"Go!" Dana howled, pointing at Nova's disappearing Hovercycle as it vanished through the loading bay doors.
"Don't turn on the light, Zand. Just sit down."
Rolf Emerson's voice was soft in the darkness of the office in Southern Cross HQ, but it still filled Zand with fear. How had he gotten in? Not only were there guards and surveillance equipment, but Zand himself had hidden powers that should have prevented any such unpleasant surprise.
And yet, there stood the Chief of Staff for Terrestrial Defense, in the glow spilling into the darkened office from streetlights and moonlight. "I won't stay long," Emerson added. "Just close the door, sit down, and listen." Zand did, leaving his office dark. He thought about sounding an alarm;
Emerson certainly outranked him, but this kind of unauthorized visit was nothing that even a general's stars would justify. However, there were old animosities between the two, nothing Zand would like to have brought to light. And so he sat, waiting.
"I'm leaving in the morning; you already know that, no doubt," Emerson said, sounding tired. "I just wanted to say this-"
Suddenly he was at Zand's side, his strong hand around Zand's throat. Emerson shook him like a rag doll as the Robotech scientist made strangling sounds.
"You will leave Dana alone while I'm gone, do you hear me? If I come back to find that you've tried anything, anything, I'll kill you with this same hand and let the Judge Advocate court-martial me."
For all his mild appearance, Zand could easily have shaken off the grip of virtually anyone else; the Protoculture powers he had given himself through dangerous experimentation made such physical tricks simple.
But for some reason, Zand's enhanced powers simply didn't work on Emerson. It was as if the general was immune to Zand's abilities. Emerson knew very little about Protoculture; he had no conscious access to its vast gifts. Emerson had no idea that he was throttling a superman.
He shook Zand. "Do you hear?" Zand managed to nod, breath rattling. Emerson let him go. There would be fearsome bruises on his throat by daylight.
The last time Zand felt Emerson's grip on his throat was fourteen years ago. That was at night, too, when Emerson burst into Zand's lab upon discovering that Zand was running bizarre experiments on the baby daughter left behind by Max and Miriya Sterling. He was exposing Dana to Protoculture treatments and substances from some strange alien plant. Emerson had heard it had something to do with activating the alien side of her mind and genetic heritage. The general was Bowie's guardian, but had been a good friend to Dana's parents.
Zand had believed he would die that night, that moment; Emerson's strength seemed illimitable. Or perhaps it was simply that none of Zand's
acquired powers worked in Emerson's presence? Zand avoided him from that time to this moment, and Emerson had made sure, no matter where he was or what he was doing, that Dana was beyond Zand's reach.
Gasping and wheezing, rubbing his throat, Zand tried to make some sense of it. How could a mortal like Emerson block the Shapings of the Protoculture this way? And in such complete ignorance of what it was that he was doing? It was as if the overwhelming frustration of it all was some tithe Zand had to pay to win that ultimate triumph, that incredible prize, that he saw promised to him by the Shaping.
It was even more humiliating that Emerson didn't even realize with whom he was dealing. To Emerson, Zand was some half-demented Protoculture mystic from R&D, who had deviated from the saner paths followed by Dr. Lang, and ended up deranged.
"I know you've been keeping tabs on her through backchannels and informants," Emerson said quietly. "Don't ever do it again. If I have to come and see you a third time, Doctor, it will be to take you off the roll call for good!"
Zand didn't even realize that Emerson had moved away from him until he heard the door open and close. The heir to Emil Lang's Protoculture secrets, and master of new, more perilous secrets of his own, massaged his tortured windpipe One thing was clear: Emerson was an obstacle that would have to be dealt with first.
Dana Sterling was vital, because she stood at the center of all Zand's star-spanning schemes.
Marie wove her jeep through the streets and byways of Monument City.
What a little idiot I've been! I knew what Sean was like. I heard all the stories. Yet I still believed he'd change just for me!
She ignored lights, ignored speed limits, ignored all peril to herself and others, sideswiping whoever didn't stay out of her way. The night and imminent death drew her on.
