Genesis r-1

by Jack McKinney

  "We just shot down the last enemy Battlepod, sir," Sammie relayed the information.

  "Very good." Gloval nodded. "Any contact with headquarters yet?"

  That was Claudia's hot potato. "No, Captain. I've tried, sir, but nothing works. We can't raise them."

  Sammie broke in, "Are you sure there's no system malfunction?"

  "Negative," Claudia shot back tersely.

  "None at all," Vanessa said, backing her. "It's operating perfectly."

  Gloval didn't want to indulge his fears; he had a pretty good idea what had happened, but if it were to prove true, the consequences would be dire indeed. Still, there was no avoiding the inevitable. "Give me the reading on our position."

  Vanessa was prompt and precise in answering. "The planet Pluto's orbit, according to the computer plot."

  "The planet Pluto?" So much worse than even he had suspected. Gloval dipped deep into the fortitude that develops when death has been cheated a hundred times and comes back for a rematch. Relentlessly.

  The bridge gang was gathering around Vanessa, even rocklike Lisa. "Pluto?" "Impossible!"

  "It can't be!" Claudia was proclaiming, knowing very well that it was. "I was against this fold jump business all along!"

  More than just about anyone else alive, Gloval knew when it was time to play martinet (rarely) and when it was time to play patriarch (the manner in which he had won every important citation there was, some several times over).

  "Now, now, now. Settle down; don't panic." His voice was calm and sure. It brought order and discipline back to the bridge by its very measured resonance. "All we have to do is refold to get back to where we started."

  That made them all exchange looks and get a grip on themselves. Gloval was four steps ahead of everyone, as usual; everything was all right.

  Far aft, in the engineering section, Lang stared up and laughed, then doubled over, slapping his knees-a laugh that seesawed between the hysterical and the Olympian. The techs and scientists and crewpeople around him looked at him dubiously.

  It had been going on for a half minute or so, and each time he took a fresh look, Lang laughed again. Tears had begun squeezing out of the corners of his strange eyes for what he perceived as a monumental joke.

  Before anybody around him could act, Lang forced himself to stop. Cosmic jokes weren't something you could share with everybody; the gift of humor didn't run that deep in some people.

  Lang straightened and caught his breath, gathering himself, shaking his head.

  "Somebody get me Gloval."

  "There's absolutely nothing to worry about," Gloval was saying.

  "I hope not, Captain," Lisa muttered, back at her duty station. And that was when the hot line rang.

  "Now what?" Gloval got it, growling like a bear. "Yes? What? Are you absolutely sure? Stand fast; I'll be right there."

  Gloval slammed the handset down. He ignored the questioning faces around him and headed for the hatch. Lisa stood rooted, stunned by the idea that the captain would even think about leaving the bridge at a time like this. "Captain? What happened?"

  Gloval paused at the hatch. "Doctor Lang informs me that the fold system has vanished into thin air."

  The bridge gang let out stifled cries and moans; Sammie and Kim hugged each other, fighting back tears. Everyone there knew just as well as Gloval what that meant.

  "We'll never get back," Claudia whispered.

  Outside the hatch, Gloval stopped to fire up his evil-smelling old briar. There was no point in doubting Lang's news; the man was obsessed with Robotechnology but otherwise quite rational. That left Henry Gloval to calculate matters of current orbital positions, distance, life support, and engine performance profiles.

  He blew out a cloud of smoke, considering the tobacco in the pipe's bowl. I'd better cut down; what I have is going to have to last me quite a while.

  "Hmm. Well now," he said aloud. "Gonna be a long trip."

  Fantastic as it seemed, Lang was right: The fold engines were gone.

  Gloval returned to the bridge to try to salvage this seemingly hopeless situation as best he could.

  "I don't know what happened exactly," Gloval shouted into a handset. "But our first priority is to get the civilians onboard this ship as soon as we can!"

  He slammed down the handset and turned to his bridge gang. "Well?"

  "Captain, we can't raise the Daedalus or Prometheus," Lisa told him.

