"Whoa!" said Jesse. "Don't reckon he'd kiss an Invid like that, do you,
Frank?"
"They might be aliens, but they sure ain't strangers," laughed Shorty. "Hol' up, kids, 'fore ya short out our pacemakers."
Lancer broke off his embrace. "That was the most pleasant way to prove a point I could ever imagine," he whispered, looking into Marlene's eyes.
Frank tucked away his blaster and sat down on the edge of the table. "No hard feelings, kids. Consider yourselves among friends."
Lancer saw his chance to enlist their aid. "Does that mean you'd be willing to help us?"
Frank looked at him questioningly. "What possible help could we be?
We're just a bunch of old-huh?!" An explosion rocked the ship.
"The telltale sound of trouble," said Roy, reaching for a weapon.
From the hatchway they saw two Troopers complete a pass over the arena. Gabby, some sort of tote bag clutched in his right hand, was running a jagged course toward the ship. A single charge from one of the Invid ships tore into the already ruined street, throwing him off his feet. Roy had a rocket launcher on his shoulder; he fired and caught the Invid with a glancing shot to its underbelly.
"Lay down some more cover fire!" Frank yelled. "I'll go try to fetch 'im!" "No, wait," Lancer said, pulling the launcher from Roy's grip. "I can
move faster. I'll get him."
Lancer raised the weapon and darted out into the arena. The second Trooper was swinging around and preparing for another pass. "Make a run for it!" he told Gabby, helping him to his feet. "I'll keep you covered."
Wordlessly, Gabby struggled to his knees, but instead of heading for the escort, he doubled back to retrieve the tote bag he had dropped. The Trooper, meanwhile, was coming in low overhead. Lancer seated the launcher on his right shoulder, centered the ship in the weapon's laser sight, and triggered the missile. His shot was sure, straight to the Invid's optic core; a brief fireball and the enemy disintegrated.
Gabby was still on his hands and knees but now had the bag tight in his arms.
"Leave it!" Lancer barked, hearing the sound of the first Trooper's thrusters. "Whatever it is, it isn't worth risking your life!" But he had begun to wonder. Gabby looked up at him, words of explanation in his eyes, and fumbled with the bag's latch. Puzzled, Lancer went down on one knee to gaze at the contents: it was Gabby's battle armor.
All at once the ground rumbled. Lancer reshouldered the launcher and twisted. The first Trooper had put down behind them, its right pincer raised for a crushing blow. Lancer squeezed off a second projectile, which tore into the Invid's scanner, dropping it instantly. He was on his feet watching the thing bleed green when he heard Rand's voice in the distance.
"We've been looking all over for you!"
Rand was waving at him from atop a heap of slacked steel that had once been part of the arena's superstructure. Scott and Annie were with him, along with the horses they had ridden in on.
Not exactly the cavalry arriving in the nick of time, Lancer said to himself while returning the wave, but it was good to see them just the same.
Lancer led his teammates to the Robotech ship; Scott filled him in on their brief incarceration and the theft of the Cyclones, and Lancer primed Scott for the surprises in store. Everyone remembered the incident with Jonathan Wolff, and Rand especially was concerned about Scott's reaction to all this. It was certainly good news that the Cycs were safe, but Rand knew that Scott wouldn't let it go at that-not when the rustlers were soldiers who had once served with the illustrious Expeditionary Force.
The veterans claimed never to have heard of Scott Bernard. This didn't surprise Rand, given the fact that some of them apparently couldn't even recall their own names. Besides, from what Scott had told him, the Pioneer Mission had had an enormous crew, and Major Carpenter's contingent had separated from the main body of the force early on in the mission. They had been lost in space for approximately ten years, but Scott wasn't about to cut
them any slack.
Frank was the first to catch Scott's wrath-square on the side of his jaw. "You cowardly scum!" Scott raved, sending the old man backward into
the arms of his companions. "I hate to even dirty my fists on you."
Rand kept his mouth shut, but he wished for once that Scott could control his temper.
