Doomsday: The Macross Saga

by Jack McKinney

  “Shuttle to tower control … all systems on-line and awaiting green light.”

  “Roger, shuttle,” the controller radioed to the crew. “Stand by …”

  Inside the shuttle, Lisa leaned toward the permaglass porthole closest to her seat. It was not an easy maneuver, but she hoped to catch a glimpse of Rick’s lift-off. One by one the Veritechs were being nosed up now … Max’s, Miriya’s … Rick’s … She pulled herself away from the view and sighed, loud enough for Claudia and Exedore to hear her and inquire if she was all right. It was a strange mixture of emotions that tugged at her thoughts: memories of the time she’d spent in Breetai’s ship and recent events that continued to confuse her feelings. In some ways this return to the stars was less like a mission than a vacation.

  “Shuttle escort launch at signal zero—now!”

  The Veritechs lifted off, the sound of their blasts like a volley of thunderclaps echoing around the lake. Then, with a more continuous roar, the Shiva rose from its pad, a fiery morning star in the scudded skies over New Macross.

  Breetai’s ship, one-time nemesis and subsequent ally of the SDF-1, was holding at a Lagrange point inside the lunar orbit. More than ten kilometers in length, armored and bristling with guns like some nightmare leviathan, the vessel had never put down on Earth. But teams of Lang’s Robotechs, working side by side with Zentraedi giants, had retrofitted the ship to accommodate human crews. Elevators and air locks had been incorporated into the hull; holds had been partitioned off into human-size work spaces and quarters; automated walkways were installed; and the astrogation hold now contained control consoles and the latest innovations from Lang’s projects-development labs. All this had been child’s play for the Earth techs—many of the same men and women who had overseen the original conversion of the SDF-1, had later fabricated a city for 60,000 inside the fortress itself, and were currently involved in the construction of the SDF-2—but it had struck the Zentraedi (who had no understanding of the Robotechnology bequeathed to them by the Masters) as near miraculous.

  Now, while the shuttle craft carrying Exedore, Lisa, and Claudia entered one of the flagship’s docking bays, the nine Veritechs under Rick’s command were reconfiguring to Guardian mode and putting down in formation on an external elevator. In the bay a human voice announced the shuttle’s arrival in English.

  “All personnel in docking zones D-twenty-four and D-twenty-five—attention: Micronian shuttlecraft now commencing final docking procedures in upper landing bay.”

  The use of the term “Micronian” was no longer considered to be pejorative, in spite of its derivation; it had simply come to mean “human-size” as opposed to “microbelike.” So Lisa and Claudia were not fazed; nor was Rick, topside, when a shock trooper welcomed the Veritechs aboard likewise.

  The Zentraedi shock trooper stood a good forty feet tall, but the fact that he was wearing armor and a helmet suggested that he might be one of the inferior class of warriors incapable of withstanding the vacuum perils of deep space unless properly outfitted.

  “Uh, thanks,” Rick told him through the com net. “It’s good to be here.” The trooper flashed him a grin and thumbs-up. “If you’re ready, let’s bring her down,” Rick added.

  The giant proudly displayed a device in his gloved hand. He tapped in a simple code, and the elevator began to drop into the ship.

  Elsewhere, Lisa, Claudia, and Exedore exited the shuttle’s circular hatch and descended the stairway to the hold floor. Breetai was waiting for them there, his blue uniform and brown tunic looking brand-new.

  “My Micronian friends—welcome,” his voice boomed.

  Lisa looked up at him standing there with arms akimbo and found herself smiling. These past two years had worked a subtle magic on the commander. It was well known that he refused to micronize himself, but merely working with humans had been enough to change him somehow, soften him, Lisa thought. The gleaming plate that covered one side of his face seemed more an adornment now than anything else.

  Meanwhile Exedore had stepped forward and offered a stiff human salute.

  “Greetings and salutations, your Lordship. We are at your service.”

  Breetai bent down, a look of affection contorting his face. “It’s good seeing you, Exedore … It’s nice to have you back on the ship.”

