The team fanned out to search the space and Lron made an important discovery behind one of the long counters: two cowering white-robed Invid scientists.
The Karbarran pulled them up by their necks and shoved them toward the center of the room.
"Tesla!" one of them seethed, following up with what Jack imagined to be a few choice Invid epithets. Janice translated: "He called Tesla a traitor. Said it was true what they'd heard about him."
"Meaning what?" Jack asked.
"Why, my leading you here," Tesla said too quickly.
"Where is Kami?" Learna demanded.
Tesla put the question to them, then grunted when the scientists had replied. "They refuse to say."
Jack grabbed Crysta's rifle and held it to the head of one of the scientists. "Ask him again."
Tesla listened to the reply and shook his head.
"All right then-"
"Hold it a moment, Jack," Bela interrupted. "Perhaps they crave a lungful of Garuda's fresh air..."
Tesla told the two what the Sentinels had in store for them; even Jack could see their snout sensors blanch at the prospect. No one really needed the translation.
"They've changed their minds," Tesla announced with a snort of disapproval.
And with that the scientists began to lead the Sentinels on a circuitous tour through the dome, descending always, via tractor tubes and spiral drops where there should have been stairs, past conveyor systems and vat after vat of Fruits or pulverized stem and Flower, in and out of corridors and rooms, commo stations and rotundas, all recently vacated by soldiers and worker drones who had ceased their tasks to protect the farm. Within minutes of leaving the control center Jack felt completely lost; he had no idea where they were in relation to the hive entrance, and began to wonder whether the scientists were leading them into a trap. But his concern faded by the time they reached what he guessed to be the lowest, perhaps underground level; they had passed numerous places where ambushes could have been sprung, but not a single soldier had been seen. Then at last they reached the end of the line-or so it seemed until one of the scientists actually walked the group right through a wall. The chamber beyond was a kind of membranous sac, veined and pulsating like something one might find in an unhealthy lung, and there, heaped together in the center of the floor, were Rick, Lisa, Karen, and Kami.
Fearing the worst, Jack hung back while everyone else ran to them-everyone but Janice, who positioned herself near the sac's osmotic gate where she could keep an eye on Tesla. Learna immediately slipped a transpirator over Kami's muzzle and hugged him to herself for all it was worth. Kami stirred some after a moment, but the three Humans were another matter; sickly pale and disheveled, they languished in a deathlike stupor, whimpering every so often.
"...subjected them to the atmosphere, then performed some sort of mind-probe experiments," Janice could hear Tesla translating.
Janice saw the two scientists take a step back as Jack and the others swung around to them. She pretended to preoccupy herself studying the chamber's portal, furnishing Tesla with a bit of illusory breathing space. At the same time, she sharpened her eyes and ears in his direction.
"Don't worry about a thing," Tesla was telling his comrades in a low but reassuring tone. "Now that the Regent has been...killed, Tesla will rule in his place. I will make peace with
these beings and-"
"Tesla, what are you saying?" one of the Invid cut him off. "The Regent killed? We just spoke with him. In fact, it was he who told us to expect you."
"What?" You spoke...But, but what you said, what you said about it being true-"
"Yes," the other scientist sneered. "That you had taken up the Sentinels' fight, and that we should beware your treachery!"
"No!" Tesla said too loudly. He caught himself and risked a glance at Janice, but she kept her eyes averted from him.
Jack, Gnea, and Lron were storming up to him when he swung back around. Lron took hold of each of the scientists by the fronts of their robes.
"Ask them what they did with Rem." Jack barked.
Tesla peered over at the rescued group, noticing for the first time the Tiresian was not among them. Absently, he put the question to the two he had hoped were to be his first subjects, still stunned by what they had told him. The Regent alive? How could it be?
"Well?" Jack shouted. "What's he saying?"
Tesla waited for the scientist to repeat it, nodding as he listened. "Rem is Tiresian. His dreams were less, shall we say, commonplace. So he was sent elsewhere for further tests."
"Where?" Janice asked, walking over to him.
Tesla listened for a moment. "To Haydon IV. In fact, the Regent himself is on his way-" Tesla eyes went wide and the words caught in his throat.
"Go on..."
He swallowed and found his voice-raspy as it was, all at once. "The Regent is on his way to Haydon IV as we speak."
"Then that's where we're bound," Bela said evenly, her eyes narrowed to slits.
Tesla gulped, loud enough for everyone to hear.
"We've got to get them to Jean's med team," Learna announced, still holding on to her mate.
Bela lifted Lisa from the floor. "We have no time to lose."
Lron and Crysta moved in to take hold of Rick and Karen.
Max and Miriya received Cabell's good news/bad news update over the com net: Rick and the others had been rescued, but they were still under the effects of the planet's microbe-laden atmosphere and delirious with fever. Moreover, the mission had gone smoothly with no casualties among the team, but Rem was no longer on Garuda. Jack's team was out of the crater hive now and awaiting extraction; Jean claimed that Rick, Lisa, and Karen were too weak to endure the trip back to the med group's temporary hq by Hovercycle or Garudan flitter.
