Metamorphosis

by Jack McKinney

  Metamorphosis

  By Jack McKinney 1987

  To Tim and Sara Robson and Gary Stiffler—staunch Robotech Defenders

  CHAPTER ONE

  How could so many of the principals in this vast struggle be so blind to the reason that one planet was at the center of it all? That is a secret we shall never know.

  On blighted Earth, arguably the most warlike planet in the Universe, the Flower of Life had taken root like nowhere else before-except for Optera (which may or may not have been its world of origin). And in so doing, it set the stage for Act Ill of the Robotech Wars.

  And yet, inventively oblivious, Invid and Human alike attributed that to the vagaries of a plant.

  Zeus Bellow, The Road to Reflex Point

  Never has the Flower of Life wrought more strangely! it occurred yet again to the Regis, empress/ mother of the Invid species. Earth, your fate is wedded to ours now!

  How strange it was that Zor had chosen Earth, she thought, as she poised there in the center of the stupendous mega-hive know as Reflex Point. Or, more aptly, how well he had chosen by sending his dimensional fortress to the planet so long ago. Of all the worlds that circled stars, what had made him pick this one? The thought of Zor made her seethe with a passion that had long since turned to austere hatred.

  Did he know that Earth would prove so fantastically fertile for the Flowers of Life, a garden second only to the Invid race's native Optera in its receptivity to the Flowers? It was true that Protoculture could bestow powers of the mind, but even so, what had drawn Zor's attention across the endless-light years to the insignificant blue-white globe?

  But Zor's decision didn't matter now. All that was important was that the Invid had finally found a world where the all-important Flower thrived. At long last, they had conquered their New Optera.

  Of course, there was an indigenous species-the Human race-but they

  did not present any problem. The first onslaught of the Invid had left Human civilization in ruins; the aliens used many of the survivors to farm the Flower of Life.

  A few Humans cowered in and around the shattered remains of their cities or prowled the wastelands, preying on one another and dreading the moment when the Invid would finish the job. The only use in letting the Homo sapiens survive a little while longer was to use them to further the Invid master plan.

  Then the Humans would be sent into oblivion forever. There was no room for them on Earth anymore. And from what the Regis knew of the Human race's history, their absence would improve the universe as a whole. And it would be done. After all, the last of the Regis's real enemies were dead. There was no one to oppose the might of the undefeated and

  remorseless Invid.

  The Alpha Fighter bucked but cut a clean line through the air, its drives flaring blue. Wickedly fast, heavily armed, and hugging the ground, it arrowed toward the snowcapped mountains.

  Lieutenant Scott Bernard eased back on his HOTAS-the Hands-on-Throttle-and-Stick controls. With so much power at his disposal, it was tempting to go for speed, to exercise the command of the sky that seemed like the Robotech fighter's birthright, and his own.

  One reason not to speed on ahead was that there were others below, following along in surface vehicles-his team members. It would take them days, perhaps weeks, to cover mountain terrain he could cross in a few minutes. And he didn't dare leave them too far behind; his Alpha was the team's main edge against Invid hunter/killer patrols. The Alpha slowed until it was at near-stalling speed, its thrusters holding it aloft.

  Another reason not to give in to the impulse to roar triumphantly across heaven was the fact that Humans didn't own the sky anymore.

  He opened his helmet mike. "This is Alpha One to Scout Reconnaissance."

  A young male voice came back over the tac net, wry and a bit impatient. "I hear you, Scott. What's on your mind?"

  Scott controlled his temper. No point in another argument with Rand about proper commo procedure, at least not now.

  "I'm about ten miles ahead of you," Scott answered. "We'll never be able to make those mountains before nightfall. I'm turning back; we'll rendezvous and set up camp. "

  He looked wistfully toward the mountains. There was so far to go, such a long, perilous journey, between here and Reflex Point. And what would be waiting there? The battle for Earth itself, the showdown of the Robotech Wars. The destruction of the greatest stronghold of the Invid realm.

