Dark Powers

by Jack McKinney

  But, Edwards saw the opportunity presented by the Sentinels’ arrival as something of a miracle. The incredible secret to which he had been exposed during the first assault on Tirol had expanded his horizons until they spanned the galaxy.

  With a little shrewd maneuvering, he could get rid of most or all of those who stood in his path to power. They would be out of the way for as long as the Sentinels’ war lasted, and perhaps forever, given the vagaries of combat.

  “We estimate that we can assign mixed forces totaling some thousand or so to the Sentinels’ cause, along with mecha, equipment, and so forth, and still leave ourselves sufficient resources to defend the SDF-3, Tirol, and the mining operations on Fantoma,” a G-3 operations staff officer was telling the council. “The Sentinels will need experienced senior commanders to help them plan strategy and arm, organize, and train the troops they mean to recruit as they go along.”

  He sat down; Justine Huxley spoke. “It comes down to this, ladies and gentlemen: shall we let these people fight for their freedom unaided? And shall we simply wait here, with the SDF-3 barely mobile, for the Invid to bring the battle to us?”

  There wasn’t much arguing after that; the motion was carried seven to three, with two abstentions. A G-1 personnel officer explained that records were being reviewed by computers, to pick the most appropriate people for the contingent to be assigned to the Sentinels.

  “Along with the obvious criteria of combat performance and so forth,” he went on, “will be such things as adaptability and mental/emotional profile—especially the capacity to work with non-Human life-forms.”

  Edwards hid his smile. His own aversion to aliens was well known; there was little likelihood that he would be selected.

  The meeting broke up quickly, with people hurrying off on assignments, burdened by a tremendous workload and a ridiculously close deadline. Only Edwards, shadowed by his aide, Major Benson, seemed to feel no urgency. But on his way out of the Royal Hall, he spied Colonel Wolfe.

  Wolfe was trying to start a conversation with Lynn-Minmei, who in turn was doing her best to listen for news of what had happened at the meeting.

  Edwards frowned at his rival. He murmured to himself, “Yes, Colonel. I think ‘The Sentinels Need You!’ ”

  Adams, his aide, heard, and said in a low voice, “But sir, what if Wolfe doesn’t volunteer?”

  Edwards turned to the man, one arched brow going up, the other hidden behind his mirror-bright half mask. “Major, everyone in the SDF-3 is already a volunteer.”

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  One of the Karbarran scientists was named Obu, and I posed to him some questions about the amazing Ur-Flower-powered starship they had arrived in. I asked him why the ursinoids had to actually handle the stuff for the process to work.

  His answer, even with help from a translating chip, was, “The Sekiton’s [ ] likes our [ ] and then fondly yields up the conversion that permits the [ ] to take place and delights in energy being bestowed.”

  Fortunately, scientists don’t live or die according to their ability to figure things out; they just want to try.

  Exedore, SDF-3 and Me

  Twenty-four hours were not enough, but the Sentinels would only push back their departure time on an hour-by-hour basis.

  Preparations for the Sentinels’ campaign had people working around the clock. The first lists of personnel assigned to the Sentinels appeared only two hours after the end of the council meeting.

  Anyone on the list had the option of applying for a deferment; fewer then twenty percent did so.

  Lang was one of those who knew his name wouldn’t appear on the list. Despite his vast curiosity about the things that lay ahead for the liberators, he knew he could not go along.

  At his request, Janice Em interrupted her labors as a computer operator and gofer for the Council Advisory Staff, and joined him in his office. He was alone, sipping tea, when she got there. She refused the offer of some orange mandarin, but accepted a chair.

  Janice felt an undercurrent—not fear, but a reaction to Lang that she could never pin down. She knew he had been her friend for a long time, and that she trusted him implicitly. Still, she always felt things crowding on the edge of her consciousness, things she couldn’t name, when he looked at her like this. After a little small talk Lang put down his cup and saucer and leaned very close to her. Janice wanted to move away, or tell Dr. Lang to, but found that she couldn’t speak, and somehow hated the unfairness of it …

  “Janice,” he said evenly. “Retinal scan.”

