Doomsday: The Macross Saga

by Jack McKinney

—I think that the best plan is to completely educate another deprivation tank tissue, so that by the time we get to Earth, it will appear human.

  One of the Scientists risked a question, approaching the Masters’ station arrogantly, leaving his partners in the Triumvirate to labor at the spacetime calculations.

  —What makes you think this clone will be different from the others that have been generated and failed?

  —Mmmm?!

  A second Master took up the challenge, regarding the Scientist with distaste. An exotic-looking, blue-lipped, and scarlet-haired androgynous clone. What had they accomplished, the Master asked himself before replying, in creating this young generation of long-haired, toga-clad beings who walked a thin line between life and death?

  —Such insolence! Have you forgotten that these previous efforts have been undertaken without proper attention to the basic matrix generation process? This clone will have ample time to mature, but we must begin programming the tissue immediately. Of the fourteen remaining in the tank, one will surely take on the full psychic likeness of Zor.

  —One more thing, Master: Why don’t we check the matrix figures on the remaining Protoculture? Perhaps such a journey is unnecessary.

  —The figures have been checked and rechecked. We don’t even have enough to make the hyperspace-fold to the Earth system.

  The female member of the Triumvirate turned from her calculations.

  —I understand, Master.

  —So! We will begin the trip under reflex power and rely on the remaining clone matrix cell tissue to complete our mission.

  —Twenty long years by their reckoning And how many of us will survive such a journey?

  —If only three of us survive, it will be enough. This is our only chance to regain control of the Protoculture.

  One of the Masters gestured to the oval screen—a view of deep space captured by their surveillance vessel: the mecha debris and litter that was once Reno’s fleet.

  —After all, look what is left of their culture; observe and survey the remnants of their once-great armada. We must have that Protoculture matrix! Even if it takes twenty years and the last developing clone from our tank! We have no choice but to proceed. I can see no other solution. So! If there is nothing further …

  A member of the Elder Triumvirate spoke through lips as cracked as baked clay, a face as wrinkled as history itself.

  “Elder Council is with you.”

  The central speaker of the Masters inclined his head in a bow.

  “We acknowledge your wisdom and appreciate the generosity of your support, Elder. It is out of loyalty to you and our forefathers that we have decided thus.”

  “We understand the importance of this mission, not only for our race but for all intelligent life in the quadrant.”

  A second Elder bestowed his blessings on the voyage.

  “Proceed with your plan, then; but know that there can be no margin for error without grave consequences.”

  “The future of all cultures is in your hands.”

  A twenty-year journey through the universe, the Masters thought in unison. Twenty years to regain a prize stolen from them by a renegade scientist. Would they prevail? Was there not one loyal Zentraedi left?… Yes, there was. But could even he succeed where so many had failed?

  Khyron!

  Khyron was their last hope!

  Human and Zentraedi teams labored long and hard to ready the factory for a hyperspace jump. In less than a week’s time it defolded in lunar orbit, winking into real time without incident Breetai’s dreadnought, his human and Zentraedi crew, and thousands of converted warriors inside the satellite’s womb. The commander’s prime concern had been the removal of the factory from the Robotech Masters’ realm; their reach, however, was to prove greater than even he had anticipated.

  The Veritech Team, as well as Lisa and Claudia, returned to New Macross, and in their place arrived scores of Lang’s Robotechnicians, who dispersed themselves through the factory like kids on a scavenger hunt. Finally, Admiral Gloval himself was shuttled up to Earth’s new satellite; well aware that the factory was now Earth’s only hope against a potential follow-up attack by the Robotech Masters, he traveled with his fingers crossed. Claudia Grant was his escort.

  Dr. Lang and several of his techs were on hand to greet them. Pleasantries were dispensed with, and Gloval was led immediately to one of the factory’s automated assembly lines, where alien devices, still only half-understood by Lang, turned out Battlepod carapaces and ordnance muzzles.

