Aldershot looked at Reinhardt. “And we’re going to allow this?”
“The UEG has ordered us to allow it. It’s their belief we’ll stand a better chance of negotiating a truce once the hostiles have reached a consensus among themselves.”
“They seek nothing more than chaos,” Exedore said. “There can be no answering the demands of the Imperative, no lasting peace. Especially between such warlike races.”
Rick tensed. “Exedore, I’m getting sick and tired of hearing that line from you. We are not programmed for war.”
The ambassador inclined his head ever so slightly. “I’m sorry to say so, Admiral, but it is my belief that you simply answer to different masters than we do. Yours are within yourselves, a product of your upbringing, your animal ancestry, and the fight-or-flight biochemicals bequeathed to you by millions of years of hunting for food.”
Rick shook his head. “What about Miriya Parina? She’s overcome the Imperative. Even the UEG considers her acculturated. And what about you and Breetai and the others aboard the factory? If three hundred can do it, five thousand can.”
“It’s true that some of us have been able to keep the Imperative in check, Admiral. But I would never presume to say for how long. More importantly, Miriya Parina Sterling seems to be a special case—the one you might term the exception to the rule. She has even produced an offspring. As for the rest, no amount of exposure to Human emotions could efface the Imperative. Your own admirals Gloval and Hayes agreed with me, not only about the similarities of our warlike natures, but in regard to the odds against achieving any lasting peace. If memory serves, Gloval quoted the odds as ‘nothing short of astronomical.’ ”
“Gloval wasn’t right about everything,” Rick countered. “He speculated that the Zentraedi had fought among themselves early on, and you yourself have said that’s wrong.”
Exedore nodded. “Yes, Zor’s documents make no mention of internecine warfare among my people. But that’s all the more reason to fear us now. Shamed by defeat, we are easily swayed by the latent force of the Imperative. The Masters made certain that we were familiar with shame. Shame was encoded in us to act as an incentive for seeking revenge on those who shamed us.”
“What do you see as the solution, Exedore?” Reinhardt asked disconsolately.
The Zentraedi thought for a long moment, then said, “If I were in your position, I would have all Zentraedi executed.”
CHAPTER
NINE
One clear indication that Protoculture had its own designs on the Human race is that it wouldn’t allow Humans to journey too far from home until they were suitably prepared. Lang and Gloval’s first fold miscalculation took them to Pluto instead of the Moon; one shudders to think where a second jump might have delivered them had not crucial parts of the SDF-1’s fold system vanished during the space-time transit. Then there was the factory satellite, folded without incident to Earthspace, only to promptly shut down, never to fold again. Some have suggested that Protoculture could sense when it was in hands other than those of the Robotech Masters. Consider, however, the escape from Tirol that Protoculture engineered for itself through Zor, by compelling him to dispatch the sole existing Protoculture matrix far from the Masters’ grasp. More to the point, consider how the matrix concealed itself from Lang and the rest, who never once thought of searching the SDF-1’s Reflex engines. Not because Protoculture was waiting for Zor Prime or the Masters, but because it was waiting for the Invid Regess.
Mingtao, Protoculture: Journey Beyond Mecha
“Breetai, I was hoping you’d decided to be Micronized for Christmas,” Lisa said into her headset microphone on seeing him appear on the bridge of the factory satellite.
The Zentraedi commander faced the cameras that were transmitting his image to the factory’s command bubble, some eight hundred feet above the floor of the systems-laden bridge. “As a gift to you, Admiral Hayes, or is it that you wanted me to portray Santa’s Claws in some holiday pageant?”
“It’s ‘Santa Claus,’ Breetai. And, no, to both your guesses. It’s just that I don’t think the sweater I knitted will fit you now.”
Breetai’s left eyebrow arched, and he loosed a meditative murmur that was closer to a growl. “I’ve little need of a sweater, Admiral. My uniform suffices for most thermal conditions.”
Lisa started to explain that she’d only been joking, but thought better of it.
“Not the easiest person to banter with—even when he’s our size,” Jim Forsythe said into her ear. He muted the command bubble’s audio feed momentarily. “Before he was shuttled down the well to assist Lang in surveying the SDF-1, I quoted him that old line from King Kong about having been master of his world only to be brought down by the little guys.”
