Symphony of Light

by Jack McKinney

  Footnote in Below, The Road to Reflex Point

  The presence of Invid scouts patrolling the outer perimeters of the central hive forced the team to keep to the mountains and turn south once again. There was still no sign of Hunter's invasion force, and the Protoculture reserves in the VTs were simply too low to permit any worthwhile reconnaissance behind the enemy lines. No one was really put off by the delay; even Scott breathed easier knowing that Reflex Point was temporarily out of the question. Besides, the snow was behind them, even though the land itself was no less rugged. Travel since "Denver" had been almost due south-into what Scott's maps indicated had once been called western Texas.

  Scott, Rook, and Lancer had done most of the flying; Lunk's APC was back on the ground where it belonged, with Rand's Cyclone to keep him company. Annie was in the mecha's buddy seat, urging Rand through the old highway's twists and turns. It was a warm, blue-sky day, and she felt gloriously alive and uncommonly optimistic. Indeed, she had good reason to feel this way.

  "It's my birthday!" she shouted into Rand's ear when they had exited one of the road's many tunnels.

  "If you don't stop screaming in my ear, it'll be the last birthday you

  celebrate," Rand warned over his shoulder.

  They had lost sight of the VTs on the other side of the tunnel, so he took the turn fast, hoping to spot them before entering the figure-eight switchbacks that led down into the valley. All at once, Rook's red Alpha came whipping around the shoulder, scarcely ten feet above the roadbed. Rand told Annie to hold on and locked the Cyclone's brakes, stabilizing the mecha through a long slide as Rook was setting the fighter down. Lunk had a clearer view of things and managed to bring the APC to a more controlled stop behind the cyc.

  "Why don't you look where you're going?!" Rand shouted even before Rook had opened the canopy.

  "Are you trying to kill us?!" Annie threw in.

  "Just the opposite," Rook said peevishly over the Alpha's externals. "There's an Invid hive on the other side of the ridge, and at the rate you two were going, you'd have been on it in no time."

  Rand's eyes went wide, but instead of thanking her or apologizing, he simply said: "Way down here? Choicest spot around."

  Rook was correct about the hive; what she didn't realize was that the Invid were already aware of the team's presence and were heading toward them. About the same time she was warning Rand away, the Invid Regis was issuing new instructions to her troops through one of the hive's bio-constructs.

  "Shock Trooper squadron, prepare to relieve incoming patrol drones," she announced. "Projected course of Robotech rebels from last point of encounter should bring them into our control zone during the next eight hours. Evidence of Protoculture activity on the outlying limits of scanning perimeter indicates possible presence of Robotech mecha within control zone even now. All scanning systems on full alert."

  On foot, Rook, Rand, and the others joined Scott and Lancer at the top of the ridge, where the two had concealed themselves among some rocks.

  The VTs had been shut down and left on the roadbed.

  "I don't like the looks of all this activity," Lancer was telling Scott when the rest of the team approached. He had a pair of high-powered scanning binoculars trained on the hive dome. Shock Troopers and Scouts were buzzing in and out of the hemisphere, and several Pincer units were in assembly on the ground, as though receiving orders from some unseen commander. "I think they're expecting us."

  "But they weren't expecting us to spot them first," Scott said gruffly. "How does it look?" Rand called out behind them.

  Lancer lowered the binoculars and stepped away from the outcropping. "In a word-bad."

  "We've got to double back," Scott told them. "There's a high road that keeps to the ridgeline above this valley. We might be able to get through before their sensors pick us up. It's going to be slow going, but I don't see that we have any choice."

  The refrain, Rand said to himself as he trudged back to his mecha.

  Scott, Rook, and Lancer led the slow, silent uphill procession, relying once more on the battery-operated thrusters that had seen the Guardian-configured Veritechs over many a northern pass. But once over the ridge, they risked increasing the pace somewhat and brought the Protoculture systems back into play. They kept to the road nevertheless but were now hovering fifteen or so feet above its rough surface. But this still wasn't fast enough for Annie.

