Dark Powers

by Jack McKinney

  “We hit them now; take them by surprise, and the whole of Karbarra is ours!” Kami, the foxlike Gerudan, said from behind his breathing mask.

  The rest of the Sentinels agreed with that and Rick Hunter slammed the flat of his hand down on the U-shaped table, making everybody, even the stolid Lron and Crysta, start a little.

  “I lost eight good people in the fight just now, and eight mecha we couldn’t afford to lose; I won’t lose more if I can help it! The quicker we jump the planetary garrison, the fewer our losses and the quicker we win major mecha-producing facilities.”

  Lron suddenly reared up, there beneath the bridge dome where a trestle table had been set out atop empty Karbarran beer barrels. “And I say we, we …”

  He seemed to be drifting in thought, and many of the Sentinels looked at one another, especially the Humans. But nobody appeared to have an explanation. Still, the deaths of REF-assigned fighter pilots were Rick’s direct responsibility, so he found himself pressing his own view.

  “We must exploit our current tactical advantage to the fullest, to minimize our losses, by attacking at once! Intel-computers and sensors and the G-3 ops staff have already pinpointed the primary and secondary Invid targets on Karbarra. Our VTs are being refueled and rearmed at this moment; we can strike in something under an hour. Fellow Sentinels, let’s free Karbarra.”

  Lisa was looking at Rick in a new light. Granted, he hated his desk job, but he had shouldered the responsibility that had been given him and was undergoing that torment, that near-schizophrenia, that any decent commanding officer knew in combat: the need to carry out the mission weighed against the lives of his or her command. She wouldn’t have wished it on him, but she saw now that he had come into his full growth, as Captain Gloval had always put it.

  Rick, for his part, looked over at his wife and saw that she understood the forces vying to rip him apart—understood, too, more vividly than he ever had, the forces that had pressed Lisa so agonizingly when she was SDF-1’s first officer, and later SDF-3’s captain.

  Rick had something of a revelation. I’d rather be in a cockpit, responsible for one VT and my own life, because it’s easier! Let this cup pass …

  But it didn’t. Nonetheless, Rick saw that Lisa fully understood, and that gave him a strength that surprised him. He also felt a measure of shame; how often had she been in this kind of dilemma, when he couldn’t see beyond his own Skull Leader problems?

  Every time he thought he had run out of reasons to love her, a new one appeared.

  Except it didn’t help him with his Karbarran problem. Lron, till now, the Papa-bear stalwart, swung a fist the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, and took a considerable portion off the lip of the table nearest him.

  “No!”

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  Here’s where you get back

  Some of your own;

  Here’s where we visit

  Part of the horror upon its author

  From an Augury chant of the Karbarrans

  Nobody was about to tell Lron he couldn’t have his say, or to try to stifle Crysta, who had risen up next to her mate.

  Their goggles were pushed down around their thick, furry necks; The armor and accoutrements they wore only made them seem that much more like captive and dangerous wild animals.

  “We cannot attack yet,” Lron roared, and Lisa began to consider the tactical problems of having half-ton ursinoids turning mean on the bridge. Stun guns might not even faze them, given the thick pelts and subcutaneous fat. It was either shoot to kill, or listen. And given how much Humans still had to learn about their allies, she followed the example of Veidt and the other Sentinels, and listened.

  Rick saw her decision clearly by the lines of her face; he backed off, too, and for one moment they shared a brief, small smile—but it was something that warmed them both out of all proportion to the moment.

  “We cannot attack,” Lron was grunt-howling, “because the [here he made an ursine noise that didn’t translate into the lingua franca the Sentinels used] is not correct! You are outsiders, and blind to the ways of Karbarra, and yet I tell you: if you go against the [that same word again], then there is nothing but total disaster awaiting you.”

  It took considerable time to sort out, during which Rick fidgeted. Long-horned Burak and the crystal-bright Baldan spoke in defense of Lron’s past accomplishments. Rick felt like pulling a fistful of hair out of his head.

