Symphony of Light

  Symphony of Light

  By Jack McKinney 1987

  For the West Coast contingent: Julia, Jesse, and Daniel

  CHAPTER ONE

  I am intrigued by these beings and their strange rituals, which center around this plant their language calls "the Flower of Life." This world, Optera, is a veritable garden for the plant in its myriad forms, and the Invid seem to utilize all these for physical as well as spiritual nutrition-they ingest the flower's petals and the fruits of the mature crop, in addition to drinking the plant's psychoactive sap. The Regis, the Queen-Mother of this race, is the key to unlocking Optera's mysteries; and I have set myself the goal of possessing this key-if I have to seduce this queen to make that happen!

  Zor's log: The Optera Chronicles

  (translated by Dr. Emil Lang)

  It was never Scott's intention to make camp at the high pass; he had simply given his okay for a quick food stop-if only to put an end to all the grousing that was going on. Lunk's stomach needed tending to; Annie was restless from too many hours in the APC; and even Lancer was complaining about the wind chill.

  Oh, to be back in the tropics, Scott thought wistfully.

  He had always been one for wastes and deserts-weathered landscapes, rugged, ravaged by time and the stuff of stars-but only because he knew of little else. Here he had been to the other side of the galaxy and remained the most parochial member of the team in spite of it. But since their brief stopover in the tropics, he had begun to understand why Earth was so revered by the crew of the Expeditionary Mission, those same men and women who had raised him aboard the SDF-3 and watched him grow to manhood on Tirol. In the tropics he had had a glimpse of the Earth they must have been remembering: the life-affirming warmth of its yellow sun, the splendor of its verdant forests, the sweetness of its air, and the miracle that was its wondrous ocean.

  Even if Rand had insisted that they try that swimming!

  Scott would have almost been willing to trade victory itself for another view of sunset from that Pacific isle...

  Instead, he was surrounded by water in the forms more familiar to him: ice and snow. The thrill the team had experienced on reaching the Northlands and realizing that Reflex Point was actually within reach had been somewhat dampened by the formidable range of mountains they soon faced. But Scott was determined to make this as rapid a crossing as was humanly possible. Unfortunately, the humanly possible part of it called for unscheduled stops. It was Lunk's APC that was slowing them down, but there was that old one about a chain being only as strong as its weakest link. The land vehicles were approaching the summit of the mountain highway now. Rook and Lancer, riding Cyclones, were escorting the truck along the mostly ruined switchback road that led to the pass. The ridgeline above was buried under several feet of fresh snow, but the vehicles were

  making good progress on the long grade nonetheless.

  Scott was overhead in the Beta, with Rand just off the fighter's wingtip. Short on fuel canisters, they had been forced to leave Rook's red Alpha behind, concealed in the remains of a school gymnasium building in the valley. Scott planned to retrieve it just as soon as they located a Protoculture supply ripe for pilfering. Down below, Annie and Marlene were waving up at the VTs from the back seat of the APC; Scott went on the mecha's tac net to inform Lunk that a rest stop was probably in order.

  The two Robotech fighters banked away from the mountain face to search out a suitable spot, and within minutes they were reconfiguring to Guardian mode and using their foot thrusters to warm a reasonably flat area of cirque above the road and just shy of the saddle. By the time they put down, the sun had already dropped below one of the peaks, but the temperature was still almost preternaturally warm. The weather was balmy enough for the two pilots to romp around in their duotherm suits, especially with the added luxury of residual heat from the snow-cleared moraine. There was a strong breeze rippling over the top of the col, but it carried with it the scent of the desert beyond.

