Doomsday: The Macross Saga Page 13

  At first it looked as though involvement in the detail was going to spell disaster, but Rico’s concerns were shortly laid to rest. To the Zentraedi, “repair” was not only a foreign notion but a magical process. Karita and the others had been handed digging devices called shovels and pickaxes and after a few moments of familiarization were completely absorbed in their tasks. They were joyfully swinging and shoveling, shoulder to shoulder with Micronians, even joining them in song! It was too perfect, Rico told himself: They would be fed and cared for and looked after. Now, as long as none of them had to speak …

  With Konda and Bron in tow, Rico managed to weasel out of the area. The three former operatives had far more important things to concern themselves with than clearing debris from the walkways. It was time to turn themselves in.

  Expecting nothing less than complete acceptance and full cooperation, Rico and his cohorts brazenly approached one of the nearby patrol posts and confessed to being Zentraedi agents. But something was wrong; Rico wasn’t being taken at his word. The soldier was actually laughing at them. So he grew more insistent.

  “I’m telling you, we’re Zentraedi. We came into the fortress inside one of our battle mecha—”

  “You’re a little short to be a Zentraedi, aren’t you, buddy?” the soldier interrupted.

  “We’ve been through the resizing process,” Bron attempted to explain. “We’re micronized.”

  The soldier exchanged winks with one of his companions.

  “‘Micronized,’ huh? Well, why didn’t you say so in the first place?” He put his hand on Rico’s shoulder and spun him gently left. “You want that place, right over there. You see, where it says ‘medical assistance.’”

  “‘Medical assistance,’” Rico repeated. “All right, thanks.” He turned to Bron and Konda and said, “Come on.”

  “Shell shock,” the lieutenant said to his corporal as the three sackclothed men walked away. “Some kind of martyr thing by the look of it.”

  At the first-aid station they went through an almost word-for-word repeat performance. But eventually a female wearing a white uniform with a red-cross emblem escorted them into the office of a man who introduced himself as Dr. Zeitgeist.

  The room was large and spacious and lined floor to ceiling with archaic document displays. The “doctor” himself was a portly Micronian with an abundance of facial hair but very little on his cranium. He spoke with an accent that made his curious utterances and phrases even more difficult to comprehend. But undaunted, Rico proceeded to recount the details of their desertion from the Zentraedi.

  Zeitgeist gave a long “I seeeee …” when Rico finished, and leaned back in his swivel chair. He regarded the three couched men in sackcloths for a moment, then began to review what they’d told him.

  “So you three think you’re Zentraedi soldiers,” said Zeitgeist. (What he actually said was closer to: “Zo you zree zink you’re Zentraedi zoldiers.”) “You were first sent here as spies, but you grew to so love our …” he consulted his notes, “‘Micronian’ society that you decided to desert your armed forces and live with us.”

  “Yes, that’s it,” the three said in unison.

  “I zeeeee …” said Zeitgeist.

  It was the most richly detailed case of guilt-induced Type-Seven behavior that it had been his pleasure to diagnose in many a day. Certainly a step up from the space phobias, null-g sickness, and separation anxieties he’d been nursing along for the past two years. And so thorough and laden with symbolism—from the flagellants’ robes to the talk of espionage and “micronization”—that wonderful word which really captured the human sense of displacement one felt inside the alien dimensional fortress. Why he could almost see the journal paper writing itself: “Micronization: The Phobia of Containment.”

  “And you would ez-timate your actual height,” the doctor continued, “to be approx-zimately fifty ‘Micronian’ feet?”

  Rico turned a sober face to Bron and Konda.

  “He doesn’t believe us.”

  Bron got to his feet: “We can prove it,” he told Zeitgeist. “Bring us to one of your commanders. We’ll tell him things about our battle mecha that will convince him.”