  Gloval marveled at the sight of these machines at work: Pods were being fabricated as though they were chocolate candy shells. From a basic sludge vat of raw metals to finished product in minutes; servos, arc welders, presses, and shapers doing the work of thousands of men. Unpiloted pods, controlled by computers even Lang refused to tamper with, marched in rows, one above the other, along powered transport belts, pausing at each work station for yet another automated miracle. All the while a synthesized Zentraedi voice actually spoke to the devices, directing them in their tasks. Exedore had substituted a translation, which was playing as Gloval stood transfixed.

  “Make ready units one fifty-two and one fifty-eight for protobolt adjustments and laser-bond processes. Units one fifty-nine to one sixty-five are on-line for radio-krypto equipment encoding …”

  “But what does it mean?” Gloval asked Lang.

  The scientist shook his head, marblelike eyes penetrating Gloval’s own. “We don’t know, Admiral. But do not be deceived by what you see. This entire complex is but a ghost of its former self—nothing is running to completion.” Lang made a sweeping gesture. “Whatever fuels this place—and I see no reason to suppose that it is any different than that which runs the SDF-1—has lost its original potency.”

  “Protoculture,” Gloval said flatly.

  Lang gave a tight-lipped nod and pointed to the line of half-finished pods along the conveyor belt. “Observe …”

  Gloval narrowed his eyes, not sure what he was supposed to be looking at. But shortly the Doctor’s meaning became obvious.

  “Warning! Shut down! Warning! Damage!…” the synthesized voice began to repeat. Suddenly one of the pods on the belt was encased in a spider web of angry electrical energy. Servowelders and grappling arms flailed about in the fire, falling limp as the pod split apart and the great machines ground to a halt.

  “Status report on the way,” one of Lang’s techs said to Gloval.

  The admiral rubbed his chin and hid a look of disappointment.

  No one spoke for a moment, save for a human voice from the PA calling maintenance personnel to the process center. Then Exedore arrived on the scene. Gloval had not seen him since the evening the satellite mission was first discussed.

  “How are you, sir?” Exedore asked, concerned but having already guessed Gloval’s response.

  “Not as well as I was hoping,” Gloval confessed. “When can you start operating again?”

  “I’m afraid the situation is worse than first thought.” Never one to mince words, Exedore added: “We may be down permanently.”

  “Are you certain?”

  The Zentraedi adviser nodded, grimly.

  Claudia gasped. “But our defense depends on continued operation!”

  Gloval clasped his hands behind his back, refusing to accept the prognosis. “Carry on,” he told Exedore. “Do what you can to get things running again. Do something—anything!”

  “Veritech team leader,” said the female voice over Rick’s com net. “We have a disturbance in New Detroit City. Can you respond?”

  Rick accessed the relevant chart as he went on the net. “Roger, control.” He glanced at the monitor: His team was over the southern tip of Lake Michigan, close to what was once the city of Chicago. “We are approximately three minutes ETA of New Detroit City. What’s up?”

  “Zentraedi workers have broken into Fort Breetai. They’ve taken over the sizing chamber and are attempting to transport it from the city.�
�

  Rick gritted his teeth and exhaled sharply. “Listen up,” he told his wingmen. “We’re on alert. Hit your afterburners and follow my lead.”

  New Detroit had risen up around a Zentraedi warship that had crashed there during Dolza’s apocalyptic attack; its mile-high hulk still dominated the city and the surrounding cratered wastes like some leaning tower of malice. The population of the city was predominantly Zentraedi, many micronized by order of the New Council and hundreds more who were full-size workers in the nearby steel factories. In addition, though, there was a sizable contingent of civil defense forces stationed there to guard a sizing chamber that had been removed from the derelict ship but had yet to be transported to New Macross, where similar ones were being stored.

  Rick caught sight of the chamber on his first pass over the high-tech fort. A convoy of vehicles was tearing along the rampart that led to the underground storage facilities. Updated reports from control indicated that at least twelve Humans and three Zentraedi giants lay dead inside.