  His gaze went to the forward viewport. At a distance of a few hundred yards, the titantic shapes of the two supercarriers could be seen clearly amid the cloud of debris and wreckage, the drifting automobiles and furniture, and the more ghastly remains of human victims of the tragedy.

  "They're aircraft carriers; all atmosphere would have bled away at once, as soon as the fold force field disappeared." No one needed to be told what that meant; all hands lost in the wake of the jump, like every other unprotected human being. "What a catastrophe!"

  But other matters were too urgent for him to dwell on the horror of what those last few seconds must have been like in the supercarriers. Chances of survival and a safe return to Earth were slim, but it was up to him to make the most of them.

  Like a handful of others throughout history, Henry Gloval was uniquely suited for this particular moment and situation. History was to record it as a singular stroke of good fortune for the human race.

  "Commander Hayes, order a squadron of rescue vehicles to maneuver the carriers alongside the SDF-1. We will make fast to them and get crews working round the clock to make them airtight and operational once again." He shunted aside the thought of what a grisly job the clean-up would be.

  Lisa looked surprised. "Captain, is it more important that we link up with them than with Armor One or Ten?"

  "Yes. I believe their onboard weapons will still be functioning, and there are Veritechs onboard both of them."

  "I hope it works, Captain," Lisa said.

  "It must be done quickly," Gloval added.

  Claudia muttered, "That's for sure."

  Gloval went to stand by the viewport. All those lives lost! How could I have been so stupid? But he knew, deep down, that he was being unfair to himself. He'd taken the only option open to him. If he'd chosen another course of action, the SDF-1 would now be in the hands of the alien invaders, and all would have been lost.

  "We will also deploy boarding tubes to the shelters and begin transferring all occupants to the SDF-1," he gave the order over his shoulder. "Instruct Colonel Fielding and his staff to drop everything else and begin making temporary living arrangements for them at once. Detail EVE groups five and six to start salvage operations; tell them to bring in all usable materials, with special emphasis on foodstuffs and any water ice they may be able to find."

  The bridge gang hopped to it, taking notes, as the orders went on. Inventories of all resources; requirement and capability projections from all division chiefs; long-range scans for any signs of enemy presence or activity.

  There was particular attention to that last item. They found us once, Gloval thought. Heaven help us if they do again.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  …- …

  "SOS" signal attempted by various means by Rick Hunter

  Far below the bridge and slightly aft, Rick Hunter strained against a hoisting line. Grease-stained and exhausted, he persisted, even though it seemed hopeless. Getting the wing patched back onto Mockingbird hadn't proved impossible-though he wasn't sure how long the patch would hold-but straightening the frame and repairing the fuselage had him near the limits of his endurance.

  The racer still hung upside down, cables and lines looped under its wings, nose canards, and tail. He loved the ship, had built it by hand virtually from scratch; the idea of not saving it was hard to accept, and more important, he had reached the conclusion that it was the key to his and Minmei's survival.

  They'd ended up in a portion of the ship that was completely deserted, unequipped with intercom or other communications gea
r or any indication as to how to get out. Rick had quickly decided that if he could just get his plane working, he could somehow get the armor patch to move, get back out into space, and reach a landing bay.

  Minmei had less faith in the plan, but she'd been silent. Up to now. But she touched his shoulder as he strained against the line.

  "Rick, you'll never get it to fly. Why don't we see if we can get some help by using the radio in your plane? It seems like it would be the easiest thing."

  He let go of the line tiredly. "The radio got busted up when we landed. There are pieces of it all over the compartment: it'll never work."

  "Oh," Minmei said in a small voice.

  Rick reconsidered something that had been in the back of his mind. He held up his Heiko aviator's-model watch, switching modes. "But maybe this'll help us get out of here."

  She came closer, watching. "What've you got there?"

  "An inertial tracker-a kind of a compass."

  Minmei looked puzzled. "But I thought a compass had two arms that go back and forth?" She held her forefingers together to show what she meant.

  "Huh? Oh!" Rick laughed.

  Minmei looked hurt. "Well, the only compass I ever saw was for drawing circles."