Max signed off and immediately raised two of his wingmen on the tac, ordering them to rendezvous with Skull One at the crater hive. Reconfiguring the media to Guardian mode, he imaged the Alpha into a vertical takeoff and set his course northeast for the basin. As the VT rose, Max had a full view of the forests and steppes the Skull and Wolff Pack had turned to wasteland. Not since the battle on Karbarra had he seen so much death, such extensive destruction. The dome-shaped hive was in ruins, collapsed and in flames; the Optera tree forests, along with patches of grassland and evergreen, were burning out of control. The terrain was ravaged beyond belief-pockmarked, holed, cratered, littered with legless or pincerless Invid mecha, bits of Hovertank and Veritech, Bioroid and Inorganic. An entire hillside was covered base to summit with Hellcat husks and Invid and Garudan corpses. Hundreds, perhaps thousands had died. And from what Max was hearing over the net, the same scene had played at each and every Invid farm and installation throughout the planet's equatorial belt. But Garuda had freed itself from the offworlders' yoke.
Good news...bad news.
Max said as much to Miriya as the VT covered the fifty or so miles to the crater. She was still in the Beta module and apparently all right, in spite of her ordeal. Max was cautiously optimistic; he had yet to quiz her about how her fighter had been brought down in the first place.
The crater hive was for the most part intact, but Max didn't expect it to last much longer. Fires encroaching on it from all sides. Skull One dropped out of the smoke and clouds onto a battleground much like the one they had just left, dead and wounded strewn across the field, a palpable commingling of triumph and loss. Those Invid who had survived were seeing the Garudan's barbaric side; but Max didn't suppose he could fault Kami's people for the day's bloody aftermath, this requisite catharsis.
Masked again, Jack, Gnea, and Bela directed Max and his wingmen in, and got Rick and
the others into the VTs as fast as they could. Lron, Crysta, and Janice were keeping Tesla and a few Invid scientists under guard inside the hive-protected from the Garudans' bloodlust for the time being. Kami, still weak but ambulatory now, was off somewhere sharing the bittersweet taste of victory with Learna
and their fellow warriors. Mopping up, Max ventured, much as the Wolff Pack was doing in other quarters.
Max caught a brief glimpse of Rick as he was being lifted into the cargo space of Blue Danube's Beta module. The transpirator prevented Max from being able to see his friend's face, but Rick looked as though the Invid had robbed him of his bones.
The three VTs raced for Kami's village, where Jean's team took over and carried Rick and the others to the safety of the geodesic med dome. Max couldn't help but see it as a miniature version of the Invid hives they had just destroyed.
He and Miriya entered on Jack's heels, doffed their masks, and took in a lungful of the dome's artificial atmosphere.
"Sweet, isn't it?" Max said, trying to sound cheerful. Miriya gave him a weak smile, but said nothing. He was reaching for her hand when she suddenly stumbled and collapsed into his arms.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Use your discretion, but try to have your men hold off until you're certain that at least half of them [ed. note: the Zentraedi] are inside-that includes Breetai and that kingsize bitch, Kazianna. Instruct the demo team to use more charges than they think necessary; I don't want any of them coming out alive. In fact, it might be worthwhile to sabotage as many of their environment suits as possible beforehand. Neither of us believe in accidents, Adams, but we're going to call it that no matter what.
A "Code Pyramid" communiqu?from T. R. Edwards, as quoted in Wildman's When Evil Had Its Day
A tight cluster of lights was descending out of Fantoma's perpetually brooding skies. Breetai watched them for a moment, then turned away from the command center's blister viewport to face his lieutenant.
"They've arrived, my lord."
"So I see," Breetai said soberly. He glanced back over his shoulder, snapped the faceshield that sealed his pressurized armor closed, and moved to the hut's airlock. The lieutenant and two armed soldiers followed him out into Fantoma's night.
A constant debris-filled wind had been scouring the ringed giant's surface for the past
three days, and Breetai instinctively raised an arm against it as he marched in lumbering high strides toward the landing zone's illumination grid. Nearly all of the Zentraedi cadre had turned out for the confrontation, and Breetai spied Kazianna Hesh among them. Nearby were a dozen or so Micronians in environment suits-some of Lang's Robotechs. Edwards's Ghost Riders were reconfiguring their Veritechs now, imaging over from Guardian to Battloid as they touched down.
"He apparently has more on his mind than a friendly chat," Breetai said to his lieutenant while the last of the squadron was snapping into upright mode. As murmurs of discontent reached him over the tactical freq, Breetai instructed his first officer to pass the word along that he wouldn't tolerate any incidents; no matter what Edwards said or did, his troops were to keep silent.
Edwards stepped his Battloid off the grid and began to move across the field in Breetai's direction. The Zentraedi knew better than to regard this as some gesture of compromise. Four of the Ghosts flanked Edwards, with a kind of threatening casualness to the way they cradled their rifle/cannons. Breetai threw his lieutenant a knowing glance. The show of force came as no surprise; Dr. Lang had already given him an idea of what to expect.
