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  AND A WOMAN

  SHALL LEAD THEM …

  As the Hovertanks charged, the Aliens led by the red Bioroid swooped at the Veritechs who stood their ground, firing, in Battloid configuration. The Bioroid blew away two of the VTs, easily avoiding most of their fire and shrugging off the rest.

  “Switch to Gladiator mode!” Dana called over the tac net. In midair the tanks shifted, reconfigured, mechamorphosed. When they landed, they were squat, two-legged, waddling gun turrets the size of houses, each with a massive primary-battery cannon.

  Dana hopped her Gladiator high, landing to one end of the Bioroid firing line, to set up an enfilade. But an alien had spotted her and swung to fire. Dana got off the first round and holed the outworld mecha with a searing energy bolt that left glowing, molten armor in its wake.

  “Gotcha!”

  By Jack McKinney

  Published by Ballantine Books:

  THE ROBOTECHTM SERIES

  GENESIS #1

  BATTLE CRY #2

  HOMECOMING #3

  BATTLEHYMN #4

  FORCE OF ARMS #5

  DOOMSDAY #6

  SOUTHERN CROSS #7

  METAL FIRE #8

  THE FINAL NIGHTMARE #9

  INVID INVASION #10

  METAMORPHOSIS #11

  SYMPHONY OF LIGHT #12

  THE SENTINELSTM SERIES

  THE DEVIL’S HAND #1

  DARK POWERS #2

  DEATH DANCE #3

  WORLD KILLERS #4

  RUBICON #5

  ROBOTECH: THE END OF THE CIRCLE #18

  ROBOTECH: THE ZENTRAEDI REBELLION #19

  ROBOTECH: THE MASTERS’ GAMBIT #20

  KADUNA MEMORIES

  THE BLACK HOLE TRAVEL AGENCY

  Book One: Event Horizon

  Book Two: Artifact of the System

  Book Three: Free Radicals

  Book Four: Hostile Takeover

  SOUTHERN CROSS

  METAL FIRE

  THE FINAL NIGHTMARE

  APPENDIX

  SOUTHERN

  CROSS

  DEDICATED TO ALL

  ROBOTECH FANS AND READERS

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  Those who were surprised at Dana Sterling’s choice of a career in the military displayed not only a lack of understanding about Dana but also a failure to comprehend the nature of Protoculture, and how it shaped destiny.

  After all, as a mere babe in arms Dana had played a pivotal part in a vital battle in the First Robotech War, the attack to take the Zentraedi’s orbital mecha factory; with two of the greatest fighters in history as parents, is it any surprise that she would follow the warrior’s trade?

  But more important, Dana is the only offspring of a Human/Zentraedi mating on Earth, and the Protoculture was working strongly through her. She is to be a centerpiece of the ongoing conflict the Protoculture has shaped, and that means being a Robotech soldier in excelsis.

  Dr. Lazlo Zand, notes for Event Horizon: Perspectives on Dana Sterling and the Second Robotech War

  IT WAS A DATE THAT EVERY SCHOOLCHILD KNEW, THOUGH FOR some its significance had become a bit blurred.

  But not for the people gathered in the auditorium at the Southern Cross Military Academy. Many of the veterans on the speakers’ platform and among the academy teaching staff and cadre knew the meaning of the date because they had lived through it. Everyone in the graduating class revered it and the tradition of self-sacrifice and courage it represented—a tradition being passed along to them today.

  “Today we celebrate not only your achievements as the first graduating class of the Academy,” Supreme Commander Leonard was saying, glowering down at the young men and women seated in rows before him. “We also celebrate the memory of the brave people who have served in our planet’s defense before you.”

  Leonard continued, summarizing the last great clash of the Robotech War. If he had stopped in mid-syllable, pointed at any one of the graduating cadets, and asked him or her to take the story from there, the graduate would have done it with even more detail and accuracy.

  They all knew it by heart: how Admiral Henry Gloval had taken the rusting, all-but-decommissioned SDF-1 into the air for a final confrontation with the psychopathic Zentraedi warlord Khyron, and died in the inferno of that battle.

