Southern Cross

by Jack McKinney

  So the honeymoon was over and it was time to really decide who ran things in the 15th. And Dana held every ace. Recalling how much Fredericks seemed to enjoy having him as a houseguest down at Barbed Wire City, Sean resigned himself. "Damn it all, there ain't no justice in this world."

  Bowie and Louie and some of the others were just barely stifling their laughter. "This tin can and me woulda been history on wheels. But-" He looked to Dana. "'Course, there's still a chance for you and me, little darlin'." She had been waiting for that. Sean had been decent enough to her as a

  CO, had never put any moves on her-but that was before he wanted something from her. "The only history we'll make is when I send your sorry tail back to the stockade for insubordination, hotshot."

  He knew her well enough to realize she would do it. Some females just didn't know how to be friendly. Sean hopped out of the tank. "All right; lay off. I was only thinkin' of the good o' the Corps. So, what'm I supposed to use as a ride?"

  She gave him an innocent expression and pointed. "Look right up there."

  Sean let out a curse. "That crate? The Bad News? That's the oldest junker we've got!"

  "And it's all yours, Private; you'd better get to work on it." Sean heaved a deep sigh. "Thanks."

  "Now, listen up, everybody," Dana went on. "Orders from High Command. We move out at thirteen hundred hours tomorrow. The brass decided it's time we whip some hurt on these invaders."

  There were the usual snafus, the usual hurry-up-and-waits, but all

  units were in place only slightly after the scheduled zero hour.

  For some reason, the Strikeforce commander changed his mind at the last moment, ordering another TASC unit to go in as first attack wave. Marie Crystal stood in the base control tower and watched the VTs of the Redhawk Team take off.

  In the 15th's ready-room, the tankers waited in full armor, helmets in hand. Dana strained to catch a glimpse of the fighters rising from the distant Fokker Base. Man, I hate this waiting in the background! This is driving me zooey.

  "What's the matter, Lieutenant?" Louie Nichols smirked. "Pulling reserve duty doesn't agree with you?"

  "Sometimes it's tough to just stand pat," Angelo hinted.

  Dana whirled on them. "As you were! I don't need to be reminded what my orders are!"

  At that moment the PA squawked, and they got the order to move out. The 15th was among the very last units to be moved into place as Southern Cross command made some final arrangements in defensive deployment.

  The tankers charged for the drop-rack, and in moments they were tearing down the highway, bound for an industrial area at the edge of Monument City. The 15th went with helmets off for the time being; manual controls would suffice for a mere drive from point A to point B.

  Playing shuttlecars, is that all we're going to get to do? Dana fumed.

  The Redhawk VTs came up in a ballistic climb, then formed up for attack and headed straight for the alien. In the command center, Emerson and his staff studied a visual image of the underside of the Robotech Masters' flagship.

  It was an elongated hexagon, a huge lozenge of alloy the size of a city, its superstructural features as big as sportsdomes and skyscrapers. The blinking of its white and purple running lights-if that was what the lights were-was the only sign of activity in the ship.

  "No doubt their sensors have detected the Redhawks, sir," Colonel Green said.

  "Attack begins in thirty seconds," Rochelle reported. "I wonder what they'll throw back at us?"

  Emerson leaned forward to call down to an officer on the operations floor below. "Are you sure you haven't picked up any reaction from the alien?"

  The officer surveyed the consoles manned by his techs, and the main displays big as movie screens. "That's affirmative, sir; no response of any kind."

  Few things could have troubled Rolf Emerson more, but it was too late. The screens began relaying visual transmissions from VT gunpod cameras as the fighters went in. One flight broke off to make a pass over the enemy's upper hull, to size up the objective and draw fire so that a second flight could make suppression runs on the alien batteries.

  The cameras showed conical structures the size of pyramids, poking up out of a landscape of systemry. There were ziggurats, onion domes, and towers like two-tined forks. But the ship remained silent and unresponsive, inert except for the lights. Two more passes didn't change that.

