Dark Powers

by Jack McKinney

  The dirtball passed through unharmed, to land and break up several yards beyond.

  “It—it didn’t burn up,” Dardo blinked.

  “That’s because … it wasn’t handled by a Karbarran!” Kami fairly howled through his breather. He didn’t understand any better than anyone else what the weird Karbarran affinity for Sekiton was, but he had seen for himself that the stuff was stubbornly inert if a Karbarran didn’t come in actual physical contact with it at some point.

  “Quick, get sticks or boards from the buildings, or anything else you can dig with, and start uncovering more, but don’t touch it directly! And fetch me water, lots of water!”

  A short time later the cubs stood in a crowded circle shielding him from view, although the Invid had shown little interest in keeping the prisoners under close surveillance, trusting their energy wall. Kami packed the thick mud onto himself. It was gratifyingly adhesive.

  “I’m going to need a weapon. Did anyone see what the Inorganics did with my equipment?”

  One of the taller cubs, a female with a dark tinge to her fur, pointed at a blockhouse. “I saw them set some things down over there just before they brought you here.”

  Kami was slapping mud onto himself frantically, trying to be thorough, because any missed spot would probably get him fried, but trying to be quick, too, because time had just about run out. “All right! If I get my gun, and if I can blow out one of these pylons, all of you run as fast as you can for the Sekiton storage bunker! If the rest come along, fine, but don’t wait for them, because I’m going to need you over there! Do you understand?”

  They said they did. He was about as covered as he would ever be, except for his eyes. He had layered over his breather mask, and would have to get by on pure Gerudan air from his tank.

  “But—what are we going to do then, sir?” Dardo inquired.

  “Send a message,” Kami told him. He made his way stiffly and cautiously toward the energy wall, until he could feel the heat of it on his exposed eyes. He made a last application to the bottoms of his feet from the armload of mud he carried and slapped more over his eyes until they were covered. He took a deep breath and stepped in the direction in which, he hoped, the wall waited and glowed.

  And promptly lost his footing, falling.

  He expected to be burned to ash, but he was still alive after he thumped to the ground. But he had lost his bearings completely and didn’t dare remove the blinding mud.

  Hoping for the best, Kami rolled and rolled in what he thought was the right direction.

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  I’m runnin’ away an’ joinin’ th’ Robotechs! Then you’ll be sorry!

  Popular threat among Earth children during the period of preparation for the SDF-3 Mission

  At Lisa’s command, the Destroids opened up with all weapons. The first terrible barrage of pumped lasers, particle beams, and missiles struck the nearest organics at virtual point-blank range, like a tidal wave rolling over a shore.

  Inorganics went up like roman candles or simply vanished from sight. The Destroids trained their weapons on the next target and the next, exploiting the element of surprise for all it was worth, because the odds were still badly against them. Those on the ramps were firing, too, and marching down, heavy-footed, to join their fellows.

  The assorted weapons of the Farrago opened up, showering down fire like burning hail, careful to keep their aim in close to the ship where the Invid were, to avoid hitting the Karbarran crowds.

  Invid were blown to smithereens, or holed through by star-hot lances of energy. They were confused and indecisive for those first few seconds, and in that time dozens of them were wiped out. Lisa watched a monitor, as a Crann under the flagship’s bow was hit dead center by a laser cannon round, like a white-hot needle going through a beetle. The Crann’s characteristic snout tentacle, or flagellum, or whatever it was, was still snapping like an angry whip as the thing flew apart in all directions.

  The Inorganic bipeds seemed to be the last word in the strangely perverse Invid design preferences, misshapen and wrongly articulated to Earthly eyes. The low-hanging arms and malformed bodies—stick-thin here, bloated there—made them appear as if the Invid had set out to make them as repulsive as possible.

  Not that the Sentinels needed that added incentive to fight; Farrago and all her personnel were committed now and the only way out was victory. Inorganics flew into the air like burning, bursting marionettes, or were blown back into the ones behind them, to explode.

  But the Invid were firing back now, their annihilation disks and beams ranging in among the Destroids. With the last of the Destroids down on the landing surface, the big Earth mecha stood shoulder to shoulder and put out a stupendous volume of fire, a walking barrage that reaped rank after rank of the troops who had been drawn up for Tesla’s review.