  They also knew the high honor roll of the women of the bridge watch who had died with him: Kim Young; Sammie Porter; Vanessa Leeds—all enlisted rating techs scarcely older than any of the cadets—and Commander Claudia Grant.

  Sitting at the end of her squad’s row, Cadet Major Dana Sterling looked down the line of faces beside her. One, with skin the color of dark honey, stared up into the light from the stage. Dana could see that Bowie Grant—nephew of that same Commander Claudia Grant and Dana’s close friend since childhood—betrayed no emotion.

  Dana didn’t know whether to be content or worried. Carrying the name of a certified RDF hero could be a tough burden to bear, as Dana well knew.

  Leonard went on about unselfish acts of heroism and passing the torch to a roomful of cadets, none of whom had yet reached twenty. They had had it all drilled into them for years, and were squirming in their seats, eager to get moving, to get to their first real assignments.

  Or at any rate, most felt that way; looking down the line, Dana could see a withdrawn look on Bowie’s face.

  Leonard, with his bullet-shaped shaved head, massive as a bear and dripping with medals and ribbons, droned on to the end without saying anything new. It was almost silly for him to tell them that the Earth, slowly rebuilding in the seventeen years since the end of the Robotech War—fifteen since Khyron the Backstabber had launched his suicide attack—was a regrettably feudal place. Who would know that better than the young people who had grown up in it?

  Or that there must be a devotion to the common good and a commitment to a brighter Human future? Who had more commitment than the young men and women sitting there, who had sworn to serve that cause and proved their determination by enduring years of merciless testing and training?

  At last, thankfully, Leonard was done, and it was time to be sworn in. Dana came to attention with her squad, a unit that had started out company-size three years before.

  Dana stood straight and proud, a young woman with a globe of swirling blond hair, average height for a female cadet, curvaceous in a long-legged way. She was blue-eyed, freckled, and pugnosed, and very tired of being called “cute.” Fixed in the yellow mane over her left ear was a fashion accessory appropriate to her time—a hair stay shaped to look like a curve of instrumentation suggesting a half-headset, like a crescent of Robotechnology sculpted from polished onyx.

  The graduating class received their assignments as they went up to the stage to accept their diplomas. Dana found herself holding her breath, hoping, hoping.

  Then the supreme commander was before her, an overly beefy man whose neck spilled out in rolls above his tight collar. He had flaring brows and a hand that engulfed hers. But despite what the UEG public relations people said about him, she found herself disliking him. Leonard talked a good fight but had very little real combat experience; he was better at political wheeling and dealing.

  Dana was trying to hide her quick, shallow breathing as she went from Leonard’s too-moist handshake to the aide whose duty it was to tell the new graduates their first assignments.

  The aide frowned at a computer printout. Then he glanced down his nose at Dana, looking her over disapprovingly. “Congratulations. You go to the Fifteenth squad, Alpha Tactical Armored Corps,” he said with a sniff.

  Dana had learned how to hide emotions and reactions at the Academy; she was an old hand at it. So she didn’t squeal with delight or throw her diploma into the air in exultation.

  She was in a daze as
she filed back to her seat, her squad following behind. The ATACs! The 15th squad! Hovertanks!

  Let others try for the soft, safe, rear-echelon jobs, or the glamourous fighter outfits; nowadays the armored units were the cutting edge of Robotechnology, and the teeth and claws of the United Earth Government’s military—the Army of the Southern Cross.

  And the 15th had the reputation of being one of the best, if not the best. Under their daredevil leader, First Lieutenant Sean Phillips, they had become not only one of the most decorated but also one of the most court-martial-prone outfits around—a real black-sheep squad.

  Dana figured that was right up her alley. She would have been graduating at the top of her class, with marks and honors succeeding generations would have found hard to beat, if not for certain peccadillos, disciplinary lapses, and scrapes with the MPs. She knew most of it wasn’t really her fault, though. The way some people saw it, she had entered the Academy with several strikes against her, and she had had to fight against that the whole way.

