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  Robotech Sentinels: The Devil’s Hand

  by Jack McKinney

  Book Thirteen of the Robotech series

  1988

  ROBOTECH CHRONOLOGY

  1999 Alien spacecraft known as SDF-1 crashlands on Earth through an opening in hyperspace, effectively ending almost a decade of Global Civil War.

  In another part of the Galaxy, Zor is killed during a Flower of Life seeding attempt.

  2002 Destruction of Mars Base Sara.

  2009 On the SDF-1’s launch day, the Zentraedi (after a ten-year search for the fortress) appear and lay waste to Macross Island. The SDF-1 makes an accidental jump to Pluto.

  2009-11 The SDF-1 battles its way back to Earth.

  2011-12 The SDF-1 spends almost half a year on Earth, is ordered to leave, and defeats Dolza’s armada, which has laid waste to much of the planet.

  2012-14 A two-year period of reconstruction begins.

  2012 The Robotech Masters lose confidence in the ability of their giant warriors to recapture the SDF-1, and begin a mass pilgrimage through interstellar space to Earth.

  2013 Dana Sterling is born.

  2014 Destruction of the SDFs 1 and 2 and Khyron’s battlecruiser.

  2014-20 The SDF-3 is built and launched. Rick Hunter turns 29 in 2020; Dana turns 7.

  Subsequent events covering the Tiresian campaign are recounted in the Sentinels series.

  A complete Robochronology will appear in the fifth and final volume.

  CHAPTER ONE

  I leave it up to the historians and the moralists to judge whether our decision (the Expeditionary mission) is right or wrong. I know only that it is prudent and necessary-necessary for our very survival both as a planet and as a life form. If the Protoculture has taught me anything, it is that one must simply act! When all is said and done the inevitabilities and reshapings will have their way, but to remain either complacent or inert in the face of those fatalities is to invite catastrophe of a higher order than any of us dare imagine.

  From the personal journal of Dr. Emil Lang

  In the middle of the night on an alien world, an army of insentient warriors dropped from the sky. Tirol, as this small moon was known, represented a prize of sorts-the end of a long campaign that had taken the invaders through a dozen local star systems and across the varied faces of twice that number of worlds-the remote realms of the once great empire of the Robotech Masters, forged and secured by their giant soldier clones, the Zentraedi. But Tirol itself was all but deserted, abandoned almost a generation earlier by those same Masters. So in effect this conquest was something of a disappointment for the horde who had raised savagery to new heights, something of a nonevent.

  But just as a rock tossed into a pond will make its presence known to distant shores, the Invid’s arrival on Tirol would send powerful waves through the continuum; and nowhere would the effects of their invasion be more greatly felt than on the world already inundated by previous tides from this same quarter-a blue-white gem of a planet that had seen better days, but was struggling still to regain control of its own fragile destiny…

  Earth had captured its second satellite in the year 2013, when a joint Terran and XT force had wrested it from the control of the Zentraedi commander, Reno, faithful to the Imperative even after Dolza’s fiery demise. The factory satellite was an enormous monstrosity, well in keeping with the grotesque design of the Zentraedi fleet, that had been folded instantaneously through space-time by Protoculture-fueled Reflex drives. It was radish-shaped and rose-colored in starlight, with fissures and convolutions suggestive of cerebral matter. Attached along its median section by rigid stalklike transport tubes were half a dozen secondary sacs and appendages, smaller by far, but equally vegetal in aspect, veined and incomprehensible.

  There were some 15,000 Humans and Zentraedi living onboard, a sizable portion of Earth’s post-apocalyptic population. The majority of these men and women had labored for six years inside the factory’s weightless belly to construct a starship, a dimensional fortress soon to be Tirolbound-there to confront the Robotech Masters, and with luck curtail any threat of continued warfare.

  Among those onboard were Vice Admiral Rick Hunter and his close friend and trusted commander, Max Sterling. From a viewport in the admiral’s quarters, the two men were watching null-gee construction crews put the finishing touches on the massive ship’s deliberately misleading superstructure.