  But this group of oddly met guerrillas and a stranded Mars Division fighter pilot were not the Earth's sole saviors. Scott hadn't let his new companions in on it, but Humanity had a much more formidable ace-in-the-hole than them. And soon, soon...the demonic Invid would be swept away before a purging storm of Robotechnology.

  He increased speed and took the Alpha through a bank, watchful for any sign of Invid war mecha that might have detected the fighter's Protoculture emissions. The fighter complained a bit; he would have to give its systems a thorough going-over with Lunk, the band's tech straw boss.

  Scott was less proficient at flying in atmosphere than he would have liked. He had grown up on the SDF-3 expedition, and most of his piloting had been done in vacuum. There was an ineffable beauty, a rightness, to flying in Earth's atmosphere, but there were also hidden dangers, especially for a combat flier.

  Still, he didn't complain. Things were going better than he had expected. At least the supplies of ordnance and Protoculture Scott's team had lifted from the supply depot of the turncoat Colonel Wolff would last them for a while.

  Now all they needed was some luck. Somewhere, Scott's Mars Division comrades were getting ready for the assault. Telemetry had told him that a good part of the Mars Division had survived the orbital combat action and

  planetary approach in which his squadron had been shot to pieces, leaving him the only survivor. Scott still lived with the sights and sounds of those few horrible minutes, as he lived with memories even more difficult to endure.

  Reflex Point waited. There the Invid would be repaid a millionfold-an eye for an eye.

  From high overhead, Reflex Point resembled a monstrous spiderweb pattern. The joining lines, glowing yellow-red as though they were canals of lava, were formed by Protoculture conduits and systemry. The accessways were traveled by mecha and by the Regis's other servants.

  At the center was the enormous Hive Nucleus that was Reflex Point proper. It was a glowing hemisphere with a biological look to it, and a strange foam of bubblelike objects around its base like a concentric wave coming in from all sides. The Nucleus was more than twelve miles in diameter. To Human eyes it might have resembled a super-high-speed photograph of the first instant of an exploding hydrogen bomb.

  At the various junctures were the lesser domes and instrumentality nodes, though some of those were two miles across.

  Deep within Reflex Point, at its center, was a globe of pure Protoculture instrumentality. This veined bronze sphere, with darker shadows moving and Shaping within it, responded to the will of the Regis. A bolt of blazing light broke from the dark vastness overhead, to create an enormous Protoculture bonfire.

  The Regis spoke and her "children", half the Invid race, listened; there was so much to tell them. With the incredible profusion of Flowers of Life that the Earth had provided, the Regis's children had increased in number, and the newly quickened drone zygotes must be instructed in their destiny. From within the huge globe, her will reached forth to manipulate the leaping Protoculture flames. "The living creatures of this world have evolved into a truly amazing variety of types and subtypes."

  Images formed in the flames: spider, platypus, swan, rat, Human

  female. "Many of these are highly specialized, but extremely successful. Others are generalized and adaptable and many of those, too, are suc
cessful. "Earth is the place the Flower of Life has chosen, and that is a fact that brooks no argument. And so it is the place where the Invid, too, shall live forevermore. For this, we must find the ultimate life-form suitable to our

  existence here and assume that form."

  All across her planetary domain, the Invid stopped to listen. A few could remember the days long ago on Optera, before Zor, when the Invid lived contented and joyous lives. Other, younger Invid had access to those days, too, through the racial memory that was a part of the Regis's power.

  On Optera, by ingesting the Flowers of Life, the Invid had experimented with self-transformation, and with explorations in auto-evolution that were part experiment, part religious rite. And, with the power of the Protoculture and its Shapings, they strove to peer beyond the present and the visible, into the secrets of the universe-into transcendent planes of existence.

  Those days were gone, though they would come again when the Flowers covered the New Optera-Earth. For the moment though, evolution would be determined and enacted by the Regis.