  The part of her that was the conscious Janice Em slipped away, even as her eyes took on an inner glow that grew quite bright for a moment, then faded.

  When it was gone, her eyes and face had lost all animation, and her skin its color and tautness. “ID confirmed, Dr. Lang. Your request.”

  Lang blinked a bit from the dazzle of her ID scan. “Janice, I have arranged for you to be selected to accompany the Sentinels’ mission. You will accept the assignment.”

  “Yes, Doctor.”

  “Bring back all relevant data, with particular attention to Protoculture, the Flower of Life, Zor, the Invid Regess and Regent, and the nature and activities of the Robotech Masters.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  Lang rubbed his eyes. What else? “Oh yes: I am also extremely interested in matters pertaining to the life-form, being, or mythical figure known as ‘Haydon.’ Gather all pertinent data.”

  “I will, Dr. Lang.”

  “Good. Now hold still a moment …”

  Lang reached behind her neck to remove the dermal plug concealed by her thick fall of pale lavender hair. He inserted a jack into the access port there, and began a high-speed transferral of information.

  Janice was the most sophisticated android ever created, the crowning achievement of decades of work. She was programmed with a wealth of skills and abilities, but she was going forth now as part of a military expedition. Lang was giving her as much combat programming as he could, and he regretted that he would be forced to break up the formidable weapon of Janice and Minmei, and the tremendous effect of their harmonies.

  But it couldn’t be helped; Minmei simply wouldn’t be permitted to go along on the liberation campaign, and Lang had to have an absolutely trustworthy agent on the scene.

  He had detached the jack and replaced the dermal plug when there was a knock at his door. With a word, he transformed the android back into a woman. He was stroking her hair back into place when the door opened.

  Apparently, it wasn’t a Praxian custom to wait for permission to enter a private chamber. Bela stood there, with a large Terran book in her sinewy right hand. She was looking strangely at Lang and Janice, as Janice blinked and resumed coherent thought. Bela was wearing a two-handed short sword with a well-worn grip, and a basket-hilted knife with a foot-long blade.

  “Is this some sexual rite?” she asked, her hawk eyes moving from one to the other, with no sign of embarrassment. “Should I leave?”

  “No, no, er,” Lang hastened to hand Janice a packet of notes he had prepared. “Miss Em was simply picking up some receipted documents for the Council Advisory Staff.”

  Janice seemed a little dazed, but recovered in moments. “Yes. I’ll hand-deliver them and bring back your receipt, Doctor.”

  “That would be fine, my dear.”

  Bela’s gull-wing brows furrowed, and when Janice had left, she scrutinized Lang with a certain distant attention.

  Lang considered her: a magnificent specimen, waspwaisted, full-hipped and high-breasted, dressed, if that was what one would call it, in an ensemble of leather and metal that left her more naked than clothed.

  So far, Rick Hunter had kept the Praxians separated from the SDF-3’s self-appointed Romeos, but Lang assumed that some very interesting, and perhaps robust, social dynamics would come into play somewhere down the line on the Sentinel mission. Of course, Lang assured himself, he was above all that sort of thing. However, he couldn�
�t help but admire Bela’s amazing length of leg, her incredible abdominal definition …

  He shook himself just a bit, blinking, just as Janice Em had only moments before. “How may I help you, er, Bela?”

  She put her book down on one of his lab tables, handling it reverently. “I found this in one of your lore-houses. You know this creature?”

  She had opened the mythology textbook to a series of photos and lithos of Pegasus, and similar winged horses. Bela tapped one photoplate with a spatulate fingernail that wasn’t altogether clean. “You recognize this?”

  Lang nodded. “But this is a … a creature that never truly existed. It’s only a fairy tale.”

  Bela was nodding impatiently. “Yes, yes, that’s been explained to me! But we Praxians have such creatures in our legendry, too. Or at least, near enough. They are icons of tremendous power, and their appearance signifies a time when every Praxian must do her utmost, a time of decision, and ultimate sacrifice.”