“What did he say?”
“That he was never the master of any world and that he had no objections to being brought down by the little guys because it didn’t matter to him who piloted the shuttle.”
Lisa pressed her fingers to her mouth to stifle a laugh. Her mistake for trying to be funny in the first place. And for continually erring by thinking of the Zentraedi essentially as giant Earthlings, when in fact they were as different from Human beings as Humans were from plants. They hadn’t been born so much as grown, and they had been endowed by the Masters of Tirol with near-supernatural abilities, not the least of which was the capacity to venture suitless for brief periods into the airless frigidity of space.
Humor, in any case, was the ultimate test of one’s understanding of an alien culture, and Breetai’s familiarity with Earth’s societies only went back three years or so.
While she was musing, Emil Lang entered the command bubble, looking clearly preoccupied. His pupilless eyes seemed even more inward-turning than usual. Lisa was aware of his concerns about reduced funding for the Expeditionary mission as a consequence of recent outbreaks of malcontentism in the Southlands. The irony was that the threatened cuts weren’t originating with the United Earth Government but with the RDF itself, forced suddenly to reckon with the uncertain intentions of Field Marsha Anatole Leonard and his Army of the Southern Cross.
Lang looked tired as well, from his constant shuttling between the factory and Monument City—now to attend UEG sessions. Not to mention the side trips to Tokyo for meetings with Professor Zand and the staff of the Robotech Research Center.
“The others should be here shortly,” Lang said absently, glancing at Lisa and Forsythe while flipping through a file thick with Most Secret documents. “Then we can begin.”
The bridge was located on level eight of the factory’s moonlet-sized main body. Nearly two miles long, including the lofty command bubble, it was an arena-wide highway of sensors, data posts, projecbeam screens, interface banks, holographic tactic tables, and communication modules. And yet the whole of it had been engineered for manual control by the Human-size Masters or—as Exedore had explained—by the various clone triumvirates that served them. Central to the command bubble itself was a strategic and tactical planning table of incredible size, capable of displaying transvid data, computer-generated graphics, superimposed holograms, and real-time or condensed target assessment and acquisition information on as many as 15,000 objects ranging over an area of 500,000 cubic miles.
On Lisa’s first tour of the bridge two years earlier she had been awed by the sheer size of the place—a reaction she would have thought impossible after having spent so many years inside the SDF-1. But many sections of Zor’s ship had already been resized by the time she was transferred to Macross Island, and the factory was in its original state when it had been captured from Reno: a weigh station for giants and their war machines. And while it was true that she sometimes wished Breetai would opt for permanent Micronization—she cared deeply for him, with or without a sense of humor—she understood the logistic need for having forty-foot-tall beings aboard.
As well as having had to adapt to interior spaces of mind-boggling dimensions, Lisa had also found herself becoming reaquainted with th
e loneliness of command. Not since Macross Island had so much been demanded of her, nor had she been so caught up in her work. She imagined that Rick was under similar pressures downside, but there at least he had the company of good friends. Lately, she had stopped thinking about the future, because all her thoughts led inevitably to a calculation of the time she might be forced to spend on the factory. Three years? Five years? With each punctuated by a lonely Christmas. Just now it was all she could do to find time for brief phone conversations with Rick.
One by one, Dr. Lang’s “others” entered the command bubble: the saturnine and bellicose Harry Penn, designer of exotic mecha; congenial chief engineer Sheamus Bronson; the very reclusive Dr. R. Burke, REF captain, head of weapons research and development, and inventor of the Wolverine assault rifle and the Watchdog antimecha mine; Jevna Parl, the gnomish, Micronized adjutant to Breetai, and the only bald and bearded Zentraedi Lisa had ever seen; and Theofre Elmikk, Breetai’s perpetually embittered lieutenant, who served as liaison between Lang’s technical crews and EVA teams of full-size Zentraedi tasked with warship dismantlement and reclamation.
“Are we ready to record?” Lang asked the technicians when everyone was seated.
“Whenever you’re ready, Doctor,” one of them answered.