  The rest of the team joined them in a short time. Lunk, Rook, and Lancer began to unload the firewood they had hauled up from the tree line, while Rand went to work on the deer he had shot and butchered. Moonrise fringed the eastern peaks in a kind of silvery glow and found the seven freedom fighters grouped around a sizzling fire. The northern sky's constellations were on display. Scott had developed a special fondness for the brilliant stars of the southern hemisphere, but Gemini and Orion were reassuring for a different reason: They reinforced the fact that Reflex Point was close at hand. He had to admit, however, that it was foolish to be thinking of the Invid central hive as some sort of end in itself, when really their arrival there would represent more in the way of a beginning. He wondered whether the rest of the team understood this-that the mission, as loose as it was, was focused on destroying the hive, or at the very least accumulating as much recon data as possible to be turned over to Admiral Hunter when the Expeditionary Force returned to Earth for what would surely be the final showdown.

  Glancing at his teammates, Scott shook his head in wonder that they had made it as far as they had, a group of strangers all but thrown together on a journey that had so far covered thousands of miles.

  Scott regarded Lunk while the big, brutish man was laughing heartily, a shank of meat gripped in his big hand. He had done so much for the team, yet he still seemed to carry the weight of past defeats on his huge shoulders. Then there was Annie, their daughter, mascot, mother, in the green jumpsuit that had seen so much abuse and the ever-present E.T. cap that crowned her long red hair. She had almost left them a while back, convinced she had found the man of her dreams in the person of a young primitive named Magruder. It wasn't the first time she had wandered away, but she always managed to return to the fold, and her bond with Lunk was perhaps stronger than either of them knew.

  Rand and Rook, who could almost have passed for siblings, had had their moments of doubt about the mission as well. They had formed a fiery partnership, one that seemed to rely on strikes and counterstrikes; but it

  was just that unspoken pact that kept them loyal to the team, if only to prove something to each other.

  More than anyone, Lancer had remained true to the cause. Scott had grown so accustomed to the man's lean good looks, his lavender-tinted shoulder-length hair and trademark headband, that he had almost forgotten about Yellow Dancer, Lancer's alter ego. That feminine part of the Robotech rebel was all but submerged now, especially so since the tropics, when something had occurred that had left Lancer changed and Scott wondering.

  But the most enigmatic among them was the woman they had named Marlene. She was not really a member of the team at all but the still shell-shocked victim of an Invid assault, the nature of which Scott could only guess. It had robbed her of her past but left her with an uncanny ability to sense the enemy's presence. Her fragile beauty reminded Scott of the Marlene in his own past, killed when the Mars Division strike force had first entered Earth's atmosphere almost a year ago...

  "You know, just once I'd like to sit down and eat steak until I pass out," Lunk was saying, tearing into the venison like some ravenous beast.

  "Just keep eating like you're eating and you might get your wish," Rand told him, to everyone's amusement.

  "I've never met anyone who had such a thing for food," Rook added, theatrically amazed, strawberryblond locks caught in the firelight.

  Scott poured himself a cup of coffee and waited for the laughter to subside. "You know, Lunk, we've still got a full day left in these mountains, so I'd save some of that for tomorrow if I were you." Always the team leader, he told himself. But it never seemed to matter all that much.

  "Well, you're not me, Scott," Lunk said, licking his fingertips clean. "Sorry to report that I've eaten it all
."

  "You can always catch a rabbit, right, Lunk?" Lancer told him playfully.

  Annie frowned, thinking daunt just how many rabbits they had dined on these past months. "I'm starting to feel sorry for rabbits."

  Rand made a lace. "They like it when one of them gets caught, Annie. It gives them a chance to go back to the hutch and-"

  Rook elbowed him before he could get the word out, but the team had already discerned his meaning and was laughing again.

  Even Marlene laughed, eyes all wrinkled up, luxuriant hair tossed back. Scott was watching her and complimenting Rand at the same time, when he saw the woman's joyous look begin to collapse. Marlene went wide-eyed for a moment, then folded her arms across her chest as though chilled, hands clutching her trembling shoulders.

  "Marlene," Annie said, full of concern.

  "Are you feeling sick or something?" Lunk asked.

  But Lancer and Scott had a different interpretation. They exchanged wary looks and were already reaching for their holstered hip howitzers when Scott asked: "Are the Invid coming back, Marlene? Do you feel them returning?"

  "Form up!" Rand said all at once, pulling back from the circle. "Weapons ready!"