  Bela carefully closed the book, then looked at Lang. She wasn’t sure what to think of this fey Earther, with his eyes that were all pupil, and the reek of Protoculture Shaping steaming off him. The image of the winged horse had taken hold of her, though.

  “You and your teams have the power to shape new mecha. I’ve seen your SDF-3 production machines work wonders. Can they make me such a mecha, such a winged mecha? On Praxis, this creature would be worth a thousand rousing speeches, a million brave words!”

  Lang pretended to be considering the proposal, but deep inside he had already been swayed. The Tokyo Center’s teams had studied Robotech adaptations to quadruped models in great detail, and surely the equine data was in the SDF-3’s memory banks. But winged horses weren’t the optimal mecha for going up against Invid terror weapons and Enforcer skirmish ships. Especially sky-steeds ridden by wild women brandishing swords and lances.

  However, if a Robotech Pegasus would have the kind of motivational impact Bela was claiming, it would be well worth the effort. Besides, the idea intrigued him, and he was pretty sure there were still some horse behavioral engrams lying around somewhere in the memory banks.

  “Very well. Come back in, oh, say, forty-eight hours, and I’ll have it ready for you.”

  Her eyes went very wide, but Bela had been told that Lang promised nothing that he couldn’t deliver. She set her winged-owl helm down on the book, clapped her right hand to the sword on her left hip, and took Lang’s right hand with her left, holding it to her heart.

  “By the Eternal She and the Glory of Haydon, your enemies are mine, your debts are mine, your praise is mine to sing, and my life is yours.”

  Lang, so used to hearing false words from the council, and from most of the ship’s aspiring politicians, heard the unaccustomed bell tone of truth then. It was like some half-forgotten song.

  He was trying to get hold of himself, trying to pull his hand away from its sublime resting place without seeming to. He mumbled something about having to hold onto her helm for a day or two for the installation of control receptors.

  The mind-boost of his long-ago exposure to raw Protoculture hadn’t changed him from a man that much, and he was feeling certain inhibitions start to drop away.

  Then Bela had let go of him. Lang’s automatic, ironclad control reasserted itself—but for a moment he didn’t know whether to be happy about that, or sad.

  In one of the largest compartments of the SDF-3, a much-repaired and refurbished monolith of Zentraedi technology glowed and sent out deep, almost subsonic tones.

  Exedore looked up at it worriedly. The Protoculture sizing chamber was perhaps the last that could still function, certainly the only one the Expeditionary Force had. Constructed for the Zentraedi fleet back when the miracles of Zor were commonplace, it was, like the Protoculture matrices, one of the few pieces of technology that combined Human-Zentraedi efforts could not duplicate.

  Exedore held his breath. Monitoring indicators were already reading in the danger zone, but it was too late to stop the transformation now.

  Returning Micronized Zentraedi to full, giant size, so that they could mine the monopole ore of Fantoma, had been a tricky business. The sizing chamber had already been pressed far beyond its rated limits. Without exception, the Zentraedi on the SDF-3 mission had volunteered—practically demanded—to be part of the mining operation. All were badly needed down on the giant world—all except one.

  The rest had gone before, naturally; it was a commander’s prerogative and honor to take on the greatest risk. And so Exedore, the one Zentraedi who must remain Micronized, waited and worried while the giant among giants underwent the trial of the sizing chamber.

  Readings were all at maximum and some were beyond, yet the sizing chamber somehow held together. Then the semicylindrical door opened in an outrushing cloud of icy gas and billowing Protoculture brimstone.

  Great Breetai stepped forth.

  He was naked, of course, but turned to accept the clothing and skullpiece an aide brought to him. Exedore tried not to stare at the destroyed portion of the right side of his lord’s face.

  Sixty feet tall, Breetai squared his gargantuan shoulders and breathed so deeply that it seemed to lower the pressure of the compartment. He glanced around him as he fitted on the skullpiece. “So, Exedore! It worked!” He stretched, and his titanic muscles creaked like mill wheels; his joints cracked like cannon shots; the muscles of his back rose and spread like some bird of prey spreading its wings.