  The clear-blue nose-cone-like device had been placed on an enormous flatbed, hauled by a powerful tug with tires like massive rollers; two micronized aliens were in the drivers’ seats, three more up top, along with three blue-uniformed giants, two of whom were attempting to stabilize the hastily guy-wired and turnbuckled chamber. Behind the flatbed were two more enormous eight-wheeled transports, each bearing malcontents armed with autocannons. Rick saw them open fire on the laser-sentry posts. At street level, they turned their cannons on everything that moved, scattering workers and pedestrians alike.

  “We’re over the disturbance now,” Rick reported in. “Left wing, wait until they’ve reached the outskirts, then go in low and give them a warning.”

  The renegade Zentraedis spotted the Veritechs and opened up with indiscriminate volleys as the fighters fell from the sky. Rick and his team rolled out, dodging autocannon slugs and gatling spray as they broke formation.

  So much for scare tactics, Rick said to himself, Skull One flying inverted and low over the tortuous landscape outside the city limits.

  “Left wing, knock one of the giants off the lead unit immediately!”

  Rick completed his roll as his wingman went out, reconfiguring the Veritech to Guardian mode and swooping down on the convoy. The Zentraedis were loosing continuous fire, but Rick could discern the early stages of panic in their flight. The highway was full of twists and turns here, and the converter had made the flatbed dangerously top-heavy.

  The armed alien on the flatbed got off one last shot before Rick’s wingman, now in Battloid mode, blasted him from the vehicle. The road was also proving too much for the drivers to handle; Rick watched the vehicle screech through a tight S-turn, leave the road, clinging to a raised course of shoulder, then bounce back to the tarmac, where the giant’s micronized accomplices decided to call it quits.

  Meanwhile, the rest of the Veritech group had reconfigured to Battloid mode and put down ahead of the halted convoy.

  Rick completed his descent and advanced his mecha in a run, chain-gun gripped in the metalshod right hand and leveled against the giants on the flatbed. One Zentraedi was dead on the road. The others began to throw down their weapons as Rick spoke.

  “Don’t move or you’ll be destroyed!” he called out over the external speakers. The Battloids came to a stop and spread out. “It’s useless to resist,” Rick continued. “You are completely surrounded. You must understand that what you have done is unacceptable behavior by Human standards and that you will be punished.” Rick stepped his mecha forward. “Now, the Protoculture chamber will be returned to the fort.”

  Three hundred miles to the northeast of New Detroit a thick blanket of newly fallen snow covered the war-ravaged terrain. Khyron’s ship had landed here, having used up almost all of the Protoculture reserves that drove its reflex engines to free itself from Alaska’s glacial hold.

  Zentraedi Battlepods sat in the snowfields like unhatched eggs abandoned by an uncaring mother. Deserters from the Micronian population centers and factories continued to arrive in stolen transports and tugs. The hulk of a Zentraedi warship overlooked the scene, its pointed bow thrust deep into the frigid earth like a spear, alien tripetaled flowers surrounding it, hearty enough to pierce the permafrost.

  Khyron had followed a trail of such ships clear across the northern wastes, salvaging what he could in the way of weapons and foodstuffs, marveling at the resilience of the Invid Flower of Life, gone to seed and flower as the Protoculture in the ship’s drives had disintegrated.

  Now in the command center of his ship, he received word that his plan to steal the sizing converter had failed.

  “Idiot!” Khyron said to his second, Grel, standing in stiff posture before the Backstabber. Azonia was seated in the command chair, her legs crossed, a mischievous look on her face. “Your feeble plan has failed us again!”

  Grel frowned. “I’m sorry, sir, but our agents failed to eliminate the communications center and the Veritechs—”

  “Enough!” Khyron interrupted him, raising his fist. “Our soldiers couldn’t even defend themselves!”