  Emerson knew things had gone too far to simply pull back now. If he didn't give the order, Leonard or someone else farther up the line would. "All right; we'll provoke a response. Commence attack immediately."

  The VTs swept in, releasing dozens of Mongoose missiles. The missiles were powerful and accurate, producing brilliant explosions and lots of smoke, but when the smoke cleared, it was evident that they had caused no detectable damage, none at all.

  Then someone said, "Sir, I'm getting some movement from the enemy ship."

  "Right." The Redhawks' leader could see them, too, now: elongated, bulbous things like inverted teardrops, looking more glassy than metallic, gracefully grooved with spiral flutings. They reminded some Human

  observers of chandelier light bulbs, emerging from housings or rising up from where they had lain flat along the hull, to come to bear on the fighters. "Everybody look sharp for antiaircraft fire," the Redhawk leader said, though he had the feeling that those were more than just some AA guns

  snouting out to track his squadron.

  The green-white serpentine discharges of energy bolts crackled from the long muzzles, writhing and intertwining like living things. All at once they were coming from everywhere, the invader ship protected by a blazing network of interlacing streams of destruction. One VT was blown to bits, then another, and two more, before the pilots could get clear.

  Someone said, "Sir, I'm picking up an unidentified craft emerging from the mother ship; ID signature indicates one of their assault craft. Correction: make that two assault ships."

  The XT craft zoomed out together and pounced on the VTs even as the Redhawk leader was warning his men. A pair of VTs attempting to strafe a cannon emplacement was taken from behind, blown to flaming wreckage by streams of green-white energy discs.

  Emerson ordered the Redhawk leader, "Break off the attack on the mother ship and get on those assault craft at once! Keep them from getting back to the mother ship or reaching any ground targets."

  "I copy, sir." But the VT leader didn't sound very confident about it.

  Green told Emerson, "Sensor data indicate the power in each of those landing craft is superior to that in the entire Redhawk squadron."

  "I'm not surprised, Colonel," Emerson said. "But it's not just a question of raw power. If we can isolate them-who knows?" Sufficient firepower concentrated in the right place might do the trick; one torpedo could sink a carrier, after all; one rocket could destroy an arsenal.

  The Redhawks caught up with one of the assault craft on its plummet to the ground; they were having a hard time spotting the second.

  "Okay, we've got 'im now; keep 'im in sight," the leader said, moving into position for a shot at the invader's tail. The VTs' guns hosed

  green-white energy discs much like the aliens'; it was Robotechnology against Robotechnology.

  But the target was gone abruptly. The Redhawk leader craned to see what had happened. "Where'd he go?"

  He got his answer a moment later. The landing boat had gone into an incredibly powerful dive, looped, and come around onto the Redhawk formation's tail.

  "Break and shake!" yelled the leader, but it was too late to evade. The alien picked off the rear ship in the diamond of four, and went in after the others. A second burst from the invader got another VT and sent it plowing into its wingmate.

  The leader came in for a high deflection shot at the bandit, but it evaded with amazing agility and slid around onto his tail, chopping away at him. The tight packages of destructive energy holed the fighter's fuselage, and sent the Redhawk leader plunging to the Earth, trail
ing flame and smoke.

  The fighting had brought the ships down close to the ground; there was no time to eject.

  Sean Phillips watched the Redhawk leader's VT plow into the ground, off in the distance, toward the air base.

  "My God! Unbelievable! A whole squadron wiped out in two-three minutes!"

  Angelo Dante shook his head slowly. "Maybe we didn't beat them the other day after all; maybe they just wanted to wait for the Main Event."

  "We did beat them once, and we can beat them again," Dana contradicted loudly. But a moment later she gasped as she saw the second assault ship link up with the first. They turned and began an approach on the base, the origin of the fighters that had attacked their flagship. As they went they began dropping Bioroids, the mecha dispersing and advancing on their antigrav Hovercraft for an attack.

  And at the head of the mountainous, armored invaders rode the red

  Bioroid.