  But with each enemy down, another moved up to take its place, firing dispassionately. And Enforcer skirmish ships darted in overhead now, to fire on the flagship. Many of the upper hull batteries had to turn from ground support to AA fire. Lisa was just glad the task force drawn from Karbarra had taken away its Pincers and Scouts and Shock Troopers; that left a lot fewer flying mecha to contend with, a critical point in this battle plan.

  The biped Inorganics were doing their best to contain the Destroids’ advance, as the Earth machines began a slow march, traversing their fire here and there, pounding away at the enemy in an inferno of skewing cannon beams and boiling missile trails.

  A cluster of Scrim made a stand, and concentrated their fire. A Spartan, busy emptying its racks at another target, was riddled; it lurched and then flew apart in flame.

  The Karbarrans had all fled for their lives, ducking into the first shelter they could find. The Destroids suffered another loss, a Raidar X, and a skirmish flier got a shot through a weak point in the upper hull shields, disabling a powered twin-Gatling gun mount on the Gerudan module of the ship.

  Nonetheless, the Destroids had driven the Inorganics back from the landing area. Damage reports were pouring in, but the ship was still spaceworthy. But, it was a sure bet that the Invid were moving up more reinforcements. Lisa gave the order for the Destroids to move out and secure the area—dig in and hold. Then she gave Vince Grant the go-ahead, and the GMU began to uncouple from the Farrago.

  The enormous Mobile Ground Unit rolled out on its eight balloon tires, tires some hundred feet or so in diameter. Once out from under the flagship, it could add its own upper-hull missile and gun batteries to the antiaircraft defenses.

  Lisa wasn’t too worried about the skirmish ships; there were fewer of them than there had been a while ago, and she was sure the Sentinels could handle the rest. Nor did the Invid seem to have any supercannon—anything in the GMU’s class, anything big enough to take out the flagship with a single round—in Tracialle.

  No, this would be a battle of ground mecha, Destroid and Inorganic. It was already beginning to the east, where a quartet of Odeons had arrived to try to dislodge some MAC IIs, and they were slugging it out almost toe-to-toe, the hastily-abandoned buildings collapsing around them. But the MACs’ multiple barrels, firing beams and solids both, were beginning to tell.

  There were requests for reinforcements from another sector, and reports that the Invid were bringing up more troops and even some Hellcats from a third.

  Lisa did her best to look calm. Max, Miriya—Rick! Hurry!

  In the sanctum of the Living Computer, the Invid brain seethed with something very much like wrath. Far above it, the sounds of battle sent vibrations through the entire colossal concrete-and-glass mushroom that was the capital city.

  “The Karbarrans have somehow betrayed us!” it said. “Give the order! Slay the children; exterminate them all!”

  The Hovercycles and airbikes and the rest had checked out all nearby outposts and seen nothing; the VTs and Hovertanks closed their pincer movement and swept in from every point of the compass, converging on the objective.
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  The mecha swept down with half of each unit in Battloid form, the better to sweep through the compound, while the rest supported them in Guardian or Gladiator mode, or flew cover in Veritech.

  Battloids needed no special forced-entry tools; they simply ripped the buildings open and peered inside, being careful because they didn’t want to hurt the hostages. They ran from building to building, pulling doors off or prying up roofs, calling in amplified voices.

  It didn’t take long for the report to be relayed back to the appalled Max Sterling. “Results negative, sir. They’re not here. We hit the wrong place!”

  “Come onto course 115,” Lron roared to Rem.

  “But—the locator says—”

  “Do it!” Lron shook the bulkhead with his anger. “I see a Sekiton fire over there, where the old processing plant is. The Invid don’t build infernos like that, and the Karbarrans have little cause to, but the Gerudans love signal bonfires. Do it, I tell you!”

  “Take ’er in, Rem,” Rick said. “All of you, get set.”

  “Sensors are picking up a lot of heavy Protoculture activity over in the direction of the city, Admiral,” Jack told Rick. “Looks like the party started without us.”

  “Rem, floor it!”

