he started to say when the cruiser sustained its first blow.

  Carpenter was sent reeling across the bridge by the force of the impact, and several techs were knocked from their chairs. He didn't have to be told how serious it was but asked for damage reports nevertheless.

  "Our shields are down," the navigator updated. "Ruptured. Primary starboard thrusters have all been neutralized."

  "Enemy fortress right behind us, Commander!" said a second.

  In shock, Carpenter glanced at the screens. "Divert all auxiliary power to the port thrusters! All weapons astern fire at will!"

  "What the devil's going on up there?!" Leonard shouted as he paced in front of the war room's Big Board.

  Rolf Emerson turned from one of the balcony consoles to answer him. "We've lost all communication with them, Commander."

  Leonard made a motion of disgust. "What about our support wing?" "The same," Emerson said evenly.

  Leonard whirled on the situation screen, raised and waved his fist, a gesture as meaningful as it was pathetic.

  A radiant rash broke out across the pointed bow of the Masters'

  flagship, pinpoints of blinding energy that burst a nanosecond later, emitting devastating lines of hot current that ripped into the helpless cruiser, destroying in a series of explosions the entire rear quarter of the ship.

  More than half the bridge crew lay dead or dying now; Carpenter and his second were torn up and bloodied but alive. The cruiser, however, was finished, and the major knew it.

  "Ready all escape pods," he ordered, the heel of his hand to a severe head wound. "Evacuate the crew."

  The navigator carried out the command, initiating the ship's self-destruct sequence as he did so.

  "We're locked on a collision course with one of the fortresses," he told his commander. "Seventeen seconds to impact." Throwing a final switch, he added: "I'm sorry, sir."

  "Don't apologize," Carpenter said, meeting his gaze. "We did what we could."

  On a lifeless plateau above Monument City, Dana and Sean, side-by-side in the cramped forward seats of a Hovertransport, watched the skies. The rest of the 15th were not far off. Escape pods from the defeated Pioneer ship were drifting down almost lazily out of azure skies, gleaming metallic spher
es hung from brightly colored chutes. Taking in this tranquil scene, one would have been hard pressed to imagine the one they had inhabited only moments before, the heavenly inferno from which they had been dropped.

  Dana had learned the sad truth: it had not been the SDF-3 out there, but a single ship long separated from its parent. Like herself. The crew's last-ditch effort to hurtle the cruiser into one of the six alien fortresses had proved futile. Still, she had hopes that one among the valiant survivors who were now stepping burned and damaged from the escape pods would have some words for her personally, some message, even one five or fifteen years old.

  Sean maneuvered their Hovertruck toward one of the pods that had landed in their area. Dana leapt out and approached the sphere, welcoming home its two bloodied passengers, and doing what little she could to dress their facial wounds. The men were roughly the same height, pale and atrophied-looking after their many years in space and badly shaken from their recent ordeal. The older of the two, who had brown hair, a wide-eyed albeit handsome face, introduced himself as Major John Carpenter.

  Dana told them her name and held her breath. Carpenter and the other officer looked at one another.

  "Max Sterling's daughter?" Carpenter said, and Dana felt her knees grow weak.

  "Do you know my parents?!" she asked eagerly. "Tell me...are they...?"

  Carpenter put his hand on her shoulder. "They were when we last saw them, Lieutenant. But that was five years ago."

  Dana exhaled loudly. "You've got to tell me everything."

  Carpenter smiled weakly and was about to say something more when his companion grasped him by the upper arm meaningfully. Again the two looked at each other, exchanging some unvoiced signal.