Her jeep bounced through an alley and onto an access road that would
take her to the cliff overlooking the city. She wasn't thinking clearly about what she would find there, but something told her it would be better than what she was feeling now, and she liked the feeling of the accelerator under her stockinged foot. She only wished she were in her mecha.
It took her some time to realize that a GMP Hovercycle and a jeep were behind her. Over a loudspeaker Nova Satori's voice was commanding her to halt.
Marie stepped on the accelerator.
As the chase barreled out onto the cliff headland, Nova tried to sideswipe her to a halt. Marie's jeep jounced off a rock, and slewed at the cycle. Marie had an instant's view of Nova's terrified face as she fought her handlebars. Marie hit the brakes and over-corrected, and her jeep went sliding toward the cliff, tailgate foremost.
But Dennis Brown was there first, with Dana betted in the rear and covering her eyes. The VT pilot brought Marie to a stop by letting Marie's jeep slam taillights-first into his own, broadside. The two vehicles plowed along in a spume of dust; Brown's left front wheel went over the edge, and the undercarriage grated along.
The jeep tottered there, but held. Dana and Brown sighed simultaneously. Marie hung against her steering wheel, crying like a lost child.
Dana, Brown, and Nova were still trying to sort things out when the distant sirens and flashing lights caught their attention.
Brown tched. "It'd sure be bad for morale if we let the Gimps find the hero of the TASCs in this condition." He lifted Marie out of the jeep gently and set her down on the ground.
"But-Lieutenant Brown!" Nova objected, as he slipped behind the wheel of Marie's jeep.
"It's simple," he said, revving the engine. "Frustrated pilot bumped from big mission gets hands on jeep and whiskey, understand?"
Nova did; she owed him one. It would be just as he said. "It means the brig, you know."
Brown shrugged at Nova. "A couple days. They need me in my VT too much to do more. Besides, I've got nothing better to do with my time."
He winked at her. "Come down 'n' see me once in a while, huh?"
Then he eased the jeep back and headed off in a spray of gravel. Leaving a high plume of dust and grit, slewing and running flat-out, it wasn't hard for him to catch the posse's attention; the strobing lights and wailing sirens followed Dennis Brown away into the night.
Dana tried to decide what to do or say, with the perplexed Nova to one side, the curled-up, weeping Marie on the other.
In the invasion flagship, the Robotech Masters watched their new production line of Invid Fighters being put through its paces. The mecha resembled oldtime naval mines, spined spheres that looked as much biological as technological. They seemed to be grown of mismatched horn, chitin, and sinew.
The Invid Fighters performed their maneuvers flawlessly. They evaded the fire of multitudes of gun turrets, and when the command came, they turned devastating fire on the turrets with pinpoint accuracy.
"And when they conjoin, they will be an undefeatable Triumviroid," Bowkaz said.
Jeddar of the Clonemasters made his abasing bow. "A Triumviroid, yes, Master. Self-contained and capable of performing the three basic functions of combat: data accumulation, analysis, and response, all within milliseconds."
The very essence of Robotechnology. Logic dictates that these mecha cannot be defeated!
A weapon as perfect as we ourselves, the Robotech Masters shared the cold thought.
Captain Komodo led his unit out at a run. He had indulged his grief and put aside his humiliation; now it was time to discharge his duty, to live up to his oath of service. But a voice calling his name made him stop short as the rest ran on to the personnel elevator that waited to take the battlecruisers' crewpeople to their assignments.
Dana caught up, breathless. "I just want to...say, I'm sorry, sorry about-"
He gave her a smile. "Forget it, Dana. Thanks for everything."
The silence that followed was awkward, as they listened to announcements and instructions for everyone who was going to hurry, and for everyone else to get clear. Dana and Komodo groped for something to say to each other.
Then a hand reached out to touch Komodo's armored shoulder. "Captain..."
Komodo, pivoting to see Nova Satori standing at his side, looked like a deer caught in headlights. She took his gauntleted hand in both of hers. "I just wanted to say-be sure to come back safely."