  "Some birthday," she griped to Rand. "No party, no presents, and no fun."

  He had been hearing this for the better part of three hours now and was beginning to tire of it. "Count your blessings," he told her. "We're lucky to be alive. Isn't that right, Marlene?" he added, hoping to gain some support.

  But Marlene didn't have much to say beyond a soft "Uh-huh" from the front seat of the APC. Her head felt as though it was splitting open, but she

  was determined not to let the others see how much pain she was in.

  The three pilots became more brazen on the downhill stretches and were soon winging the fighters along at a good clip. Encouraged (and seeing an opportunity to raise the noise level of the mecha above that of Annie's nonstop complaining), Rand began to feed the Cyclone more throttle.

  "Mint, what d' ya say we goose this thing a little. That sound good to you?"

  Annie hammered her fist against his shoulder. "Don't call me Mint-Whoa!"

  With a turn of his wrist, Rand saw to it that her words were left behind. The three Veritechs had disappeared around the bend, but with a bit of fancy weaving under the foot thrusters, Rand thought he could not only catch up but pull out into the lead. As soon as he made his first move, however, the first Invid ship appeared on the scene. It elevated into view from the trees at the base of the slope and skimmed two streams of annihilation discs straight into Rand's path. Consequently, he had to bring that fancy maneuvering into play sooner than planned, but he did succeed in dodging the energy Frisbees of the enemy's first volley.

  Of course, it meant leaving the road entirely to do so.

  But at least we're alive! he screamed to himself as the Cyclone was bounding down the steep slope toward the trees, Annie hanging on for dear life, in and out of the pillion seat half a dozen times before they hit the flat ground at the base of the cliff. Rand risked a look over his shoulder and saw that the APC had also left the ledge roadbed.

  What he, didn't see, however, was that Lunk's landing was far from smooth. A second discharge of disc fire had forced Lunk to swerve at the last moment; the nose of the vehicle connected with some large rocks and overturned, sending Marlene sprawling while Lunk rode out the roll. The same Invid ship swooped down for a close pass over the fleeing Cycloners, loosing a barrage as it fell, but Lancer's Alpha was on the thing now and holed it before it could manage a follow-up burst. Rand, meanwhile, was closing on the trees at top speed, heartened when he heard the Pincer unit

  explode behind him, but panicked when he saw two more rise unexpectedly out of the forest.

  "They're everywhere!" he shouted.

  "Rand! Get into your battle armor!" he heard Scott say over the mecha's tac net. "I'll keep you covered."

  Rand halted the Cyclone and began to snatch sections of armor from one of the storage compartments. Off to his right he saw Lunk leading a dazed Marlene to shelter among the rocks at the base of the slope and told Annie to join them there. She ran off, holding her cap on her head with one hand.

  Rand struggled into the "thinking cap" and launched for reconfiguration. A moment later he was back on the ground in Battle Armor mode, squaring off with one of the ships. The thing tried an overhand pincer swipe that missed, then a, quick spray of disc fire after Rand had aggravated it with two Scorpions from the Cyclone's forearm launchers. The discs tore into the earth at Rand's feet and threw him flat on his back, but he countered with three missiles that found their way into seams in the ship's alloy. The Invid had enough life left in it to attempt a second pincer crush, but Rand rolled out from under it and watched as the ship
collapsed onto its face and exploded.

  Elsewhere, Rook was in pursuit of the second new arrival; Scott was several lengths behind her as she chased the ship across wooded valleys and dry fingers of foothills. The lieutenant's face came up on the red VT's cockpit commo screen.

  "That's enough, Rook-let it go."

  "But we can't let this one report that it found us," she pointed out. "We've gotta finish it."

  "Forget it," Scott told her more strongly. "They're on to us already, or we wouldn't have had that little skirmish back there. Swing around."

