The fighter was reconfiguring to bipedal mode now as she watched, fascinated, from her place of concealment. The pilot was about to bring the gatling into play. Surrounded by pods, he twisted and trap-shot one from the air, then spun around and took out a second that had landed behind him. Agilely sidestepping the blast of the exploding pod's foot thruster, he utilized the earned momentum to position himself for a bead on a well-situated third. Yet another pod mistakenly thought that height would be advantageous and lifted off, foot thrusters blaring and top guns blazing away. But the Micronian merely sent his mecha into a beautifully executed tuck and roll and came up shooting as the pod came down beside him. Again the foolish Zentraedi pilot tried to leap and fire, but the blue ace had already decreed his fate. Bolts of lightning striking around him, he raised the muzzle of the cannon, fired, and holed the pod with a shot right through the front viewscreen. While the mecha blew to pieces in midair, the Micronian set off in search of greater challenges.
Miriya was depressed by the Zentraedi pilots' poor showing-it was no wonder Breetai's troops were losing!-but elated at having at last discovered the object of her long search. Now she simply had to hunt him down and
confront him.
Elsewhere in Macross Rick had also set Skull One down in Guardian mode and reconfigured to Battloid, shooting his way to the Star Bowl area of Macross, where the fighting was thickest, charging down city streets he knew so well and closing on the amphitheater. He had literally just bowled over two stationary Battlepods when Max raised him on the tac net.
"How bad is it where you are?" Sterling wanted to know.
Rick panned his external cameras across the burning cityscape to take stock of the scene: There wasn't a storefront left undamaged-it looked as if some of them had been looted! The streets were torn up from explosions and the hooflike feet of who knew how many enemy mecha. EVE's "sky" had taken a beating-most of it had in fact fallen-and few of the deadly fires had been brought under control.
Rick went on the net: "It's worse than I even thought, Max." "Any civilians about?"
"None that I can see," Rick answered, calling for zoom on the scanners. "Looks like most of them made it into the shelters."
Static crackled through Skull One's speakers. "Same out here. What's your next move?"
"I'm going to check the Star Bowl. See that everybody got out of there all right."
"Minmei..."
"Right, Max."
"All right, Skull Leader, I'm signing off. Rendezvous with you at the Star Bowl. Over and out."
Rick took a deep breath and relaxed back into alpha. He hit the foot pedals hard and began to think the mecha back into a jog. Enormous explosions erupted behind him as he started out, the gatling in the Battloid's right hand, metalshod left clamped on the cannon for added stability.
Rounding a corner at a good clip, he ran smack into heavy fire. Several
pods had taken to the rooftops here and were throwing blue bolts at anything that moved. Up ahead a grounded pod sustained a hit in the back and keeled over as Rick approached. Rooftop rounds were impacting all around him, and he was forced to dive Skull One sideways to the street, left arm straight out for counterbalance as he went into a double roll. The muzzle of the gatling was up before he completed the move, just in time to sear off the right leg of a pod that had leapt from an upper-story support. The enemy mecha rolled over on its back, flame blazing from what was left of its leg, and exploded.
Meanwhile Rick was back on his feet again and already resuming his pace. But not fifty meters down the street a pod stepped from the shadows of a department store doorway and almost succeeded in nailing him. At the last minute, Rick saw it and launched the Battloid like a high jumper over blinding flashes of cannon fire. As he rolled into a front flip, he opened up with the cannon and caught the pod between the legs, transuranic slugs lifting it. off the street before it burst to pieces in a ball of orange and purple flame.
Skull One landed hard on its back, smoking gun still clutched tightly in its right hand.
Inside the cockpit Rick shook his head clear and found himself staring straight up at a gaping hole in the hold overhead and two more rooftop pods that were now pouring rounds at him. He thought his mecha into a roll and twist to the right, which ultimately brought it to a kneeling position, the muzzle elevated and armed. Trigger finger on the Hotas, he squeezed, bringing the mecha's left hand up and around to fasten on the forward section of the gatling. The street quaked as explosivetipped projectiles spiked into the area around him.
Rick sprayed the pods right to left seemingly without effect, the gun sputtering and overheating in the Battloid's grip. Then it gave out completely. But after a moment of dramatic stillness, the pods fell headfirst from their ballet poses on the building ledge. Trailing fire, they crashed on either side of Skull One, fulminating.
Thinking the Battloid erect, Rick shouted, "Minmei!" and continued his charge on the amphitheater.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
I can't imagine what he was thinking when he grabbed me like that, pinning my arms and forcing himself on me. Why do they all have to fall in love with me? Why do they all need to possess and control me?...All I could think about was what happened on Thursday, when Kyle saved me from falling into one of the modular transformation troughs and I looked up and saw Rick's face in place of his.
From the diary of Lynn-Minmei
A kiss is just a kiss.
Mid-twentieth-century song lyric
Khyron and six of his finest swaggered their pods down Main Street, mopping up what was left of the civil defense patrol Battloids and Gladiators. The Backstabber couldn't have been happier. The fortress's population center was in flames, Zentraedi mecha were overrunning the last few remaining pockets of resistance, and soon the heart of the ship would be secured. It would only be a matter of time before they moved against the ship's command centers.