  Annie went to Marlene's side while the others drew their weapons and got to their feet, eyes sweeping the snow and darkness at the borders of the firelight. "Anyone hear anything?" Rand whispered. No one did; there was just the crackling of the fire and the howl of the wind. Rand had the H90 stiff-armed in front of him and only then, a few feet away from the fire, began to sense how cold it was getting. There was moisture in the wind now and light snow in the air. Behind him, he heard Rook breathe a sigh of relief and reholster her wide-bore. When he turned back to the fire, she was down on one knee alongside Marlene, stroking the frightened woman's long hair soothingly.

  "It's all right, Marlene. Believe me, you don't have a thing to worry about. We're safe now, really."

  Marlene whimpered, shaking uncontrollably. "What's wrong with me, Rook? Why do I feel like this?"

  "There's nothing wrong with you. You just have to understand that you had a terrible shock, and it's going to take a while to get over it."

  Lancer put away his weapon and joined Rook. "Maybe I can help," he

  told her. Then, gently: "Marlene, it's Lancer. Listen, I know what you're going through. It's painful and it frightens you, but you have to be strong. You have to survive, despite the pain and fear."

  "I know," she answered him weakly, her head resting on her arms. "Just have faith that it'll get better. Soon it'll get better for all of us." Still vigilant, Rand and Scott watched the scene from across the fire.

  The young Forager made a cynical sound. "That sounds a little too rich for my blood."

  "Optimistic or not, Rand, he's right," Scott returned.

  Rand's eyes flashed as he turned. "I only wish I felt that confident."

  Not far from the warmth and light of the fire, something monstrous. was pushing itself up from beneath the snow-covered surface. It was an unearthly ship of gleaming metals and alloys, constructed to resemble a life-form long abandoned by the race that had fashioned it. To Human eyes it suggested a kind of bipedal crab with massive triple-clawed pincer arms and armored legs ending in cloven feet. There was no specific head, but there were aspects of the ship's design that suggested one, central to which was a single scanner that glowed red like some devilish mouth when the craft was inhabited. And flanking that head were two organic-looking cannons, each capable of delivering packets of plasma fire in the form of annihilation discs.

  Originally a race of shapeless, protoplasmic creatures, the creators of the ship, the Invid, had since evolved to forms more compatible with the beings they were battling for possession of Earth. This creative transformation of the race had its beginnings on a world as distant from Earth as this new form was distant from the peaceful existence the Invid had once known. But all this went back to the time before Zor arrived on Optera; before the Invid Queen-Mother, the Regis, had been seduced by him; and before Protoculture had been conjured from the Flower of Life...

  The Regis had failed in countless attempts at fashioning herself in Zor's image but had at last succeeded in doing so with one of her children-the

  Simulagent Ariel, whom the Humans called Marlene. Then, upon losing her through a trick of fate, the Queen-Mother had created Corg and Sera, the warrior prince and princess who were destined to rule while the Regis carried on with the experiment that would one day free her race from all material constraints.

  It was Sera's ship that surfaced next, the heat of its sleek hull turning the glacial ice around its feet to slush. Purple and trimmed in pink, the craft was more heavily armed than its companion ship, with a smaller head area sunk between massive shoulders and immensely strong arms. Momentarily, four additional ships of the more conventional design surfaced around the Humans and their windblown fire.

  Sera heard the Queen-Mother's command emanate through the bio-construct ship that had led the squad to the high pass.

  "All Scouts and Shock Troopers: you may move into your attack positions at this time! Sera, you will now take command. You are personally responsible for the elimination of these troublesome insurgents."

  Sera signaled her understanding with a nod of her head toward the cockpit's commo screen. She had dim memories of a time not long ago when she had fought against these Humans in a different climate, and accompanying this was a dim recollection of failure: of Shock Trooper ships in her charge blown to pieces, of an inability on her part to perform as she had been instructed by the Regis...But all this was unclear and mixed with a hundred new thoughts and reactions that were vying for attention in her virgin mind.

