He began to circle the ship on foot now, searching for some way to get inside. The nose was throwing off so much heat there was no getting near it, but the rear hatch of one of the cargo carriers had sprung open on impact, and the place seemed cool enough to enter.
Rand threw himself atop the twisted wreck of the hatch and started in. The interior was dark and uninviting, and it smelled like hell. He knew he wasn’t going to get very far, but not fifty feet into the thing—after whacking his head on a low threshold and falling flat on his face in the dark—he found more than enough to satisfy him: a bin of ten Robotech cycles.
He lifted one up and out of its rack and bent down to look it over. It was Robotech, all right, probably one of the Cyclone type the military had used before the development of the Hovercrafts. Rand had heard about them but never thought he would live to see one—let alone ride one!
Straddling the mecha now, he depressed the ignition switch, fingers of his left hand crossed for luck. The Cyclone fired, purring like a kitten, after a goose or two of the throttle.
“Awwriight!” Rand shouted.
He flicked on the headlight, screeched the Cyclone through a 360, and tore back toward the doorway, launching himself into the desert air from the sprung hatchway. He hit the sand and twisted the cycle to a halt, exhilarated from his short flight.
Then he noticed something else in flight: a three-unit Invid scouting party coming fast over a ridge of low hills to the west. Rand cursed himself for not figuring them into the picture; they, too, must have been aware of the transport’s crash. And as always, their timing was impeccable. Even so, Rand was thankful that they were only Troopers and not Shock Troopers. In fact there was a good chance that the Cyclone would be able to outrun them—at least as far as the forest.
The three Troopers put down next to the downed ship, positioning themselves to prevent Rand’s escape, the cloven foot of one of them flattening the old cycle that had seen him through so much.
“I sure hope your insurance is paid up, pal!” Rand yelled at the Trooper.
They were twenty-foot-tall bipedal creatures with articulated armored legs and massive pincer arms; there was no actual head, but raised egg-shaped protrusions atop their inverted triangular torsos were suggestive of eyes, while what looked to be a red-rimmed lipless mouth concealed a single sensor lens. Rand had seen brown ones and purple ones—these three were of the latter category—and more than anything they reminded him of two-legged land crabs. The Troopers were mere foot soldiers, weaponless, except if one counted their innate repulsiveness. However, they could inflict serious damage with their claws, and just now one of the Troopers wanted to demonstrate that fact to Rand.
Rand shot the Cyclone forward at the Trooper’s first swipe, its claw striking the sand with a loud crunching sound. “Okay, but I’m going to be submitting a bill for damages!” he called over his shoulder as a second creature gave pursuit.
Rand’s previous questions concerning the Cyclone’s capabilities were soon to be answered. The three Invid were gaining on him, and ready or not he was going to have to put the cycle through its paces. He took a deep breath and kicked in the turbochargers. Instantaneously the Cyclone took off like a shot, living up to its namesake while Rand struggled to retain control. The Troopers meanwhile gave up their ground-shaking run and took to the air, thrusters carrying them overhead, pincer arms poised for the embrace that killed.
Their prey, however, had managed to overcome his initial ineptitude and was now leaning the Cyclone through a series of self-imposed twists and turns along the featureless sands, a tactic that more than once brought the Troopers close to midair collisions with one another.
“Just lemme know if you’re gettin’ tired!” Rand shouted above the roar of the mecha. He laughed over his shoulder and threw the Troopers a maniacal grin; but when he turned again to face front, he found trouble ahead. Something was approaching him fast, kicking up one heck of a dust storm. Two of the Invid were moving into flanking position, and it suddenly occurred to Rand that he would soon be surrounded.
Scott Bernard felt two emotions vying for his attention when he saw the Cyclone rider and the Invid Troopers: elation that he had found one of his Mars Division comrades and rage at the sight of the enemy. He couldn’t figure out why the rider wasn’t reconfiguring but knew that the situation called for immediate action. Lowering the helmet visor, he engaged the mecha’s turbos. For a moment the Cyclone was up on its rear wheel, then it went fully airborne. At the same time, Scott’s mind instinctively found the vibe that allowed it to inferface with the cycle’s Protoculture systems.
