Marlene shrugged. "How much do you remember about the day you were born?"
"Not very much," he started to say. Then all at once there were two men on horseback positioned in front of the vehicle. Lancer brought the APC up short, instinctively extending his right arm across Marlene; the horses reared, their riders leveling rifles.
"One false move and I'll make a lead mine outta yer innards!" warned one of the men. "How's that fer threats?" he asked his partner.
The second rider repeated the warning to himself and shook his head. "I don't like it. Too...cryptic." He brought his rifle to bear on Lancer. "Supposin' you tell us what yer doin' in these here parts, Lavender Locks."
Lancer suppressed a grin. The man had on a bandanna and a tiny pair of tinted goggles. His voice sounded like sandpaper on cement. "We were just out driving around, and we got lost," he told them sheepishly.
"Yeah?" said the first rider. "'Pears to me you had sumthin' on yer mind 'sides yer drivin'." He began to laugh knowingly, leering at Marlene.
Lancer smiled and put his arm around Marlene, pulling her close. "Well, shucks," he mimicked the rider. "Iffen you have to know, we're newlywed honeymooners."
"Well, no wonder yer all distracted," the rider exclaimed, lowering his weapon. "I would be, too!"
"Stop cackling and tend to business, Jesse," his cohort told him. "You folks might not know it, but there's an outlaw gang operatin' out here, an' yer lucky ya didn't go and git yer car 'n' everythin' stole out from under ya. "
He disarmed his weapon.
"Worse'n that, yer headed right smack dab straight into Invid territory."
"Garldarn," said Lancer, playing it up. "Me and my little bride 'preciate yer bein' so neighborly as to warn us like that."
The gruff-voiced man seemed to offer a grin beneath the bandanna. "Seems we speak the same language, stranger, so I tell ya what we're gonna do: We're gonna show ya where you can buy some mighty fine weapons to defend yerselves." He tugged at the reins to bring his mount about. "Ya jus' follow us."
The two riders began to gallop off. Lancer kept the APC close behind.
Their trail angled east along the remains of a once-broad highway. "Why are you trusting them?" Marlene asked.
"I'm not. But I'm curious about these weapons. Maybe there's a resistance group operating around here."
The highwaymen led them down into one of the devastated crater cities Scott and Rand had flown over earlier that day. Its once-tall towers were nothing but empty shells now, burned and collapsed like fallen layer cakes. Some time ago a river had altered course and turned most of the crater into a polluted lake. But adjacent to the resultant waterfall, practically beneath its thunderous flow, was a massive tunnel that led to an arena of some sort, and it was into this that the riders disappeared. "Hole in the wall," they called it. Inside, however, was an even greater surprise: the rusting remains of a Robotech battle fortress. It had put down on its belly and somehow seemed to be fused to its ruined surroundings.
Lancer couldn't help but register his astonishment. The ship was nothing like the cruisers developed during the Second Robotech War; it had more in common with the organically fashioned Zentraedi battlewagons of the First. And yet it was not quite Zentraedi, either. The sleek sharklike bow and massive triple-thrustered stern were closer to the hybrids he had heard about-ships constructed on Tirol and sent home under the command of a certain Major John Carpenter. Lancer said as much to the two riders. They
had dismounted and doffed their helmets and cowls; in place of the techno-outlaws who had stopped the APC stood two silver-haired old-timers with thick mustaches and faces aged from a myriad of suns.
"Yep, and she's old and rusty, just like her crew," said the one called Jesse, who affected a headband and had a crazed way of laughing.
"Then you were part of Admiral Hunter's command," said Lancer. "That's something we don't talk about around here, sonny," returned
Frank, who may have had a few years on his saddlemate. His hair was shorter than Jesse's, and his mustache lacked the same outlaw droop.
Just then a third member of the gang stepped through an open hatchway in the grounded ship. He had a cooking pot in one hand and a ladle in the other. With his clean-shaven face and trimmed black hair he appeared to be much younger than either of his companions; moreover, he wore a sky-blue uniform that bore some resemblance to Scott's. Lancer saw, however, that there was no sign of life in the soldier's dark eyes. He tried to question the man as he passed by the driver's seat of the APC but got no response.
