Before the Invid Storm

by Jack McKinney

  "They don't want to surrender their authority to someone they see as a newcomer," Dana said in a low voice.

  A smile flared on Wolff's face and died away. "Take good care of that ship, Dana," he said soberly. "It's Earth's only hope. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Use it as it was meant to be used. It's Earth's only hope, as surely as Lynn-Minmei was our hope during the Robotech War."

  Again: Lynn-Minmei. Was he trying to hurt her? "Jonathan, you know that I would never do anything—"

  "You can't be tied to me," he interrupted. "There's no room for sentiment in our lives. We all have separate parts to play, Dana. You know that as well as I do."

  She tightened her lips and stared at the floor.

  "You'd better go," he said, softening his tone. "There are preparations to make. Go now, Dana. Before it's too late."

  In an aboveground laboratory in the Shimada Building, Miho Nagata watched Gibley, Shi Ling, and Strucker tinker with the disturbingly Humanlike robot that had been selected to ride The Homeward Bound into space. Reminiscent of the machines Emil Lang's staff of Robotechnicians had been experimenting with twenty years earlier and left to gather dust when Zand's Protoculture fiends inherited the facility, the plastic-sheathed thing had two legs, two arms, and a head, along with dozens of other appendages designed to gather and collate information. Gibley had told Nagata that the robot could see and hear from practically anywhere on its body.

  "We have a pretty good idea of what happened in Argentina," Kan Shimada's number-one man was telling the trio as they worked. "The GMP somehow convinced General Vincinz to scuttle the launch of Napperson's Hope. The two women who were captured were former Southern Cross intelligence officers in Mexico."

  "I'm surprised Vincinz was willing to cooperate," Gibley said in an offhand way, "after what Aldershot and Constanza have done to the Southern Cross. Why didn't the GMP handle it themselves?"

  "Obviously they didn't want to compromise their intelligence agent." He smiled. "Our agent, I should say. She told them just enough to get them nervous, without revealing where the funding for the launch originated, so there are no ties to us."

  Shi Ling peered at Nagata from behind the robot "And the ship?" Gibley asked.

  "Misa and our agent report that it was damaged, but apparently not irreparably so."

  "Tough break," Strucker commented.

  Miho nodded. "Mr. Shimada shares your concern. He feels that we are indirectly responsible for the damage, and has sent Terry back to Argentina to make amends."

  Gibley secured a panel in the robot's thigh and stood up, stretching his arms over his head. "Is Kaaren Napperson planning to confront the Defense Force about the damage?"

  "Her captives are denying any present affiliation with the Southern Cross," Nagata said. "They claim they were acting on behalf of the Heal Earth Hajj. Besides, Napperson knows better than to stir up further trouble."

  A vid-phone chirped while everyone was mulling over Nagata's remarks, and Louie Nichols's face appeared onscreen a moment later.

  "Lynn-Minmei," he said when Gibley had planted himself in front of the vid-phone camera.

  "Uh, what's red and white, and irksome?" Gibley replied.

  Louie forced a smile.

  "Okay, I give up," Gibley said.

  "Lynn-Minmei is The Homeward Bound's voice-recognition code." "You're kidding."

  "No, and I doubt Dana is."

  Shi Ling was suddenly at Gibley's side. "We'll have to scan the news- footage files to see if we've got audio of Wolff saying her name."

  Louie shook his head. "Won't be necessary." He held up a minidisk. "Dana wired herself."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  A glance at the events that transpired between the [Second and Third Robotech] wars is likely to leave one with the impression that the actual function of the Invid Sensor Nebula was to so confound the inhabitants of Earth that they would be incapable of taking any action that might deflect or otherwise repel the swarm. Given the conduct of the revamped government, the dismantled Southern Cross, the impotent Defense Force, the orchestrating Shimada Family, the naïve Starchildren, and the foundering 15th ATAC, one is tempted to view Leonard, Moran, even Zand in a more benevolent light.

