Back at Annie's side now, Sue Graham aimed her camera and readied herself for the shot.
The syncro-cannon erupted, spewing a flash of blue fire into the night. The first blast tore right through four Invid Enforcer ships, a streaking projectile through paper targets. No more looking for vulnerable spots now, Rand said to himself. He grinned and triggered three follow-up one to take out the survivors that were making for the skies.
Suddenly patrol craft and Troopers were lifting off all across the valley. It was as though someone had tossed a smoke bomb into a into a bee's nest. And Rand kept firing, scorching earth and air alike with the cannon's devastating salvos. Then, out of the corner of his eye, he saw Graham, in her armor now and astride a black Cyclone.
"Hey, what are you up to?" he asked her over the tactical net. He saw Graham gesture to her camera.
"I've got work to do."
"But we're going to need you now that we've stirred everything up!" Rand yelled, but she was already gone.
Scott and the others took to the Veritechs at the cannon's first discharge. Rook hadn't witnessed such an incredible display of power since the early battles between the last of the Southern Cross and the first Invid wave. But even so, this was Reflex Point, not some low-echelon outpost hive staffed with Scouts and a couple of Trooper, ships. For every ten Invid the cannon destroyed, there were ten more in the air, and Rook began to curse Rand for taking it on himself to confront them.
The three Veritechs had a bad time of it; that they survived at all was in no small way a result of the pandemonium Rand's shots were causing. Numerous though they were, the Pincer Ships and Troopers seemed to be buzzing around in a blind rage, desperate to counterattack but at a loss as to direction; in some cases they were even annihilating one other. Consequently, Scott, Rook, and Lancer were able to inflict a good deal of secondary damage as the syncro-cannon continued to send swaths of blue death into the field.
But the Invid ultimately located the cannon, and their forces proved to be more than Rand could handle. Recalling what Scott had said earlier-that he would rather see the cannon destroyed than fall to the enemy-Rand saw to it that that was the case, arming the syncro's self-destruct mechanism even as Pincer Ships were moving in to overwhelm him. He had rejoined Annie and was shielding her with his own body when the thing finally blew, taking twenty or more Invid ships with it.
"I didn't want to blow the damn thing up," Rand explained to Annie as dirt and rocks rained down on them. "But it was better than letting them get their steely paws on it!"
Shortly, the Beta was hovering over them, a rescue rope dangling blessedly from its undercarriage. Rand was shocked to find Marlene in the rear compartment, but Scott told him that they couldn't risk leaving anyone behind. Lunk was off somewhere in the APC. Rand sent Annie back to sit with Marlene and climbed into the Beta's rear cockpit seat.
"Prepare for mecha separation," Scott told him over the net. He said
nothing about Graham and nothing about Rand's action, hoping to make Rand feel all the worse about it.
"I'm ready, Commander," Rand said by way of apology.
He then turned to the women and told them to brace themselves.
Sue Graham was overjoyed at the shots she had been getting: entire squadrons of Invid Pincer Ships Ships reduced to slag heaps by blasts from the syncro-cannon; Veritechs and alien Troopers going at it tooth and claw in Earth's night skies; the ground-shaking self-destruction of the cannon itself-Invid craft clasped onto it like so many frenzied land crabs; the frightened look on the face of the young female freedom fighter as she climbed toward the safety of the hovering Beta Fighter. It was splendid stuff, fantastic-the kind of footage that would earn her awards.
She knew that Lieutenant Bernard had caught sight of her once or twice during the chaos and was well aware of what he thought of her. But she found it easy to dismiss him from her concerns. It might be a bit uncomfortable later on, Sue told herself, but with the main fleet already overdue, she wouldn't have to put up with the lieutenant's flak for very long. She had to admit, though, that he had certainly provided her with some of the day's best action sequences-especially now that his Beta had undergone mecha separation and his motley band had all reconfigured their fighters to Battloid mode. It had been a long time since she had seen techno-knights dishing it out. She kept her camera trained on the skies for a time, singling out the red Alpha and its attractive pilot.