  They set out at once, Rick showing the way with a flashlight from his emergency equipment. "With this kind of compass we'll be able to make our way back to Mockingbird if we get lost inside this big old tub and can't find a way out."

  They quickly found out that they were in a maze, a limitless world of conduits, cables, hull, passageways, ducts, and bulkheads. Their footsteps echoed eerily.

  "I wonder what all these pipes are for?" Minmei said, reaching out to touch one.

  "Maybe to cool some kind of energy unit." Rick shrugged.

  "Oh." Then, "Yow!" yelped Minmei, snatching her hand back, fingertips scalded.

  "You okay?"

  "Oh, I'm all right. It was just a little hot."

  Rick's eyebrows went up. "Well, now, that was pretty dumb."

  "Sorry." But as he started off again, Rick put his foot right in a puddle of oil and nearly landed flat on his face, flailing and slipping.

  "Um, what was that again?" Minmei asked sweetly. Rick grunted and strode off again.

  But they came at last to a big compartment filled with scrap, discarded machine parts. "I think it's a dead end," Rick judged.

  "You mean," Minmei said with a tremor in her voice, "we can't get back?"

  "You can't go searching for your friend now, Roy!" Claudia shouted at the screen.

  "But I know Rick's out there somewhere," the Skull Leader insisted. "I can't just abandon him."

  As much as Roy meant to her, Claudia couldn't help wishing she could reach through the screen into his cockpit and throttle him. "Listen, you can't just leave your post any time you feel like it! What if-"

  Gloval was clearing his throat meaningfully. "Lieutenant Grant, let me talk to him."

  She bit her lower lip but answered, "I'll patch you through on channel eight, sir."

  Gloval took up his handset. "Commander Fokker, your request is denied. I'm sorry to hear about your friend, but we have over seventy thousand civilian survivors aboard this ship, and we'll need every hand working full-time to ensure their safety."

  Roy's eyes narrowed. "Aye-aye, Captain. I guess friendship's a little more important to some of us than it is to others. Sorry to bother you, sir."

  Roy signed off, and Gloval slammed down the handset. "Insolent pup!"

  "Hothead," Claudia said under her breath, while Lisa tried to get her mind back on what she was doing, bleary-eyed from lack of sleep. She hoped she never heard Rick Hunter's name again in her life.

  "Where are we? What is this place?" Minmei wanted to know.

  "I dunno; it's huge," Rick exclaimed. Not that she couldn't see that for herself; the compartment was the size of a hangar, with piles of crates and equipment. But the astonishing thing about it was the cyclopean hatch at the far end.

  "Why don't we climb up and get a closer look at it?" Minmei proposed, heading for a nearby hill of boxes. As he helped her make the ascent, she bubbled, "Maybe there's a doorway at the top that's open and leads to a hallway that leads to the outside! Why, I could be home in time for dinner!"

  But while she rushed off in one direction, he spotted markings in another. "Hey, that thing is a giant air lock! Built to scale for those giant aliens!" He suddenly felt mouse-size and very vulnerable out there in the open. "I hope they don't come back… Minmei? Minmei! Where are you?"

  He dashed off to find her at a viewport, staring out as if hypnotized, into space. The debris and wreckage were much thicker, drifting past the ship.

  "Look at that," she said sadly. "What do you think happened?"

  "I don't know where all that stuff came from. It looks like a whole city blew up."

  Minmei seemed about to burst into tears. "Could… could all that be from home? From Macross?"

  The bridge crew was taking its first break in what seemed like years, sipping coffee, while Gloval was off on a personal inspection of the ship's situation.

  Lisa was shaking her head. "If the aliens attack us again, we won't have a chance."

  Vanessa said, "We should have standard communications working very shortly! Maybe Earth can tell us what's going on."

  Lisa was skeptical. "If we use conventional transmissions, we'll be taking a big chance. The aliens might get a fix on us; we could give away our location."

  "Commander Hayes," Sammie piped up from her duty station, "resettlement team five leader wishes to speak to you. He says it's urgent."