"We ain't soldiers any longer," Jesse was telling Scott, wagging a bony finger in the lieutenant's face. "And we don't take orders from the likes of you or anyone else! So if ya wanna attack the Invids, you'll jus' have to do it on yer own!"
"You're all traitors!" Scott bellowed back, grabbing Jesse by the shirtfront and glaring at him.
Lancer put his hand on Scott's shoulder. "Back off, Scott, you're wasting your time. They fought bravely against the Zentraedi, but the fight's gone out of them. Obviously they're no match for the Invid now."
Scott growled and propelled Jesse backward into Roy's arms. It looked for a moment like he was ashamed of himself, but just then he caught the telltale sounds of the transceiver. He rushed into the adjoining cabin, where Gabby was seated at the console.
"A working transceiver?" Rand heard Scott say before roughly snatching the headphones from Gabby's grip and shoving him aside. "Calling Admiral Hunter," Scott began. "Come in, Admiral Hunter..."
Frank, Jesse, and the others burst out laughing until Scott turned on them.
"What's so damned funny?"
"The transmitter doesn't work," Lancer explained while the old men tried to stifle their chuckling. "Just the receiver. "
Scott looked at the console in disbelief. "It what-"
Suddenly the monitor screen flashed, and the external speakers crackled to life. "This is the Expeditionary Force calling all Earth stations. Do you read us? Come in Earth stations..."
"We receive you, com base," Scott spoke into the headset, desperation
evident in his voice. "This is Earth station receiving Expeditionary Force command..."
The face of a young man began to resolve on the screen. It was a clean-shaven face with blue eyes, finefeatured and framed by shaggy brown hair.
"If anyone is reading this message, your orders are to rendezvous with the Expeditionary Force at Reflex Point. Ships of the main fleet will be entering Earthspace within two weeks Earthtime this transmission..."
"Admiral Hunter jus' won't give up," Jesse commented. "He's sure a spunky one, ya gotta give 'im that," said Shorty.
The image had de-rezzed by now. Through it all Gabby had been staring at the screen as though he had seen a ghost. While Scott continued to fiddle with the console controls, Gabby shuffled mindlessly toward the hatch.
"We've got to take out the broadcast towers," Scott was saying to no one in particular. "If we can cripple even some of them...Hey! Where's he going?"
Rand stepped back to permit Gabby access to the hatch; he noticed that the man was clutching something in the palm of his hand, but he couldn't make it out. "Let him go," he told Scott. "He can't help, anyway."
Lancer volunteered to take the APC out to the camp and bring in Rook and Lunk. It was dark by the time he returned, and in addition to Rook and Lunk, the APC carried what remained of Gabby's body. Lancer explained that they had seen flashes of annihilation disc fire in the vicinity of the broadcast tower; they had gone in when the fighting stopped and discovered the flaming wreck that was Gabby's jeep. Close by, they had found Gabby, clad in the battle armor he had retrieved only a short while before.
They had the man laid out in the escort hold now; Gabby's fractured helmet sat on the floor next to him, and the holo-locket taken from his burned hand lay atop the sheet Lunk had thrown over the body.
"He was a brave and loyal soldier, all the way and then some," Frank
said soberly.
Shorty tugged in a sob. "We're gonna miss ya, Gabby."
Marlene stooped to place a flower on the sheet; she gathered up the holo-locket, accidentally activating it as she stood up. A handsome, uniformed youth ap
peared in an egg-shaped aura of purple and gold light. "Hi, Dad," the bolo-image saluted. "Like father, like son; so here I am in the army now, and I just hope you'll be as proud of me as I am of you." Marlene thought she recognized the youth but said nothing.
"Poor Gabby," Jesse said, kneeling down to lift a corner of the sheet. All at once Frank grabbed Jesse by his lapels and pulled him to his feet.
"Are we gonna jus' sit around and let the Invid kill us off one by one, or are we gonna do somethin' about it?!" He shoved his friend aside and drew his blaster. "I'm gonna finish the job Gabby started!"
Lancer came up behind Frank and caught him up in a full nelson, trying to reason with him. "You can't do it alone, Frank."
