On two occasions, Destroids had opened fire on “noncompliants,” killing twenty, including Utema, Ranoc’s roommate for less than a week. And all these weeks later, the smell of rotting flesh still permeated the air, despite the fact that the corpses had been moved miles from the facility and interred in a mass grave.
After that, the RDF achieved full compliance, even from those for whom the Micronization process was a guarantee of malady or premature death. With Zentraedi supervising the process, the sizing chambers ran continuously for five days, and during that time twelve more died as the result of suicide or sloppy technique and in botched escape attempts.
The events had effectively eclipsed Ranoc’s earlier sense of fulfillment and confidence in the future. At least once a day he was assured that Micronization didn’t necessarily mean the end of his career in construction; that the training in materials and techniques would continue, and that everyone would eventually be taught to operate heavy machinery and to work with Human crews. But Ranoc didn’t believe for a moment that he would ever be returned to full size, and his anger grew until it had hardened into hatred for his jailers. He regretted having spoken up for Minmei years earlier, and he wished that he could have died a warrior’s death with Khyron in the skies over Macross.
With Micronization completed, the number of Destroids had been reduced to 50, though some 600 Defense Force and civil defense troops remained in the Protectorate. And one of those soldiers was looking Ranoc’s way just now, a bulky, square-jawed corporal named Shaw who seemed to delight in taunting everyone.
“What’s the matter, Nomarre,” the corporal asked from his post by the dining hall door, “you got a problem with the food?”
Ranoc sent him a baleful look. “Since you call it food, why don’t you come over here and eat it?”
Shaw nodded knowingly to one of his comrades. “But, Nomarre, if you don’t eat, you won’t grow up to be a big, strong Zentraedi.”
Ranoc waited until the laughter died down. “If and when I do,” he said at last, “I promise you’ll hear from me, Micronian.”
Shaw and his buddy apparently didn’t see any humor in the remark, and were headed Ranoc’s way when sirens began to blare in the distance.
Shaw pointed a thick finger at Ranoc. “More of you trying to escape. Which only means more of you dead.”
Ranoc might have concurred, but for the fact that beneath the shrill wailing of the sirens whomped the unmistakable sound of cannon fire. Heads swung south to the source of the barrage, and a moment later, nearly everyone in the hall was making for the exits to see for themselves what the commotion was about. Ranoc wondered suddenly if the RDF had been telling the truth about a threatened attack by the Army of the Southern Cross.
The next exchange of fire erased any chance of that: the opening roar was certainly the product of Excaliber forearm cannons. But the answering salvo came from no Human-made weapon.
“Battlepods,” someone in the crowd of Zentraedi jamming the doorway said.
The oak forest south of the facility was crisscrossed with energy bolts and ablaze. The sky was crazed with lightninglike discharges, and the reports of explosions echoed in the surrounding hills and rumbled underfoot. Ranoc saw two Battlepods launch themselves above the flaming treetops, lasers and particle-beam cannons flaring. One was immediately atomized by Raidar X fire; the other dodged a flashing fusillade of bolts and dropped back into the trees.
“This is madness,” Ranoc said to no one in particular. “Unless there are hundreds of them, they’ll be wiped out.”
From all directions, Excalibers, Guardians, and Spartans were converging on the kill zone.
“Maybe now is the time to escape,” someone suggested.
“You’ll be cut down,” Ranoc admonished him.
Just then something metallic shot high into the sky from amid the torched trees, something that could almost have been mistaken for Female Power Armor. At the apex of its flight, nearly indistinguishable in a upward storm of tracer rounds and antiaircraft fire, the object became the epicenter of a veritable fireworks display of missile launches.
Ranoc threw himself to the ground as the projectiles fell indiscriminately on the construction facility.
“Good evening, I’m Katherine Hyson …”
“And I’m Rebecca Hollister …”
“And this is World News for November tenth, Twenty-sixteen.”
Hyson, looking paler and not quite as perfect as she had the previous summer, wore a fixed smile. In response to a slight sag in the ratings, the honchos at MBS had installed Hollister as co-anchor of the evening news—Hollister, who had become the network darling since her live coverage of the Protectorate occupation.
