Rubicon

by Jack McKinney

  I suspect the Karbarrans were beginning to see themselves as the Phoenicians of the local group, with strategically located Optera as a kind of Carthage. The REF was too enmeshed in finding a way home to pay much attention to these long-range empire-building schemes. For a mission that had come halfway across the galaxy, we were still a parochial lot; and we had a lot to learn about the inner dynamics of these worlds we were helping to liberate.

  Vince Grant, as quoted in Ann London’s

  Ring of Iron: The Sentinels in Conflict

  One could almost believe that the mission was cursed, Lang told himself. He ran a hand down his face and held it over his mouth for a moment, as if to keep some betraying sound from escaping. Cursed, he thought.

  But he guessed the Shapings were intolerant of such things. Curses had a kind of implied emotionalism, a qualitative component absent in the Shapings, which operated on levels far removed from rage, vengeance, or retribution. Curses were evil wishes, even when successful; but the Shapings revealed themselves in terms of action and were irrevocable. Most of his colleagues thought him a fatalist when discussions turned to such matters; however, that was only because they confused the Shapings with destiny. When Lang was overheard to say, The Shapings will have their way, people took this to mean: it is the working of fate. Or some other equally ill-informed reduction. The future wasn’t out there somewhere, already written and waiting to unfold. Lang left that for the Preterite. For Protoculture didn’t dictate to us; it addressed us in an as-yet-inscrutable code.

  Lang leaned back from his desktop screen, closed his eyes, and let out a long sigh. He was in his office in the Tiresia complex, working late tonight, the moon’s only city asleep around him. How peaceful it seemed with Edwards and his Ghost Riders in flight, with the council getting back on track, and the research and development teams in full swing again. Oh, a few of the Plenipotentiary members were continuing to straddle the fence—Longchamps and Stinson, chiefly—but they were powerless to prevent any of his programs from being carried out. The two senators thought it best to give lip service to Edwards in the event the Southern Cross had gained the upper hand on Earth. Lang had concerns of his own along those lines; but the data he had just received rendered most of them academic to say the least.

  He directed a few words to the console pickups and the voice-actuated device brought a new display to the desktop. Lang regarded the mathematical calculations for a moment, then tapped his forefinger against the screen for an extrapolation and leaned in to study the results.

  Colonel Wolfe’s ship had not been heard from. It was to have defolded from hyperspace some ten light-years out, in the vicinity of a still-functioning scanner drone linked to Tirol’s mainframe equivalents—instruments the Robotech Masters had apparently used before the so-called “Protoculture Caps” had freed them from such archaic tools. First Carpenter, now Wolfe, Lang had thought at the time. And it was then he had ordered a review of all sidereal calculations and spacefold systemry, along with a series of visual and enhancement updates utilizing Tiresia’s newly completed large-array receivers.

  Now everything was clear.

  And terrible to contemplate.

  Of all the astrogational capabilities Robotechnology had presented the Terran research teams, spacefold maneuvers were arguably the most baffling. This had a lot to do with the fact that not even Lang himself had dared tamper with the SDF-1’s spacefold generators. The system itself was simple enough to understand, but the dynamics were something else again. The Zentraedi merely had to punch computer-generated coordinates into the system and voilá: a ship could jump from, say, the Blaze system to the Solar system in two Earth-standard weeks, give or take a few days. To those onboard, however, the jump would appear to have taken place in hours. Lang had yet to figure out how he had miscalculated the SDF-1’s initial jump, which was to have folded the ship to the Moon instead of warping it to clear to Pluto.

  The spacefold systems incorporated into the SDF-2 had been salvaged from Zentraedi ships which had crashed on Earth after the catastrophic battle that ended the Robotech War. But Khyron the Destroyer had seen to it that those generators were never put to the test. Nor the SDF-1’s, for that matter—the site, according to Cabell, of Zor’s hidden Protoculture matrix, now part and parcel of the radioactive mounds dredged up from Lake Gloval in New Macross to bury the fortress. The SDF-3’s spacefold system had been transferred intact from Breetai’s flagship and integrated into a state-of-the-art system Lang’s Robotechs had lifted from the factory satellite.