  Exedore must have noticed the change as well, because he seemed genuinely moved. “Why, uh, thank you, sir,” he stammered.

  Breetai turned to Claudia and Lisa, their upturned faces betraying gentle amusement. “And I especially wish to extend a welcome to you” he told them, making a gallant gesture with his hand. “I am deeply honored to have you under my command.”

  Lisa, versed in Zentraedi protocol, returned: “It’s a great honor, sir, to have this opportunity.”

  Breetai came down on one knee to thank her. “As you know, my people are unaccustomed to contact with beauty such as yours,” he said flatteringly. “So don’t be offended by any strange reactions you may encounter.”

  Lisa and Claudia turned to each other and laughed openly as Breetai drew himself up to full height again.

  “Now then … if you’ll permit, I’ll show you to your quarters.”

  In the hangar space below the docking elevator, Max stood beneath Miriya’s scarlet Guardian. He called up to the open-canopied cockpit, “Okay, that’s it,” signaling her with a wave of his hand. “Now bring the cradle pod down.”

  Miriya activated the device only recently installed in her Veritech.

  “Here it comes,” she told him.

  Servomotors whined, and a royal-blue cylindrical pod—which could have passed for a turn-of-the-century bomb—began to drop from the rear seat, riding a telescoping shaft down beneath the legs of the fighter.

  A Robotech delivery, Max said to himself as he approached the pod. He went to work disengaging fasteners, and in a minute the pod’s blunt nose swung open. Max peered inside the heavily padded interior, smiled, and said, “There …”

  He reached in and pulled Dana into his arms, a tiny wiggling astronaut in a white helmet with tinted faceshield and a pink and white suit that fit her like Dr. Dentons. Dana cooed, and Max hugged her to himself.

  Miriya saw him step from beneath the Veritech with Dana cradled in his arms. Max assisted Dana in a wave; Miriya smiled and felt her heart skip a beat.

  Breetai paced the bridge anxiously. Terran techs had effected changes here as well. The observation bubble had been dismantled and an openwork semicircular flattopped walkway installed in its place; humansize consoles occupied a flyout platform at the center of the arc. In addition, the circular monitor screen Max Sterling had once piloted a Veritech through was back in one piece.

  “Any fluctuations from the satellite factory?” Breetai inquired into one of the binocularlike microphones.

  “Negative,” answered a synthesized voice. “Maintaining solar stasis.”

  “Notify me immediately of any change,” he ordered.

  “Yes, sir,” the computer responded.

  Breetai assumed the command chair and steepled his fingers. “Think, Breetai—think of a plan,” he said aloud, as demanding of himself as he was of his troops. “If we are able to convince Reno that we have the Protoculture, we will have little difficulty in securing his complete cooperation … Otherwise, we will have quite a fight on our hands. Our forces will be vastly outnumbered.”

  Claudia turned from her console and monitor station on the walkway. “But we don’t possess any Protoculture,” she saw fit to remind him, her console mike carrying her words to the commander. “How do we convince him that we do … uuhh,” clearing her throat here, her eyes going wide for an instant, “assuming we’re given the chance?”

  Breetai grinned. “We’ll have our chance,” he said certainly. “But for now, entering hyperspace is our immediate concern, wouldn’t you say?”

  Claudia traded looks with Lisa, seated at the adjacent station. It was obvious now that Breetai’s musings were not really meant for
their ears at all. Whatever the plan, it seemed likely they would be the last to know.

  Max and Rick stood together on one of the moving walkways, marveling at the changes the ship had undergone and reveling in memories that time had rendered less severe.

  “Hey, remember the last time we were on this ship?” asked Max.

  “Heh! Being a prisoner wasn’t much fun, was it?” said Rick, turning the tables on his friend’s obviously rhetorical query. “I’m sure glad things have changed. I don’t want to see Breetai on the other end of an autocannon ever again!”

  “Yeah, after serving under Admiral Gloval, it’ll be interesting to see what his ex-enemy’s like.”

  “I just wish we knew more about this mission.”