Hollister’s TelePrompTer had come alive, though the mousy brunette scarcely glanced at the screen—or at any of the crib sheets on the desk—having been blessed with a near photographic memory.
“The question everyone is still asking six weeks after the attack on the occupied Zentraedi Protectorate,” she began, “is how the malcontent band, now identified as the Steel Wind, managed to infiltrate the RDF’s perimeter of Destroids. There is some concern that information about the deliberate—and unexplained—withdrawal of troops from the southern perimeter may have been leaked to the malcontents. But leaked by whom? MBS put the question to Admiral Richard Hunter only this afternoon as he was leaving a meeting of top RDF brass.”
The footage of Hunter ran without comment from Hollister or Hyson: Hunter, surrounded by aides and reporters, walked briskly from RDF headquarters in Monument City toward a waiting limousine. “I have no comment at this time,” he said.
“Which seemed to be the refrain from everyone we tried to speak with,” Hollister resumed. “Except, that is, for Major Joseph Petrie of the Army of the Southern Cross, who spoke to us via satellite from Brasília.”
Petrie’s youthful face came onscreen, with his name and rank subtitled. “We’re not saying that the RDF would purposely apprise the malcontents of a defensive weakness at the Protectorate. But in terms of public relations, it was certainly in their best interests to enlist Zentraedi to liberate the facility, since their own hands were tied by the UEG. The RDF had the foresight to downsize over a thousand potential insurgents, and now they’re bowing to the pressure of a couple of outraged and outspoken sympaths. As applies to the formation of the so-called Twenty-third Veritech Squadron, this is simply another indication of the RDF’s ceding of police powers to the aliens themselves. Something that will not occur in the Southlands.”
Hollister returned to the screen. “Sanctioned or not, the Steel Wind’s attempt at liberating the facility must now be deemed a victory, with news today that the RDF is withdrawing all its troops from the Protectorate. Unfortunately, this comes a little late for the forty-six members of the Steel Wind who were killed during and after the attack, and the thirty-two Protectorate Zentraedi who have died over the past six months.
“And what of the survivors and the enormous facility itself? UEG spokespersons maintain that former detainees who wish to be returned to full size can apply for factory satellite positions, and all others will be able to find construction work on Human crews.”
Hollister paused and turned to Hyson. “Katherine.”
Hyson’s fixed smile returned as she accepted the handoff and shifted her eyes ever so slightly to the TelePrompTer.
“Today, the public and the media got their first look at an example of the malcontent weapon used in the Cuiabá Massacre in June, and in the September attacks on a convoy in the Venezuela Sector and on the Protectorate.”
A grounded Stinger appeared onscreen, on display in a well-guarded enclosure at RDF headquarters. Members of the media were seated on folding chairs in neat rows, and at the podium stood a smartly uniformed, blond-haired RDF information officer identified as Lieutenant Eileen Summers.
Summers’s briefing covered all the salient points. The craft everyone was looking at—a modified version of a Zentraedi battle
suit—was known by the malcontents as a Stinger. The one on display was not the one that had been used by the Steel Wind, but had been captured in Venezuela by the Zentraedi Twenty-third Veritech Squadron. An as-yet-undetermined number of Stingers had been built by an all-female band of technicians at a hidden base in the jungles of the central Southlands.
“Can you provide any details on how the RDF came by this information?” one reporter asked the lieutenant.
Summers’s expression remained solemnly thoughtful. “We can provide that our intelligence derives from ongoing investigations into various smuggling operations in Freetown, Mexico.”
“Can you name names?” someone else asked.
“One of the individuals under arrest in Mexico is a Zentraedi female named Neela Saam; another is an arms merchant named Brian Cassidy.”
“Does this all-female malcontent band have a name?” asked a reporter from MBS, known for having a nose for good stories.
“Neela Saam used the term zopilote when she referred to the group. The word is Spanish for ‘vulture,’ but the RDF is calling them the Scavengers.”