  Lang, with some help from Exedore and Breetai, had programmed the SDF-3’s astrogational computers for the jumps to Fantoma. The projected time for each: a matter of hours—a fraction of the time it had taken Breetai’s flagship to fold to the coordinates of Dolza’s command station years before. But recent discoveries had forced Lang to reevaluate the time elapsed and revise it upward—considerably so.

  The jump had taken them two and a half years.

  Lang was till too dazzled by the snafu to accord it truth status; but the end results of the reworked sidereal calculations were difficult to refute.

  Almost four earth-standard years had gone by since the SDF-3’s arrival in Fantomaspace. Lang and everyone else were presently turning the leaves of a 2026 calendar, while on Earth it was 2029! Carpenter’s ship had been launched in 2027, not 2024; Wolfe’s in 2028. Lang recalled Cabell telling him that the Robotech Masters had been gone ten Earth-standard years when the SDF-3 arrived-a journey Cabell calculated would require twenty years at most. The REF had been operating under the assumption that they had a few years remaining to get the SDF-3 equipped for a spacefold that would return them to Earth ahead of the Masters.

  But it just wasn’t so.

  The Masters would be entering the Solar system no later than next year. Carpenter, whose ship had the same errors built into its systemry, wouldn’t arrive for another year, if at all. And Wolfe, God help him, wouldn’t debark until sometime in 2030 or later. Sick to his stomach, Lang wondered who would be there to welcome him home. The Robotech Masters? A victorious Army of the Southern Cross? There was even an outside chance that the Invid Queen-Mother, the Regess, would be on hand.

  Lang shut down the screen. He got up from his desk and walked to the lab’s only window, and he stood there silently for a time, watching the stars.

  Was it his obligation to inform the Plenipotentiary Council? He listened for the voice of the Shapings, hoping to discern some answer.

  He wished Exedore were present, but the Zentraedi was on Haydon IV with the Sterlings and their wonderchild, Aurora. Lang considered the phrase—the warning—the child was said to have uttered at scarcely a month old: Dana, beware the spores! He didn’t know what to make of it. And what of Dana, it occurred to him suddenly; close to what, sixteen years old now?

  Lazlo Zand’s face came to him, and Lang shuddered at the thought.

  Meanwhile, Vince Grant, Jean, and Cabell were aboard the Tokugawa en route to a rendezvous point with the Karbarran ship, the Tracialle, and the Ark Angel—providing that all had gone smoothly on Peryton.

  And the Valivarre was near Optera, perhaps engaging the renegade Edwards at this very moment …

  Lang could only hope that the Regent would accept the terms the council was proposing. At least peace might reign in one corner of the galaxy. The one the Masters had abandoned—swapped, Lang thought—for Earth’s small piece of the sky.

  Rick’s mind wandered away from the discussion to search out memories of the first time he had seen her. Winsome and charming that cool afternoon on Macross Island, in red highheels and a sundress that was too short for her, trying to wrestle her cousin Jason away from a vending machine that was circling them for a sale. Petite Cola, Rick recalled. And later—how could he ever forget?—talking to her from the elevated seat of a fighter that had somehow reconfigured itself to a forty-foot-high techno knight. Minmei at the balcony window. He would toss her his Medal of Valor through a facsimile o
f that window a year later.

  Those early days, he thought, overcome with nostalgia. The Miss Macross contest and those frustrating evenings in the park when he could never get the words quite right. Their two weeks together as castaways onboard the SDF-1, writing love songs and fishing for tuna. Getting married …

  The video recording taken by the Valivarre had finished running a moment ago, but the scene of that travesty of a wedding aboard Edwards’s ship was still showing on Rick’s internal screens. Minmei, pale but bright-eyed and adoring as she took Edwards’s hand; the two of them kneeling before Edwards’s sadistic adjutant. Good-bye, Jonathan, she had said to poor Wolfe. I’ve found happiness at last.

  Rick thought about the feelings Lynn-Kyle had once stirred in him; how he had worried for Minmei then. And the time he had rescued her from Khyron and how close they had come to making it work. But he had already found Lisa, and the world of New Macross was about to come to an end.