But suddenly her lens found an even more interesting subject: the blond Human who had stepped from the Invid command ship the day before. She had seen his craft off and on during the battle, but now she had him fully in her sights. And so, apparently, did the pilot of the Beta's rear component-that daredevil Rand. The two ships, Battloid and Invid commander, exchanged hyphens of laser fire and flocks of heat-seeking missiles; they darted across the valley like two insects in a kind of death ritual. But in the end it was the Earthling who prevailed; his missiles tore
into the hovering, perhaps depleted ship and holed it top to bottom, blowing away one of its cannon arms and sending it into a lethal dive.
Sue reconfigured her Cyclone to Battle Armor mode and zoomed in to meet it, a gleaming figure in black hopping across the battle-scarred terrain. Most of the drone ships had also taken note of their commander's demise and were fleeing the arena in the direction of the central hive.
Sue raised her camera and took a few steps toward the fallen ship, its pilot on the ground motionless beside it. He had scampered out of the ruined cockpit and collapsed, but Sue was certain he wasn't dead. As she stepped closer, the blond man got up, gasping. She centered him in the lens brackets and asked: "Who are you? How long have you been fighting for them? What's the Regis really like?"
The pilot dropped to his knees, lianas tight against his abdomen and stared at her uncomprehendingly. Then he was on his feet again, taking shuffling steps.
Sue heard the angry rasp of thrusters behind her and turned to look up at the source of the sound. It was one of the few remaining Pincer Ships, evil on its mind. She broke into a wild run, but the first discs were already on their way. For a brief instant her eyes met those of the blond pilot, before white light erased the world...
Scott got off a few rifle/cannon shots at the retreating Pincer Ship, but the thing got away. He ordered a sweep of the area, then put down where he had seen the command ship crash and Sue Graham shoot her last footage. Lunk, Lancer, and the rest joined him after a moment.
"Hey, is this guy really an Invid or what?" Lunk said, standing over the body of the blond man as though afraid to touch it.
Scott went over to the photographer and gently removed her helmet. Alive but mortally wounded, Sue let out a long, deep moan. Scott tried to cradle her head in his lap, but the bulky armor of the Cyclone prevented it. He pushed her hair away from her face.
"It seems I've got pictures of an Invid with the body of a Human," she
managed to say, looking up at Scott through glazed eyes. "Were they worth dying for, Graham?"
Behind him, Annie was making disgusted sounds. She and Lunk and Marlene watched as green blood pulsed from the pilot's wounds. "Anybody that bleeds green blood must be an Invid," she announced. "But how come they look like us all of a sudden? I mean, he looks almost Human, doesn't he, Marlene?"
"Like that other blond pilot," said Lancer. "That woman."
Annie turned around to find out why Marlene wasn't answering her; she saw that Marlene was staring wide-eyed at a wound she had received to her left shoulder. Alarmed, Annie reached out. Then she noticed the blood.
It was green.
Annie collapsed to her knees in disbelief. Was it possible that through all their months together she had never seen Marlene bleed? It had to be some kind of mistake-a hallucination!
Annie's actions had drawn everyone's attention, and all eyes were now fixed on Marlene. No one knew how to react: someone might as well have told them that Marlene was suffering from a fatal disease. The pale woman looked f
rom face to face, then put her hands to her head in a gesture of complete shock. "No! No!" she screamed, tossing her head back and forth.
Scott left Sue's side to calm Marlene, uncertain himself and denying the evidence with each step. He put his hand out to touch the wound, to see for himself if this wasn't just some trick of the night...
The two of them exchanged looks of dismay as they regarded the blood on his fingertips. "Marlene..." he stammered. "I..."
She stared at him, tears streaming down her face, turned, and ran off.
Only Rand made a move to stop her, but Scott restrained him. "But we can't just let her leave!"
Scott's lips were a thin line when he turned to his friend. "She'll be back," he promised. "I don't know what's going on here...this pilot, now Marlene...but I know she'll never be able to live among the Invid again. We're her family, Rand. We're her family!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Captain, there's something wrong with the engines! They're just not responding!