  “I just don’t know whether we’re ready for this,” Rick was saying. He had turned from the viewport and was three strides toward the center of the room. “There are so many variables, so many things that could go wrong now.”

  Max followed him, a grin beneath the sympathetic look he had adopted. “Come on, what could go wrong?”

  Rick whirled on him. “Maybe I’m just not ready, Max!”

  Rick’s voice cracked on the word and Max couldn’t suppress a short laugh. “Ready? It’s been six years, Rick. How much more ready can you expect to be?”

  “Guess I’m not as good up against the unknowns anymore.” Rick shrugged, lowering his gaze. “I mean, we’ve got something good going already. So why jeopardize it, why tamper with it?”

  Max took his friend by the shoulders and gave him an affectionate shake. “Look, you and Lisa love each other, so quit worrying. Everything’s going to turn out fine. Besides, everybody’s excited about the wedding. And what are you going to do, walk out on ten thousand guests?”

  Rick felt the wisdom of it sink in, and smiled, self-mockingly.

  They had both aged well, the rigors of life on-and offworld notwithstanding; both had turned twenty-nine in March and had at least a few good years left in them. Rick stood taller and straighter now than he had during the war, and that combined with some added weight gave him a stronger, more capable look. This was enhanced by the cut of the Expeditionary Force’s high-collared uniform and torso harness, a crisscross, tailed, and flare-shouldered affair of black leather worn over tight-fitting trousers. He still wore his black hair stylishly long, though-a fashion the Veritech flyboys of the Robotech Defense Force had been largely responsible for. Max, too, had left behind the innocent look that had been something of a trademark. While Rick, Dr. Lang, and Lisa Hayes had devoted themselves to the SDF-3 project, Max had been busy distinguishing himself in the Southlands, especially during the Malcontent Uprisings of 2015-18. He still favored the blue hair tint he had affected during the war, likewise oversize aviator glasses to contacts or corrective microsurgery. Less than perfect vision had never handicapped his flying skills, in any case.

  Rick was glancing back at the SDF-3 now. “And everybody gets to ride in the limo.” He smirked.

  Fabricated from the hull and power drives of Breetai’s dreadnought and the salvaged remains from the SDFs 1 and 2, the ship was itself a wedding of sorts. Pursuant to Lang and Exedore’s requests, it was more Zentraedi than Terran in design: a nontransformable deepspace leviathan, bristling with antennae and blistered across its crimson surface with scanner ports and laser-array gun turrets.

  “We’ll make sure you two get the backseat,” Max said. “For at least a couple of hours, anyway.”

  Rick laughed from across the room; Max joined him at the external viewport, Earth’s incomparable beauty filling the view. Sunlight glinted off the alloyed hulls and fins of dozens of in-transit shuttles. Rick was staring down at the planet wistfully.

  “When’s Lisa due back?” Max asked him.

  “Tomorrow. But I’m thinking of shuttling down to meet her.”

  Max made an approving sound. “I’ll ride with you.”

  “When haven’t you,” Rick said, after a moment.

  With the destruction of the SDFs 1 and 2 on that fateful winter night in 2014, Macross’s sister city, Monument, had ri
sen to the fore as Earth’s unofficial capital. The irradiated remains of Macross had been bulldozed flat and pushed into what hadn’t been boiled away from Lake Gloval. Three enormous manmade buttes marked the resting place of the superdimensional fortresses, along with that of the Zentraedi cruiser that had destroyed them. But those mounds had not been completed before volunteer teams of valiant Robotechnicians had braved slow death to salvage what they could from the devastation.

  Thrice-born Macross, however, was not resurrected, as much by choice as anything else; but the name lived on in a kind of mythic way, and Monument City, to the southwest over a rugged ridge, was doing its best to carry the tradition forward. This would change after the SDF-3 departed, but in 2020 things were much as they were in the Macross of 2014. That is not to say that there weren’t sinister currents in the air for one and all to perceive; but the Expeditionary mission to Tirol was foremost on the minds of those who could have prevented the subsequent slide.