"Don't pay no attention to him," Jesse told Lancer. "Gabby hasn't spoken a work to anybody since he came here."
Frank motioned them toward the ramp that led to the hold of the battlecruiser. "Come on in hare, stranger, so's we can show you what we got."
Lancer and Marlene followed them in. Piled high inside were high-tech crates Lancer knew to contain laser-array ordnance of all description.
Jesse made a broad sweep with his arm. "Welcome to the best-stocked tradin' post in the whole West!"
Back in town, the sheriff was trying to follow the rapid, angry flow of Scott's words. He and his men had tossed the three renegade soldiers into a cell, but it hadn't put an end to the leader's ranting and raving.
"Just in case you're interested, Sheriff," Scott was saying now, his hands gripped on the bars of the cell, "I happen to be an officer with Mars
Division. We were sent here from Tirol by Admiral Hunter to liberate Earth from the Invid's hold. As far as I know I'm the only survivor of the assault group, but regardless, my orders are to locate and destroy the Invid Regis and the central hive at Reflex Point. Short of that I-"
"Enough!" the sheriff shouted, holding up his hands. The man had been going on like this for more than an hour, and he couldn't take much more of it-all this talk about assault groups and an attack fleet on its way to Earth from the other side of the galaxy...Every so often one would hear this sort of thing from people who had come wandering in off the wastes looking
like they had just received communiqu 閟 from the Lord Almighty, but that
didn't mean that he had to sit still and listen to every last one of them. "You're just wastin' your breath if you expect me to believe such a cock-and-bull story. Besides, I heard tell of a better one than that by the last group of waste wackos who showed up here."
Scott was about to take up the argument-from a different front when he heard a shot ring out from outside the sheriff's office. A moment later one of the sheriff's men burst through the front door.
"Rustlers, Sheriff! They got the motorsickles!" Scott shook the bars and cursed.
Rand shouted: "Don't let them get away, Sheriff!"
The sheriff made it to the door in time to see two of his men emptying their revolvers at a truck that was tearing down the main street. He could just discern a figure in the open back, a cloaked and helmeted figure yelling above the noise of gunfire: "Much obliged, Sheriff! We never woulda gotten away with 'em iffen you hadn't, locked away the strangers!"
The sheriff glanced in at the jail cell, the open office door, then once more at the truck.
"You're responsible for this, Sheriff!" Scott called out, furious. "You've endangered our entire mission,'" said Rand.
"You dumb hick!" Annie added.
The sheriff contemplated his position: the rustlers were well known to him, and he certainly didn't fancy tangling with them. At the same time, he
was responsible for the strangers' property. So it only made sense to let the strangers go after their own machines. He turned to one of his deputies and said: "Saddle up a coupla fast horses."
"These, must date clear back to the war against the Robotech Masters," said Lancer, hefting one of the samples from the opened crate. It was really not much different from the laser rifles the team was used to, except that the muzzle was somewhat thicker and the trigger mechanism more complex.
"Gen-yoo-wine army issue," Jesse said proudly.
L
ancer brought the rifle up to high port position. "Guess it wouldn't be considered good taste to ask where you got them, huh?"
"Why should you care?" Jesse wanted to know.
"Good customers don't ask too many questions," cautioned Frank, swigging from a bottle of whiskey.
Jesse laughed. "Frank's right, Lavender. But I reckon there's no harm in tellin' ya."
He came across the hold to explain himself, close enough for Lancer to see the space madness in his eyes.
"Way back when, we was soldiers. The army issued these weapons to
us."
"So you're part of this ship's rusty old crew." Lancer grinned. "Then
why aren't you out fighting the Invid with all this firepower instead of playing rustler?"
Jesse scowled and looked away for a moment. "We had our fill of fightin'. We were with Admiral Gloval on the SDF-1; after, we signed up fer duty with the Expeditionary mission. Traveled clear across the galaxy, sonny, a godfersakin' place called Tirol. Then we made one heck of a mistake and tied in with Major Carpenter. 'Course, we finally made it back all right, but by then General Leonard and his boys had their hands full with the Robotech Masters. So we jus' kinda retired, if you know what I mean. Now we sell supplies to resistance fighters, so I reckon we're doin' our part."