"New Zarkopolis welcomes General Edwards," Breetai said with practiced elaborateness. "We're sorry we couldn't provide the general with better weather." He could hear a few Zentraedi snicker.
"Very thoughtful of you," Edwards returned over the mecha's external speakers, mimicking Breetai's tone of voice. "And I'm sorry I can't bring you better news."
The two men fell into an uneasy silence; the wind came up, howling and pinging gravel against Breetai's armored suit and the Battloid's alloy. The Zentraedi commander narrowed his eyes and grinned, picturing Edwards in the mecha's cockpit, nervous hands on the controls. When one of the VT's gauntlets came up, Breetai almost made a grab for it, but restrained himself at the last moment. Edwards caught the gesture, however.
"A bit nervous today, are we, Breetai?"
Breetai snorted. "This wind has put me in a foul humor."
Edwards inclined the ultratech knight's head. "Well then, maybe this won't seem like bad news after all." The mecha's hand held out an outsize audio device for Breetai's inspection. "You and your...crew are relieved, Commander. New Zarkopolis is now under REF jurisdiction, and I'll be assuming personal control of this facility. Tomorrow's cargo run will be your last. You can hear it straight from the council, if you wish."
The Zentraedi began to grumble among themselves, and Edwards's sentries took a step forward. Breetai motioned his cadre silent with a downward wave of his massive hand. He
accepted the playback device and regarded it for a moment. "No need for that. But I should warn you, General, that you're going to find the conditions here somewhat harsh. This is, after all, Zentraedi's work."
Edwards's short laugh issued from the speakers. "We'll manage all right. Of course, you're all welcome to stay on-as laborers, you understand."
"I'll consider it, General."
"Good, Breetai, good," Edwards said, pleased with the outcome. "I like a man who can follow orders. Could be that you and I will see eye to eye yet."
Breetai nodded, tight-lipped. Peripherally, he noticed Kazianna stepping deliberately into his restricted field of view.
Edwards went on to inform him that within a week's time several hundred men and women would begin arriving from Tirol, along with the new mecha Lang's teams had designed. Until then, Edwards was leaving behind six of his troops to oversee the transfer of command. Six or six hundred, Breetai said to himself, it wouldn't matter now.
When Edwards and most of his squadron had lifted off, Breetai swung stiffly into the wind and made for the mining colony's Quonset-style headquarters. On the way, he asked the lieutenant if his men had completed their task.
"Almost, my lord."
"And the fool's ore?"
"Loaded for tomorrow's delivery."
Breetai grunted. "See to it that the last of the monopole is placed aboard the ship. The delivery will go as scheduled, but the monopole remains our property."
The lieutenant raised an eyebrow. "About Edwards's soldiers, Commander..."
Breetai came to a halt short of the headquarters hatchway. "Invite them along to 'oversee' the delivery. Afterward, we'll give them the option of joining us."
"And if they refuse?"
"I leave that up to you," Breetai said, stepping inside.
"Pregnant?" Max asked, as Rhestad's morning rays touched the med team's geodesic
shelter.
Vince shrugged his huge shoulders. "That's what Jean says. And Cabell concurs."
"That's right, my boy," Cabell affirmed. "It is most remarkable, but true." The Tiresian was all smiles for a change, his concern for Rem momentarily eclipsed. "I thought her first pregnancy the exception that proved the rule. But this-this is nothing short of..."
"Remarkable," Max finished for him, shaking his head in disbelief. "Yeah, tell me about it."
Vince laughed. "What's with you? It takes two, if I'm not mistaken."
Max looked up into Vince's brown face. "Yeah, but Vince, you don't understand. Remember, Miriya's...different."
"She had Dana," Vince started to say.
"Yeah, and Dana's different."
"How is she different?" Cabell wanted to know.
Max and Vince traded looks, but left the question unanswered. "Can I see her?" Max said suddenly, getting up.
Vince laughed. "That's a good start."
Max started off for the small area of the med dome Jean's team had partitioned off.
"Remarkable," Cabell mused as he and Vince walked back to where Rick, Lisa, and Karen
were undergoing treatment. The three had yet to emerge from semiconsciousness...
"Any change?" Vince asked his wife a moment later. She was standing over Rick just now, looking almost as drawn and pale as her patien
t. Vince put his arm around her narrow waist.
"I'm worried, Vince. They should have come out of it by now. We've tried everything-antipsychotics, transfusions..." She threw up her hands. "I don't know what to do."
"It is the hin" Veidt said, hovering over to them from the foot of Karen's bed. He had spent the last several hours absorbing everything Jean's medical library databanks had to offer. "Garudans live in the womb of the hin. It is what you might term 'an alternate reality.' The microorganisms here, the same which keep Kami's people in a constant state of hin, have caused your friends to become unstuck in what constitutes Human reality."
Death Dance Page 16