  Over the course of the next few hours the good doctor saw his hopes for a journal paper dashed, but he did begin to think about opening up a counseling clinic for disaffected extraterrestrials. Meanwhile the three Zentraedi were prodded, poked, searched, examined, analyzed, interviewed, tested, scoped, scanned, evaluated, appraised, and assessed. They were moved from office to office, city to cell, and barracks to base. They saw more different types of uniforms than they would have believed existed in the Fourth Quadrant of the known universe. And finally, they were brought before the fortress’s commander in chief, Captain Henry Gloval.

  Gloval had done little more than browse through the foot-high stack of reports on the debriefing room desk—psychiatric evaluations, intelligence test reports, military and medical examinations, interview transcripts—but he had seen enough to convince him that the aliens’ claims were true. What they knew about the workings of the Battlepods alone would have been sufficient evidence. And their very existence in “micronized” size had fully substantiated Lisa’s aftermission reports regarding some sort of reduction device aboard the enemy flagship. The clone issue would have to await the results of the medical tests. That these three had actually been in the fortress previously was as amazing as it was discomforting; it was no wonder that Dr. Lang was dying to get his hands on them. First, however, it was up to Gloval and the high command to decide exactly what to do with them. What, in fact, did they want? And how many others like them might be aboard the SDF-1 at that very moment?

  These were questions he hoped to have answered before the special session with colonels Maistroff and Caruthers convened.

  Lisa Hayes and Max Sterling were now admitted to the room, and shortly thereafter the three aliens were escorted in.

  Lisa’s first impression erased all doubts that she might have had; in fact, there was almost something familiar about these three. Rico put a quick end to her puzzlement.

  “We were present at your interrogation,” he explained. “Remember when you kissed one of the male members of your group?”

  Even though that tidbit had been included in her report, she blushed at hearing about it—from a Zentraedi, no less. Rico went on to give details of that meeting with Dolza that were more complete than Rick, Lisa, and Ben’s collective recollection. Then he went on to talk about Breetai and Exedore and someone named Khyron, who had been responsible for turning the tide during the attack on Macross City. The alien also mentioned Protoculture and Zentraedi fears concerning a Micronian secret weapon. They wanted to stay aboard the fortress—this much was clear—and more than anything they wanted to see Minmei!

  By this time Gloval looked like someone on the verge of sensory overload. His eyes were wide, and his mustache was twitching. “That’s enough for now,” he said, holding up his hands. “We’ll carry on with this session in the presence of colonels Maistroff and Caruthers. And Lisa,” he added as an aside, “I want you to request that Lieutenant Hunter join us immediately.”

  CHAPTER

  THIRTEEN

  When one sits down to a serious side-by-side study of the log entries of the two commanders [Gloval and Breetai], a curious pattern begins to emerge which I believe has been overlooked by many of [the Robotech War’s] commentators and historians … And by the time we’ve reached those entries written just prior to Dolza’s direct involvement in the war, this parallel pattern has become self-evident, especially with regard to Lynn-Minmei’s importance, the growing disaffection among the ranks, and the defiant stance adopted by both Gloval and Breetai toward their respective high commands (the UEDC and Dolza). It is almost as if two years of space warfare had created what two centuries ago was called a folie à deux.

  Rawlins, Zentraedi Triumvirate:

  Dolza, Breetai, Khyron

  “Lieutenant Hunt
er’s presence is requested in HQ Special Sessions chamber immediately.” No explanation, no afterword, Rick told himself. What, he wondered, had he done now?

  There had been no sleep following the battle; the fortress was still on red alert, and all available men and women in the Defense Force were on duty. Most of the tech, engineering, and construction crews had been assigned to Macross, where the civilians had organized work details and clean-up was already under way. Indigo and Brown VT teams patrolled the city streets in Battloid mode, wary that some Zentraedi might have survived. The SDF-1 was swept stem to stern for infiltration units, but save for the Daedalus arm and the city itself, there were no signs of enemy penetration. Although casualty counts were not yet complete, there was little doubt that the losses sustained would number well into the hundreds, and this didn’t take into account a civilian body count. It would take days to sort through the rubble surrounding the amphitheatre alone—a good deal of which Rick and Max had been responsible for after the CD squads had successfully stampeded a horde of Battlepods right into their laps.