Marlene saw Lancer's face begin to flush and did what she could to calm him down by sliding under his arm and laying her head against his shoulder. But Lancer's anger was not so easily assuaged.
"Making a nice profit for yourselves, aren't you?" Jesse laughed. "Reckon we are at that."
"You're nothing but a pack of deserters," he started to say. But suddenly there were new sounds wafting in from outside the hold. A truck had pulled up in the arena. Lancer heard someone shout: "Look what we got!" followed by a wild "yaahoo!"
Jesse and Frank were standing by the hatch. "Wonder where they stole those?" Jesse said before the two men stepped outside.
Lancer heard the Cyclone engines.
"Why don't you see if you can make a little more noise?" yelled Frank. "I don't think them thangs can be heard more'n twenty miles away!"
"Aw, the sheriff didn't even bother to send a posse after us," the new arrival yelled back, laughing as wildly as Jesse had a moment before.
"Keep that talk down, Shorty," Frank ordered. "We got company."
As Lancer and Marlene were stepping down the hold ramp, Jesse swung around to ask them if they were interested in buying a couple of Cyclones. Lancer saw two men in cloaks and helmets astride mecha they had ridden out of the back of the truck. It took him a moment to recognize the Cycs, and he had to quiet Marlene before she said anything.
"Young folks, meet Roy and Shorty," said Frank, gesturing to the men. Roy was tall, with a blockish, bald head. Shorty had crossed eyes and a pinched-up face. He bristled at Frank's introduction.
"I told you not to call me Shorty, Frank!"
"Well, we gotta call you something," Frank answered him.
Jesse leaned across the Cyclone's handlebars to thrust his chin at Shorty. "We'd call ya by your real name if ya could remember what it was, Shorty!"
Shorty raised himself on the footrests. "That ain't funny!"
It looked as though he might have taken a swing at Jesse just then, but
Gabby appeared out of nowhere with his pot and put a quick end to it by ladling some hot stew onto Shorty's bare hand.
Shorty screamed and clutched himself, while the rest of the band had a good laugh.
"Gabby ain't too fonda Shorty," Jesse told Lancer and Marlene. "Ain't that right, Gabby?"
Gabby stood still, almost catatonic, oblivious to it all.
"Fact is, Gabby ain't too fond of nobody," Frank chimed in. "He's a little funny in the head."
Lancer looked over at the uniformed man and experienced a rush of compassion. Gabby seemed to pick up on it and walked toward the hatchway, proffering the pot of stew to Marlene.
"Look out, folks!" Shorty warned them. "He might throw it at ya!"
But instead, he simply held the pot out until Marlene took it from his hand.
Frank felt his chin. "Well, I'll be hornswaggled. He's offerin' it to you." Marlene thanked him.
"Well, isn't this a day for surprises?" said Roy.
Shorty nursed his burned hand. "First time I ever seen him do anything nice for anyone."
"He tried to rejoin Hunter's outfit when those kids from the 15th ATACs got hold of Jonathan Wolff's ship," Frank explained. "But his Veritech got shot down before he could make it."
Jesse snorted. "Darn fool wuz tryin' to git back into the war agin. He's gotta be crazier'n a bedbug."
The four old veterans collapsed in laughter.
CHAPTER FOUR
Dr. Lang considered him an army brat and tried on more than one occasion to instill him with some sense of objectivity, but Scott was a lost cause. If he couldn't persuade, his inclination was to force. And this kind of behavior was simply nor tolerated in the lab. Lang would tell him: "You can't force experiments or people to conform to your world view! The universe just doesn't work that way!" Scott heard him but was not so easily convinced. He had little patience in those days and was often accused of being arrogant and judgmental. Type A, all the way.
Xandu Reem,
A Stranger at Home: A Biography of Scott Bernard
Lancer asked himself how Shorty and Roy could have come across Scott and Rand's Cyclones. There was some talk about a local sheriff and how he had been foolish enough to leave the Cycs unattended. It was beginning to sound like Scott had gotten himself into another fix, but Lancer had yet to find out why or where his teammates were being held. He had barely enough scrip to purchase one of the laser rifles, let alone buy back the Cyclones, but he wondered if he couldn't persuade the Robotech veterans to rescue Scott for old time's sake. After all, they had all been on the SDF-3 together, and chances were that Frank or one of them had at least heard of Scott Bernard, the Pioneer Mission's youngest member.