It took him a few false starts to answer. "Nova, yes! I will!" He turned, dashing to catch up with his command. "Don't worry about that!"
Dana figured Nova was still not in love with Komodo. But what did that matter when a person might die-when a whole world might?
Dana was about to bury the hatchet with Nova, to tell her what a decent thing that was to do, when both were distracted by another lift-off drama.
"Marie! Come back!"
But Marie Crystal already had a head start, and even weighted by her combat armor she got to the elevator well ahead of Sean Phillips. And anyway, Sean had been caught by Angelo Dante, who gathered him up practically under one arm, and dragged him back.
Angelo hollered at his onetime CO, "Be a man, for god's sake! She's got more important things on her mind, idiot!"
But Sean struggled free at the last moment, as the countdown went for zero and ground crews and PAS bellowed at the ATACs to get to shelter.
Sean dashed for the elevator, but he was too late. The doors closed just before he got there. Marie watched emotionlessly-or did she? Just as the closing doors took her from him, her stone-face expression seemed to change.
Sean curled up inconsolably on the hardtop, and let Angelo, Dana and Nova lift him up and bear him away.
In the ready-room, Bowie was by himself again at the piano. He played the songs Emerson had taught him, and the ones he himself had composed early-on.
He heard the first rumbles of prelaunch ignition reverberate across the countryside and the city, as his godfather and guardian readied for battle.
The battlecruisers, destroyer escorts, and other combat ships rumbled and flamed and rose, shaking the ground. The thunderclaps of their drives echoed across Monument City. Dana, Sean, Nova, and Angelo watched the strikeforce draw lines of fire into the blue.
The tumult and the glare of it filled the ready-room windows; Bowie hit a last, hateful note, then sat staring at the keys.
CHAPTER SIX
It is, perhaps, some ultimate universal justice on the behalf of intelligence (as opposed to physical strength or predation skills) that the secrets of the Universe are open only to those who have left certain outdated belief systems behind.
Or, maybe it's one big-how do the Humans say?-one big gag.
Exedore, as quoted in Lapstein's Interviews
The Robotech Masters, in their flagship, were aware of the impending launch of Emerson's expeditionary force; this time there would be no surprises, and the Earth would be dealt a final, crushing blow.
It was imperative that Earth be destroyed not only because the constrained seeds of the Flower in the Matrix below were beginning to sprout into actual blossoms, but also a new and more dangerous element had entered their equations.
The Robotech Masters, nailless hands touching their Protoculture cap, contemplated the cloud of interstellar gas that, in astronomical terms, was so close. To an Earthly observer it would simply be a curiosity, a spindrift that had wandered Earth's way from some impossibly distant H 11 region. Its aberrant motion could be attributed to a close encounter with a far-off mass of dark matter or to galactic streaming dynamics. The oddities in its internal movements and constitution would be chalked up to some natural phenomenon of density waves.
Just another collection of whorls and billows of dust and phosphorescent gas; just another emission nebula.
But the Robotech Masters knew better and had good reason to be afraid. It was an Invid Sensor Nebula, searching for Protoculture and/or the Flower of Life. The Invid would be coming soon, and so the Masters' time was short.
Long ago, the Invid had been a peaceful species, living out their lives
on idyllic Optera, ingesting the Flower and, with the powers it gave them, rejoicing in their contemplation of the Universe. Then Zor, the original Zor, had come to live among them, to learn. He saw in their almost photosynthetic biological processes a by-product that, when isolated, gave him the key to ultimate power: Protoculture.
The infinitely metamorphic Invid were the Apple of Temptation to him, harboring ultimate secrets. Zor was the same to them-especially to the Invid Queen, revealing to them the two-edged bane/blessing they had never conceived of: passion, love.
He understood that the key to the power of Protoculture was the Invid Queen. Zor, consumed with the hunger for knowledge, used her, barely knowing what it was he was doing, and set, the course of a tragedy that would stretch across eternity.
