Symphony of Light

by Jack McKinney

  "That was some display you put on," Lancer said, changing the subject. "You're quite an acrobat."

  "A performer," Jorge emphasized proudly. "Fact is I was on my way to rehearsal before I had to stop and save your necks." He laughed at their chagrin. "Why don'cha come with me and check us out."

  Lancer looked over to Rand, who returned a shrug of consent.

  "Well, I'm all for it," said Annie, quick to take Jorge's arm. "I'm gonna have some fun in this place if it kills me!"

  "It should be a great show," Jorge was telling them a few minutes later.

  He and the rebel trio were on a staircase landing overlooking a small stage, where a dozen male and female dancers were executing syncopated martial kicks under colored lights. It was a kind of historical piece,

  harkening back to the frenzied, kata routines of the turn of the century, with some break dancing and pelvic thrusts thrown in for variety.

  "They're good," Lancer commented. I wonder if their dreams will survive this alien nightmare?

  But on stage some of the performers were wondering whether they would survive the director. He was nothing if not the consummate perfectionist. "Hold it! Stop! Stop!" he was shouting now, an effeminate curl to his voice. He was twice the age of the oldest on stage but well built nonetheless. He had a pencil-thin mustache and brown hair, save for a section of bleached forelock. "This is awful, just aw-ful. Harvey," he continued, pointing, "I swear you dance like a moose in heat. And Arabella: You look like you're waltzing, for heaven's sake. Remember, everyone, this is supposed to be 1990, not 1770! So could we please try not to embarrass ourselves?"

  The dancers had all adopted hangdog expressions by now, and Jorge took advantage of the lapse in the music to call out: "Simon! Hey! Up here!" When the director looked up, Jorge gestured to Lancer and the others. "I brought some friends to watch the rehearsal, okay?"

  Simon scowled at him. "Absolutely not! You know my rules about people-" He broke off his scolding and was staring at Lancer. "Am I seeing things? Is that the face that launched a thousand slips?! Lancer, is that you?! Or should I say Yellow Dancer?"

  Lancer smiled and went downstairs to take Simon's hand. Jorge, Rand, and Annie tagged behind.

  "Lancer, I still can't believe it," Simon exclaimed. "I've thought about you a lot...What's it been, something like two years? In Rio, wasn't it? What are you doing here? I want to hear everything."

  Lancer looked over his shoulder at Rand. "Well, we're just passing through."

  "Passing through?" Simon said, surprised. "Since when does anyone enjoy the privilege of 'passing through' anymore? You can't be serious."

  "We've got transportation," Lancer said, holding back.

  Simon stepped back to regard the trio quizzically. "Perhaps it's not in good taste to ask too many questions," he said after noticing Rand and Lancer's sidearms.

  "Probably not." Lancer smiled.

  "Well, you've just got to come to the show tonight, that's all there is to it," Simon enthused.

  "The Invid are permitting performances?" Lancer asked.

  "They haven't tried to stop us yet. I guess they figure it keeps the slaves happy and out of their way."

  Meanwhile, in the hive atop the Trump Building, Sera was engaged in an argument with her brother/prince, Corg. The Robotech rebels had not been located, and Corg was in favor of taking matters into his own hands by simply exterminating every Human in the city.

  "I will not permit it," Sera told him. "Observation of these life-forms has not yet been completed. They require more study, even if that means the rebels live for a time more."

  "Your lenience is a sign of weakness," Corg answered her. "I say destroy them now."

  She glared down at him from the massive throne-a monolithic two-horned affair set atop what appeared to be a thick-stalked, flat-topped mushroom, adorned along its outer edge with a band of glossy red discs. Beneath the cap stood two Urban Enforcers, as silent and motionless as statues. The domed room itself resembled the inside of a living neural cell.

  "You seem to forget our instructions, my brother. We are to study the Humans' behavior patterns and learn from them."

  Corg made a disgruntled sound. "The experiment is as good as complete. It is time to exterminate these lifeforms. I'll proceed with my program, regardless of instructions."