"Victory will be mine!" he shouted from within his Officer's Pod.
But something was about to occur that would rob Khyron of this false apotheosis, something that would give new meaning to his nickname...
"Destroy everything in sight!" he commanded his troops. "We can do anything we want this time!"
Two Battloids suddenly appeared in the distance; they had taken up positions on either side of the street a few blocks ahead and were now leaning out from behind buildings, directing pulsed cannon fire against Khyron's methodical advance. But the Zentraedi commander never even broke stride; he casually took out both of them with hand-gun hip shots.
He was beginning to increase the pace somewhat when three
Battlepods darted out across his path from a perpendicular side street with an obvious purpose in mind. Khyron signaled his own. troops to halt and opened his comlink to these preoccupied pods.
"Just a moment," he said, stepping forward, his voice full of suspicion. "Where in the name of Dolza are you three going? Answer me at once!"
The three pods stopped and turned to him. Vocal salutes and sounds of surprise came across the net.
"Respond!" Khyron repeated.
After a moment one of them said, "We are hoping to find Minmei, Commander."
"Minmei?" Khyron said uncertainly. "I've never heard of a Minmei.
What are its ballistic capabilities?"
"She's not a missile, sir," said another. "She's a Micronian female!"
All at once the three of them were laughing with delight. Several other pods had skulked out of the side street to watch the exchange.
"The most incredible creature in the universe!" "We've got to meet her in person: Hear her sing-" "Silence!" Khyron cut them off.
The pods snapped to, but muffled laughter continued. Khyron narrowed his eyes. So the rumors Grel had reported were true, he said to himself. Defection: It was unheard of.
Khyron's voice dripped menace when he spoke again.
"I presume you plan to tell me what you're laughing about."
"I'm sorry, m'lord," one responded
, attempting to stifle his laughter, seemingly unaware that Khyron was bringing one of his hand-guns to bear on him. "It's just that I'm so overcome with joy at the possibility of finding Minmei-"
Khyron fired once, his round entering the pilot chamber through the central viewscreen and exploding.
"He's out of his mind!" Khyron heard over the comlink as the pods ran for cover. "Run, run!"
"Stop!" he commanded them, looking around and realizing that even
members of his own crack unit were abandoning him. "All of you, come back!"
Khyron threw his pod into Pursuit mode, hooved feet pounding along the city streets. Not one of them would live to see the end of this day, he promised himself. Already he had one of the deserters centered in his topcannon reticle.
"Come back here, soldier, and face me like a Zentraedi! You can't run from me forever!"
"I'm sorry, my lord," came the meek reply over the net, "but I-I can't explain what joy it is to be among the Micronians."
"What?" Khyron shouted. "I've never heard anything so crazy in my life! You're completely mad, do you hear me? You're telling me that you'd prefer to be with them?!"
Khyron heard an exclamation of fear but no explanation. He shook his head knowingly and pronounced sentence as the chase continued: "Well now, my little friend, I'm afraid I must deal with you in the same way I dealt with your companion."
The Officer's Pod right hand-gun fired once. The pod took the hit in the rear end, was lifted up as though goosed by fire, and was blown clear from the street.
Khyron fired again and again, pursuing the Battlepods through the ruined streets into the city's night.
Minmei summoned her strength, heaved once, and managed to drag herself out from under Kyle's dead weight. She felt bruised and mangled, and her red gown was in a sorry state. The large canister spotlight that had beaned her cousin was several feet away, tipped over on its side amid plaster chips, shards of plastic, and other bits of fallen debris. The amphitheater appeared to be deserted, but there were flames and thick smoke in the distance and the sounds of sirens and explosions.
Wondering just how long she'd been out, she began to tuck stray hairs back into their bunlike arrangement. Kyle made a groaning sound, and she
went over to him, helping him to his feet and walking him to the wings, where they both sat down. He was breathing hard, and his forehead was cut. Minmei took a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed at the blood. As he came around, she said, "I'll make it better," and started to make funny faces for his benefit. She crossed her eyes, stuck out her tongue, puffed out her cheeks, uttered some strange sounds, and in a minute had him laughing.
"There. All better," she announced in a motherly tone, stroking his face with the kerchief.
Had she been less concerned about what was to prove to be a very minor injury, perhaps she would have noticed the look that began to surface in his dark eyes and would have been able to avoid the awkward scene that followed.
Kyle was so used to taking care of himself that Minmei's attentiveness overwhelmed him. In his still weakened state he found his feelings for her confused but undeniably powerful. She was so much stronger than he had ever thought possible, so talented, such an amazing presence in the lopsided world they inhabited together...
So he expressed these thoughts and feelings the only way he knew how: He reached out for her and kissed her full on the mouth.
They were kneeling face to face on the stage; it was dark, and maybe he didn't see her eyes go wide with bewilderment and fear-or maybe he just didn't care. Perhaps he somehow misread her attempts to push him away. But it is more likely that he pinned her arms in the hope that his love for her could silence her fears, much as his mouth was stifling her protests. He needed to make her understand how he felt. Once she was made to understand his needs, she would surely give herself freely to him...