  Rook glared at Scott's screen image, then began to ease the VT off its pursuit heading. She couldn't help but notice how beautiful the land was below her-green hills and meadows, in startling contrast to the barrenness

  of the high ground. She saw a town and alerted Scott to her find.

  "It doesn't look like anybody's home," she commented as the two fighters completed a quick flyby.

  Scott was silent for a moment, then said: "That'll be perfect." "Perfect for what?" she asked him. But he had nothing further to say.

  They all agreed that the village must have been a delightful place when it was alive. Now it was just a motley collection of buildings and houses (spanning several hundred years of architectural styles), but nothing could diminish the tranquillity of the valley itself or the beauty of the surrounding mountains.

  Scott ordered the Veritechs in and instructed Rand to assist Lunk with whatever repairs the APC required; afterward the two men were to join the others in town, but Marlene and Annie were to wait until they received an all clear before coming down from the hills.

  A building-to-building search of the place revealed little in the way of supplies, but Lancer stumbled across one item that prompted a scheme to turn the tables on the Invid Troopers in the nearby hive-as well as carry out the more prosaic surprise Scott had in mind for Annie. What he had found-hidden in a barn on the outskirts of town-was a device known as a bio-emulator, a Protoculture-powered instrument that was capable of mimicking the energy emanations of a supply-sized cache of the pure stuff. It had been developed not by the resistance but by the black market racketeers at the close of the Second Robotech War, for luring Southern Cross personnel to their deaths.

  Given top billing in Scott's reworked plan was an unusual building that dominated the town, a circular structure with a columned cupola adorning its domed roof that had once served as an armory. Installation of the bio-emulator setup required a certain amount of group effort to conceal wiring and such, but the original plan, the prosaic one, called for little more than setting up several strategically placed rocket launchers and breaking out some of the supplies the team had brought with it from the Rocky

  Mountains underground complex. The freedom fighters split up into two teams, with Rook and Rand handling the indoor chores while Lunk and Lancer worked together rigging the armory building with charges. Scott did what he did best: he supervised.

  Then Rand was sent to fetch the two women.

  The sun was setting, huge and golden, and. Annie and Marlene were still waiting in the mountains, sitting side by side on the rock with a western view.

  "I guess birthdays are very special days," Marlene was saying consolingly. "I wish I could remember if I ever had one."

  "Oh, you've had one," said Annie. "I don't think there's any way around that."

  "Do they always make you unhappy?"

  Annie brought her knees to her chest and put her head in her hands. "Let's just say that it's hard to be happy when every single one of your birthdays is a disaster."

  "But Annie, were they all bad?"

  The young girl was sniffling now, her eyes closed.

  There was a time, she recalled, when things could have been pleasant but weren't. A time before the Invid invasion, when her parents and Mr. Widget were still alive, when the Northlands were embroiled in war with the Robotech Masters, and the Southlands prospered. Before the bombs...when she still had a home.

  She could see herself in that simple shingled house, dressed in her yellow pants and blouse, reading the card they had given her and gazing at the cake her mom had bought at the market, left alone to puzzle out why they couldn't stay to enjoy it with her, why they always seemed to have more important things to do. She could hear her mother's voice still: Your father and I won't be back till late, Annie, so when you've finished your little party, be sure to clean up all the dishes and put yourself to bed at a decent hour, all right? Well, good-bye, honey, and, oh yes, happy birthday...

  "I don't know how many times I prayed that just once I could have a real birthday party with friends and family like everybody else in the world." "I don't think there's anything worse than being alone on your birthday.

  Well, I guess I wasn't completely alone...at least my friend Mr. Widget was there to help me eat my birthday cake."

  "Who?"

  "He was my cat...He's gone now..."

  "Oh," Marlene said softly, trying to understand.