The old man told Lancer to butt out but ceased his struggling as a second transmission began to flash from the communications console. On the screen was the face they had seen earlier, and the young man's message was much the same: The Expeditionary Force was preparing for an offensive, and all resistance groups were urged to move against the central Invid hive, designated Reflex Point.
Marlene reactivated the holo-locket and compared the two images. "It's him!" exclaimed Jesse. "That's Gabby's boy on that screen!"
Lancer let go of Frank. "No wonder he spent so much time trying to make that transceiver work," he said, turning to the body. "With it he could stay in touch with the one person he loved the most."
Frank hung his head. "It's a goldurn pity. Gabby could see his son, but the boy couldn't see him. An' he never told us nuthin' 'bout it."
"Listen to me, everybody," Scott said in his best takecharge voice. "I'm going to get that broadcast tower if it's the last thing I do. How about it-are you with me or not?"
The team, of course, rallied, but the veterans remained unmoved.
"What's your plan?" Rand thought to ask Scott as the freedom fighters raced toward the hatch.
"We'll decide on the way!" Terrific, Rand said to himself.
"But what about the old cowboys?" Annie wanted to know, gesturing to Frank and his men.
"You heard them, Annie," Scott told her. "Their fighting days are over!"
Frank knew what he had to do; he just couldn't seem to bring his body to understand. It was as if the young lieutenant's words were true after all: The fight had gone out of him. He had, however, gotten as far as suiting himself up in his rusting armor and struggling his way to the bridge of the ship. He was sitting in one of the command chairs now, trying to bolster his courage with long pulls from his flask, but even the whiskey was failing him. "This ain't no help," he muttered, giving the flask a toss toward the rear
of the bridge.
"Thank ya, Frank, but we don't need it either."
Frank swiveled in the chair to find Jesse grinning at him, the flask gripped in his right hand. Roy and Shorty were with him, all three of them squeezed into armor that barely fit them anymore.
Jesse laughed, shutting his eyes. "You ain't goin' nowhere without us, Cap'n."
"Reportin' fer duty," saluted cross-eyed Shorty, hand to the helmet he was rarely without.
"He's correct," said Roy, a smile playing across that sagging face of his, his bald pate gleaming in the console lights.
Frank rose out of the chair, suppressing the smile he wanted to return. "Well, what're ya waitin' for, then? Git to yer battle stations."
Jesse tossed the flask back to him and straightened his headband. "Aye, aye, sir!" he said smartly.
A moment later the aged cruiser's lift-off thrusters came to flaming life. Like some predatory fish, the ship began to rise, disentangling itself from
the techno-debris that had ensnared it for so long. And in response the devastated city rumbled its applause, buildings and ruined roadways vibrating in sympathy. At an altitude of five hundred feet, the ship's Reflex engines kicked in, triplethrusters blazing like newborn suns, to direct it along its final course, straight into the heart of the Invid domain.
The blunt top of the broadcast tower resembled the glowing hemispherical hives Scott and the others had already gone up against, except for the fact that it was set atop an organic-looking stalk some eight hundred feet high. As the three Veritechs closed on it-Scott's Alpha and the uncoupled Betas-scores of rust-brown Pincer Ships poured out to engage them. And the odds had never been worse.
"God, there are too many of them!" Scott yelled into his helmet mike, suddenly questioning the impulsive nature of their attack. Two of his three heat-seekers found their targets, but the skies were literally dotted with alien ships. "We'll never get through them!" As a storm of annihilation discs was directed against him, he loosed a cluster of four more missiles. Three mote Invid ships exploded, sending teeth-jarring shock waves and flashes of blinding light clear into the VT's cockpit. Scott zigzagged through a second salvo of enemy fire and was triggering off another missile flock when he heard Rand's voice cut through the tac net.
"Scott, look! Those crazy old men have actually gotten that junk heap off the ground!"
Scott edged himself up in the seat; he saw the cruiser off to the right below him, barely above treetop level.
"Watch your mouth, sonny," Frank was telling Rand. "This ain't no junk heap, and we're gonna prove it by showin' you whippersnappers what a real combat crew looks like!"