But ultimately Minmei pushed him away and told him in no uncertain terms that he was never to do that again.
Kyle did not understand.
And neither did Rick, who had arrived at the amphitheater in time to witness the kiss but who turned his Battloid around too soon to see the rebuff.
The computer-generated graphics from civil defense command had been patched through to the fortress bridge. A schematic bird's-eye view of the city streets showing the deployment of CD and enemy troops filled the screen of the threat board. Gloval and his crew had been spared actual video footage of the devastating attack, but it didn't take much imagination to visualize the horrors that were befalling the place. These were the streets and landmarks of their world, just as surely as the bridge and base were. Each and every injury inflicted there affected the entire fortress. What happened to one happened to them all.
Gloval was not really a religious man, despite what his verbal expressions may have suggested. But more than once during the past two years of warfare he'd come close to finding some sort of divine, intervening, benevolent intelligence at work in the cosmos. And most often it had been the Zentraedi's sudden and inexplicable strategic reversals which had given rise to those theological revelations. The captain was in the middle of one of these at the moment; standing stock-still behind Vanessa's chair and staring uncomprehendingly at the novel troop movements on the screen.
"The enemy's actions have become totally chaotic," Vanessa said, stating the obvious.
Gloval nodded his head slowly. "I see it...I see it...I don't believe it, but I see it."
Initially it had appeared that the Zentraedi command was merely relaxing its methodical march and allowing its forces to scatter-to loot or pillage or engage in whatever it was that giants did in Micronian cities. But on closer examination the board revealed that certain pods were chasing, routing others. One pod in particular-an Officer's Pod according to its schematic signature-was actually destroying them. Gloval let his mind rake quickly over the possibilities: There was Lisa's two-faction theory, a schism in the Zentraedi high command; the chance that some of the VT pilots had for some reason commandeered several pods; and then there was...God. And perhaps any or all of them spelled God in the end, Gloval decided, as he
turned forward to face Lisa and Claudia.
"Alert all auxiliary groups to assemble and lock in on sectors seven, nine, ten, and eleven. We should be able to box the pods in near the Macross amphitheater." Gloval regarded the board briefly and added, "See if you can raise the Skull team and ascertain their position."
Lisa went to work carrying out the captain's orders. Brown, Indigo, and Green squads were taking up positions near the amphitheater when she finally succeeded in contacting Skull Leader. It had been a long while since Rick had radioed in, and she found herself as relieved as she was angry when he came on-line.
"Uhh, sorry, Commander." He sounded distracted and distant.
"You haven't been reporting in, Rick. Where are you? What's going
on?"
"They're here," he answered sadly, turning his head from the cockpit
camera. "Kyle and Minmei. Send a rescue group to the amphitheater."
"The amphitheater?" she said in alarm. "Rick, you've got to get them out of there!"
Rick said nothing.
"Have they been hurt, Rick? Answer me. Has something happened to Kyle?"
Lisa saw him reach out for the kill switch, and a second later the monitor screen signals on the bridge went diagonal in static.
Skull One turned its back on the lovers' kiss; dejectedly, the Battloid walked from the amphitheater's tier, head down, arms hanging loosely at its side, interfacing with and mirroring the emotions of its pilot.
Rick felt as devastated as the city itself, at once angry at himself for spying and heartbroken by the result. It had been far worse than that tender cinematic kiss that had riled him so.
How could she have done it? How could she have been so blatantly unfaithful to him?
There wasn't a trace of irony in his inner voice. He desperately wanted
to feel betrayed
, and he meant to put the anger that welled up from the wound to good use.
Max Sterling was waiting for him at the exit gate. "Did you find her?" Max asked over the net. "Find who?" Rick spat back.
"Minmei, buddy. Is she in the shelter already?"
Rick almost raised the muzzle of the cannon on his friend.
"She's only one person aboard this ship, Max, you got that? My job is to defend the SDF-1, nothing else."
"Sure," Max said, backing his Battloid away a bit. "Then you'll be happy to learn that you've got your job cut out for you. CD has herded the enemy right into our lap."
Inside the cockpit module Rick stomped on the foot pedals and primed the gatling cannon.
"Then let's go get 'em," he said to Max.
There were eight Battlepods waiting for him on the shattered street and burning rooftops. He acknowledged them with a nod, raised the cannon, screamed a throat-tearing war cry, and launched himself into their midst, skull and crossbones prominently displayed.
The pods poured fire into the street and descended on him like rabid birds of prey. Running headlong into a horizontal rain of blue death, Rick kept the gatling at waist level, discharging searing fusillades against his ship's enemies. He sustained hits his mind refused to feel and blew away one after another of the galloping pods. Explosions relit the artificial night.
He jagged to the right as one pod took to the air and trap-shot it, two hands on the cannon now and screaming his war cry all the while. He twisted left and blew the legs out from under a second, screen-shot a third. Even when the gatling had expended itself, his blood lust was far from diminished. He went close in, using the cannon as a club; when he lost that, he continued to fight, metalshod hand to hand.
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