  Annie looked up into a pale yellow sky, wisps of lavender clouds. "Jeez, when did it get so dark? I wonder where the others are." The sun was already down now. "Thank goodness it won't be my birthday for much longer," she sighed.

  All at once the two women heard growling noises coming from the trees behind them. They wrapped their arms around each other and waited for the worst. The growling grew louder, and Annie began to scream, clutching at her friend; then Rand appeared out of the darkness with a big hi and a smile on his face.

  "Rand, you jerk!" Annie yelled.

  He snorted and walked over to them. "All right, all right, calm down. I should've known you'd be a nervous wreck by now. But let's get going; we have to go meet the others."

  "But where's the Cyclone?" Marlene wanted to know, her arm still around Annie's shoulders.

  Rand shook his head. "I'm afraid I can't offer you a ride. It's too risky to use any of our mecha. This whole area is crawling with Invid."

  Marlene gasped. Strange that she didn't feel their presence.

  "Scott and the others are holed up in the village," Rand added after a moment. "There's no way we can get through."

  "That tears it..." said Annie.

  Marlene gave her a reassuring hug. "I'm afraid it's going to be another birthday without a party, Annie. We're sorry."

  Rand made a scoffing sound. "I hate to tell you this, but we've got a lot

  more important things to worry about than Annie's birthday. Now, come on."

  He led them off through the woods to the edge of the hill overlooking town, trying to maintain that same hard look that wouldn't give away the surprise. But he knew that the act must be killing her and began to wonder about the more sinister side of surprises.

  "That big house down there on the left," he gestured. "We've gotta try and make a run for it."

  "It's so spooky-looking," Annie said, burying her face in Marlene's breast. "I'm scared."

  "Are you sure Scott's down there?"

  "Everybody's down there," Rand told her. "At least, they were when I left I hope nothing's happened." He started off down the hill. "Follow me."

  It was a simple brick affair with a large chimney, curved-top windows and doors, and two small dormers. They hid together behind a tree at the edge of the walk. Rand ran to the door and motioned for them to join him quietly but quickly. Annie was making frightened sounds.

  "It's dark in here, so watch out," he cautioned them as he opened the door. "Scott, I'm back," he whispered into the darkness. "Where are you?"

  Annie was the last through the door, and by that time Marlene and Rand were gone. She called out to them, quietly at first but with increasing panic in her voice. "What happened to everybody?" she asked pleadingly as she moved across the floor, unable to see her hand in front of her face.

  "Why does everybody always abandon me?"

  "Annie, over here," someone called out from somewhere. "Rook, is that you?" she answered, her voice a tremolo.

  Suddenly the
re were flashes of light in the blackness, then a brightness she had to hide her eyes from. But again someone called out to her: "Open your eyes, Annie."

  And when she looked, she saw all her friends, gathered around a round table that had been set for seven, with plates and wine goblets and platters of food and a large birthday cake decorated with seventeen candles. And

  everyone was wishing her happy birthday.

  Lunk was standing over her with the cake in his hands. "Are you putting me on?" she asked them.

  "It's your favorite," he told her. "Mint chocolate."

  "And look what I made for you," Rook said, showing her a knitted scarf. "Happy birthday, Annie," said Marlene. "At last."

  Annie stared at everyone for a moment, found that she couldn't take it, and ran outdoors to weep; there she said thank you to the stars.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Dad didn't plan a career as a voyeur-at least, not consciously. He just kept finding himself looking here when he should have been looking there, stumbling onto this when he should have been busying himself with that:.. Until the incident at the baths. But I sometimes wonder how mach Mom encouraged Dad's behavior. I asked her about it once, and the only thing she would tell me was that Dad got what he had coming. Then she grinned.

  Maria Bartley-Rand,

  Flower of Life: Journey Beyond Protoculture

  The cake, the sweets, and the gifts were only the start of the surprises Scott and the team had in store for Annie, but after a few sips of wine it turned out that Annie had some surprises of her own.