  Monument was the seat of the United Earth Government, but the most important building in that burgeoning city was the headquarters of the newly-formed Army of the Southern Cross, a politico-military party that had its origins in the Southlands during the Malcontent Uprisings, and had all but superseded the authority formerly enjoyed by RDF, most of which was slated for the Expeditionary mission. The headquarters was a soaring megacomplex whose central tower cluster had been built to suggest the white gonfalons, or ensigns, of a holy crusade hanging from high crosspieces. The high-tech needles were crowned with crenels and merlons, like some medieval battlement, announcing to all the world the ideals and esprit of the Army of the Southern Cross.

  Just now the building was host to a final press conference held jointly by members of the Expeditionary Mission Plenipotentiary Council, the RDF, and the Southern Cross. Dr. Emil Lang and the Zentraedi Ambassador, Exedore, spoke on behalf of the twelve-person council, while the military factions were represented respectively by Brigadier General Gunther Reinhardt and Field Marshal Anatole Leonard. The press was there in force, crowding the hall, jostling one another for position, snapping off shot after stroboscopic shot, and grilling the four-member panel with an overwhelming array of questions from special-interest groups and insulated power bases as distant as Cavern City and Brasilia in the Southlands.

  Lang was doing his best to respond to one of these; for the third time, someone in the press corps had returned to the issue of Earth’s potential vulnerability in the wake of the SDF-3’s departure. As the high priest of Robotechnology, Lang had little interest in such mundane concerns, but he was doing his best to restate the importance of the mission and repeat launch details that had already been covered in the press releases.

  “Final selections for the crew are proceeding and we should have no trouble meeting our launch schedule. If we are to avoid a second Robotech War, we must make peaceful contact with the Robotech Masters and establish a relationship of mutual cooperation.

  That is the mission of the SDF-3.”

  Murmurs of discontent spread through the crowd, and several reporters hurled insults of one sort or another. But then, could anyone expect anything in the way of a concrete response from someone like Lang? When the man chose to be profound, there were perhaps only a handful of scientists on Earth who could follow him. The rest of the time he came across as alien as any Zentraedi. Rumors and speculations about Lang went as far back as the early days on Macross Island, when he and Gloval, Fokker, Edwards, and a few others had first reconned the SDF-1, known then as “the Visitor.” He had taken a Zentraedi mind-boost, some claimed, a megadose of Protoculture that had somehow integrated his internal circuitry with that of the ship itself. Certainly his marblelike eyes lent credence to the tale. Although he had been more visible, more accessible these past few years, he was still the same ethereal man who had been the driving force behind Robotechnology since the turn of the century.

  “I want to take this opportunity to reemphasize that the Robotech Expeditionary Force is intended as a diplomatic mission,” Exedore added without being asked. “The SDF-3 will be traveling to the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, the third moon of the planet Fantoma, known as Tirol.” The Zentraedi motioned to the huge projection screen behind the speakers’ platform, which showed a color schematic of the ringed giant’s extensive system.

  “The Masters themselves have not engaged in actual combat for nearly six generations.

  However, it is impossible to predict with certainty how they will react to our mission. For that reason the SDF-3 has been outfitted with a considerable arsenal of Robotech weaponry. In the event that we are met with force, we shall be ready and able to defend ourselves. But I must press the point that the departure of the fortress will not leave the Earth undefended. Commander Leonard and his staff have all the capabilities for defense necessary to repel any invasion force. And as the planet is not presently threatened by any enemy, we feel confident that the Earth is in no jeopard-”

  “If I may interrupt for a moment,” Leonard said angrily, getting to his feet. He had been biting back his words for half the press conference, but had reached his breaking point when Exedore-the alien!-began to imply that the SDF-3 would be facing greater potential danger than abandoned Earth. Reporters throughout the hall-certainly those who had been planted there by the Southern Cross command to steer the conference toward this very confrontation-took advantage of the moment to get shots of the bearish, shaved-skulled field marshal confronting and towering over the XT ambassador.