  Rick glanced over at Lisa now, and of course she was glaring at him. Everytime Minmei’s name came up. Without fail. Like she was a mind reader or something. But why not? The Praxian Sisters had taught her all about hand-to-hand; so maybe Veidt or Kami had been giving her telepathy lessons!

  The bumps and bruises everyone had sustained on Peryton were healing; but there were some wounds biostats and anodynes couldn’t touch, Rick thought.

  Veidt had received Vince Grant’s transmission from Haydon IV, and the Ark Angel had departed Perytonspace for the rendezvous point two days after the nightmare in LaTumb. Burak and Tesla had ended the planet’s curse—paying the price with their lives. Janice and Rem had recounted the events a dozen times, but the Sentinels were still having trouble with it. Did it mean that Burak and Tesla’s thoughts were actually in Peryton’s air, so to speak—controlling the planet’s reconstruction somehow? And just exactly who was this Haydon being who could arrange for such things to occur?

  Everyone else had managed to walk away. Jack was back in sick bay, but that had more to do with the abdominal gash he had received from Burak on Spheris than anything Peryton had thrown at him. Karen, Gnea, Lron, Baldan … they had all logged a couple of after-mission sessions with the debriefing shrink, but were otherwise fine.

  And so, by the looks of things, were Vince, Jean, and Cabell, fresh from Glike on Haydon IV. Rick was angry, disappointed, then just plain resigned to Max and Miriya’s decision to remain behind with Exedore. The vids of their kid, Aurora, were in some ways as frightening as the replays of Minmei and Edwards’s wedding.

  The Tracialle—a Sekiton-propelled ship reminiscent of the modularly designed Farrago—had brought along a special surprise for Lron and Crysta in the form of their young son, Dardo. Arla-non’s presence aboard the Tokugawa was as much a surprise to Bela and Gnea.

  The principals had assembled on the Tokugawa at Vince’s behest to discuss what he explained as “an issue of vital importance, not only to the REF and the Sentinels but to all the inhabited worlds of the local group.” The hold had been outfitted with two semicircular tables set opposite each other, with places designated for Vince, Cabell, Arla-non, and Veidt at one, and Rick, Lisa, Rem, and Janice at the other. Smaller tables had been set up in between for the various XT factions.

  Rick kept wondering about Vince’s statement while the vids brought everyone up to date; and now it appeared that Cabell was ready to come to the point.

  “The Terran council has proposed that a peace initiative be offered to the Invid Regent.”

  Rick nearly fell on the floor.

  “Let me finish,” Cabell shouted over the din that had erupted. “Hear me out!”

  The assembly reluctantly agreed, and a tense silence returned to the hold. The Karbarran contingent was the most obviously distressed; three or four of the ursine XTs were pacing the floor, grumbling low-voiced complaints to all within earshot. Angry labor leaders, intent on inciting a riot.

  “Flower seedlings and the creatures known as Pollinators will be returned to Optera,” Cabell was saying, “in exchange for the Regent’s promise to withdraw his troops from all planets still under his dominion and to begin the immediate dismantling of his war machine.”

  “With Optera reseeded, he’ll have the capacity to rebuild his warships the moment our backs are turned!” one of the Karbarrans shouted.

  “Keep him on Optera,” from another, “but let us control the quantity of nutrient the planet receives!”

  Quite a few voices rallied behind the suggestion. Cabell had his hands raised in a quieting gesture, his beard like a flag of truce. “That is exactly what drove the Invid to warfare in the first place. You have all been under the Robotech Masters’ hand, the Invid hand. Can we expect the Regent to fall willingly under one of our own devising? They must have the freedom to govern themselves, just as we now have.” The Tiresian indicated Arla-non and Veidt, who were seated off to his right. “The Praxians and the Haydonites have already agreed to the proposal.”

  “The Praxians don’t even have a world of their own!” a huge Karbarran bellowed. “And these Terrans have come from across the Quadrant. What do they know of the Regent’s atrocities? Our children were held hostage by his minions!”

  “And our very planet was destroyed!” Arla-non cut in. “If we can forgive in the name of peace, so you shall, Karbarran!”

  “Where do the Garudans stand?” Bela wanted to know. “And the Spherisians?”

  No one was mentioning Peryton; in a sense the planet had been exempt all along.