  "As you command, Regis," she responded as confidently as she was able, her scanners focused on the seven Humans huddled around the fire. "We now have them completely surrounded. And with our superior abilities, we will succeed in carrying out your...your orders." Somewhat more mechanically, she added, "Nothing will stop us."

  Had the Regis heard her falter? Sera asked herself. She waited for some suggestion of displeasure, but none was forthcoming. It was only then that she allowed herself to increase the magnification of her scanner and zero in

  on the Human whose face had caused her lapse of purpose.

  It's him! she thought, once again taking in the fine features of the one whose strange, seductive, and achingly beautiful sounds had drawn her to that jungle pool; the one who had surprised her there, stood naked before her, holding her in the grip of his strong hands and assaulting her with questions she could not answer. And it was this same Human she had glimpsed later during the heat of battle when her own hand had betrayed her...

  "Sera! You're waiting too long!" the Regis shouted through the bio-construct's comlink.

  Sera felt the strength of the Queen-Mother begin to creep into her own will and force her hand toward the weapon's trigger stud, but one part of her struggled against it, and at the last moment, even as the weapon was firing, she managed to swing the ship's cannon aside, so that the shot went astray...

  Lancer was just commenting on the beauty of the snowfall when the first enemy blast struck, flaring overhead and erupting like a midnight sun in the snowfields near the grounded VTs-a single short burst of annihilation discs that had somehow missed their mark. Scott was the first to react, propelling himself out of the circle into a tuck-and-roll, which landed him on his knees in the perimeter snow, his MARS-Gallant handgun raised. But before he could squeeze off a quantum of return fire, a second Invid volley skimmed into the team's midst, sending him head over heels and flat on his face. He inhaled a faceful of snow and rolled over in time to see a series of explosions rip through the camp, brilliant white geysers leaping from plasma pools of hellfire. On the ridgeline he caught a brief glimpse of an Invid Trooper before it was eclipsed by clouds of swirling snow.

  The rest of the team had already scattered for cover. Scott spied Lancer hunkering down behind an arc of moraine sli
de and yelled for him to stay put as Invid fusillades swooshed down into a gully below the ridge, throwing up a storm of ice and shale. Rand, meanwhile, was closing on the

  Alpha Fighter, discs nipping at his boot heels from two Invid Troopers who had positioned themselves just short of the saddle. Running a broken course through the snow, he clambered up onto the nose of the Veritech and managed to fling open its canopy. But the next instant he was flat on his back beneath the radome of the fighter, a Shock Trooper towering above him. Frantically, Rand brought his hands to his face, certain the Trooper's backhand pincer swipe had opened him up. But the thing had missed.

  Now, he thought, all I've gotta do is keep from being roasted alive!

  Radiant priming globes had formed at the tip of the cannon muzzles; as these winked out, platters of blinding orange light flew toward him like some demon's idea of Frisbee. Rand cursed and rolled, thinking vaguely back to that deer he had killed down below...

  Two hundred yards away Scott was on his feet, blasting away at the Invid command ship positioned on the ridge. Unless his eyes betrayed him, it was the same ship that had been sent against them during their ocean crossing to the Northlands. And that was a bad sign indeed, because it meant that the Regis had finally gotten around to singling the team out as a quarry worthy of pursuit. He squinted into the storm and fired, uncertain if the ship was still there. The wind had picked up now, and icy flakes of biting snow were adding to the chaos. From somewhere nearby he heard Lancer shout: "Behind you, Scott!" and swung around to face off with a Trooper that was using the Veritechs for cover. Scott traded half a dozen shots with it before a deafening explosion threw him violently out of the fray; he felt an intense flashburn against his back and was eating snow a moment later. Coming to, he had a clear view of the ridge, of the pastel-hued command ship standing side by side with a somewhat smaller Trooper. The Trooper had lifted off by the time Scott scrambled to his feet; it put down in front of him, sinking up to its articulated knee joints in the snow. Scott stumbled backward, searching for cover, while the Invid calmly raised its clawed pincer for a downward strike.