  "In order to select the ultimate form, the form we will assume for our life here, we are utilizing Genesis Pits for our experiments in bioengineering, as we did on Praxis."

  More shadows formed in the otherworldly bonfire.

  "We have cloned creatures from all significant eras of this planet's history and are studying them for useful traits at locations all across the globe. We will also study their interaction with the once-dominant species, Homo sapiens."

  Her disembodied voice rose, ringing like an anthem, stirring Invid on every rung of her species' developmental ladder, from the crudest amoeboid drone gamete to her most evolved Enforcer.

  "Long ago, the Invid made the great mistake of believing alien lies; of believing in trust, of taking part in-" Her voice faltered a little; this final sin

  had been the Regis's alone. "In love."

  And the love Zor had drawn from her had been mirrored by her male mate, the Regent, as psychotic hatred and loathing. This had caused the Regent to fling himself-purposely and perversely-down and down a de-evolutionary path to monstrousness and mindlessness, to utter amorphous primeval wrath. But the other half of the Invid species, his children, worshipped him nonetheless.

  The Regis steeled herself. Her mind-voice rang out again.

  "But we have paid for those failures for an age! For an age of wandering, warfare, death, and privation! And once we have discovered the Ultimate Form appropriate to this planet, we shall assume that form, and we will secure our endless new supply of the Flower of Life. Our race will become the supreme power it was meant to be!"

  But she shielded from her universe of children the misgiving that was never far from her thoughts. Here on Earth-the planet the Flower itself had chosen-the once-dominant life form was cast in the image of Zor.

  And again the Regis felt herself fractured in a thousand ways, yet drawn in one direction. What affliction is more accursed than love?

  Rand bent over the handlebars of his Cylone combat cycle as Annie yelled, her face pressed close so he could hear her over the mecha's roar, the passage of the wind, and the dampening effect of his Robotech armor.

  "Look, there's Scott, at ten o'clock!"

  Rand had already seen the hovering blue-and-white Alpha settling for a VTOL setdown. There weren't many useful-size clearings in the thick forest in this region. Certainly, there was nothing like a suitable airstrip for a conventional fighter craft within a hundred miles or more.

  The designers who had given the fighter Vertical Takeoff and Landing capability of course knew how important that would be in a tactical situation in a conventional war. But Rand sometimes wondered if they had foreseen how helpful the VTOL would be to a pack of exhausted guerrillas

  who were Earth's last committed fighting unit.

  "I see 'im," Rand yelled back to Annie, rather than pointing out that he had been tracking Scott both by eye and on the Cyc's display screen. Rand didn't like to admit it, but he had developed a soft spot in his heart for the winsome, infuriating bundle of adolescent energy who had insisted on being a part of the team.

  Annie had insisted on coming along with him on point, too. She was determined to do her share, take her risks, be considered an adult part of the team. Rand saw that a lot of her self-esteem was riding on the outcome and grumblingly admitted that he wouldn't mind some company. Scott and the rest had given in, perhaps for the same reason that they never questioned the pint-size redhead's outrageous claim that she was all of sixteen.

  You could either accept Annie for her feisty self or risk shattering the brave persona she had forged, with little help or support, to make her way in a dangerous, despair-making world.

  Now she banged Rand's armor. "Turn there, turn there!"

  "Pillion-seat driver," Rand growled, but he turned down the game path, the cycle rolling slowly, homing in on Scott's signal. "We're about ten minutes ahead of the others, Scott."

  Scott's voice came back over the tactical net. "Good. Still no sign of the Invid, but we can run a sweep of the area before the others get here."

  None of them saw it or registered it on their instruments, but in the dim forest darkness, massive ultratech shapes moved-two-legged, insectlike walking battleships.

  Just like armored monsters from a madman's nightmare.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Oh, great! We been shanghaied aboard Charon's Ark!