  Breetai threw his head back and let forth a laugh that made the bulkheads quake. “Now we go back to where it all began, eh? Back to Fantoma! And Zarkopolis!”

  Exedore nodded measuredly. “You do, my lord.”

  Breetai nodded, suddenly solemn. “But don’t fear, my friend: when there’s no more need for you on the SDF-3, you’ll rejoin us at your true size!”

  Exedore’s first impulse was to shake his head and tell his friend and master the truth. The sizing chamber had given up the ghost, as the Humans would say. That’s all she wrote! Why did human soldiers use that wording? Exedore had never investigated the matter. What’s that other phrase? “The last hurrah!”

  Hurrah?

  But Breetai was in high spirits, and no amount of agonizing could change what Exedore read from his instruments. The sizing chamber would never work again.

  The Zentraedi miners, Breetai, and Exedore would remain as they were forever.

  Exedore, looking away from his lord to the huge panorama of Fantoma hanging there in the sky, hid his despair. He would never stand by his lord’s shoulder again; he was forever Micronized, an insect by Zentraedi standards.

  Exedore braced himself, smiled up at his lord, as brave as any samurai. “One or two things to attend to, my lord.” He grinned. “And then, I shall be my true size.”

  Rick had just left the bridge and was signing off on an intel update when someone passing by in the other direction pressed a packet into the forearm-load of stuff Rick was holding, saying only, “Unit patches, sir.”

  It took him a few minutes before he could turn his attention to what he was holding. From the square red courier packet, he pulled a dozen insignia, holding them fanned out like a bridge hand.

  They were all the same: rampant eagles face-to-face, with the legend SENTINELS at the bottom, and a crowned medieval jousting helmet at the top. The main part was a skull alongside a tip-uppermost sword that had a viper twined around it.

  It didn’t look at all like anything the Military Heraldry Institute would come up with. It looked more like the logo of some old time rock band. “Hey, who the hell approved …”

  But he realized he was talking to himself; the companionway was empty. Everyone had gone off on their errands, and the mysterious patch deliverer was long gone.

  Rick considered the patch again, giving particular attention to the skull. And the serpent.

  What does all this mean?

  Behind him, a hatch opened as a marine announced, “The admiral is off the bridge.” Then
there was the swift securing of the gas-tight hatch; Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes Hunter were standing there looking at each other in the unflattering light of companionway glowtubes.

  Lisa looked tired, looked old, it occurred to Rick—the same way he had looked after leading Skull Team in sustained combat.

  “May I see?” she asked after a moment. He couldn’t figure out what she meant for a second, until he realized that he was clutching the Sentinels’ insignia. “I think they’re sorta unofficial,” he said, fumbling a bit, shifting burdens, then extending one toward her.

  How do these things get decided? he wondered. Apparently the lower orders—the enlisted ranks, and perhaps a few NCOs—had made up their minds. So, the Military Heraldry Institute would have something quirky to fit into its grand scheme—provided anybody got back to Earth alive to tell about it.

  Rick looked more closely at one of the patches, admiring the stitching—trying to avoid Lisa’s eyes. Somebody had reprogrammed the automated garment manufacturing equipment in fine detail. The skull was a leering, bleached thing with sketchy ridge-lines, the sword sort of shiny in silver-white thread, the snake convincingly constrictor-looking, the eagles strikingly noble and angry.

  Not bad. So, at least somebody had a little esprit de corps. Somebody way down in the ranks, maybe somebody who had befriended Lron or Veidt or the others.

  And now this is our emblem, take it or leave it. He put down his various bundles and held the patch up against the breast of his uniform’s torso harness, over his heart, where the duty patch went.

  “Not bad,” Lisa echoed his thought, reminding Rick she was there. She looked him in the eye, not so tired now that she was alone with him, and they shared a slow smile together. Rick suddenly remembered why they were in love.

  Then she held the Sentinels’ insignia over her own SDF-3 duty patch, studying his reaction. “How does it look?”