Lang cleared his throat. “December twenty-two, twenty-fifteen. Premission briefing on the bridge of the factory satellite.” He started to name those in attendance but stopped when his eyes met Lisa’s. “Isn’t Admiral Hunter supposed to be here?”
“According to plan,” Lisa said. “But General Reinhardt asked for his assistance in assigning personnel to the Argentine Base.”
Lang’s tone of voice turned acerbic. “Reinhardt should know better. We need Hunter here.”
“Perhaps when the Grand Cannon is retaken,” Lisa was careful to say.
“It’s my understanding that the Army of the Southern Cross volunteered to handle the situation in Venezuela, and I don’t understand why they weren’t permitted to. If REF personnel are going to respond to every action initiated by a dissident group, this mission will never launch.”
Before anyone could comment, Lang waved a hand in dismissal and resumed his introductory remarks.
“Sixteen years ago, when we got our first look inside the crashed SDF-1, we were presented with a picture of what we would have to confront in the event the ship’s owners ever arrived to reclaim it. The weapons systems and the dead giants found aboard the ship altered our view of the universe, and led eventually to the development of the reconfigurable fighting machines that have come to be called ‘mecha.’ It’s telling, however, that Zor’s warning message contained no images of Zentraedi Battlepods or Power Armor, but focused instead on the primary assault vehicles of the Invid soldier, the Gurab and the Gamo. What with the Zentraedi defeat, Zor was correct to award the Invid central place. But the so-called Shock Troopers and Pincer Command Units are only two of several assault crafts the Expeditionary mission must prepare to encounter.”
For the next five minutes, Lang led everyone through a computer-generated, table-displayed tour of the Valivarre system of planets, moving outward from sunlike Valivarre to the ringed planet known as Fantoma and the inhabited moon of Fantoma known as Tirol—a somewhat desolate-looking orb, with much of its topography muted by volcanic flows.
“One of the million questions I hope to have answered,” Lang said, “is why, with half the galaxy at their disposal, the Masters have chosen to remain on Tirol. If we accept Exedore’s statement that the Masters have no attachments to place, then it’s unlikely they consider Tirol their home. Do you concur, Breetai?”
“I wouldn’t know, Dr. Lang,” Breetai answered from the bridge. “I have had few direct dealings with the Masters.”
Lang nodded. “Exedore has also stated that the architecture of Tirol’s principle city, Tiresia, approximates that of our own Greco-Roman period, with the addition of some ceramic or ultratech innovations, including an enormous pyramid called the Royal Hall. Can you verify this, Breetai?”
Breetai shook his head for the cameras. “I have never made planetfall on Tirol.”
“No matter,” Lang said. “Breetai may not have set foot in Tiresia, but he has been able to supply us with even more relevant data.”
Once more Lang directed everyone’s attention to the command bubble’s data table, above which a series of holograms began to materialize: a hover platform surmounted by a kind of snowman-proportioned warrior robot; a huge robotic cat with alloy fangs and a segmented tail; other automatons, headless things with bulbous, armored torsos and insectilelike limbs and appendages.
“Bioroid hover,” Lang said, motioning to the holoids. “Hellcat, Odeon, Scrim, Crann … These, apparently, were created by the Masters in anticipation of a Zentraedi rebellion, led by Commander-in-Chief Dolza, and few use by clones as a police force on occupied worlds. With Breetai and Exedore’s help in interpreting some of the documents found aboard this factory, we will be able to supply specifications to Dr. Penn’s mecha design group and Dr. Burke’s weapons development teams.” Lang looked at the two men. “I want to caution both of you about placing any confidence in our ability to get this factory on-line again. Consider it a very large hangar space. Even if we do succeed in identifying and eliminating the glitches, production will be limited to Tactical Battlepods. Officer’s Pods were produced elsewhere.”
Jevna Parl elaborated on Lang’s statement. “This facility specialized in the manufacture of Regults with Esbelliben Protoculture drives. Glaugs—Officer’s Pods, as you call them—have been in short supply since an Invid assault on the Roycommi Weapons Factory.”
“Note to Admiral Hunter,” Lang directed to the recording secretary. “Discuss project involving new line of tactical simulators featuring Invid and Masters crafts as opponents-slash-targets.” He snorted. “Assuming the RDF’s accountants will agree to fund such a project.”