  Rem wasn’t sure exactly what Rick meant, but he made a screaming approach, handling the shuttle with quiet skill. In seconds, they were retroing in over the camp, looking down on a scene that made them all gasp.

  An eerie blaze had been started in a processing pit, flaring in the indescribable colors of Sekiton, being fed by a chain of what looked like Karbarrans. But Inorganic bipeds were headed that way, and still more were approaching from the far distance along with the sinewy forms of Hellcats moving at top speed.

  Most of the Crann, Scrims, and Odeon, though, were ranging around an area marked off by what the Sentinels had come to recognize as energy-wall pylons. But the energy wall was gone. Apparently the enemy mecha were intent on keeping the rest of their prisoners from escaping, and hadn’t been given the command to execute them—yet. The bipeds were firing short bursts into the ground, driving the vast majority of the Karbarran children back toward the barracks area.

  One tiny figure, crouched behind a building, jumped out to let a Scrim have it with a fierce wash of brilliant blast. The Invid was rocked and its fellows halted. Their counterfire smashed and consumed the corner of the building, but by then the sniper had fallen back. Only he had no place else to hide; he had his back to the flames.

  “Hard-nosed little runt, that Kami,” Jack said admiringly.

  “Karen …” Rick called to her. She was seated at the main fire-control station.

  “I’ve got ’im, sir,” she said with vast composure. With one shot from the shuttle’s pumped-laser tube, Karen took out the Scrim Kami had hit, and traversed the stream of brilliant energy to the next, bisecting it.

  As the shuttle zoomed past, the third Scrim turned to fire at it, but Rem’s evasive piloting frustrated it. Kami took the opportunity to duck past it and around the building, headed for the blockhouse. He would have cheered at the shuttle’s arrival, but he didn’t have time and couldn’t spare the breath.

  Kami hadn’t had to shoot up the pylons of the energy wall because he had discovered a power-system junction, over by the blockhouse where he had found his Owens gun and power pack. Shutting down the barrier was simply a matter of wrestling down a Karbarran-scale knife switch.

  But now the Inorganics were closing in on the masses of cubs who hadn’t or couldn’t make a break when Dardo and his pals did. Kami had to do something fast, or the slaughter would begin in seconds. He knelt in the shelter of the blockhouse doorway, calculated his timing carefully, got his shoulders under the massive porcelain handle of the knife switch, and heaved it back up again to close the circuit.

  The energy wall sprang back into existence, a red curtain of death—and there were two Odeons standing in its field. Both appeared to writhe in agony. An instant later, they vanished in twin flares of blinding discharge.

  Kami saw that he had been in time; the rest of the Inorganics were outside their own wall, cut off from the hostages. That might not last more than a few seconds, but every second was infinitely important now.

  He gathered up his gun and turned, racing back to the fire pit.

  “Are you sure we can’t raise Max and Wolfe?” Rick asked without turning to Jack; Rick was busy assuming control of the missile racks, retracting their covers and adjusting his targeting scope.

  Jack frowned at his commo board. “Negative, sir. Maybe if we got up high enough and tried one of the helmet radios in an outer hatch—”

  “No time!” Rick cut him off, and he was right. Even as he spoke, a Hellcat leapt into view and covered the ground between itself and Kami with frighteningly long leaps. But Rem had already snapped the shuttle through a turn and was beginning another run.

  The guy’s a natural, Rick concluded—how else to explain Rem’s facility with a Karbarran vessel? He might be a scholar’s apprentice, but he had great reflexes and coordination.

  Rick got the Hellcat in his sights even while Karen was zeroing in on another Inorganic, an Odeon that had been circling toward the children by the fire pit. Karen hit her mark with a sustained beam; it stood its ground and shot back with everything it had.

  They felt the shuttle jar from a partial hit and Rem started assessing the damage, wondering if he could keep the vessel in the air. Karen’s long burst cut the Odeon in two at the waist and it fell apart in a cluster of secondary explosions. Rick’s first two missiles missed the Hellcat completely, their warheads fountaining flame and dirt and rock to either side of it.