  But it seemed that Karbarrans had a certain sense of fate, and Rick got the impression that it was depressingly downbeat and debilitating. And the fate of the bears was that there be no all-out attack on Karbarra at this time. What Lron and Crysta wanted was a very small recon group, a handful, to go down and scout things out.

  “That’s crazy!” Rick yelled. “We know where the Inorganics and the rest of our targets are! Let’s paste ’em, then go in and save the Karbarrans! My god, is there anybody here who doesn’t understand what we’re talking about? The Invid aren’t going to spare your people, no matter what concessions you make! There’ll be another demand, and another!”

  Crysta came out of her big chair with a growl, showing her snow-white peglike canines. Rick stood his ground—arguably the bravest thing he had ever done; Lisa’s hand was clawing for a pistol that wasn’t at her belt.

  “The Shapings of the Protoculture do not dictate … that,” Crysta said slowly, as if in a dream. She lowered her head as though she had come at bay. “Do not necessarily say that.”

  Rick shook his head, unable to understand what it was they were getting at. “What’s wrong with you? We hit ’em high, then hit ’em low, and Karbarra’s yours again! Your planet’s yours again!”

  Lron spun on him, one paw raised high, its claws standing out from the splayed hand, looming over Rick. There was almost a debate in the slow orbiting of it, and Rick Hunter knew death hovered close.

  “We … won’t … hit … them … at … all, yet!” Lron bellowed, at such volume that the others winced.

  Lisa Hayes Hunter was the first one to raise her head again and look Lron in the eye. Rick tried to pull her back down, and wished he had thought to bring a firearm. Something in the elephant-gun category.

  Lisa looked Lron in the eye. She said, “In case you’ve forgotten, we didn’t come here to be frightened away. Now, do we attack with your help, or without it?”

  Lisa had put herself on the other side of the argument without qualification. And Rick was bracing himself to fight, because he was pretty sure the bears were going to charge his wife in a second or so.

  But instead, Lron and Crystal subsided, making gnawing sounds but not objecting. Lisa went on. “It’s clear that we have the Invid at a disadvantage, since it is highly probable that the ground forces aren’t aware that their task force has been wiped out. Computer projections and G-3 evaluations are unanimous: we have a window of advantage at this moment and it won’t last long. On the behalf of the Human Sentinels, I say that we should take our shot.”

  Other Sentinels pounded the table and cried their support. Rick looked at his wife and felt a powerful pulse of love mixed with a certain envy; but when he thought about it, the envy was separated out into equal parts of desire and admiration. Both of those were good for a love affair, better yet for a marriage.

  But the Karbarrans were up, like grizzlies on their back haunches, to rebut. “You do not understand the—–”

  For that, they made a sound incomprehensible to the Sentinels, something the translation computers had to labor at, at last rendering up a marked and qualified interpretation: “the Shaping of Things.”

  Rick looked to his left, to Kami, the foxlike Gerudan who sat there in his breathing mask that was fed from the tank on his back. “What in the world are they talking about?”

  Kami made an exasperated sound that somehow penetrated the mask. Rick leaned his way. “I don’t know what to think. Crysta and Lron aren’t behaving as they did when we formed our alliance,” Kami said.

>   “We could sock into that garrison before they knew what’d hit them, then mop up the remains,” Rick pointed out.

  Kami nodded. “But something seems to be holding the Karbarrans back,” he pointed out.

  “Are you gonna let that hold you back?”

  Kami regarded him with a long look. “I would give some benefit of the doubt to you or the Praxians or any of the others. There are many things we don’t understand about one anothers’ species, and so we must proceed with caution. Am I wrong-thinking?”

  Rick didn’t quite know what to say. “What we must do is make a reconnaissance of the situation below,” Lron announced. “Crysta and I and a half dozen of our people—”

  “No.” Lisa was shaking her head. She wasn’t sure what the ursinoids were being so secretive about, but she was wholly opposed to letting them go off on their own. She wanted very much to trust them—had come, in fact, to like Crysta and Lron—but couldn’t shake the feeling that they were concealing something.

