Southern Cross

by Jack McKinney

  Inside, the sound of the impact and its vibrations made Bowie shake his head and open his eyes. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was and figure out what had happened. The charge from the mesh hadn't killed him, and somehow he hadn't fallen all the way to the deck. He lay on a monolithic crate a few yards below where he had been standing when the power surge hit him. He checked himself for broken bones, and found none. Then the ship shook again.

  "What the blazes is going on here? Hey, if you're hauling anchor, I want

  off!"

  Outside, the red swung a massive punch, but its timing was off. Dana

  ducked, and the unbelievable power of the Bioroid (plus some power, Dana

  was sure, that was the red's pilot's alone) let the great scarlet fist penetrate the alien ship's hull.

  Dana reacted at once, bringing her Battloid's leg up to shove the Bioroid away sprawling. As she jumped her mecha to its feet, her external pickups registered a human voice, "Well, hi, Lieutenant!"

  Somehow, she wasn't surprised; although the odds of finding him, especially like this, were so remote as to be absurd. But it all fit in with the feelings that had been going through her, and the odd sensation-of hidden forces at work-that had been building in her.

  "Be with you in a minute, Bowie." She turned to deal with her opponent again.

  "No sweat, Dana. Lay a few on him for me!"

  But the Bioroid had regained its feet as well, and now came hurtling at her like a cross between a falling asteroid and a runaway freight train. Dana rolled and scrambled, and just avoided being trampled, her Battleroid flattened. She heaved it to its feet, and decided to end the fight and get Bowie out of the ship, whatever it took.

  Marquis of Queensberry rules seemed to be pretty well out the window anyway, so she didn't feel any guilt as she drew the battle rifle that had been the Hovertank's cannon moments before. The Bioroid didn't seem to know what to do. She fired from the hip, and the first shot blew the visor open.

  The red flailed back and sank partway to the ground against the Masters' forward command ship. The ball turret within it was exposed amid smoking, fused components and bent armor. The shadowy form of the pilot lay inert and its pose suggested unconsciousness, or death. The red's knees trembled, then gave, and the crimson Goliath came down like a toppled building.

  Bowie was straining at the opening the red's punch had made. "It's just too narrow, Lieutenant!"

  Dana brought the cannon around. "Stand away!"

  With a volley of shots she widened the hole so that three troopers could have walked abreast through it. It made the air of the compartment almost

  too hot to endure, to breathe.

  He hurried to the opening, keeping clear of its glowing, molten edges. He gathered himself, leapt through. He landed on the back of the fallen Bioroid. When he reached the ground, Bowie smiled up at Dana. "Thanks, Lieutenant."

  "That's okay. It's nice and restful in the stockade; I could use a rest."

  "If they need character witnesses, they'll probably make me appear for the prosecution, Dana."

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  One might have thought the Masters, with their lesser military strength, would have perceived threats to which the mighty Zentraedi were blind.

  And the Masters thought they had: they addressed the "wraiths" within the mounds, and the mecha of the Human race. How the ghosts of Khyron, Azonia, and the rest must have laughed there, deep in Tellurian soil!

  Major Alice Harper Argus (ret.),

  Fulcrum: Commentaries on the Second Robotech War

  Back at the command center, Colonel Green turned to Emerson. "We just got a sitrep from the advance elements of the attack force, sir. It says that Private Bowie Grant has already been rescued."

  Emerson whirled from studying the tactical displays. "Explain. "

  "Well, it seems that Lieutenant Sterling mobilized her squad sometime last night and performed the rescue on her own this morning. But her troops are still engaged with the enemy, and our troops are moving in to reinforce. It seems we've seen only the first round; the enemy is regrouping for another."

  Emerson glanced at the maps. "And what's their strength?" He wondered if Dana would be commended or shot this time-provided she lived through the morning at all.

  "Roughly equivalent to ours, from all reports, sir," Rochelle supplied. "I'd say we're pretty evenly matched."

  Sean Phillips had his visor thrown back. "C'mon, Dana, get moving!