  Cadets who called her “halfbreed” usually found themselves flat on their faces, bleeding, with Dana kneeling on them. Instructors or cadre who treated her like just one more trainee found that they had a bright if impulsive pupil; those who gave any hint of contempt for her parentage found that their rank and station were no protection.

  Cadet officers awakened to find themselves hoisted from flagpoles … a cadre sergeant’s quarters were mysteriously walled in, sealing him inside…. The debutante cotillion of the daughter of a certain colonel was enlivened by a visit from a dozen or so chimps, baboons, and orangutans from the Academy’s Primate Research Center … and so on.

  Dana reckoned she would fit into the 15th just fine.

  She realized with a start that she didn’t know where Bowie was going. She felt a bit ashamed that she had reveled in her own good fortune and had forgotten about him.

  But when she turned, Bowie was looking up the row at her. He flashed his handsome smile, but there was a resigned look to it. He held his hand up to flash five outspread fingers—once, twice, three times.

  Dana caught her breath. He’s pulled assignment to the 15th, too!

  Bowie didn’t seem to be too elated about it, though. He closed the other fingers of his hand and drew his forefinger across his throat in a silent gesture of doom, watching her sadly.

  The rest of the ceremonies seemed to go on forever, but at last the graduates were dismissed for a few brief days of leave before reporting to their new units.

  Somehow Dana lost Bowie in the crush of people. He had no family or friends among the watching crowd; but neither did she. All the blood relatives they had were years-gone on the SDF-3’s all-important mission to seek out the Robotech Masters somewhere in the far reaches of the galaxy.

  The only adult to whom Dana and Bowie were close, Major General Rolf Emerson, was conducting an inspection of the orbital defense forces and unable to attend the ceremony. For a time in her childhood, Dana had had three very strange but dear self-appointed godfathers, but they had passed away.

  Dana felt a spasm of envy for the ex-cadets who were surrounded by parents and siblings and neighbors. Then she shrugged it off, irritated at herself for the moment’s self-pity; Bowie was all the family she had now. She went off to find him.

  Even after three years in the Academy, Bowie was a cadet private, something he considered a kind of personal mark of pride.

  Even so, as an upperclassman he had spacious quarters to himself; there was no shortage of space in the barracks, the size of the class having shrunk drastically since induction day. Of the more than twelve hundred young people who had started in Bowie’s class, fewer than two hundred remained. The rest had either flunked out completely and gone home, or turned in an unsatisfactory performance and been reassigned outside the Academy.

  Many of the latter had been sent either to regional militias, or “retroed” to assorted support and rear-echelon jobs. Others had become part of the colossal effort to rebuild and revivify the war-ravaged Earth, a struggle that had lasted for a decade and a half and would no doubt continue for years to come.

  But beginning with today’s class, Academy graduates would begin filling the ranks of the Cosmic Units, Tactical Air Force, Alpha Tactical Armored Corps, and the other components of the Southern Cross. Enrollment would be expanded, and eventually all officers and many of the enlisted and NCO ranks would be people who had attended the Academy or another like it.

  Robotechnology, especially the second-generation brand currently being phased into use, required intense training and practice on the part of human operator-warriors. It was another era in human history when the citizen-soldier had to take a back seat to the professional.

  And somehow Bowie—who had never wanted to be a soldier at all—was a member of this new military elite, entrusted with the responsibility of serving and guarding humanity.

  Only, I’d be a lot happier playing piano and singing for my supper in some little dive!

  Sunk in despair, Bowie found that even his treasured Minmei records couldn’t lift his spirits. Hearing her sing “We Will Win” wasn’t much help to a young man who didn’t want anything to do with battle.

  How can I possibly live this life they’re forcing on me?

  He plucked halfheartedly at his guitar once or twice, but it was no use. He stared out the window at the parade ground, remembering how many disagreeable hours he had spent out there, when the door signal toned. He turned the sound system down, slouched over, and hit the door release.