Lisa watched Lang’s ire build. She thought she could read his mind. What was to become of the mission to Plutospace? The surveys of the Zentraedi ships crashed in the trackless forests of the Southlands? The operation directed at salvaging materials from the eighty-six Zentraedi ships a fleet of tugs were maneuvering toward the factory?… Where was the funding going to come from? And was there any truth to the rumor that certain high-ranking members of the RDF and the UEG were beginning to talk about an unmanned mission to Tirol—a kind of remote appeal for peace?
All at once, Lisa’s duties felt light by comparison. And the more she thought about it, the better she began to feel—for Rick as well. Even if he had been shanghaied into contending with the Zentraedi uprisings, at least he was doing so from behind a desk instead of from the cockpit of a Veritech. Which left the heroics to be handled by some other hapless fighter jock. And Lisa free and clear of having to assume any of the blame.
In pre-War times, no self-respecting resident of Buenos Aires would have been lax in making plans to escape the city’s heat and humidity at the end of the Christmas holiday. But now, those holiday destinations—the white-sand beaches of Punta del Este and Mar del Plata—were buried yards deep by what Dolza’s annihilation bolts had blasted from São Paulo and Montevideo and the near-dead Atlantic had washed ashore. Powerboats, terracotta roof tiles, ornate windowframes, blocks of rebar-impregnated concrete, wooden furniture and doors, plastic goods, tires, the husks of automobiles and train cars, chunks of tarmac, trash, the remains of the dead—a littoral dump that stretched for hundreds of miles north and south of the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, Buenos Aires’s shallow and befouled estuary. Post-Rain Christmas meant suffering together in the Plaza de Mayo, enduring the muggy heat and the merciless pollen count.
But what did complaining ever accomplish? Max Sterling had asked himself. Particularly when you understood how the world worked: You railed to your best friend and commanding officer about the political climate of the Southlands, and in return found yourself in the heat. But Max understood, or thought he did.
There were plenty of pilots who could have led the counterstrike against the Grand Cannon. But Hunter obviously saw the assignment as a test of Max’s loyalty. Rick was making him choose sides between the RDF and those Zentraedi who had reembraced the violent terms of the Imperative. It was possible, in fact, that Rick’s message had an even more sinister meaning: his way of saying, either join us on the factory or consider yourself assigned to every counterstrike that comes along.
“Don’t you dare think of yourself as one of Governor Leonard’s assassins,” Miriya had warned him at Fokker Base, with Dana in her arms, trying for all it was worth to tug at her mother’s green hair. “You’ll be up against a band of renegades, Max—Zentraedi and Human filth. I’d fly proudly at your wing if the RDF would allow me.”
Her sentiments had eased what would have made for seven onerous airtime hours in Skull One—Rick’s former VF-1S, the VT with the Jolly Rogered tailerons. On arrival at the Argentine Base there had been a couple of hours of rest for the whole team, then a bus ride into the city center, tapas at some bar on the Plaza de Mayo, a sneezing fit on the Avenida Nueve de Julio …
Miraculously, Dolza’s Rain of Death had missed Buenos Aires, but the city had paid a price for being spared. It had become home to hundreds of thousands of refugees from Chile, southern Brazil, Uruguay, and Bolivia. The city’s sizable Zentraedi population had come from the hundreds of ships that had crashed in the Argentine mesopotamia—on the forested plains of Chaco, between the Parana and Uruguay rivers—and the hundreds more that still stippled the pampas and the windswept plateaus of Patagonia. Unlike in Brasília or Belo Horizonte, however, in BA the Zentraedi had been welcomed—even the most recent wave of aliens fleeing martial law in the Goias and Mato Grosso districts.
At four in the afternoon on the day following his arrival, Max was back on base, sipping a glass of limeade on the veranda of the commander’s house. The base was well away from the city, fifty miles west of the Avellaneda industrial center, where sundry animal products, like hides and wool, were processed before being shipped north. Max could make out mountains in the distance, eucalyptus and chinaberry trees in the middle ground, and the ruins of an old estancia on the far side of the VT landing strip. He was mulling over the upcoming mission when the commander strode onto the veranda.
The Zentraedi Rebellion Page 10