  What's wrong?"

  "You feeling okay?" Angelo asked anxiously.

  But she was not. Moments before, triumph had seemed assured. The long, slanting rays of the morning sun reminded her that only a very short time had passed since her attack commenced. Then, before she could scoop

  up Bowie, her external pickups brought her the creaking of armor.

  "I don't believe it!" She looked down in shock. "He's coming back for more? It's impossible!"

  But the red fist had risen again to grasp the end of her rifle-cannon's barrel, bending it, dragging it down. The weapon was useless now; she released it, backing away, placing herself between the rising Bioroid and Bowie.

  "Take cover, Bowie; the rest of you watch for other Bioroids! This one's mine."

  Bowie dashed away as the red reached its feet once more. It trembled but moved purposefully and unstoppably. Dana backed up cautiously, her Battloid bringing its hand up for more close combat. She had made up her mind that she was going to deck this foe for good, rip that turret out of the enemy mecha and kill or capture its occupant, or die trying. The two armored titans maneuvered like wrestlers.

  Okay, whoever you are! If you can go the distance, so can I! What she couldn't see was that within his turret, the pilot's eyes were closed and he looked for all the world as if he were unconscious or dead.

  Just then a fusillade of shots ranged in nearby, blowing huge chunks of soil and rock high: More came in, bracketing the two duelists. Dana looked around. "What in"

  A face appeared on one of her control console displays. Nova Satori! "Lieutenant, I have an urgent message from headquarters. The enemy's regrouping for a massive counterattack. On the other hand, your reinforcements have arrived." She allowed herself a thin smile.

  There were more cannonades from the bluffs and high ground all around the advance ship. Positions where blue Bioroids had entrenched themselves or established fire superiority were pounded and roasted, pieces of enemy mecha thrown high. Dana saw Gladiators, Hovertanks, conventional armor, and even some old-style Destroids and Raider X's. There were MP-powered armor, too, much like Battloids themselves. She wondered which one Nova was in.

  "Looks like the cavalry arrived just in the nick of time, eh, Dana?" Nova added.

  "We'll take care of the cleanup here, Lieutenant," the Strikeforce commander's voice came up over the net. "You and your squad can back off and sit this one out. We- Huh? What's that?"

  He was looking up because the sun had been blotted out. Something huge had come down into the morning sky. It was a ship as big as a city, floating in with an appalling, slow sureness. And there were others, all having penetrated Earth's sensor defenses, all come to punish the impudence of the primitives below. The six gargantuan mother ships of the Robotech Masters closed in from all sides. The red Bioroid stood looking up at them reverently.

  The Southern Cross soldiers gripped their weapons irresolutely, barrels realigned toward the sky, but seemed feeble and ridiculous against the immense power of the starcraft.

  Suddenly, the mother ships began disgorging assault craft; the bottle-shapes, several from each mother ship, flashed down at their targets. MP-powered armor, Battloid, and the rest all were caught in intense strafing, with no air cover and little ground cover. But these Earth defenders all fired back, all stood their ground and fought. Men and women hurled defiance and blazing energy salvos back into the skies-and died.

  The toll was terrible, even though the attack was short; a carpet of intense radiation blasts
took out many of the mecha in the surrounding heights; only Dana and her troops, close to the advance ship, were relatively safe. Conventional APCs and tanks fared even worse, sitting ducks for the assault ships. Gladiators were putting up the strongest resistance; Dana saw two of them converge their fire to bring an assault ship out of the sky in a fiery crash.

  Again she heard the quavering, inhuman voice of the red. "Retreat to the forward command ship." The blues followed it away in those kangaroolike, two-legged hops, up a ramp into the ship.

  They're not getting out of here because they're outgunned, that's for

  sure! Dana realized. She was about to yell for everyone to run for it, when an area of cloud seemed to boil away before an intense ray of light, like a beam of supernova. It sprang down into the ground near one of the mounds, though not the one containing SDF-1.