Remark attributed to someone in the SDF-3 engineering section
On the far side of the moon, the warships of the main fleet dematerialized from hyperspace-sleek, swanlike destroyers with long tapering necks and sweptback wings. They were enormous battlecruisers shaped like stone-age war clubs with crimson underbellies; dorsal-finned tri-thrusters and Veritech transports that resembled clusters of old-fashioned boilers; and of course the squadrons of new-generation assault mecha, the so-called Shadow Fighters.
On the bridge of the flagship, General Reinhardt waited for word of Admiral Hunter's arrival, while the rest of the fleet formed up on his lead. Filling the front viewports was the Earth they had come so far to reclaim. Reinhardt regarded the world as one would a precious stone set on black velvet. Almost sixteen years, he thought to himself. Is this a dream?
He shook his head, as if to clear thoughts of the past from his mind, and turned his attention to the monitors above the command chair. Here were displayed views of local space, Earth's silver satellite, and the gleam of a thousand hulls touched by sunlight. But there was still no sign of the admiral. Reinhardt slammed his thin hand against the chair's communicator button. "Anything yet?"
"No sign," the astrogation officer responded.
"That damn ship's jinxed," Reinhardt muttered to himself. "I told Hunter something like this would happen..."
The bridge controller flashed him a look across the bridge. "Recommend we initiate attack sequence, sir. We can't afford to wait much longer for the SDF-3. All approach vectors have been plotted and locked in,
and conditions now read optimum status."
Reinhardt drew his hand across his face. "All right," he said after a moment. "Issue the codes."
The controller swung around to his console and tapped in series of commands, speaking into the mikes while his fingers flew across the keyboard.
"All units are to proceed to rendezvous coordinates Thomas-Victor-Delta. Attack group three will remain and await instructions from SDF-3 command. Attack group two will continue to objective Reflex Point, activating cloaking device at T minus five minutes and counting...Good luck, everyone, and may God be with us for a change..."
Ground force units and their companion VT strike groups had already landed. Scott and the team had been on hand to greet them, and in the ensuing excitement everyone forgot about Marlene for a few moments. She hadn't been seen since dawn, when the painful realization of her identity had led to her flight.
Sue Graham was dead.
The Invid hadn't shown themselves either, which in itself was a positive sign. Scott still didn't know what to make of the Human or humanoid pilots they were apparently using. He wanted desperately to believe that Marlene was in fact the amnesiac captive he had come to love-that that green blood was something the Invid had done to her-and that they would reunite when all this was finished once and for all. But there were just too many reasons to think otherwise, and for the first time in over a year he found himself recalling Dr. Lang's theories concerning the Invid Regis and her ability to transmute the genetic stuff of her children into any form she chose. These were fleeting thoughts, however, glossed over while preparations got under way for a full-scale invasion of the central hive.
The irregulars had been attached to the ground forces under the command of Captain Harrington, a darkhaired, clean-shaven young man who thanked Scott for the recon information he had gathered and promptly
dismissed it. They were all in a group now, atop a thickly wooded rise that overlooked Reflex Point's centermost and largest hive, a massive hemisphere of what looked like glowing lava surrounded by five towering sensor poles and a veritable forest of Optera trees-those curious thirty-foot-high stalk and globes that were the final stage of the Flower of Life. There was no Invid activity, visible activity, except for random flashes of angry lightning, which in their brief displays suggested a domelike barrier shield that encompassed the hive itself.
"At last...we finally made it," Scott was saying. He was in Cyclone battle armor, as were Lancer, Rook, Rand, Lunk, and most of Harrington's troops. Veritechs had taken up positions in the woods all around the hive, and the grassy slopes to the rear were covered with squads of Cyclone riders.
"I don't want to burst your bubble," said Harrington, "but we've still got a Protoplex energy barrier and a couple of thousand Invid Shock Troopers to get through."