  Everyone had something to say, of course. The Sentinels’ alliance was put to its first real test, and for some moments it seemed that the need that bound them together wouldn’t hold. Unexpectedly, Cabell was one of those who put things back on track. “Have you all forgotten the horrors the Invid inflicted on my planet? We must work together—compromise! The life and death of whole worlds are at stake!”

  In the end, it was agreed that recon would be carried out by living beings rather than by remotes or drones. Veidt, acting as chairman, finally decreed that the unit would be composed of Lron, Kami, Rick, Gnea, and Bela, along with Jack Baker and Karen Penn. Those last names surprised Rick, but then he supposed Veidt had come to know the two lieutenants.

  Lisa wanted to object, wanted to be included, but knew that Veidt’s selection was right; her place was on the bridge of the starship, especially now. But one last name was added to the roster: at both Cabell’s request and his own, Rem was included.

  For the insertion, they would take a Karbarran shuttlecraft; with its Sekiton drive, it was much less likely to be detected by the Invid Protoculture instruments. This was no job for a VT or a Hovertank, as even Rick had to concede.

  The recon party moved through the ship’s armory, gathering handguns and rifles, along with rocket launchers and grenades. Meanwhile, human techs were checking out the assorted survival gear the team would need. Rick noticed that while the women from Praxis had no objection to buckling gunbelts around their waists or slinging Wolverine assault rifles over their shoulders—indeed, they seemed to understand firearms quite well—they still insisted on bringing sword, crossbow, and Gnea’s naginata-like halberd.

  He shrugged; to each his own. Besides, silent weapons might come in quite handy. Lron seemed set on bringing his pneumatic musket, too, and his huge, cleaverlike knife, but Kami was apparently more than happy to carry Human weapons with their greater firepower.

  The equipment and the shuttle were checked while sensors and intel staff people and computers debated over optimal landing sites. There was still no sign that the Invid garrison below had any inkling of the Sentinels’ presence in the planetary ring; at least the recon group had that advantage.

  Rick had found time to snatch a few hours’ sleep before the final briefing was to commence. He had hoped for a moment or two along with Lisa, but she had been preoccupied with preparations—and with trying to figure out contingency plans for dealing with whatever the scouting mission might run across.

  Now, though, she entered their quarters as he settled his web gear and ran yet another check of his equipment. Med-pack, spare ammo, emergency ration concentrates, inertial tracker—

  “Happy, Rick?”

  “Lisa, we can’t have this same argument again! Veidt picked me; I didn’t even volunteer.”

  “You didn’t have to. You’ve made your preferences known.”

  “I took an oath to serve in a military outfit, not sit on the sidelines!”

  “Well, you got your wish, hmm?” But she couldn’t stay mad at him, not with his departure so near. “Oh, just make sure you come back safe and sound, get me?”

  He took her in his arms. “Quit worrying; I’m not looking for any medals. Rick ‘Cautious’ Hunter, that’s me.”

  They kissed, then she pushed him away. “And no flirting with those Praxian lady wrestlers, or we’re going to be short one admiral around here.”

  “No, ma’am. Yes, ma’am.”

  At the shuttle lock, Jack Baker was making final adjustments on his thinking cap. While the team wasn’t bringing any large transformable mecha, there were still a couple of Cyclone combat cycles and Hoverbikes. Besides, Jack didn’t favor climbing onto anything fast-moving, or, for that matter, being in a combat zone without all the protection he could get. He wished Lang’s researchers had given the Sentinels some prototypes of the bodyarmor they were working on, full armor that was supposed to integrate with the Cyclones somehow.

  Anyway, the helmet would be necessary for communications, with its built-in commo gear. Apparently Gnea and Bela were going to stick with their showy Praxian helms as reengineered by Lang; sometimes Jack found their blending of the old and new rather illogical.

  “Well, well, so they’re sending the scrub team along to see how real soliders get the job done, hmm?”

  Karen Penn had a way of making even a combat suit look good. She was shrugging into her web gear, resettling her burdens, giving Jack a mocking smile.

  “Somebody’s got to be there to chafe your wrist after you faint, Penn.” They were about to get into another row when Jack became aware of a sound that made him turn with his mouth hanging open.

  They’re not serious!