A woman’s hand went up. “Since many Zentraedi are known to be techno-illiterate, how and where did these Scavengers learn to design and build mecha?”
Summers cleared her throat. “We’re still looking into that. But it’s possible that some of them may have received their training in Macross or Monument.”
Hyson was fuming when she reappeared onscreen; she calculated that she’d had less than two minutes of actual on-air time. She did, however, have a long segment after the commercial break, enough at least to put her even with Hollister. She was ready with the lead-in when the director’s voice barked through her earbead.
“Katherine, ignore the intro to your piece. We’ve got a newsbreaker.”
Hyson glanced expectantly at her TelePrompTer.
“Katherine,” the director said, “give it back to Rebecca.”
Hyson tensed from head to toe, but managed to turn to her co-anchor and say, “Rebecca.”
“Thanks, Katherine. This just in from the Argentine: The Paranka, also known as the Burrowers, have launched an attack on the city of Zagerstown, approximately one hundred miles northeast of Buenos Aires. The death toll now stands at one hundred forty-seven, but is expected to exceed two hundred and fifty. We’ll have more on this and other stories when we return.”
2017
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
Malcontentism notwithstanding, cities worldwide continued to prosper [during the period of Reconstruction], and fewer and fewer among them wanted any involvement with the UEG, the RDF, or the Bureau of Reconstruction Management. The events of 2012 [the Zentraedi Rain of Death] had made everyone wary of groups that purported to speak for all Humankind—groups like the then-defunct United Earth Defense Council. Separatism was the order of the day. Except in the Southlands, where Anatoie Leonard was beginning to emerge as a kind of King Arthur, promising to rid the land of evil, unify its numerous city-states, and usher in a Golden Age. But, as the Southern Cross dergue would come to learn, Round Tables seldom endure. Feudalism would eventually return to the Southlands, setting the stage for the chaos that attended the Invid invasion.
S. J. Fischer, Legions of Light: A History of the Army of the Southern Cross
A stranger to the riotously lush, river-fed heartland of the continent he hoped someday to make his domain, Anatoie Leonard gazed down at the treetops from his throne in the superhauler gondola, astonished to discover just how impact-cratered and strewn with crashed alien warships was his fantasy realm. Small wonder that the malcontents had access to so much weaponry and supplies, or that they had been able to construct terror machines like the Stingers—missiles from which had killed 271 in Zagerstown only a month earlier.
Quick glances out the port and starboard windows reaffirmed that the three other ultratech, dirigiblelike behemoths that comprised Leonard’s flotilla were keeping pace with their leader. Somewhere in the undulating terrain below lay their objective: the forested basin that sheltered the Scavenger’s mecha installation.
“Sir, the on-board comp has established a features match with satellite recon’s topo map,” the air commander reported. “GPS readings are also in synch. Target is twenty-five clicks north-northeast.” He pointed out the windscreen to the horizon. “Beyond that ridgeline, there. Do we announce ourselves or go in cold?”
“Announce ourselves how?” Leonard asked.
Muscular and curly-bearded, the captain chuckled to himself. “Sir, I was thinking about an old movie where a helicopter assault was conducted to the strains of Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyres.’ ”
Leonard didn’t return the captain’s over-the-shoulder grin. When, one hundred miles out, the fleet hadn’t met resistance, concern increased that the Scavengers were purposely holding back, luring them in the way Khyron had the RDF in 2013, as part of his plan to abduct Minmei and Lynn-Kyle.
“This isn’t the movies, Captain. Either we’ve been expected for over an hour now, or we’ve somehow caught them napping. If it’s the former, they will announce to us soon enough; and if it’s the latter, we should take full advantage of their sloppiness. No announcement. And no quarter once you have the fire command.”
“Aye, sir.”
“No quarter?” Professor Zand asked in a loud voice from his seat in the rear of the gondola. “Is that prudent, given what we might be able to learn from the captives? Perhaps you’re unaware that I’ve had extensive experience interrogating the Zentraedi. Not in the field, it’s true, but some of the same laboratory techniques can be applied. In any case, who knows what the Scavengers may have in the way of usable mecha or Protoculture. And we don’t want that destroyed, do we?”