Helped along by the imaging Scott’s mind fed the Cyclone via the helmet “thinking cap,” the mecha began to reconfigure. The windscreen and helmet assembly flattened out; the front wheel disengaged itself from the axle and swung back and off to one side. The rear wheel, along with most of the thruster pack, rode up, while other components, including the wheel-mounted missile tubes, attached themselves to Scott’s hip, leg, and forearm armor. In the final stage of mechamorphosis, he resembled some kind of airborne armored backpacker whose gear just happened to include two solid rubber tires and a jet pack.
Scott let the thruster carry him in close to the Invid Troopers before bringing his forearm weapons into play—twin launch tubes that carried small but deadly Scorpion missiles. Right arm outstretched now, palm downward, he raised the tubes’ targeting mechanism, centered one of the Troopers in the reticle, and loosed both missiles. They streaked toward their quarry with a deadly sibilance (Scott’s armor protecting him from their backlash), narrowly missed Rand, and caught the Invid ship square in the belly, scattering pieces of it across the sands.
The unarmored Cyclone rider went down into a long slide while Scott took to the ground to dispatch his remaining pursuers. Once in their midst, he dodged two claw swipes before launching himself over the top of his would-be assailant. Another missed swipe and a second leap landed him atop one of the pair; he leapt up again and came down for the kill, firing off a single Scorpion from the left forearm launch tubes. While the Invid was engulfed by the ensuing explosion, Scott put down to deal with the last of them.
The thing tried to crush him with its foot, but Scott rolled away from it in time. Likewise, he dodged a right claw and jumped up onto the Invid’s head. The Trooper brought its left up now, almost in a gesture of puzzlement, but Scott was already gone. He toyed with the Invid for a minute more, allowing it another shot at him before polishing it off with the remaining Scorpion, which the Trooper took right through its red optic scanner.
The Cyclone rider was still on the ground beneath his overturned mecha when Scott approached. “They’re not really as tough as they look, are they?” he said to the bewildered red-haired civilian.
“Hombre, you’re really something else in a battle,” the man returned, his busby eyebrows arched.
Scott raised the faceshield of his helmet. “The Cyclone does the work,” he said humbly.
“Yeah, it’s quite a rig,” said Rand. He got up, dusted himself off, and righted the cycle, marveling at it once again. “You are a Forager?” he asked Scott warily. “Some kinda one-man army?”
“You might say that,” Scott began. “Now listen—”
“It’s the first time I ever actually rode one of these things!” Rand interrupted.
“I need some information—”
“I’ll bet I could modify this to go twice the speed!” Rand was on his knees now, fidgeting with this and that. “Look at this control setup! I can’t wait to try to reconfigure it!”
“Just where the hell are we, outlaw?” Scott managed at last. But when even that failed to elicit a response, he reached over the Cyclone and grabbed Rand by the shirtfront. “I’m talking to you, pal. Where’d those Troopers come from? Is there an Invid hive around here?”
Rand began to struggle against the mecha’s hold, and Scott let him go. He was a scrappy kid but might make a decent partner.
Ran
d backed off, arms akimbo. “What do I look like, some kind of travel agent? I don’t make a habit of asking them where they hail from—you just look up and there they are. I hate those things!”
“Take it easy,” Scott told him harshly. He explained about the ill-fated invasion force and their abortive attempts at securing a groundside front.
“I didn’t think you were from around here,” Rand said, somewhat relieved. “Admiral Hunter, huh?” It was as if Scott had mentioned George Washington.
“Ancient history, I suppose.”
Rand shrugged. “I’ve never heard of Reflex Point either. ’Course, I don’t mix much when I don’t have to. As far as I know, the Invid HQ is north of here—way north.” Fascinated, he watched as Scott, now on his knees, collapsed and stepped out of the two-wheeled backpack, returning the mecha to Cyclone configuration. “You really going to try and find Reflex?”
“That’s what I’m here for,” said Scott, doffing the helmet. As he pulled it over his head, the chin strap caught the holo-locket’s chain and took it along. The heart fell and opened, replaying its brief message to Scott and his stunned companion.