  His blood lust quenched, Rick felt like some sort of over-stimulated incandescent bulb; sleep, even if it was granted by his superiors, would probably elude him for weeks. And when that burnout point was finally reached, it was going to be one heck of a downhill run to hell … He had been ordered to the Prometheus, where he was supervising mecha triage when the request from Lisa Hayes reached him.

  Standing outside the Special Sessions chamber now, he returned a sentry’s salute, tugged at the hem of his jacket, tried in vain to dewire himself somewhat, and rapped decisively on the door.

  The large room was familiar to him from two other occasions—when he had been awarded the titanium Medal of Valor and during his debriefing after imprisonment aboard the Zentraedi flagship. Command would be seated behind a somewhat U-shaped desk above which was the kitelike Robotech emblem centered in an embossed Defense Forces silver shield. There were bound to be one or two armed sentries positioned on either side of the door, a session transcriber, and of course some hot seat in front of the desk, which Rick hoped had not been reserved for him.

  “Lieutenant Hunter reporting as ordered.” Rick saluted.

  “At ease, Lieutenant Hunter. That was a request, not an order.”

  Rick wasn’t about to relax; he quickly scanned the room. Gloval was seated casually below the shield, elbows on the desk; to his right were Max Sterling and Lisa. On the captain’s left, as stiff as ever, were colonels Maistroff and Caruthers, burly veteran commanders both, thick-jowled, tight lipped clones in different color uniforms.

  Three men were in the hot seat.

  As Rick moved closer, he could see that they were similarly dressed in coarsely woven dark-colored robes. Their strangely unnatural skin tones and hair color varied greatly. And yet there was something familiar about them, something that caught Rick in the pit of his stomach when the three turned around to regard him, something his thoughts and voice refused to make clear but his face betrayed.

  “Yes,” Captain Gloval said. “These … men are aliens.”

  Rick shook his head. Had Gloval taken leave of his senses? The Zentraedi were giant warriors, killers! Their huge body parts and remains were scattered all over Macross City for one and all to see. Rick had seen to that! But even as his mind was shouting all this to his inner ear, an irrefutable realization was fighting its way to the surface.

  “B-but how?” Rick stammered.

  “Apparently those were reduction chambers that we saw, Lieutenant Hunter,” said Lisa, picking up on his confusion and distress.

  “It’s pleasant to see you again, Lieutenant,” said the gray-faced Zentraedi.

  “Yes, not long ago you were in a similar position,” added the heavy one.

  A similar position? Rick asked himself. Then recognition joined realization: These three had been present during the interrogation!

  “But what are they doing here, Commander?” Rick held his hands out in a gesture of uncertainty. “Were they captured, or, uh …”

  “They have come in peace, Hunter.”

  “Voluntarily and at great personal risk,” said Lisa. “They’re asking for our protection.”

  Rick was stunned. “Protection? Are we supposed to say, ‘All is forgiven, be my guest,’ or what?” He turned to Gloval. “Have you seen Macross, Captain?”

  “Relax, Lieutenant.”

  “Then what do you want from me—my tacit approval?”

  “You’re here for the same reason that I asked Commander Hayes and Lieutenant Sterling to join us: because you’ve had prior contact with the aliens.”

  Rick turned to the aliens. They were pressed together on the hot seat couch, expectant, almost jubilant looks on their faces.

  “Why? What are your reasons for deserting, for wanting to join us? You don’t know anything about us.”

  “We want to live the Micronian life,” said Bron.

  “There is happiness aboard this ship,” said Konda.

  “Minmei is here,” said Rico.

  Rick was speechless. Did the alien really say “Minmei” or had he just imagined it? All of a sudden he felt nauseated. His voice sounded thin and strained as he asked them how they knew about Micronian ways and … Minmei. And their answer was even more surprising than he had feared.

  “We have already lived among you as spies.”