  “But sir, if you had only listened to …” Grel started to say, and regretted it at once. The plan had been Azonia’s, not his; but there was little chance that Khyron would blame her—not now that a special relationship had been forged … And especially since his commander had begun to use the dried Invid leaves once again. As if that wasn’t enough, the troops had all seen the Robotech satellite appear in Earth’s skies, and that meant only one thing: The Micronians had somehow defeated Reno!

  “Shut up, Grel!” Azonia barked at him. “Under your leadership they couldn’t possibly have succeeded!”

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say—”

  “Do not interrupt,” she continued, folding her arms and turning her back to him.

  Khyron too mocked him with a short laugh, and Grel felt the anger rising within him despite his best efforts to keep his emotions in check. It was bad enough that he and the troops had been forced to live these past two years with a female in their midst, but now to be humiliated like this …

  “You should have had no trouble capturing the sizing chamber,” Azonia was saying when he at last exploded, murder in his eyes as he leaned toward her.

  “It might appear that all of this is my fault, but the truth is that you—”

  “Enough!” Azonia screamed, standing, nearly hysterical. “I don’t want to hear any excuses from you!”

  Khyron stepped between them, angrier and louder than the two of them combined. “Stop arguing, Azonia! And Grel, I want you to listen, understand me?! I don’t have to tell you what the appearance of that satellite signals—the last hope for the Masters lies with us!”

  “Sir, I’m listening,” Grel said, spent and surrendering.

  Khyron, spittle forming at the edges of his maniacal snarl, waved a fist in Grel’s face. “Excellent … because my reputation is on the line, and I need that sizing chamber to save face, and if I don’t get it.… I shan’t spare yours! Now, get out of here!”

  Grel stiffened, then began to slink away like a beaten dog.

  When he had left the room, Azonia moved to Khyron’s side, pressing herself against him suggestively, her voice coy and teasing.

  “Tell me confidentially, Khyron, do you really think he can handle it?”

  “For his sake, I hope so,” Khyron said through gritted teeth, seemingly unaware of Azonia’s closeness until she risked putting a hand on his shoulder.

  “You know how to handle your troops, Khyron,” she purred in his ear.

  He pushed her away with just enough force to convey his seriousness, not wanting to confront the hurt look he was sure to find on her face. There was no use denying the bewildering attraction he had come to feel for her in their joint exile—these novel pleasures of the flesh they had discovered; but she had to be made to understand that there was a time and place for such things and that war and victory still came fi
rst—would always come first! No other Zentraedi had more right to these sensual gifts than he, but his troops deserved more than a commander who was less committed to them than they were to him. He had promised to return the deserters to full size, and he meant to do it—with or without Grel. And, should it come down to it, with or without Azonia.

  “Now, listen,” he confided. “There is something I couldn’t tell Grel but I’m going to tell you … I’m going after that sizing chamber myself—I can’t count on him to do it. I want you to stay here and take command while I’m gone.”

  He turned and walked away from her without another word, unaware of the smile that had appeared on her face.

  Azonia savored the thought of commanding Khyron’s troops in his absence. “This is starting to get good,” she said aloud after a moment.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  If we accept for a moment the view expressed by some of our twentieth-century colleagues—that children live out the unconscious lives of their parents—and apply that to the Robotech Masters and their “children,” the Zentraedi, we will arrive at a most revealing scenario. It is clear at this point that the Masters were the ones devoid of emotions. War though the Zentraedi did, their true imperative was centered on individuation and the search for self.… One has to wonder about Zor, however: He served the Masters yet did not count himself among them. Who can say to what extent he himself was affected by Protoculture?

  Zeitgeist, Alien Psychology

  Returned to New Detroit, the sizing chamber was being hoisted back into its cradle, a four-poled hangar similar to those used to support freestanding tents. A large crowd had gathered, Humans and coveralled Zentraedi giants as well as their micronized brethren. Rick was supervising the crane operation, while the rest of his team, still in their Battloids, patrolled a cordoned-off area in front of Fort Breetai. There was palpable tension in the air.

  “That’s it … just a little more and we’re there,” Rick instructed the operating engineer. “Fine, fine … just keep it coming …”