The Invid Queen, the Regis, became infatuated with Zor. This infatuation would bring a universe crumbling down with no promise of what would rise from the ashes. Love and Protoculture, Protoculture and love; they were locked forever after in a pattern of exaltation and disaster.
Zor's superiors on Tirol, his homeworld, immediately understood the more obvious implications of Protoculture-its power to penetrate spacetime, to impart vast mental powers, its connection to the fundamental shaping force of the Universe. Like all leaders, they lusted for power; naive Zor was no match for them...at least at that point.
Using rudimentary powers derived from the more malign aspects of Protoculture, the overlords of Tirol banded together to subdue Zor mentally, to place an irresistible Compulsion on him. At their direction, Zor stole as many of the Flower seeds as he could from his Optera hosts, and as much Protoculture.
Under his Masters' enslavement, he betrayed the Invid hivequeen, who had taken on a form like his own. Zor left the Regis loveless and full of hate-she who had literally transfigured herself, loving Zor so. The rest of Optera Zor laid waste, so that the Flower of Life would never grow there again.
Love and Protoculture; Protoculture and love.
Conquest and dominance were the companion cravings of the Tirolean tyrants' Protoculture addiction. Their giant, cloned Zentraedi worker-menials were transformed into conquering legions; Zor became their savant-slave. He shaped the Protoculture Matrices, and went forth to seed the Flower of Life on other worlds, so their seeds could be harvested for more Matrices.
The overlords of Tirol were transmogrified into the Robotech Masters. Their own race became to them mere objects, plasm to be reshaped and put to the use they chose.
Meanwhile, the Invid, changed by their hatred and suffering, burst forth from Optera to seek the Flower of Life wherever the Masters seeded it, and to slay the Robotech Masters and their servants wherever they found them. The Invid began reproducing with monocellular speed, becoming a teeming horde that daunted even the Masters. A stupendous war roiled across galaxies, but the Masters were content that in time they would win.
The Masters, however, in their arrogance, had forgotten Zor's original exposure to the secrets of Protoculture on Optera, and the expansion of his mental gifts. Little by little, Zor was making patient, microscopic progress against the Compulsion by which the Masters held him.
His breakthrough came in the
form of a Vision of what was to be, given to him by the Protoculture. He saw a small, blue-white, unimportant world. A world where Humanity would ultimately obliterate itself, and all life on the planet, in a Global Civil War. There was an alternative. It would involve great hardship and suffering for the Human race, but at least it offered a chance for racial survival.
The Vision showed Zor a possible future, wherein a great cyclone of mindforce a hundred miles wide rose from Earth and, high above the planet, transformed itself into a Phoenix of groupmind. The Phoenix spread wings wider than Earth, and with a single cry so magnificent and sad that it wrenched Zor's mind free of the Masters' domination, the bird soared away to another plane of existence.
Zor was then free to work his act of defiance. He dispatched the SDF-1 to Earth, hiding it from the Masters, even as he gave up his life to an Invid attack in a death he had foreseen in his Vision. The last Matrix by which new Protoculture could be produced was gone; the others had all been used up or destroyed in the course of the war, and only Zor had the secret of their creation.
The Robotech Masters, regarding with arctic dread the roving Sensor Nebula that was one of the Invid's coursing bloodhounds, knew little about the original Zor's motives, and nothing of his Vision. They only knew that their fanatic enemies would find them bereft of Protoculture's powers, helpless, unless the Masters triumphed soon on Earth.
And that demanded as a first step the quick and utter destruction of Emerson's expeditionary force.
Aside from some oddities noted in the peculiar nebula drifting so close to Earth, there was nothing to report, the techs said. Emerson worried nevertheless.
The enemy fleet still hung in distant orbit, permitting the expedition room for passage. Emerson's force had already passed the enemy's optimal point for launching assault ships to intercept and engage him. Soon the Humans would be past their closest approach to the invaders, and would be hightailing for Luna. He kept his escort forces deployed and ready for battle, even as his command passed through the leading edge of the nebula.
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