  Dana stood there in a parody of a glamour pose, up on the balls of her feet with her hands clasped together behind her blond puffball hairdo. She batted her lashes at him.

  “Well, it’s about time, Bowie. How ya doing?” She walked past him into his room, hands still behind her head.

  He grunted, adding, “Fine,” and closed the door.

  She laughed as she stood looking out at the parade ground. “Su-ure! Private Grant, who d’you think you’re kidding?”

  “Okay! So I’m depressed!”

  She turned and gave him a little inclination of the head to acknowledge his honesty. “Thank you! And why are you depressed?”

  He slumped into a chair, his feet up on a table. “Graduation, I guess.”

  They both wore form-fitting white uniforms with black boots and black piping reminiscent of a riding outfit. But their cadet unit patches were gone, and Dana’s torso harness—a crisscross, flare-shouldered affair of burnt-orange leather—carried only the insignia of her brevet rank, second lieutenant, and standard Southern Cross crests. Dark bands above their biceps supported big, dark military brassards that carried the Academy’s device; those would soon be traded in for ATAC arm brassards.

  Dana sat on the bed, ankles crossed, holding the guitar idly. “It’s natural to feel a letdown, Bowie; I do too.” She strummed a gentle chord.

  “You’re just saying that to make me feel better.”

  “It’s the truth! Graduation Blues are as old as education.” She struck another chord. “Don’t feel like smiling? Maybe I should sing for you?”

  “No!” Dana’s playing was passable, but her voice just wasn’t right for singing.

  He had blurted it out so fast that they both laughed. “Maybe I should tell you a story,” she said. “But then, you know all my stories, Bowie.” And all the secrets I’ve ever been able to tell a full-breed Human.

  He nodded; he knew. Most people on Earth knew at least something of Dana’s origins—the only known offspring of a Zentraedi/Human mating. Then her parents had gone, as his had, on the SDF-3 expedition.

  Bowie smiled at Dana and she smiled back. They were two eighteen-year-olds about to take up the trade of war.

  “Bowie,” she said gently, here’s more to military life than just maneuvers. You can make it more. I’ll help you; you’ll see!” She sometimes thought secretly that Bowie must wish he had inherited the great size and strength of his father, Vince Grant, rather than t
he compact grace and good looks of his mother, Jean. Bowie was slightly shorter than Dana, though he was fierce when he had to be.

  He let out a long breath, then met her gaze and nodded slowly. Just then the alert whoopers began sounding.

  It sent a cold chill through them both. They knew that not even a martinet like Supreme Commander Leonard would pick this afternoon for a practice drill. The UEG had too much riding on the occasion to end it so abruptly.

  But the alternative—it was so grim that Dana didn’t even want to think about it. Still, she and Bowie were sworn members of the armed forces, and the call to battle had been sounded.

  Dana looked at Bowie; his face registered his dismay. “Red alert! That’s us, Bowie! C’mon, follow me!”

  He had been through so many drills and practices over the years that it was second nature to him. They dashed for the door, knowing exactly where they must go, what they must do, and superlatively able to do it.

  But now, for the first time, they felt a real, icy fear that was not for their own safety or an abstract like their performance in some test. Out in the corridor Dana and Bowie merged with other graduates dashing along. Duffel bags and B-4 bags were scattered around the various rooms they ran past, clothing and gear strewn everywhere; most of the graduates had been packing to go home for a while.

  Dana and Bowie were sprinting along with a dozen other graduates, then fifty, then more than half of the class. Underclassmen and women streamed from other barracks, racing to their appointed places. Just like a drill.

  But Dana could feel it, smell it in the air, and pick it up through her skin’s receptors: there was suddenly something out there to be feared. The cadet days of pretend-war were over forever.

  Suddenly, emphatically, Dana felt a deep fear as something she didn’t understand stirred inside her. And without warning she understood exactly how Bowie felt.

  The young Southern Cross fighters—none older than nineteen, some as young as sixteen—poured out of their barracks and formed up to do their duty.