  CHAPTER NINE

  A WW I biplane had perhaps fifteen gauges and instruments a WW II fighter some thirty-five or so. By the time of the Global Civil War, a front-line fighter-bomber had approximately four hundred indicators, readouts, and so forth. Robotech mecha made those planes look as simple as unicycles. Is it any wonder that the RDF, and the Southern Cross Army that took its place, had little use for people with fast reflexes and the rest of it, but who couldn't image, couldn't think their mecha through a fight? It was the only conceivable way of controlling such an instrumentality.

  And even that wasn't always enough.

  Zachary Fox Jr., Men, Women, Mecha: the Changed Landscape of the Second Robotech War

  The conventional armored vehicles and self-propelled artillery at the base did their best to send up defensive barrages, but the Bioroids were too agile and their counterfire too devastating. The Bioroids wove down through the tracers and solid-projectile fire, and then opened up.

  Blasts from the discus-shaped hand weapons sent the field pieces and battle tanks up in violent ruin. The missile batteries didn't have any better luck; more Bioroids came in at low angles, taking them out with highly accurate fire.

  Pilots scrambled to their planes, horrified that they had been caught on the ground by the incredible speed of the alien attack. Men and women with one foot in the cockpit, or just lowering the canopy, or beginning their taxi, were incinerated in their exploding aircraft. Whole lines of parked ships disappeared in tremendous outlashings of energy. Armored leg infantry, bravely attempting to defend the base with small arms, were mowed down on strafing runs.

  The Bioroids began cutting the base to ribbons, determined to turn it into one huge funeral pyre, beaming down communications and sensor

  towers, strafing barracks, savaging every target they saw.

  One of the few TASC units to make it upstairs was Marie Crystal's. She formed up the Black Lions, then brought them around to do whatever they could in the face of the appalling counterattack.

  They spied a flight of blue Bioroids led by the red. "Okay, nail those bastards!" she yelled; the VTs went in. But the Bioroids on their flying platforms were fearless and capable; they came head-on, knocking down first one Lion, then another.

  But the VTs got on the scoreboard, too; Marie waxed a blue thoroughly, saw it fall in burning pieces along with its broken sky-sled. Another blue fell like a blazing comet, and the dogfight intensified. But Marie had a moment to notice that the red leader had disappeared, had gone on, she supposed, to direct the attack on the base.

  But she couldn't break loose to give chase; just then two more blues jumped her.

  Far across the valley, on the outskirts of Monument City, the 15th watched smoke rise from the airfield. It was obvious to them all now that the attack was completely concentrated there, but they received no orders to move in the midst of the turmoil. Dana could only guess what a madhouse the command center must be at the moment. Apparently nobody had stopped to think that the Hovertanks were needed. That, or the message had never gotten through.

  "Those dirty, murderous-" Bowie grated. Dana made a decision. "Let's mount up."

  That left Sean and Angelo to stare at her in amazement while she scrambled aboard her gleaming Valkyrie. Other 15th troopers raced to get rolling.

  As Valkyrie eased forward on its surface-effect thrusters, Angelo moved to block the way. "No! Have you gone crazy?"

  Dana throttled back, the tank settling, the pitch of its engines dropping. "Outta my way, Sergeant."

  "We're assigned to protect this sector, Lieutenant. Or have you forgotten those orders?"

  She stared down at him from her cockpit-turret. "What, so they can rip us apart one unit at a time? The commo nets are useless, and there is such a thing as personal initiative."

  Angelo lowered his head like a bull to glare at her. "Our orders are to wait right here."

  She gunned the tank again. "Then you can wait here, and remind 'em of that at my court-martial, Angie."

  The big sergeant had to dive aside as the 15th followed Dana, screaming off to the battle. Sean, arms folded, was watching him. "You know she's gonna end up right back in the brig," Angelo said bitterly.

  "Assuming we still have a brig." Sean smiled. Then he was boarding the Bad News. "See ya later, Sergeant."

  Angelo was left to scratch his head, dumbfounded, as Sean hurried to catch up with the others. Then he heard another voice, a very strident one.

  "Lieutenant, you are deserting your post! Return at once!

  Acknowledge!"