  Selig Kahler, The Tirolean Campaign

  This time when Satori and Fredericks arrived at the refugee camp, they found the barbwire-crowned gate wide open. Dana, Bowie, Angelo, and Sean were waiting for them, on the ground rather than inside the battered Hovertanks they had salvaged from the war-torn streets of Monument City. Groups of Tirolean refugees watched warily from the Emerson cabin, the watchtowers, and the deep shadows of fir trees. Musica stood off to one side of the gate, cradling the clone infant in her arms.

  "You'd better have a damn good reason for making us come all the way from Denver," Fredericks said to Dana, in the affected tone that had endeared him to no one.

  Dana stood akimbo. "I'll let you be the judge of that, Colonel."

  The former members of the 15th led the climb up the grassy slope to a large field, strewn with graves, marked only by knee-high piles of river- smoothed stones. The desiccated, overturned earth was the color of cocoa.

  "On the Masters' mother ships, clones that died or were determined to be defective were simply recycled," Bowie told the two GMP officers. "But since we lack the technology for that, and because cremation is for some reason anathema to the Tiroleans, it was either interment or cryogenic preservation. As you can see, we chose burial."

  Nova's eyes were larger than usual as they roamed the field. "My God, how many have died?"

  "One hundred and three," Angelo said gruffly.

  "If you'd surrendered them to our custody . . ." Fredericks started to say, only to be cut off by Sean.

  "They would have died anyway."

  Nova had a hand over her mouth. "Surely we can get a medical team to come up here . . ."

  But Dana was shaking her head. "It's too late for that, Nova. Anyway, we've already treated the ones who came down with diseases. What you see here is mainly the result of madness and malnutrition. The war was even tougher on them than it was on us, and now, everything about the place is killing them: the air, the openness, the food . . . They have to be moved to a secure environment where they can tend to their own healing. And they require special nutrients we can't supply, because we've run out of downed assault ships to plunder."

  "Dana, I don't know what you expect us to do," Nova said.

  "I'll tell you what I expect." Dana took a couple of steps toward them. "I need your help in transferring them to the factory satellite."

  Fredericks snorted in disbelief. "While the Zentraedi are on board? Are you certain you've thought this through, Sterling?"

  "The Zentraedi have more in common with these people than they do with us," Dana told him. "Their gripes were with the Masters, not the clones the Masters created. They'll accept the Tiroleans. More importantly, the factory's life-support system is still producing a synth food that contains the Protoculture chemicals that are indispensable to their health."

  Nova blew out her breath. "We don't have the authority to facilitate an operation of this scope."

  "I know that, Nova. But I need you to act as our intermediary with Aldershot and Constanza and whomever else. Tell them that we want three shuttles. They're to be delivered to what's left of Fokker Base, and launched from there, as well. I'll pilot one; Sean will pilot the second; and I want

  Marie Crystal to pilot the third. We'll see to getting the Tiroleans aboard and lofting them to the factory satellite. We won't require any escorts, and we want full clearance to carry out the debarking of our passengers without interference. From the factory, we will proceed directly to The Homeward Bound."

  Fredericks curled his lip at her. "This is beginning to sound like blackmail, Sterling."

  Dana almost grinned. "My—or I should say, our—acceptance of the Nebula mission is contingent on it. Unless our terms are met, Aldershot and the lot of them can find another cr
ew for Wolff's ship."

  Nova gnawed her lower lip. "Dana, before you issue any further ultimatums, I should caution you: There are other qualified candidates."

  Dana nodded. "But you people owe me this much. For my acting as your emissary to Tokyo and the factory-satellite Zentraedi . . . And every day you delay costs all of us. Tell that to Constanza and Aldershot, Nova. And advise them that we're ready to go at a moment's notice."

  "I can't say I'm any more comfortable with this than I am with weightlessness," Vincinz announced, surveying his roomy subsurface quarters on ALUCE Base, "but it does feel good to be within fifty thousand miles of our prize."

  The Homeward Bound, Vincinz meant, which he and some of the others had been briefly aboard during the transfer of the fission bombs. And a fine ship she was, he had told himself at the time. Somewhat cramped and unfinished, but suitable for spearheading an attack on the Invid. Or for spacefolding to Tirol—once Shimada's team had finished working their Protoculture magic.