  She knew that he had been defeated on every occasion and wondered whether this was influencing his behavior, but she didn't want to point this out to him. "I'm warning you, Corg, do not challenge my authority in this

  matter. The Regis has placed me in charge." "For the moment," he snarled.

  "What makes you so sure of that?"

  "It's perfectly obvious. You have no stomach for destruction. But you've known all along that our plan calls for the eradication of these creatures. And I intend to begin that process immediately."

  Corg disappeared through the floor of the hive even as Sera was ordering him to call off his attack. She reseated herself to digest his words.

  Maybe he is right, she began to tell herself. Perhaps I don't have the determination to carry out this task. She had to admit to herself that she had no grasp of the emotions that were keeping her from destroying the rebels-especially that one who had touched her with his voice. Surely she should have killed him when they had faced each other at the chasm. But she had let him live, and now Corg was beginning to suspect her. All at once it seemed imperative that she speak with Ariel, because in that brief confrontation with her lost sister she had come close to understanding some of the changes that were going on inside her.

  Sera shot to her feet.

  I must try to find her...

  Corg wasted no time assembling his Shock Troopers and commencing his murderous assault on the city's Human population.

  Across the Hudson River, where Scott and the rest of the team were awaiting word from Lancer, Marlene sensed the warlord's destructive swing and screamed as those hellish emotions assailed her consciousness once again.

  Scott was by her side in an instant. "Where?" he asked as he tried to comfort her. "Where are they attacking?"

  "The city," she managed to bite out, hands pressed to her head, body rocking back and forth in Scott's arms. "They're going to wipe out the entire city!"

  "But you've got to be mistaken," Scott started to say when the sound of

  the first explosions reached him. He grabbed a binocular scanner and ran to the edge of the roof that was their temporary camp. Training it on the city, he saw countless flashes of intense light, and within minutes it seemed that the entire northern portion of the island was ablaze.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  There is some truth to the claim that Corg contributed to the Invid's defeat, such as it was; but only in the sense that his premature blood lust succeeded in alienating Sera that much sooner. On the other hand, the so-called parallels with the Zentraedi Khyron are rather forced and remain unconvincing. To be honest, who can we point to that did not contribute to the defeat? One might as well blame Marlene, Sera, Zor, for that matter. Lay the blame on love, if you will, on Protoculture.

  Dr. Emil Lang, The New Testament

  Corg assembled his Urban Enforcer squadrons at the northern tip of the island and commanded them to begin a southward march, sanitizing the city top to bottom. Shock Trooper ships would back them up, creating apocalyptical fires to flush the Humans from their dwellings.

  The residents thought they were witnessing some sort of drill until the first streams of annihilation discs hit the streets; then there was sheer panic. People fled from burning buildings only to be caught up in volleys of fire from the Invid ground troops. Block after block burned, filling the evening sky with infernal light. The brick and concrete facades of buildings collapsed into the avenues, sending up storms of glowing embers and acrid ash. Hundreds were trapped in the rubble, and hundreds more perished in the alleyways and streets, in shafts and courtyards. No one could comprehend what was occurring. Had they brought this on themselves some
how? Had they transgressed or violated some Invid regulation no one had been aware of? Or was this simply the way it would always end from now on? No more old age or disease, no more heart attacks or accidents; just random bursts of blinding light, spurts of systematic extermination...

  Corg smiled down on the ensuing destruction from the cockpit of his command ship. There, Princess, he laughed to himself. Observe your life forms now!

  Downtown, in Simon's dance theater, Jorge held a note that had just been delivered by one of the underground's black eagle courier birds. The sounds of distant explosions had already reached into the building, and an atmosphere of dread prevailed. "Listen up, everybody!" he announced. "The Invid are on a rampage. They're offing everyone! Sweeping through the whole city, north to south!"

  "Oh, my God!" muttered Simon. "They're through with us! I knew it would come to this someday!"

  Lancer looked over at Rand, his face all twisted up. "It's because of us, Rand," he seethed, just loud enough for his friend to hear. "We brought this on. Just our being here..."