  Leonard’s hatred of the Zentraedi was no secret among the general staff. He had never met Exedore full-size, as it were, but perhaps detested him even more in his Micronized state, especially since Terran cosmologists had gone to work on him, styling his hair with a widow’s peak, and concealing the clone’s dwarfish anatomy beneath specially-tailored uniforms. Leonard often wished that Exedore had been among the Zentraedi Malcontents he had hunted down in the Southlands…

  “I’m not as optimistic as the ambassador about the lack of an enemy threat,” Leonard continued, his face red with rage. “Mark my words, the departure of the SDF-3 and its weapons systems will leave the Earth hopelessly vulnerable to attack! Even that factory satellite’s going to be nothing but a useless shell when the Expeditionary Force leaves.

  They’ve stripped it clean-and you’ve stripped us clean!”

  “Gentlemen, please,” Lang tried to interject, stretching his arms out between the two of them. Reinhardt, with his bald pate, beard, and fringe of premature gray hair, leaned back in his chair, overshadowed by Leonard’s bulk.

  “It’s all very easy for him to say we’ll be safe,” the field marshal ranted. “When the attack comes, he’ll be on the other side of the galaxy!”

  “Frankly, I think you’re a bit paranoid, Commander,” Exedore announced evenly, almost clinically. “What attack do you mean-by whom, from where?”

  Leonard’s great jowls quivered; his eyes flashed a hatred even Exedore couldn’t help but feel. “For all we know, there could be a fleet of your fellow Zentraedi out there just waiting for us to drop our guard!”

  “That will be enough, Commander Leonard,” Reinhardt said at last. “Alarmist talk is of no use to anyone at this point.”

  Leonard swallowed the rebuke as flashes strobed without pause. He was aware that his position with the general staff was still somewhat tenuous; and besides, he had made his point.

  “Gentlemen, you’re cutting our defenses to almost nothing,” he concluded, as shouts filled the hall. “Once the SDF leaves orbit I won’t be able to defend the Earth against a flock of pigeons.”

  The press conference was being carried live around the world, and to Luna Base, Space Station Liberty, and the factory satellite. But where many were finding cause for concern in Leonard’s contentions, there was one viewer aboard the satellite who merely laughed it off.

  He had a drink in hand, his feet crossed on the top of the monitor in his spacious quarters.

  Leonard w
as overplaying the role, Major General T. R. Edwards told himself as he set the drink aside. But his performance would have the desired effect nonetheless.

  Edwards knew even then that the Southern Cross would eventually gain the upper hand.

  If necessary, Professor Lazlo Zand would see to that. And Senator Moran, whom they had spent years grooming for high office, would ascend to the seat reserved for him.

  Edwards fingered the ugly raised scars that coursed across the right side of his forehead and face-diagonally, from his hairline to the bridge of his nose, and from there in a reverse angle to the heel of his jawbone. The eye at the apex of this triangular disfiguration was dead, sewn shut to a dark slash. He would not be around to reap the immediate rewards of these complex conspiracies and manipulations, but all that could wait until his return from Tirol. First, there were scores to settle with older adversaries, scores that went back more than twenty years.

  Not far from the Southern Cross headquarters in one of Monument City’s more upscale shopping districts, Admiral Lisa Hayes was being fitted for her wedding gown. She had chosen one her late father would have approved of; it had a traditional, almost antebellum look, lots of satin, lace, and tulle, with a full, two-petticoat tiered skirt, long sleeves, and a simple round neck. The veil was rather short in contrast, with baby’s breath and two silk roses affixed to the headband. Lisa gave an appreciative nod as the two fitters fell back smiling, allowing her center place in the shop’s mirrored wall. She ran her fingers under the flip of her shoulder-length auburn hair-still unaccustomed to the cut-and said, “Perfect.”

  In the front room, Dr. Jean Grant and Captain Miriya Sterling wondered aloud what was taking Lisa so long, not out of concern but anticipation. The day was something of a shopping spree for Jean and Miriya as well; in less than a week they would be on their way to Tirol, and on this trip out the SDF wouldn’t be traveling with a full city in its belly.

  And who knows what to expect in the way of shops on Tirol, Max had quipped when the two women left the factory satellite. They had brought the kids along, Dana and Bowie, both nearing eight years old, presently bored and antagonistic.