“… I’m looking forward to living the rest of my life with you. I can’t wait till this conflict is all behind us. Till we meet again, my love …”
Wordlessly, Scott stooped to retrieve the heart.
“Hey, that’s great!” said Rand. “Is that your girl?”
“Uh … my girl,” Scott stammered. He straightened up, clutching the heart against his pectoral armor, and turned his back to Rand.
CHAPTER
THREE
Dolza’s annihilation bolts had devastated the South American coastal cities and turned much of the vast interior forest into wasteland. Ironically enough, however, repopulation of the area was largely the result of the hundreds of Zentraedi warships that crashed there after the firing of the Grand Cannon. Indeed, even after Khyron’s efforts to stage a full-scale rebellion had failed, the region was still largely under Zentraedi domination (the T’sentrati Control Zone, as it was known to the indigenous peoples), up until the Malcontent uprisings of 2013-15 and the subsequent events headed up by Captain Maxmillian Sterling of the Robotech Defense Force. But contrary to popular belief, Brazilas did not become the lawless frontier Scott Bernard traversed until much later, specifically, the disastrous months between the fall of Chairman Moran’s Council and the Invid invasion. In fact the region had seen extensive changes during the Second Robotech War and surely would have risen to the fore had it not been for the disastrous end to that fifteen-year epoch.
“Southlands,” History of The Third Robotech War, Vol. XXII
Countless people found themselves homeless after the Invid’s preemptive strike against Earth; the waste was awash with wanderers, thieves, and madmen. And, of course, children: lost, uprooted, orphaned. They fared worse than the other groups, usually falling prey to illness, starvation, and marauding gangs. Occasionally, one would stumble upon groups of them in devastated cities or natural shelters—caves, patches of forest, oases—forty or fifty strong, banded together like some feral family; and God help the one who tried to disturb their new order!… But this was the exception rather than the rule. The great majority of them had to make their own way and fend for themselves, attach themselves—more often, enslave themselves—to whomever or whatever could provide them with some semblance of protection, the chance for a better tomorrow.
Laako City, largest settlement in the southern wastes, saw its fair share of these nameless drifters, and Ken was usually the one who welcomed them with open arms. He was a tall, gangly streetwise eighteen-year-old with a reputation for dirty tricks, mean-spirited by nature but a charmer when he needed to be. His long hair was a pewter color, save for the crimson forelock that was his trademark.
His most recent conquest was a young girl named Annie, who claimed to be fifteen. But Ken had grown bored with her; besides, he had his eye fixed on a pretty little dark-haired urchin who had just arrived in Laako, and the time had come to kiss Annie off.
The trouble was that Annie didn’t want to go.
“Don’t leave me like this!” she was pleading with him just now, alligator tears coursing down moon-face cheeks.
“Hey,” he told her soothingly, disengaging himself from her hold on his arm. “You knew from the start you’d have to leave someday.”
This was and was not true: Laako did maintain a policy of limiting the time outsiders were allowed to spend in the city, but well-connected Ken could easily have steered his way around the regs. If he had been so inclined.
The two of them were standing at the causeway entrance to the city in the lake, the tall albeit ruined towers of the Laako’s twin islands visible in the background. Sundry trucks and tractors on their way to the causeway checkpoint were motoring by, kicking up dust and decibels alike.
“Please, Ken!” Annie tried, emphatically this time, launching herself at him, hoping to pinion his arms with her small hands. It was push and pull for a moment—Ken saying, “Annie!… Cut it out!… Stop it!” to Annie’s “I can’t!… I won’t!… I can’t!—” but ultimately he put a violent end to it, bringing his arms up with such force that Annie was thrown to the ground.
Which was easy enough for him to do. She was a good foot shorter than Ken, with a large mouth, long, straight, carrot-colored hair, and what some might have termed a cherublike cuteness about her. Her single outfit consisted of an olive-drab double-breasted military jumpsuit she had picked up along the trail, set off by a pink frameless rucksack and a maroon visored cap emblazoned with the letters E.T., a piece of twentieth-century nostalgia that dated back to a popular science-fantasy film. It was difficult to tell—as it was with many of the lost—whether Annie was searching for a friend, a father, or a lover. And it was doubtful that she could have answered the question either.