Scott had a defensive reply in store for the captain but let it go. How could the man be made to understand what Reflex Point meant to Scott's team? True, the Expeditionary Force had come a long way for this showdown, but Scott reckoned that the distance of the overland journey to this moment as incalculable.
"I want to make certain that the main Alpha force stays out of this until we punch a hole in the barrier," Harrington was advising his subordinates. "We don't want to repeat yesterday's mistake and get them too stirred up. We'll let them think we're of no consequence." Harrington turned to Scott. "Lieutenant, I'm counting on you to be ready with your fly-boys as soon as you receive my word, understood?"
"Sir!" said Scott. Lancer and Lunk joined him in a salute.
"I'm so excited I could just scream!" Annie enthused from the sidelines. "It's going to be awesome," Rand said beside her.
Scott threw Rand, Rook, and Annie a stern look. "Forget it, you're not coming. This is strictly a military operation."
"You're lucky to be out of it," Lancer added at once and almost
cheerfully, hoping to mitigate Scott's pronouncement somewhat.
Rook went from sadness to anger in an instant. "Well, we sure don't want to interfere now that the big boys have arrived, do we? I mean, all that action we've seen together-that was just play fighting, right?"
Rand, too, was seething but was determined not to show it. "Personally, I'm in no hurry to get myself killed, Lieutenant, so it's fine with me."
Annie looked up at her two friends, then over at Scott, Lancer, and Lunk. "But it's not fair to break us up like this just 'cause you guys were soldiers. We're still a team-a family! You can't just tell us to split up!"
Rook tried to soothe Annie while she cried. "I suppose this is good-bye, then." She had packed away all her snide comments. "Good luck, Scott."
Harrington gave orders for the attack to begin before Scott could answer her. Veritechs configured in Guardian mode lifted out of the woods to direct preliminary fire against the hive, filling the air with thunder and felling scores of Optera trees. And as fiery explosions fountained around the hive, awakened Invid Shock Troopers emerged from the ground to engage the Earth forces one on one. Scott rushed to his fighter, but Lancer stopped to say a farewell to his friends, even as Veritechs roared by overhead.
"I can't say it's always been fun, but it's certainly been terrific," Lancer yelled over the tumult. "You three take care of yourselves, okay?"
"You take care," said Rand. "Remember, I expect to see Yellow Dancer perform again."
Lancer smiled coyly. "Don't worry, you will." "You
promise?" Rook asked.
Lancer leaned over to kiss her lightly on the cheek. "Till we meet again."
It was a little too sweet and fatherly for her liking, but Rook said nothing. Lancer behaved the same toward Annie.
"Now, don't go and get married behind my back." "I won't," Annie said tearfully.
Lunk pulled up in the APC to wave good-bye as Lancer headed for his Alpha. "I'm a soldier again," he shouted, gesturing to his spotless battle
armor. "I'll be seeing you guys!"
Rand watched his friend drive off. "A soldier again? What the heck does everyone think we've been doing this past year?" He frowned at Rook. "They're all riding off into battle, right? So how come I feel like we're the only ones without invitations to a party?"
A short distance away, Scott waved good luck to Lunk and threw a salute back to his former teammates.
"That tears it!" Rand cursed. "I should've figured he'd say good-bye like that. A robby, through and through."
"Would you want it any other way?" Rook asked him, returning Scott's salute and smiling.
Rand thought it over for a moment, then brought the edge of his hand to his forehead smartly.
Scott turned to his console and displays, lowering the canopy and activating the VT's rear thrusters.
Good-bye, my friends, he said to himself. Whatever happens now, at least I'll know the three of you will get out of this alive.
Veritechs and Invid Shock Troopers were clashing throughout the field now. Hundreds of Pincer Ships had joined the fray and were buzzing around the hive in clusters four and five strong. Only a few Cyclone riders had reconfigured their mecha to Battle Armor mode; most of them were riding against the hemisphere in a kind of cavalry charge, pouring all their fire against the hive's flashing barrier shield.
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