  “Gloval asked me to bring my whole family along and left it at that.”

  Rick shook his head in puzzlement. “Why in space would the old man want you to bring Dana along?”

  Max shrugged. “I don’t know, Rick, but I want you to understand something: I won’t put her in jeopardy, mission or no mission.”

  Rick looked at him squarely and said, “I won’t let you.”

  “All polarities inside the reflex furnaces have become stabilized, Commander,” Claudia told Breetai from her station.

  A confusing array of data scrolled across the monitor screens, a mixture of English, Zentraedi glyphs, and the newly devised equivalency-transcription characters—phonetic Zentraedi.

  A Zentraedi tech reported to Claudia that fold computations were complete, and she relayed to Breetai that all systems were go. “We can fold any time you like, sir.”

  He thanked her, then raised his voice to a roar.

  “Begin fold operation immediately!”

  As the fold generators were engaged, Protoculture commenced its magical workings on the fabric of the real world, calling forth from unknown dimensions a radiant energy that began to form itself around the ship like some shimmering amorphous aura, seemingly holing it through and through. The massive vessel lurched forward into a widening pool of white light; then it simply vanished from its Lagrange point, for one brief instant leaving behind globular eddies and masses of lambent animated light, lost moments in somewhere else’s time.

  CHAPTER

  SIX

  Up until the end of the Second Robotech War (how Pyrrhic, how bittersweet that victory!), Protoculture was literally in the employ of the Robotech Masters; not only did it in effect keep tabs on itself for their benefit, but alerted them to changes in the fabric of the continuum. Not a single Zentraedi ship could fold without their being made aware of it.

  Dr. Emil Lang, as quoted in History of the Second

  Robotech War, Vol. CCCLVII

  Yes … I feel it …

  The three Masters linked minds and once more laid their bony hands against the Protoculture cap. The mushroom-shaped device reacted to their touch, radiating that same pure light which spilled into the known universe when Breetai’s ship had folded. The cap took them through the inverse world, through white holes and rifts in time, allowing them to see with an inner vision.

  They were no longer in their space fortress now, but back on their homeworld, back on Tirol.

  —Our former charges have allied themselves with Zor’s descendants; our former charges would replace us as Masters.

  —We must try again to resurrect a simulacrum of Zor.

  Twenty clones had been created from Zor’s body; they had been grown to maturity in biovats and held weightless in a stasis sphere. All matched his elfin likeness: handsome, dreamers all of them, youthful and graceful. But none of them had the spark of life that would replicate his thoughts and mind, that would allow the Masters to learn the whereabouts of the Protoculture matrix and the secrets of that rare process.

  The Masters left the cap and stood gazing up at the stasis sphere that housed the remaining clones.

  “I suggest we begin the prion synthesis immediately,” said one of the Masters.

  Away from the Protoculture cap they were forced to rely on ordinary, primitive speech to convey their thoughts.

  “Yes, Master,” a synthesized voice responded.

  Three Masters positioned themselves around a saucerlike device fitted with numerous color-coded sensor pads grouped circumferentially around a central viewscreen, while a visible antigrav beam conveyed one of the lifeless clones from the stasis hemisphere of a circular biotable. The clone was placed flat on its back on it, as if it were resting on a sheet of pure light.

  The three Masters placed their hands on the saucer’s control pads. Roller-coaster-like readouts, hypermed schematics and X-ray displays began to flash across the circular viewscreen beneath them. Meanwhile the unmoving clone was bathed in a fountain of high-energy particles that rose from the biotable like an inverted spring rain.

  “Altering positronic bombardment,” said the gold-cowled Master, frowning as he watched the disappointing displays take shape.

  “There’s some bilateral cellular inversion,” observed a second, the same one who had called for prison synthesis. “Commencing symphysis …” he announced, the sensor pads flashing like a light box.

  The Masters concentrated, focusing the powers of their telepathic will, then broke off their attempts momentarily.

  The clone showed no signs of cerebral activity.

  “Cranial synapses are still not responding … There is the same disintegration of molecular substructures as in previous attempts.”