  There it ignited, or exploded. A white-hot infernal wind flew out from it, riding a shockwave, carrying before it mecha, powered armor, tracked vehicles, and armored infantry. It fragmented Earth's proudest war machines, tossing them like leaves before it. In moments the formidable attack force was reduced to stunned survivors, wounded, and the many, many dead.

  But the Masters had calculated well. They knew a great deal about the mounds now, knew that the Matrix would be safe for the time being-until they could return and deal with the wraiths.

  Dana kept her head well down until the worst of the shockwave and heat had died away. Then she lifted her head, wiping dust from her visor, to see the forward command ship lifting away above her, moving to rejoin its mother ship. Far off to one side, a glowing crater hundreds of yards across gave testimony of the Masters' wrath.

  She drew off the winged helmet tiredly, lowering it. It was a singular mercy to see Bowie wave exhaustedly from where he had taken refuge in Angelo's Trojan Horse.

  Dana was filled with sorrow; nevertheless, she felt no guilt. Whatever the aliens wanted here, she and the others had kept it away from them.

  But they'll come again. And then it'll be a fight to the death; we all know that now. A lot of good men and women died proving it today: this planet is ours! And now the Robotech Masters are going to pay!

  And now she knew the name of her strangely familiar enemy: Zor.

  In their great mother ships, the Robotech Masters pondered this latest development. The fleet of six huge ships withdrew to a geostationary orbit and remained there, silent and enigmatic.

  Endless conferences took place between the Masters at their

  Protoculture cap and the Scientists, the Politicians, and other triumvirates at their lesser caps, and with Zor, their battlelord. The matter of the resistance of the Protoculture wraiths in the mounds was the prime source of discussion, but there were others.

  For the time being there was no question of simply excavating the mound and taking the Matrix; the combined impediments of the wraiths and the Humans made that impossible. But the Masters insisted, and the Elders concurred with them, that the primitives must have some control over the incorporeal entities who guarded the mounds. Zor was tempted to disbelieve, but in the end agreed with their assessment when he recalled that the female he had battled was Of the Protoculture.

  And yet, for reasons he could not explain to himself, he did not reveal this fact-kept all but the most perfunctory mention of Dana from his mind when reporting.

  Several things became clear under the compassionless probing of the Masters: they could not take the Matrix by direct assault and dared not simply begin laying waste to the planet; their Protoculture was in short supply, and their time was running out quickly.

  Because their own Protoculture sources were shrinking, the Elders grew restive, demanding some resolution. Added to this was the fact that the Invid might become aware of the Matrix at any time, and intervene.

  Using the splendid military skills and cruel, fanatic loyalty they had programmed into the last and finest of the Zor clones, Zor Prime, the Masters considered their next course of action.

  A week went by.

  In the UEG headquarters the military and civilian leaders of Earth's feudal government met in emergency session. They were desperate and short on sleep, and the observers who had come in from the east still had the stench of carnage and smoking ruin in their nostrils and on their clothes.

  What constituted the core of the United Earth Government looked

  across the long table at its military hierarchy, some dozen men in a vaulted, gleaming hall. At a separate desk, facing the head of the table, sat Chairman Moran, who presided over the UEG. He was an elderly man of medium height and build, with silver-gray hair and mustache, dressed in civilian clothes adorned with the crest of the UEG. He had spent most of his life trying to reconcile the ideals of civilian freedom with the harsh necessities of military strength and preparedness.

  The headquarters was a domed building of classic architecture, a new Versailles or Reichchancellory; within were fine furnishings and marble columns and rows of towering MP-powered armor to guard, but none of the men who ruled Earth took any pride or reassurance from those things today. They were disturbed and apprehensive as only the powerful, confronting an unexpected, greater power than themselves, can be.

  Moran looked them over. "Gentlemen, many of you have already heard the news. This enemy military commander-Zor, or whatever his name is-has broken his self-imposed ceasefire. At oh-eight-hundred today, local time, he and his assault ships and Bioroids attacked and wiped out a training base in Sector Three. They leveled virtually every structure in that sector and killed nearly every living soul there."