  It was Bela, mounted on the Robotsteed, Halidarre, with Gnea riding pillion behind. Halidarre’s hooves rang against the deckplates. It took him a few seconds to get out any sound. “What d’you think you’re doing? This is a recon mission, not a carnival!”

  The towering Bela’s brows knit ominously as she glared down at him. “Halidarre is my steed; with her, we’ll cover more ground and be able to rest assured that triumph in battle shall inevitably be ours!” Bela slapped the sword on her thigh, but Jack noticed that she carried a Wolverine assault rifle in a saddle scabbard too, and had a heavy energy pistol in a shoulder holster.

  Gnea was carrying her halberd and her shield, although she was adorned with grenades and firearms. Jack could see now that the inner rim of the shield was lined with a row of throwing knives held in place by clips, convenient to her hand. Gnea slid to the deck, then Bela did, taking Halidarre’s bridle and leading her toward the shuttle’s open freight hatch.

  The Karbarran spacers and the others standing around were too stunned to interfere, and in a moment the amazons were easing the mecha horse into place in the cargo area. Totally unskittish, Halidarre looked like she went through this kind of thing every day.

  “The admiral’s not going to like this,” Jack muttered.

  Karen shrugged. “Oh, well, at least she didn’t decided to bring along that four-winged miniature gunship that she—”

  Just then Bela turned and uttered a piercing whistle, adding, “Hagane. To me!”

  Jack and Karen, like the rest of the ship’s complement, had learned to duck when Bela gave that whistle. Something small and fast, moving and darting like a hummingbird, came blurring through the air on a whirring of multiple wings, buzzing the two lieutenants just for the fun of it. Jack felt like taking a swipe at Hagane, but decided it wasn’t worth the risk of having a finger nipped off by a beak as keen as a pair of tin snips.

  Hagane was what Bela called a malthi, as much a royal bird to the Praxians as the falcon was to the pharaohs. It settled on the heavy sheath on her forearm now, a creature no bigger than a sparrow-hawk, ruffling its double sets of wings and gazing around suspiciously. Her eyes bulged strangely, savage and unreadable, and Hagane let out the birring hunting sound that seemed to go right through one’s eardrums.

  “God, I hate when
she does that,” Jack frowned. “Horses and birds! Why don’t we take along some clowns and a tightrope walker while we’re at it?”

  “You don’t approve of the TO&E, Lieutenant?”

  Jack spun. “Oh, Admiral! The Table of Organization and Equipment’s just fine with me, sir! I, uh—that is, I was just surprised, that’s all.”

  Rick was, too, but decided not to let it show. Actually, he was curious about how useful the Robotech horse and the Praxian hunting bird would be. Certainly, they wouldn’t exactly be inconspicious if Bela insisted on tearing all over the sky—but on the other hand, they were nothing that the Invid would connect with an expedition from Tirol.

  He sighed, not looking forward to getting Bela to see reason and use her pets with restraint. Maybe Lisa was right, and this outing wasn’t such a great idea after all.

  But it was too late for that. Lron showed up, and Rem, and Kami. They boarded the shuttle and belted in, as Lisa began her careful approach swing through the planetary ring.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  The pivotal point, unanswered as yet, is what success the Regent felt he was achieving in his “devolution,” and how he chose his course. That he still felt an unshakable desire—perhaps love, perhaps obsession—for the Regess is obvious.

  But this doesn’t jibe with “de-evolution” as Humans would picture it; surely his self-remolding should have taken him away from such feelings. Did he refuse to give up those feelings, or was de-evolution something completely different from what we might surmise?

  Lemuel Thicka, Temple of Flames: A History of the Invid Regent

  Once again, Crysta stood before Tesla’s cage. “I ask you yet again, Invid: what can you tell me of the situation on Karbarra?”

  Tesla spread his hands with infinite sadness. “Only what you yourself know. Yet, I say to you once more: release me and let me go down to your planet and do my best on behalf of peace and the opening up of new dialogues.”

  Crysta made an impatient sound. “If I discover that you’re lying, I’ll throw you out an airlock.” She turned to go.