  Remark attributed to Annie LaBelle by Scott Bernard

  Following the path their scout team had taken, Lancer, Rook, and Lunk rode down the long, dangerous road toward Reflex Point. Lancer was riding his Cyclone in the lead, wearing full techno-armor, the masculine, warlike side of his divided personality clearly present. He was sure and confident, Rook Bartley thought to herself, a practiced mecha rider and a deadly warrior.

  Rook, also in full Robotech panoply, had just caught up on her red-and-white Cyc, having made sure that the team wasn't being followed and it was safe to leave the rear guard. She let Lancer hold the lead, glancing over to make sure all was well with Lunk.

  Things always seemed to be well with the big, burly ex-soldier when he was on the road, riding in his beloved all-terrain truck. Taking one look at Lunk, it was easy to jump to the conclusion that there wasn't much going on upstairs. His low forehead and the thick sideburns that curled around and up under his eyes made him look like a comic-strip caveman.

  But anyone who had talked to him, or looked closely into those soulful eyes, or seen him do the things Rook had seen him do, understood why conventional wisdom counsels against drawing quick conclusions.

  As for Rook, she still found it strange to be riding with a gang again, even though Scott insisted on calling it a team, and everybody else kept insisting that they had their own agenda and that the alliance was temporary. She still wasn't sure how she had teamed up with them. It was too easy to say that she had shared danger, hardship, triumph, and defeat with them; she had done that with others before. She kept looking toward the time when she could ride as a loner once again.

  Of course, there was Rand...

  Screw Rand! she snarled to herself.

  From their places in the shadows of the great trees, the Invid Shock Trooper mecha kept watch, making sure the Humans were moving the right way. So far, the Troopers noted, these life-forms hadn't needed any herding. The location of the nearest Genesis Pit was logical, situated along the easiest passageway through the mountains. The Entrapments were well deployed; the routine specimen collection was going well. The mecha floated along quietly and slowly, their thrusters muted as they awaited their

  moment.

  "Heads up, Annie!" Rand's voice sounded a bit tinny through his helmet's external speaker. "Scott's right on schedule, of course."

  Of course; what else? Would Scott Bernard, the rules-and-regs sole survivor of the massacre of his squadron be even a few seconds off?

  Annie leaned out from the Cyclone and saw Scott's Alpha settling in the clear
ing. She pulled the bill of her trademark baseball cap, with its huge emblem that read E.T., lower "Um-hmm."

  She tried not to let her relief sound in her voice. Although she had insisted on taking a turn at riding point, she was much more at ease riding next to Lunk in the truck (or APC, as Lunk insisted on calling it, since it was Armored and was indisputably a Carrier of Personnel). Annie wasn't even armed. Weapons made her a little queasy.

  But now she didn't have, to worry, because everything was going well.

  The Alpha had switched to Guardian mode for the VTOL landing.

  The cockpit canopy slid back. Scott, armored in Robotechnology, stepped out, walked out to the forward edge of the swing-wing's fixed glove, and hopped down.

  Annie looked around at the trees and the darkness they shed in the waning light, as Rand pulled up next to Scott in a spray of sand and gravel, some of it rattling and hissing off Scott's armor. "I guess this means we're staying here, huh?" She was tough despite her age, but she had done most of

  her surviving in settlements and cities. The wilds unnerved her.

  Scott had gone around to the rear of the Guardian's portside leg to open a hidden compartment. "I'll get my Cyclone and we'll run a security sweep of the area before the others get here."

  He pulled forth and activated the compact package that turned into his Cyclone, unfolding and reconfiguring. He thought about ordering Annie to wait in the cockpit of the fighter, but she had a special gift for getting into trouble, and so he discarded the notion. "Let's go."

  Scott and Rand sped away, following the dry streambed, looking for an opportunity to leave it and move cross-country. Scouts seldom learn anything worth knowing on the main road, except when it's too late.