  Baldan stepped forward to speak for Spheris. “The Invid visited more destruction on our world in a generation than the Great Geode could bring in an eon. But the Spherisians have no taste for genocide. I say return the Flowers to them.” Teal nodded beside him, proud of the son she had shaped.

  “A nobel stance,” Kami said from beneath his breathing apparatus, while the Karbarrans were busy hurling comminations at Baldan. “And yet you ignore that the Regent pledged to do as much to my people and yours. Optera’s Flowers have brought nothing but misery. They should be eradicated. Along with the life-form that subsists on them!”

  Gnea raised her voice loud enough to be heard. “What about this Earther general who has allied himself with the Regent? Is he to enjoy safe haven on Optera?”

  Rick traded determined looks with Lisa and leaned forward to catch Vince Grant’s response. “The Plenipotentiary’s proposal states that General Edwards must be returned to Tirol to face charges of sedition and treason.” His eyes found Rick across the hold. “Dr. Lang and the council express the hope that the Sentinels will refrain from further acts of warfare against the Invid until such time as the Regent responds to the proposal.”

  Rick’s lips tightened; he was just about to stand up and enter his own thoughts in the record, when an officer from the Togukawa’s communication center rushed into the hold and headed straight for Vince Grant’s seat at the speakers’ table. The room fell silent as Vince took a moment to read the message.

  Rick could see his friend’s face blanch.

  “A coded communique had just been received from Base Tirol,” Vince began in a stressed tone. “The Zentraedi ship, Valivarre, has reported to the SDF-3 that … the Invid Regent is dead.”

  A chorus of cheers rose up from the Karbarrans and Garudans.

  “Furthermore,” Vince continued, angered by the commotion, “Valivarre reports that seventy-three Zentraedi were killed in the raid on Optera’s Home Hive. Commander Breetai is listed among the casualties.”

  Rick heard Lisa’s sharp intake of breath and immediately moved to her side. He strained to hear the rest of Vince’s report above the sudden confusion, fighting back the tears and sorrow Lisa was already giving way to.

  “And one more thing,” Vince added, all emotion gone out of his voice. “General Edwards is apparently in control of the Invid forces on Optera.”

  The Regent had insisted on leaving the hive. Edwards had tried to talk him out of it, but the Invid was set on leading his
troops to victory. You do what you have to do, Edwards had told him, standing there doing some leading of his own—a mad conductor poised in front of Minmei, the Ghost Riders, and the brain. Straight out of an old Vincent Price horror film.

  The communications sphere had carried scenes of the battle to the hive audience. Edwards saw the Regent square off with Breetai, the two XTs bundled up in Power Suits that made them look like deep-sea divers out of water. But he could tell they were both putting their hearts into it, and tried to coax Minmei to even greater heights of vocal display, waving his swagger stick like a baton, blond hair in tufts around the neural headband. The songs were working like a charm; Battlepods were stumbling around, careening into one another—exactly the headless ostriches the fly-boys always took them to be.

  In some secret part of her mind, Minmei had seemed aware of what he was doing to her, and the “We Can Win” dirge had deteriorated to caterwauling. Edwards had half believed she was going to die on the spot. That was when he had put an end to it, because his plans for her certainly didn’t include death. The songs were simply a way to help bring her back under his control, to compromise that internal defense system she had used against him during the wedding. So much the better that they could be used against the Zentraedi as well.

  Edwards had always considered them as living on borrowed time since the end of the Robotech War anyway. By rights they should have died ten years ago.

  He had been pleased to see that the Regent had continued to hold his own with Breetai long after the charivari ended. Invid and Zentraedi were in a kind of embrace at that time, launching themselves into Optera’s wild yellow yonder.

  Then came the unanticipated explosion.

  Edwards and his Ghost Riders were dumbfounded. Breetai and the Regent had taken each other out, and all around them in the hive chamber things had suddenly begun to wind down: Shock Troopers and Enforcers lowering their pincers, soldiers nodding out, the brain drifting toward the bottom of the bubble-chamber like a sponge that had lost its way … Edwards recalled experiencing a moment of panic—brief, to be sure, but palpable. The hive had become deadly quiet, his men looking to him for some sign that things were still on an upswing here.