  Rand accepted it with a kind of shrug and took another bite from the sandwich Jorge had fixed him before all hell broke loose.

  "We've got to get out of here," one of the dancers was telling the rest of the troupe. "They're getting closer!"

  The man was right, Lancer realized; the explosions were louder now, near enough to shake the theater itself. The first blast to strike the building threw everyone to the floor. The lights flickered once and went out; a few people screamed.

  "We have to help these people get to shelter," Lancer told Rand when intermittent power returned. Dust and particles of debris filled the air. Lancer had his weapon drawn...

  Rand, who had almost swallowed the sandwich whole, pulled it from his mouth and gasped for his breath. "Get them to shelters? What about them getting us to shelters?"

  Jorge was standing beside them, helping a petrified Annie to her feet. "We can reach the subway from the basement," he said rapidly. "We'll be safe there."

  "Depends on how serious they are," Rand started to say. But Jorge was already herding his fellow performers toward the exits.

  Two more crippling explosions erupted in their midst just then, and all

  of a sudden the interior of the theater was in flames. Most of Simon's-troupe had already made it through the exit doors, but the director himself was standing stock still, as though in shock. Lancer ran over to him and spun him around, catching the look of devastation in his eyes.

  "Simon, you've got to leave!" "My theater..."

  Lancer put his hands on Simon's shoulders, steering him away from the blaze that had already scorched both their faces. "Listen to me...The theater's gone. And it won't help anybody if you go up with the rest of it."

  "It's over," Simon said flatly, overcome.

  "Come on, man. There'll be other shows; we'll get through this." Simon offered a wan smile. "Maybe..."

  A column collapsed behind them, bringing down a portion of the balcony and fueling the fire.

  "Of course there will!" Lancer yelled. "Unless we don't get you out of here right now!" Rand was by the door, one hand shielding his face from the heat, yelling for them to get a move on. Lancer grabbed hold of Simon's hand and led him off at a run.

  "Unbelievable," Scott was saying on the rooftop across the river. "It looks like they're trying to destroy the whole city and everybody in it." He scanned the infrared binoculars north to south, then lowered them.

  Rook and Lunk stood silently by the retaining wall, mesmerized by the fiery spectacle. Marlene was off to one side, hugging her arms to herself. Scott swung around to Lunk.

  "How much Protoculture will we have if we cannibalize the Cyclone power systems?"

  "Maybe a dozen canisters."

  "We have to act quick," Rook told Scott. "Annie and the boys are somewhere in the middle of that firestorm."

  Scott tightened his mouth. Why haven't they contacted me as planned? he asked himself, already dressing them down. With a dozen canisters of

  fuel, they would have just enough to power the three Veritechs for a short time. But unless they were able to resupply afterward, that would effectively finish the mecha, fighters and Cyclones both. And even the instrumentality nodes of Reflex Point were a good three hundred miles west of the city.

  "Come on, Scott," Rook was saying, her mind made up. "Let's switch the canisters and get out there."

  Scott issued a silent nod of consent and went down on one knee by Marlene's side while Rook and Lunk moved off. "You better stay behind," he told her. "I don't want to risk bringing you any closer to that place. I can see what you're already going through."

  "I-I'll be all right here," she stammered, as though chilled to the bone. "But promise me you'll be careful, Scott."

  They touched briefly, and he was gone.

  In the central hive, Sera had been alerted to the wave of death her brother was unleashing against the populace. She sat rigidly at the top of the mushroomlike dais now, hands clasped tight to the arms of the throne, as views of the destruction reached her via a circular projecbeam.

  "This is intolerable!" she screamed to her Enforcer guards, who stood unflinching below the dais cap. "Corg is deliberately sabotaging the experiment! The defeats he has suffered at the hands of the Humans have affected his conditioning!"