  But even though the shuttle’s flight was becoming more and more erratic, Lron—who had taken over the stern gun pods—got a stream of autocannon rounds into the ’Cat. Its hindquarters began dragging, crippled, and Kami was increasing his lead on it.

  Rick thought it was unlikely that the shuttle could get high enough to attempt contact with the Skulls even if it could break away from the battle when he heard a hatch open. He turned and saw Bela disappearing into the aft hold.

  “Hey! Get back here!” But she was gone, though the hatch stood open. Rick didn’t know what she was up to, but he wasn’t sure the amazons really knew how advanced technology worked. “Baker, make sure she doesn’t wreck us!”

  He looked at Gnea, who had looked up from her weapons position. “You stay at your post!” He didn’t need two of these overdeveloped Valkyries wandering around in the middle of a fight. Gnea looked as if she might give him some lip, then went back to manning the upper-hull ball-turret mount via remote.

  Jack lurched aft, grateful that the shuttle wasn’t doing—couldn’t do—any sudden manuevering that would mash him against the hull. When he got through the hatch he found Bela crouching by the emergency ejection hatch. Apparently, she had fired the escape capsule that was there and, when the outer hatch reclosed, had somehow gotten Halidarre to sort of crouch with legs folded and wings pulled in.

  She looked up at him. “It’s the only way to get a signal through,” she said, tapping the mike Lang had installed on her battle helm. “And I could use a gunner, Jack Baker.”

  No time to go ask permission. Personal initiative, Baker! he told himself. But the thought of the Inorganics closing in on the defenseless cubs made it even easier to decide.

  “How d’you stay on one a’ these things?” He said it as he jumped to a rack of weapons, undipped a magazine-fed rocket launcher—about all the extra weight he could safely handle, he figured—and staggered over to her while the shuttle jarred.

  “Mount behind me,” she said, “and fasten yourself in with the belt there.” He did, finding a retractable safety belt built into the rear of the cantle. Bela was already secured with the saddle’s belt. Jack managed to both hang onto the launcher and close his flight helmet. Activating his commo unit, he heard Rick Hunter ranting.

  “—the hell are you two doing back there?
Get up here, that’s an order!”

  “Sorry, Rick Hunter,” Bela said calmly. “But I’ll give your regards to Max Sterling. By the way, Baker here is braver than he looks.”

  Or maybe dumber, Jack thought.

  She punched a button on the inner hull and pulled her hand back quickly. The ejection-port cover rolled shut and there was a feeling like being shot from a cannon. Jack glimpsed the ground, spinning up at him.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY

  FILE #28364–4758

  BAKER, JACK R.

  Subject was orphaned of all close family members during the Robotech War, his last relatives having been killed during Khyron’s final onslaught.

  This young man has erected defenses against close emotional ties, although, bafflingly, he manifests none of the hostility or self-destructiveness that traditional theory would predict. He demonstrates far-above-average intelligence, dexterity, and, in cases where it is not threatening to him, compassion—particularly toward individuals who have been victimized.

  He simply seems to have turned off his pain by not investing anyone with the considerable affection of which he seems capable.

  While there is no valid justification for denying this youth Academy entrance, particularly in light of his scores, it should be remembered by military authorities that this client shows a certain hostility toward discipline and may be unsuited to military service.

  Caseworker 594382, Global Care Authority

  “I’m sorry, Lisa; they’re just not here. We’re widening the search pattern,” Max Sterling said, sounding a little helpless. He had a child himself, back on Earth.

  The Skulls and Wolfe Pack and all the scouts were unable to locate the Karbarran children, and more and more Invid reinforcements were arriving at the capital city. Three more mecha had been lost: a Spartan, a Raidar, and, tellingly, an Excaliber that had virtually disappeared under a mass of flailing Scrim and Crann and Hellcats.

  The Destroids were holding their own in some places. But in others they were pushed back inexorably, in furious, point-blank, sometimes hand-to-hand exchanges, by Invid who didn’t seem to care how heavy their losses were. The GMU had deployed to a point on the other side of the landing site, bringing all but its heaviest weapon to bear; but given the nature of the street-fighting, neither it nor Farrago could give much fire support without the risk of hitting friendlies or civilians.