  With Vincinz were his adjutant, his chief of staff, and two Southern Cross captains who were loyal to Vincinz but had spent the past two months attached to General Nobutu's command. A lanky, long-haired TASC lieutenant named Lancer had shown everyone to Vincinz's quarters and had promised to have the kitchen deliver food and drink.

  Major Stamp pounded his hand against the room's arc of alloy wall, as if testing its strength. "Tell you the truth, I think I'd rather be here than on Earth if and when the Invid come. Especially if Wolff turns out to be right about their ignoring the moon."

  "Do you want to wait around and see if he's right?" Vincinz asked. "I only meant—"

  "I know what you meant. But I anticipate we'll be on our way within a couple of weeks. As I see it, Sterling's mission to the Nebula will provide those Tokyo otaku with everything they need to run a full assessment of the fold generators. It'll just be a matter of time before they announce that the ship's already foldworthy or that they can make it so."

  "Sterling," Captain Bortuk remarked with patent distaste. "Who would have figured a Zentraedi going mushy over a bunch of clones."

  Vincinz snorted. "Anyone who fought with Sterling during the war. She was the first one to protest the wholesale slaughter of Bioroid pilots because they were Human."

  "The younger generation," one of the captains said. "Too bad she wasn't around to see what Humans were doing to Humans during the Global Civil War."

  "Still, going to the trouble to loft them to the factory satellite . . ."

  "All we need now are some Invid, and we'll have ourselves a regular XT petting zoo," Stamp added, laughing at his own joke.

  They were all laughing when Lancer, the fly-boy, reappeared at the door. "General Vincinz, high-priority commo from Senator Grass." He gestured to the room's communications terminal. "The encryption is unfamiliar to us, sir."

  "I'll see to it, Lieutenant," Vincinz said, dismissing him. Then, prizing a hand-held computer from the breast pocket of his jacket, he went to the terminal and downloaded Grass's message. A moment later, he had the hand-held on-line with a stand-alone CRT monitor, and everyone was huddled around it.

  Grass was seated at his desk in the Denver building the resurrected

  UEG was leasing from a produce supplier.

  "General Vincinz: Stop right now if you haven't taken the necessary precautions." Grass paused for several seconds, then began again. "Ever since it was learned that Starchildren had set a launch date for Napperson's Hope, the GMP has been following the money that financed the rapid readying of the ship. It appears now that the funds originated in Tokyo, and also that the Shimadas may have had their sights set on Wolff's ship.

  "The conclusion being drawn down here is that they know more about that ship than they've let on. Which begs the question: Have they shared what they know with anyone else? Get back to me as soon as possible, Vincinz. I don't want to be left on Earth if the balloon goes up ahead of schedule."

  Vincinz turned to Stamp. "When is Sterling slated to loft the clones to the factory satellite?"

  "Today. Oh-six-hundred hours, Denver time."

  Vincinz consulted his wrist watch. "That gives us just under twelve hours."

  "To do what, sir?"

  "To beat Sterling to The Homeward Bound. That ship isn't going anywhere without us."

  Nova, Fredericks, and three other GMP officers had a room to themselves in Denver Base's mission-control complex. Dana's shuttle convoy was up and away—in spite of a few last-minute problems at Fokker Aerospace—and the three ships were being tracked and monitored. All of Dana's terms had been met: the UEG had okayed the demand that her crew be made up of the former members of the 15th ATAC, in addition to Lieutenant Marie Crystal of the Black Lions TASC squadron; the Tiroleans were cleared for transfer to the factory satellite; and the 15th was authorized to proceed directly to The Homeward Bound and commence countdown for the Nebula mission.

  Although there were far fewer display screens, the room the GMP

  officers had to themselves received the same data that was being relayed to the central control room. Just now, most of the monitors were displaying video feeds from the pilot cabins of the three shuttles. There were Sean and Bowie; Angelo and Marie; and, in the third and largest shuttle, Dana, partnered with the Shimadas' somewhat grotesque, Humaniform robot, and some silly-looking, poodlelike stuffed animal Dana had brought along. But while Fredericks and the other officers were regarding the screens, Nova was listening—via audio earbeads—to a recording of a conversation Wolff and Sterling had had, ten days earlier, in Wolff's quarters.