Leonard glanced at Zand, his broad, hairless brow deeply furrowed. “Don’t mention that infernal word to me, Professor. I find it as offensive as taking God’s name in vain. It has long been my wish that the hardware of the Southern Cross could be fueled by something other than that alien evil.” He nodded his chin at Zand. “Maybe you could brew something up for us—something Human-grown.”
Zand smiled stiffly. He was sweating profusely in his rumpled suit, and had his bony hands clamped on the seat’s padded armrests. “I am up to the challenge, sir.”
Leonard faced front once more, concealing a long-suffering look. He had never had much use for scientists, least of all academics like Zand, who was as creepy as they came. Behind the wraparound dark glasses, Zand had the same all-iris eyes as that other one, Emil Lang, whom Leonard had never met. Had pupilless eyes become a fashion thing among academic types? he wondered. Zand was aboard as a favor to Joseph Petrie, who was obviously in awe of the professor’s knowledge of cybernetics and Robotechnology; more, however, as a favor to T. R. Edwards. It was the half-faced double agent who had provided satellite intelligence on the suspected location of the Scavengers’ camp and foreknowledge of the RDF’s plans for an assault.
Leonard’s principal reason for insisting on a no-quarter assault was to ensure that it be seen as more than a simple exercise in beat-them-to-the-punch competition. His only misgiving was that Seloy Deparra and the child might be among those at the facility. It would be just like Seloy to join the Scavengers. But he couldn’t permit her possible presence to influence his decision. The assault would illustrate to the world the difference between RDF and Southern Cross policy on terrorism. In reprisal for the Cuiabá Massacre, the RDF had Micronized the population of the Protectorate; the Army of the Southern Cross would have executed them. The RDF gave lip service to civil rights by holding public trials; the Southern Cross considered itself sole judge and jury. And now, with Zagerstown still making headlines, everyone would see what Anatole Leonard meant by retaliation.
“Sir, we have visual contact with the target,” the captain announced, indicating a large clearing bordering a meandering, café-au-lait river. “No signs of enemy activity. No scanner locks on any of our craft.”
&n
bsp; “Onscreen,” Leonard commanded.
The superhauler’s video cameras conveyed shaky images of warehouses, huts, and heavy machinery—cranes, bulldozers, and backhoes.
“Looks like an old gold-dredging operation,” the captain commented.
Leonard nodded. “You have the fire command, Captain—let’s see if we can’t wake them up.”
Shortly, a flock of missiles ripped into the clearing, punching gaping holes in the warehouses and destroying many of the outbuildings. Muddy water fountained from the river, a crane toppled, and thick-trunked trees were flattened. But there was no return fire, no Zentraedi anywhere to be seen, even when Leonard called a halt to the attack.
The clearing wasn’t large enough to permit a landing. Instead, while Leonard and his officers remained aloft, Southern Cross commandos in carbon-fiber body armor rappeled down on nylon ropes and conducted a building-to-building search. Live video brought the action to the gondola screens.
Some minutes later, the camera operator was ordered to one of the warehouses, where a colonel—a lean, crisp-uniformed black wearing a tan beret—was pacing in front of the doorless entrance. “Sir, all buildings have been secured,” she began. She made a quarter-turn to the right to indicate the interior of the warehouse. “There are twenty-two Stingers inside, in various states of assembly.”
Leonard arranged himself for the camera inside the gondola. “Where the hell is everyone, Colonel?”
The colonel pointed to an outbuilding at the edge of the clearing, a tangle of bare trees towering over it. “There, sir.”
Leonard threw Zand a glance. “I guess you’ll get a chance at interrogating them, after all, Professor.”
“Not this bunch, sir,” the colonel interrupted. “All seventeen have committed ritual suicide.”
Leonard was quiet for a moment, then he put his hands on his ample midriff and laughed. “Well, good for them. They’ve saved us the trouble of killing them.”
The Zentraedi Rebellion Page 24