  The officers did know; they traded troubled glances, not knowing what to say. The attack had been so swift and merciless that there had been little time for counterattack.

  "We've managed to keep word of this from getting out to the general populace, but there have been rumors," Moran went on. "And we cannot afford a panic! Now, I want to know how this could have happened. Commander Leonard, how on Earth could we be caught so completely off guard?"

  Supreme Commander Leonard, top-ranking officer in Earth's military, a big bear of a man with his shaven, bullet-shaped skull and flaring brows, stood.

  He rose as if he were coming at bay before a pack of hounds, glowering at Moran and the others. "Sir, I wish I could explain how they neutralize or

  circumvent our sensors, but I can't. Our only viable response is to strike back at once, and hard! We drove them off before and we can do it again, until they stop coming back." He shook his big fist, a gesture he often used.

  Inside, he knew a bitter frustration that Zand-Zand, who seemed to move in the shadows and had advised him so cannily before-could no longer be contacted. Has Zand set me up? Leonard wondered. But the man was Dr. Lang's heir on Earth, heir to the secrets of Robotech and Protoculture; elusive, furtive Zand, had sworn he was on Leonard's side. And so Leonard was determined to follow Zand's council and his own prejudices.

  Moran looked to Emerson. "And what does the chief of staff have to say?"

  Emerson came to his feet slowly, thinking. He didn't wish to contradict his superior, especially in that hall, but he had been called upon to speak his mind honestly. Certainly, Emerson thought that Leonard's characterization of the Masters as having been "driven away" was wide of the mark.

  "Speaking candidly, sir," Emerson said, "we know next to nothing about Zor or the Robotech Masters' true capabilities. And until we do, I cannot recommend any mission that would risk our people and our ships and mecha."

  Leonard, just about to sit down, slammed the table with his fist and rose up again. "Damnit, we're talking about the fate of the planet here, and about being wiped out sector by sector!"

  Emerson nodded soberly. "I'm aware of that. But nothing will be gained by sacrificing our pilots to certain destruction with no hope of inflicting significant losses on the enemy."

  Leonard sneered. "I won't stand for that kind of talk! You're impugning the courage and ability of our fighting forces!" Before Emerson
could contradict, Leonard swung to Moran. "Those men and women have bloodied the enemy before, but good! If we let them take the offensive, they can finish the job!"

  Emerson bit back his words as he heard Chairman Moran say, "Very well, Commander Leonard, prepare to attack."

  Fools! thought Rolf Emerson even as he prepared to carry out the orders he was sworn to obey.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  To: Supreme Commander Leonard

  FROM: Dr. Lazio Zand, Special Protoculture Observations and Operations Kommandatura (Commanding)

  Sir:

  It is the conclusion of this unit that war against the Robotech Masters must be prosecuted as aggressively as possible, and that tactics used thus far (with particular emphasis on the Hovertank squads) still hold the best promise of positive results.

  Monument City didn't feel much like a combat zone even though all Earth was a combat zone now, Dana reflected as she led the 15th into the middle of the downtown area on Hovercycles.

  Traffic was fairly heavy and the shops, arcades, nightspots, and theaters were all brightly lit. Streetlights, traffic signals, neon signs, and even park fountains were illuminated. Why not? she thought. Blackout measures are useless for hiding targets from the Robotech Masters.

  And keeping people pent up inside didn't do any good, either; there had been plenty of shelters in Sector Three, or so the scuttlebutt ran, and it hadn't helped them at all. The only thing Civil Defense restrictions would do right now was cause panic.

  And panic was what the 15th was there to prevent. They were on duty, but unarmed, looking more like they were out on an evening pass. The UEG had tried to suppress rumors of the atrocities in Sector Three, but there had been the inevitable leaks. Like a lot of other Southern Cross soldiers circulating through population centers this night, the ATACs were on the lookout for any crazy inclined to jump up on a street corner soap box and proclaim Judgment Day.