  Nova Satori was pulling up on an MP Hovercycle, her blue-black hair billowing behind her under the confinement of her goggle band. She was yelling into a radio mike. With the communications systems so completely bollixed up-both from confusion and damage done by the raiders-she had been pressed into service as a messenger.

  "Get back here or face a general court-martial!" she called, but she stopped the cycle near Angie's tank; it was pointless to try to follow the 15th when they were moving at full speed-especially into the middle of a pitched battle.

  Angelo shook his head in resignation. "Then you'd better draw up papers on me, too, Lieutenant." He jumped to his tank, the Trojan Horse, ignoring her outcries.

  Big shuttles and transport ships, tiny recon fliers, hangars, and repair

  gantries-they were all equal targets of the blue horde. And the defenders were becoming fewer and fewer.

  Trying to see through the smoke in the cockpit of her damaged VT, Marie plunged toward the hardtop. She had become an ace and more in the course of the attack, but number six had her number, and got a piece of her just as she finished him.

  She managed to throw the switches and do the imaging that sent her VT into Guardian mode. It reconfigured just in time, foot thrusters blaring as it ground in for a standup landing.

  As was often the case with Robotechnology, damage suffered in one mode was less critical in another, and the very act of mechamorphosis seemed to help the craft cope.

  But she was no sooner at a standstill than enemy blasts gouged the runway all around her. The red Bioroid, like a stooping bird of prey, plunged at her. The Guardian's thrusters gushed, and she leapt it high.

  Gotta take him out! They raced at each other, firing.

  "I copy." Green turned from the phone to Emerson. "The airbase is putting up only scattered resistance, sir. It could fall at any time."

  Emerson wondered what would happen if it did. Would the aliens try to annex it-set up ground operations? Or would they simply plunder what Protoculture they could find and torch the whole installation?

  Leonard and the other higher-ups had been adamant that the Hovertanks be used to protect population centers rather than deployed to Fokker Base, where Emerson wanted them in the first place. But now the top brass were out of contact, communication virtually nil, and Emerson had room to use his own personal initiative.

  "Bring in the Hovertanks. Get the fifteenth over there ASAP"

  "Even 'as soon as possible' isn't soon enough, sir," Rochelle observed. "
It'll take too long to get a message through and redeploy them."

  "Try anyway!" Emerson snapped. Rochelle rushed to obey.

  "Sir, shall I inform all units to be ready to evacuate the base?" Green

  hazarded the question. Emerson just stared at the tactical displays.

  Marie and the red Bioroid played out their deadly game of high/low hide-and-seek as Bioroids and VTs clashed, fired, and were destroyed on all sides.

  Marie's Guardian landed and glanced around the repair area in which it found itself, a big pulse laser gun held like a pistol in its cyclopean fist. "Okay, where y'at now?" she murmured.

  She didn't have to wait long for a reply. The red came swooping over a building at her. The Guardian sprang up to meet it; as in a joust, they passed within arm's length of each other, firing away, dodging each other's fire.

  But when Marie landed, the knees of her mecha gave way, cut in half by the red's energy shots. The Guardian crashed down on its chin, dazing her. She fought back the wooziness, popping the canopy and dragging herself out.

  She pulled off her helmet and shoved it aside, then froze. The red had settled its Hovercraft right in front of her, and she was staring up the barrel of the discus-shaped pistol, a barrel as big as a storm drain. Marie watched, unmoving, waiting for the end.

  But it wasn't the end either she or the red had expected. A cannon bolt came in, a thin one at high resolution set for long-distance work. The shot didn't quite take off the end of the Bioroid's arm; it missed by only a few feet.

  Still, it threw up smoke and rubble, and appeared to stagger the red. Marie hugged the hardtop, shielding her head. Then she looked up, and saw where the shot had come from.

  The 15th was lined up abreast and waiting. Dana stood up in her cockpit-turret, surveying her handiwork proudly as the red Bioroid pivoted to face her. She waved. "Over here, ya big metal dink! Can't ya even tell when somebody's shooting at you?"