  Lisa put aside the coffee, knowing she wouldn't be finishing it any time soon.

  "Well, this one doesn't go anywhere either." Rick frowned, shining his light on the blank bulkhead before him. "How does your leg feel? Any better?"

  Minmei rubbed her ankle. "My leg's a lot better; I just twisted it, I guess. But I'm getting kind of thirsty."

  Rick considered that. "I've got some emergency rations in my plane, but I haven't got any water."

  But suddenly inspiration struck. "There's water all around us! Just wait right here!"

  He sprinted away while Minmei murmured. "I wonder what in the world he's talking about?"

  He was back in moments with a length of steel bar he'd spotted. "Ta-dum! I believe madam requested some water? Refreshments coming right up!"

  He wedged it into the junction of two pipes and began pulling at it to break them apart. "Careful! Don't hurt yourself!" Minmei warned.

  "Harder… than I thought," he said through gritted teeth.

  Minmei kicked off her shoes. "Let me help you!" Together they threw all their strength into the effort, the pipes creaking. It took everything they had, but at length there was a snapping of metal and the gushing of water.

  Luckily, it was tepid rather than superheated. Rick and Minmei fell backward to the deck as it fountained high to fall back on them like a downpour. "We got it! It's a geyser!" Rick shouted jubilantly. Minmei laughed, and he joined in.

  After a few moments of it she got up, sopping wet, and went to catch the streaming water in her hands. "Wow, this is wonderful! Well, I think I'll take a shower."

  "Huh?" was all Rick could think of to say.

  "Well, I might as well take advantage of this while it lasts." She began unfastening the back of her dress, then stopped to glance at Rick, whose mouth was a big O. "Ahh, Rick…"

  "Oh! Um. I, uh, guess I better go scout around a little, hmm?"

  She grinned, nodding. "And don't peek. Would you push that over here so I can use it as a shower curtain?" He lugged a big hunk of sheet metal into place across the open passageway hatch as he retreated.

  "Thank you!" she called over the splashing water. He noticed a small hole in the sheet metal and bent to inspect it, just checking of course, putting his eye to it.

  Minmei shrieked. Rick was back on the other side of the partition in a split second, visions of menacing alien giants da
unting him. "Minmei, what's wrong? I'm coming-"

  He slid to a halt. She was gazing at him with a mischievous glint in her eyes, long dark hair plastered flat against her by the falling water, arms folded, still wearing her dress. "I thought I saw something, there by the shower curtain."

  "Your imagination, maybe?" he said weakly.

  "Su-uure." She nodded sarcastically.

  "Yeah." He coughed. "Well. Excuse me, I-" He turned and hurried off.

  Minmei lost track of time, singing and humming, luxuriating in the feel and taste of the water. Then she heard a sound, too faint to identify.

  She, too, thought of alien giants. "Rick? If that's you, stop playing tricks!" She felt a wave of panic. "Rick, you answer me right now."

  A small roll of cloth was tossed through the gap in the makeshift partition. "Brought you some fresh clothes," he called. "It's an extra work shirt I had in the Mockingbird."

  After Rick grabbed a quick shower, they started back for the plane, guided by his inertial tracker and the markings he'd made at various passageway junctions in the course of their explorations.

  Rick tried not to be too obvious about ogling Minmei. The shirt was baggy on her but barely covered the tops of her thighs. Her lovely, coltish legs seemed to go on forever.

  She was in high spirits-it seemed to be her natural state. "That was just what I needed! I feel a whole lot better now. And thanks for the shirt, Rick."

  "You're welcome-"

  "Even if it is a bit big." She flopped the empty cuffs around to demonstrate, giggling.

  Minmei capered over to a highly polished metal panel, which reflected her image like a dark mirror. She made a comical face, sticking her tongue out and crossing her eyes, waggling the overlong sleeves. "'The Creature with No Hands! Nyyah!" She laughed.

  They'd come back to the compartment where the Mockingbird hung suspended. Rick went over and sat beneath it, on a pallet improvised from shipping crate padding he'd scavenged. He picked up a couple of flat cans.