  “Yes, it has happened again … This time I think we’ve taken the clone from the suspension before complete maturation … We must stimulate its life function regardless,” the red-cowled Master said, leaving the saucer pod.

  “I suggest we alter the prionic bombardment of the upper strata,” said the third Master.

  Master two nodded his head and moved his left hand to a new location along the control rim. “We’ll try … Augmenting prionic bombardment in increments of four …”

  “Positronic emission is at maximum capability!” observed the third, his arms at his sides.

  “Good—cellular agitation is critical …”

  Still the clockwork schematics revealed no activity.

  “It is useless … We are down to the minimum suspension material—we cannot waste it like this.”

  “Life is such an elementary process,” said the first, standing over the now useless clone, its neural circuits fried. “Where have we gone wrong?”

  Miriya relaxed back into the couch and sighed, her fingers playing absently with Dana’s curls. Would she keep her dark hair? Miriya wondered; each day it seemed to be growing lighter and lighter …

  The baby was peacefully asleep on her breast, and just looking at her, it was all Miriya could do to keep from weeping for joy. A miracle, she told herself ten times a day: that she and Max could produce some innocent loveliness; that she, a former warrior, could feel this way about anyone or anything. Such unknown contentment and pure rapture.

  “Max.” She smiled. “Look at our child. She’s so peaceful.”

  Max glanced out from the kitchenette of their quarters aboard Breetai’s ship. He was carrying a trayful of tall cocktail glasses to the sink—the aftermath of an afternoon’s partying with Rick, Lisa, and Claudia—and wearing a knee-length apron that read: MAX AND MIRIYA: LIVE!

  Peaceful and beautiful, both of them, he said to himself. But while Miriya seemed to be having all the fun, he was the one who was stuck with all the dishes and the cooking and more than half the time the midnight feedings.

  So what he said to her in the end, without betraying any of these thoughts and just grateful for a few minutes of blessed peace, was: “Yeah … but we’d better keep our voices down or we’ll wake her up.”

  Rick, Lisa, and Claudia were a somewhat unsteady trio returning to their quarters after the afternoon drinks they’d shared with the happy couple. Combined with the thrill of deep space (after so many planetbound months) and the effects of hyperspace travel, the drinks had left them with
more than an ordinary buzz.

  “… and I held little Dana the whole afternoon, and she didn’t cry a bit the entire time!” Lisa was saying.

  “Yes, but I don’t think Miriya should have thrown Dana to you. She has to learn to be more careful!”

  Lisa nodded, biting her lower lip. “Well, it’s an adjustment for her. After all, her role model was probably the neighboring test tube.”

  Claudia cracked a smile in spite of herself and looked over Lisa’s head at Rick, but he was too bleary-eyed to catch her gaze. “Sometimes I envy Max and Miriya for just having such a beautiful little girl,” she said loudly.

  “Mm-hmmm,” Lisa agreed.

  They had reached Lisa’s quarters now, and Rick was standing off to one side vaguely thinking about how he was going to spend the rest of the day, while Lisa and Claudia exchanged good-byes. Suddenly Lisa turned to him and said: “Rick, I’m going to walk Claudia to her quarters, but if you have a minute, I’d like you to wait in my room for me—there’s something I want to talk to you about.”

  Her request somehow managed to cut through all the cotton inside his head, and he found himself stammering, “Uhh … but …” all the while knowing that there was no way around it. It just didn’t seem like she had official business on her mind, and he wasn’t at all sure he was up to a heart-to-heart.

  Claudia cleared her throat. “May I remind you, Mr. Hunter, that Lisa is your superior.”

  “But I’m off duty,” Rick protested, definitely not in top form today.

  “So is she,” Claudia laughed, throwing him an exaggerated wink.

  The two of them left Rick standing there with some half-formed reply caught in his throat while they continued on down the corridor sharing a whispered exchange.

  “Now then, Lisa, what can I do for you?” Claudia asked when they were some steps away.

  “I just wanted to thank you for being understanding these past few weeks. It really helps to have someone to lean on.”