They had all moved back into the hold of the cruiser, which functioned as the group's living quarters as well as their high-tech trading post. Marlene and Lancer had gorged themselves on Gabby's delicious stew. The shell-shocked soldier had taken to them and, in his eerily silent fashion, was treating them more like honored guests than potential customers. Frank, Jesse, Roy, and Shorty were engaged in a wild game of cards that required two full decks and seemed to be a hybrid of gin rummy and draw poker.
"Come on, Lady Luck," Shorty was saying now, "give me the card I
want." He took one from the facedown stack just as Jesse was throwing one faceup beside it.
"You can have this one, Shorty."
But Shorty was too busy kissing the card he had picked to respond to Jesse's offer. "Jus' the one I wanted," he crowed. "How 'bout that!"
Frank looked at his hand and made a disappointed sound. The cards were an inverted fan in his left hand; his right gripped a whiskey flask.
"Don't need this 'un either," said Jesse, discarding another. "Gentlemen, I fold," Roy announced stiffly, although he kept the cards
in his hand.
Shorty started bouncing up and down in his seat. "Frank, y' ole coot, ya gonna play or not?"
"Hang on, I'm jus' tryin' to decide how much to raise you." "Yer bluffin'!"
Gabby served a cup of steaming tea to Marlene, who smiled and thanked him. Lancer watched the man shuffle off into an adjoining compartment separated from the hold by cinched curtains. Gabby sat down at a communications console and began to throw switches.
"Is that transceiver in working condition?" Lancer asked loudly enough to cut through the card-table conversations.
Frank answered him. "Like everything else around here, it's wore out." Dismissively, he threw his cards to the table. "We still receive transmissions from the Expeditionary Force, but we can't respond to 'em."
Jesse grunted and laughed. "Gabby keeps turnin' it on like maybe he's expectin' a message from somebody."
Ga
bby seemed to hear the men ridiculing him; forlornly, he got up from the console and left the hold.
"What do the transmissions say?" Lancer asked after Gabby had gone. "Who knows?" Shorty cackled. "We don't pay no attention to 'em."
Lancer leaned back in his chair. What a sad bunch, he thought. Soldiers who have lost the will to fight...He was about to launch into the speech he hoped would rekindle their spirits, when Marlene suddenly shot to her feet
and let out a low groan of pain. Lancer stood up and took hold of her quaking shoulders; she had her eyes closed, her fingertips pressed to her temples.
"What is it, Marlene? Are you hearing the Invid broadcasting towers again?"
The four veterans voiced a shocked "Whaaatt?!"
"The tower must be broadcasting again," Lancer explained without thinking.
Alarmed all at once, Frank stood up. "You mean she can hear 'em?" He gestured to the others. "Git 'em, boys! I reckon these two to be Invid spies!"
"You're wrong," Lancer told them, shielding Marlene. "Well, I think Frank's right," Jesse said menacingly.
"I knew there was sumthin' funny 'bout 'em," snarled Shorty.
Frank leveled a hand blaster that resembled an antique short-barreled staple gun. "Don't make a move," he warned Lancer. "If she ain't an Invid, how come she hears their signals?"
Lancer took Marlene into his arms while she sobbed. "She's been traumatized by them. It affected her hearing somehow-it's more sensitive than ours."
Jesse scoffed. "That's 'cause we're Human and she's an Invid!"
"That's not true," Lancer shouted, leading Marlene slowly away from the couch and closer to the external hatch. "She's suffered more from the Invid attacks than any of you! You can see for yourselves the agonizing pain their broadcast signals put her through."
Shorty took a step forward. "You're whistlin' in the wind, pretty boy.
We ain't buyin' it!"
Roy uttered a kind of growl and began to move in bearlike, his huge mitts raised. Lancer backed Marlene against the bulkhead and turned her in his arms. "Think she's an Invid, huh?" He pulled her to him and kissed her full on the mouth. Startled at first, Marlene began to relax and return his tenderness. The veterans went wide-eyed.
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