“I told you to cut it out,” Ken started to say, but the sight of her kneeling in the dirt crying her eyes out managed to touch what meager tenderness he still possessed. “Don’t you see I have no choice?” he continued apologetically, walking over to her and placing his hand on her heaving shoulder. “This whole thing is just as hard for me as it is for you, Annie. Please try and understand.”
She kept her face buried in her hands, sobbing while he spoke.
“Nobody who comes from the outside can stay for more than a little while, remember? And if I left here, I wouldn’t be allowed to return …”
Suddenly the tears were gone and she was looking up at him with a devious grin on her face. “Then run away with me, Ken! We’ll start our own family, our own town!” She was up on her feet now, tugging on his arm, but Ken didn’t budge.
“Quit giving me a hard time,” he told her harshly, angry at himself for being taken in by her saltwater act. “I’m not going anywhere—you are!”
Annie’s face contorted through sorrow to rage. She cursed him, using everything her vocabulary had to offer. But in return he proffered a knowing smile that undermined her anger. “You’re heartless,” she seethed, collapsing to the ground once more. “Heartless.”
Rand had led Scott to the site of the downed transport; the Mars Division commander held little hope that anyone had survived the crash but thought there might be an Armored Alpha Veritech still aboard. He was thankful for the Cyclone, but with perhaps thousands of miles separating him from the Invid Reflex Point, the journey would be a long one indeed.
Fearing a visit from Invid reinforcements—Shock Troopers this time—the two riders didn’t remain long at the wreck. There were neither survivors nor Veritechs, but Scott was at least able to procure additional Scorpions for the battle armor launchers, several canisters of Protoculture fuel, and a sensor-studded helmet for Rand. Thus far the redheaded rebel had demonstrated no inclination to form even a temporary partnership, but Scott hoped that the helmet and battle armor would entice him somewhat. Scott would have been the first to admit his sense of helplessness; he was a stranger to this world an
d its ways. And if the unthinkable had occurred—if he alone had survived the atmospheric plunge—he was going to need all the help he could get.
Rand wasn’t sure what to make of the offworlder. He was a good man to have on one’s side in a fight and no doubt a capable enough officer in his own element, but he was a fish out of water on Earth, and a relic besides—a throwback to a time when humankind functioned hopefully and collectively. In any case, Rand was a lone rider, and he meant to keep it that way. You joined up with someone, and suddenly there were compromises that had to be made, plans and decisions a single Forager wasn’t caught up in.
Rand lived for the open road, and he was grateful that the offworlder hadn’t lingered too long at the crash site, glad to have it behind him now. The two had ridden as far as the hills together, then Rand had waved Scott off and lit out on his own, the Cyclone throbbing beneath him. He was enchanted with the mecha, but there were a few other priorities that needed tending to: food, for starters. The tasteless stuff Scott had liberated from the wreck might be all right for spacemen, but it wasn’t likely to catch on among down-to-earth Foragers.
Once again he had decided to pass on Laako City; it would be easy enough to get something to eat there, but the results probably wouldn’t justify the paranoid garbage he would have to put up with. Rand had never visited Laako, but what he had heard from other Foragers was enough to give him second thoughts about the place.
Even so, he was headed in the general direction of the island city, putting the Cyclone through the paces on the twisting mountain road that connected the wastes with the grasslands and lakes of the central plateaus. The only such road, it was usually heavily trafficked and dangerous in spots—little more than a narrow ledge with deep ruts and steep drop-offs. But most of that was still ahead of him, and he was cruising along, oblivious to the fact that Scott was not far behind. Then Rand heard the roar of the second Cyclone and looked over his right shoulder, surprised to find the offworlder scrambling along the embankment above the roadway. Scott gave a nod and piloted the cycle through a clean jump that brought him alongside Rand.
Invid Invasion: The New Generation Page 4