  There's no way to destroy the Sensor Nebula, Jonathan, Dana had said to him at one point. And even if we manage to disrupt or disperse the cloud, it'll be too late. The Nebula has communicated with the Invid. They'll come, no matter what we do.

  That Dana had heard as much from the factory-satellite Zentraedi and had failed to report it might have been grounds for bouncing her from the Nebula mission. But Nova had decided not to bring the recording to the attention of the oversight committee. Her personal beliefs notwithstanding, Dana could claim to have simply dismissed the information, on the assumption that the Zentraedi were frequently misinformed about tactical data—a claim that would be backed up by her acceptance of the mission.

  It's not too late, Wolff had told her. You have to accept the mission.

  Nova was unclear as to why she had become preoccupied with the recording. However, because the onset of that preoccupation had coincided with the arrival of new intelligence about the Starchildren, she sensed that she was searching for a clandestine link between the Shimadas and Wolff, or perhaps between the Shimadas and Dana.

  The funds that were to have financed the launch of Napperson's Hope had been traced to Tokyo. Behind Fredericks's back, Nova had authorized a payment of $500,000 to their informant, and the woman had spilled what she knew about the Shimada connection.

  As Sterling herself had helped to establish, the Shimadas claimed to have no interest in either abandoning the elegant underground empire they

  had forged, or contributing to the refurbishment of Earth's decimated Defense Force. Rather, they had hopes of accommodating the Invid with the aliens' own Flowers of Life, like some antiwar hippie crusade from the previous century. It followed, then, that they might have viewed Wolff's ship as a threat to their plans, and had therefore attempted to arrange for its destruction or disappearance—at the hands of the Starchildren or who knew what other groups.

  All of which would have been well and good, save for one piece of intelligence that had also come to light: the GMP operative had stated that the person who had supplied the information about the Starchildren's launch was Terry Weston—a Shimada subordinate.

  That being the case, what had happened to compel the Shimadas to reverse the plan they had set in motion? Never mind that they had manipulated the GMP and the Southern Cross to achieve their ends; had they discovered a better way of disposing of the ship?

  Nova paus
ed the playback of the recordings to study the monitor screens. Sean and Bowie, Angelo and Marie, Dana and the robot . . .

  The two-legged machine had been scanned and probed, and declared to be essentially harmless. It wasn't harboring a bomb or any program that could initialize a self-destruct sequence in Wolff's ship. As desperate as the Shimadas might be to rid the planet of The Homeward Bound, it was unlikely that they would knowingly sacrifice Dana and her crew in the process.

  So what wasn't she seeing?

  She studied the display screens some more, finding her attention drawn again to the wide-angle feed from the shuttle Dana piloted. The Shimada bot's tinted vision array suddenly brought Louie Nichols to mind, and Nova laughed at the comparison. But her amusement faltered almost immediately, and she hurriedly commanded the Sterling/Wolff conversation to recommence play.

  Why couldn't Lang have surprised us by making the ship foldworthy,

  Dana had mused, despite what he told you.

  Nova fast-forwarded through the initial portion of Wolff's reply. ". . . Lang shouldn't have sent me home in an imperfect ship. It's crucial that we communicate with the SDF-3. All of our efforts should be directed to that end." Again, she fast-forwarded, "Take good care of that ship, Dana. It's Earth's only hope. Do you understand what I'm telling you? Use it as it was meant to be used. It's Earth's only hope . . ."

  Nova didn't have to run the recording through a voice analyzer to know that Wolff's statements were informed by a subtext. Clearly, he had realized that the amp had him under surveillance.

  Use the ship as it was meant to be used . . .

  How was it "meant" to be used? Hadn't it, in fact, already discharged its importance by returning Wolff and his Pack to Earth? Or did it have a secondary objective to fulfill that had nothing to do with the Nebula mission?

  Why couldn't Lang have made the ship foldworthy? Had he?

  Did Wolff know, and had the Shimadas found out? Nova cut her eyes to the display screens.