Scott wanted to take back all the things he had said to them. He had heard those words of newfound courage before, and the ending was always the same.
"Get that ship out of here!" he roared.
"Jus' like the good ole days!" Jesse yelled over his shoulder to Roy. He had the base of the broadcast tower centered in the console's targeting screen, but it was not the tower he was after-not yet. First there were all those ships to take out. So he flipped the weapon selector switch to maximum burst and depressed the trigger button.
A fan of laser-array energy spewed into the field, annihilating countless ships. But the combat troops were quick to even up the score. Ignoring the Veritechs for the moment, they massed against the cruiser and refocused the might of their collective firepower. Without shields, the Robotech ship had little immunity to the discs. Fiery explosions erupted across the cruiser's bow as blast after blast flayed armor and superstructure and blew away gun turrets.
On the bridge Shorty was thrown screaming from his station as an angry white flash holed the ship.
"Dadburn it!" Jesse cursed, seeing his friend go down. "I'll show 'em!"
He slammed his hands against the trigger button again and again, but for every Invid ship that flamed out there were two more returning fire. They were buzzing around the cruiser now, slashing at its damaged areas with their pincers and opening irreparable wounds in its hull. Discs found their way into these, and soon the warship was a flaming, smoking wreck locked in a new struggle with gravity itself.
Scott watched helplessly as the cruiser began to fall. "Use your escape pods!" he pleaded with them. "Abandon ship while you've got time!" But Frank spoke the words Scott knew he would hear:
"No way, sonny. This crew don't give up."
"Don't be foolish, old man! There's nothing more you can do!" "There's still a job to be done," Frank told him weakly.
Scott was alongside the ship now, trying to get a look in through the bridge viewports. "You're not going to prove anything by this!"
"We can prove we ain't cowards, Lieutenant."
Scott realized that they were trying to pilot the cruiser into the very base of the broadcast tower. He would have given anything to have been able to prevent them, and yet the tower had to be taken out, and it was doubtful that the Veritechs could do it alone. So Scott pulled up and away from the ship's suicidal plunge, ordering Rand and Rook back at the same time.
The cruiser pierced the stalk like a lance, some two hundred feet below the hemispherical cap.
On the bridge, Roy turned a knowing look to Frank at the adjacent station. "I've removed the safety locks from all the missiles, Commander."
Frank nodded. "Are we all in agreement about what must be done?"
he asked his crew. "Shorty, what d' ya say?"
Mortally wounded, Shorty had managed to struggle back into his seat. His head was resting on the console. "Commander, how many times do I have to tell you? Don't call me Shorty."
Scott's voice boomed through the speakers. "There's still time. Set the charges and get yourselves to the pods. We'll come in and pick you up."
"Sorry, sir," said Frank. "Our radio's been damaged, an' we can't hear a word you're saying." Rand tried to make them understand, but Frank just shook his head. "No, it's better this way... Shorty, you ready?"
Shorty coughed once. "It's a funny thing, Commander, but I just remembered what it really is-my name, that is. It's-"
Frank brought the heel of his fist down on the self-destruct button. The tower exploded, a stalk in a firestorm.
The three Veritechs swooped in for a flyby.
"We mustn't let the world forget them...loyal, courageous...soldiers." "They'll be awarded medals of honor," Scott said softly.
Down below, Lunk, Annie; Lancer, and Marlene watched the fireball climb and mushroom overhead.
"Who were they, anyway?" Annie asked.
Perplexed by the conflicting emotions she felt, Marlene thought back to Gabby's kindness, Jesse's laugh, Frank's gruffness, the brief holo-locket
image of Gabby's son...
"They were heroes," she sobbed.
CHAPTER FIVE
They thought they had stumbled into Denver, but in fact they had lucked into Delta-Six, a top-secret subterranean installation attached to the Cheyenne Mountain complex, constructed to ensure that America's heads of state would survive any form of attack leveled against the continent. But they weren't thinking of the Zentraedi then, and certainly not of Dolza's four million.
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