  Everywhere the projecbeam took her, the scene was the same: buildings ablaze, Human life-forms in postures of agony, and more. But all at once Sera gasped as an image of Lancer filled the holo-field. He was out in the madness, his Gallant stiff-armed in front of him, returning insignificant blasts of vengeance against the overwhelming power of Corg's war machine.

  The Earth rebel who has caused so much disturbance within me! she kept saying to herself. But Lancer's presence meant that Ariel must be nearby. Sera leapt from the dais and headed straight for her command ship.

  If Sera had continued watching the projecbeam a moment longer, she would have realized that Lancer's shots were not to be so easily dismissed. True, an H90 seemed insignificant when compared to Corg's mobile arsenal, but Lancer and Rand had nevertheless managed to clear the streets of more than a dozen Urban Enforcers.

  "That's that," Lancer was saying now as number fifteen fell, its chest plates laid open and oozing green nutrient fluids.

  Annie, Jorge, and Simon stepped out from cover to join them in the street. Most of the ground troops had moved further south, but in their wake the city crumbled and burned, turning night to day.

  "At least no one in the company got hurt," said Jorge. "Everyone made it into the subway tunnels in time."

  "I wish the rest of the city was that lucky," Annie added, stifling a sob.

  Lancer checked the blaster's remaining charge and frowned. "We better get underground ourselves."

  Suddenly Annie raised her arm and let out a bloodcurdling scream. Two Trooper ships had dropped to the street out of a slice of orange sky, their cloven hooves ripping into the pavement.

  Lancer and Rand raised their weapons at the same moment and fired, instinctively finding the same target. The Trooper caught both blasts just above its scanner and ruptured like a lanced cyst, spewing thick smoke and sickly fluids. The second turned to watch its companion go down, then swung back around, its cannon tips aglow with priming charge. But out of the blue something holed the thing with a perfectly placed shot to the midsection, and it too dropped, almost crushing Rand and Annie on the way down.

  Simon, Jorge, and the freedom fighters looked up in time to see three Veritechs swoop through the canyon formed by the buildings and fade into the glow.

  "It's Scott!" Rand shouted, amazed. "How the hell did they find us?!"

  "I don't think they did," Lancer said, watching the VTs bank out of sight. "Just be glad that they chose to zero in on that particular Trooper." He felt a hand on his shoulder and turned.

  "Lancer, I've got an idea," said Simon. "I want you to help us go ahead with the show." He paid no attention to Lancer's look
of disbelief. "I know it's a lot to ask, but we're going to need help if this city is to survive:"

  Lancer thought it over; over Simon's shoulder he could see Annie and Rand nodding their heads in encouragement. "Sure," he said at last.

  Jorge fucked his fingers together with an audible snap. Ejole! "This'll be the show of a lifetime!"

  The three Veritechs flew north to the edge of the worst conflagrations and split up to double back. The thruster fires of Invid Trooper ships were just visible in the southern skies. "Let's make sure the streets are clear of any ground units," Scott told the others over the net. "Then we'll go after the ships."

  "Nothing on my scanners," Rook reported a moment later. "Mine either," added Lunk.

  Scott looked out over the city and shook his head in despair. The Invid had cut a north-to-south swath of death four blocks wide along the west side of the island. Searching for any signs of Enforcer activity, he dropped down into the canyons again and was almost at street level when his radar displays suddenly came to life.

  "Hold on, I've got something!"

  By the time he realized what it was a blast had seared the upper sections of his fighter, nearly destabilizing it, but he managed to pull the Beta up and out of its plunge and soon had a visual on the enemy ship even as the displays were flashing its signature.

  "Command ship," said Scott, staring down at the orange and green crablike thing that was hovering below him at rooftop level. "It's that damn command ship! Let's take it!"

  Corg, as though reading Scott's designs, chose that moment to loose his

  first stream of annihilation discs. Scott banked sharply and fell; the Invid ship shot up at the same time, and Human and alien ended up exchanging places, discs, and laser-array fire in an aerial duel. Rook streaked in from behind and landed two heatseekers, but Corg's ship shook them off and stung back, igniting a row of rooftops with its misplaced shots.