  For Rick’s benefit the captain recapped what had been learned in previous debriefing sessions with the aliens. How they had been inserted into the SDF-1 at the same time Lisa and Rick’s Vermilion Team had made their great escape; how the three agents had walked unnoticed for weeks through Macross City; how they had made their own great escape from Bird Island; how tales of their exploits and disaffection with war had spread through the Zentraedi fleet; how there were more than a dozen others like them aboard the fortress even now; and how Minmei was at the center of it all.

  “… And the most beautiful things of all were Minmei’s singing and the fact that males and females, er, stayed together.”

  “Some people even spoke out against fighting,” Rico added.

  Kyle! Rick said to himself.

  “Once we became used to it,” Konda was saying, “we started to like living here.”

  “We can’t go back,” Bron reminded them.

  “And what would be the sense, since it is known that you control the Protoculture.”

  All heads turned to purple-haired Konda.

  “Exactly what is this ‘Protoculture’?” asked Caruthers, speaking for the first time since Rick’s entrance.

  “You know exactly what it is,” Bron said flatly.

  “It’s not nice to make fun of us.”

  Rico seemed to be sincere about it, but Gloval wanted to avoid the issue of Protoculture during this first session. He cleared his throat and asked Rick how he would feel about granting the aliens political asylum.

  Rick had sensed it coming for a while and had been slowly formulating his thoughts. “I would be in favor of it,” he told the panel. “If only as a first step toward a possible truce or peace.” There was no need to mention the obvious military advantages to be gained once the aliens had been fully debriefed.

  “I can’t believe what I’m hearing,” said Caruthers. “Just a moment ago you were reminding us of the atrocities that these … creatures had perpetrated on Macross, and now you’re willing to grant them asylum.”

  “Really, Captain Gloval,” Maistroff added, picking up the ball. “Don’t you think we should be consulting with someone who has a clearer understanding of this entire matter? I, for one, am not convinced of their claims. This is a ruse.”

  “Hmmm,” Gloval mused. “Anything you want to add, Hunter?”

  Rick faced the colonels. “The aliens are bred for war and conquest. It’s the only life they’ve known. But contact with our ways has erased who knows how many generations of aggressive conditioning almost overnight. Singing, marriage, love. Even a kiss can set them off—Com
mander Hayes and I indicated that much in our report.

  “There has to be some attempt made at peace.”

  “Good lord, man!” said Caruthers, his fist striking the desktop. “You’re talking about living with aliens!”

  Maistroff mirrored the gesture. “They may look like us, Lieutenant Hunter, but don’t be fooled: I’m certain that this is some sort of Zentraedi trap.”

  “You weren’t aboard that Zentraedi cruiser, Colonel. I’m telling you, these three had their first taste of freedom aboard the SDF-1, and the word has already started to spread. By granting them asylum we’re demonstrating that ours is the better life. We can create a mutiny in that fleet.”

  “If three are willing to desert,” said Lisa, “three hundred will, then three thousand.”

  Caruthers laughed shortly. “Now, there’s some nice emotional logic.”

  “We must make them understand that there are alternatives to war,” Lisa continued. “If we can get them to understand another way of life, one that’s not a matter of win or die, maybe we can change the focus of their lives and live with them in peace.”

  “Very eloquent,” said Maistroff, applauding, his voice dripping sarcasm. “A truly excellent speech, Commander Hayes. But these are aliens we’re dealing with. You can’t possibly expect them to adapt to our way of life.”

  The three still-couched Zentraedi were turning their heads from speaker to speaker, trying to follow the conversation. Frowns of concern had replaced their initially confident expressions. Rico was about to say something, but just then someone knocked at the doorway and entered the Special Sessions room unannounced. It was one of Lang’s white-frocked, glassy-eyed Robotechnicians.

  “What is the meaning of this?” demanded Caruthers. “How dare you barge in like this?”

  The man was carrying a file which he presented straightaway to Gloval, undaunted by Caruthers’s reprimand. The captain returned a salute and aimed a dismissive gesture toward the colonel. “I asked Lang to have this sent to me as quickly as possible.”