Dark Powers Page 17

  Lisa had hoped the general populace might pitch in, if only to create diversions. But the Karbarrans were staying out of it, no doubt hoping against logic that their children might still be spared.

  A report came in that the perimeter to the south was collapsing; the Invid had somehow brought down an entire row of high rises on the MAC IIs and Spartans there, literally pinning them down, and had waded in to dismember them.

  Lisa was reluctantly coming to the conclusion that the mission was a failure. She looked out from the bridge at the flaming city, and prepared to give the Destroids and the GMU the command to fall back in orderly fashion to the ship to withdraw from the city.

  If we can just get through that dome, she reminded herself.

  The order was on her lips when a strange sound came over the command net. It was a kind of—of singing. Three notes like a hunting bird’s scream made into music. Then a voice said, “This is Bela, of Praxis! We’ve found the children! Home in on my beacon! Sentinels, come join the fight!”

  Jack Baker struggled to steady the launcher over Bela’s shoulder, the skirmish ship in and out of his sights, as Halidarre banked and evaded and the Enforcer peppered shots at the wonder horse and its riders.

  Jack fired, but the rocket went wide as the skirmish ship rolled and got ready for another pass. “Can’t you hold this nag still?”

  “Yes, Jack Baker,” Bela said, almost laughing. “Still enough so that slug cannot miss. Would you like that?”

  She would be just crazy enough to do it, too. Her wild laughter in battle, her bravado and amazing skill at handling Halidarre—they were a little tough to top. What do you say to a woman who rides through the air on a winged Robosteed, firing a pistol with one hand and waving a sword, for god’s sake, with the other?

  I’ll tell you what old Jack Baker says, he thought angrily. “Yeah!” he said, before he could think about it twice. “Yeah, hold still for a second, if it’s all the same to you. Looks like the only way I’m ever gonna hit anything today.”

  So she did. Halidarre hovered on her impeller fields, wings beating at half speed to steady her, as Jack wrestled the launcher around. He hadn’t hit anything yet; three rockets were gone and only two remained in the magazine.

  The Enforcer was on a new attack run, firing at long range. Bela was as good as her word, holding Halidarre in a dead hover, laughing that wild laugh again, brandishing her sword. Jack lined up his shot with the tube resting on Bela’s shoulder and let both rockets go. “Let’s get outta here!”

  Halidarre rose abruptly just as a line of annihilation disks shrilled through the spot where she had been a moment before. The Enforcer, intent on its aim, tried to bank away from the rockets a bit too late. It blew apart and began raining down in tiny, burning scraps.

  Bela gave a howl like a Hellcat. “That’s my lad!” Then she spied something and put Halidarre into a dive that nearly sent Jack’s breakfast up into his throat.

  The Invid had shut down the energy wall again. They were closing in ominously on the barracks where most of the Karbarran cubs had taken refuge. The bipeds began firing at long range, setting the buildings ablaze to drive the prey out for more convenient extermination.

  Jack threw the launcher away and got his pistol out. He and Bela dove straight at the Invid, firing and hitting, but having no effect.

  Over by the fire pit, Kami backed up, Dardo and the others behind him, as Hellcats closed in all around them. The Owens gun was dead, out of power; Kami yanked its cable free of the backpack, threw the backpack aside, and held the gun as a club.

  The recon party’s shuttle had last been seen losing altitude, plummeting away to the east. Kami hoped dully that they had survived the crash. In any case, there was no hope of evacuation now.

  The ’Cats’ eyes seemed as bright as lasers; for some reason of their own, they spread out and began herding Kami and the helpless children toward the fire they had built—a pit eighty feet across, now carpeted with burning Sekiton. Kami, exhausted and still half caked with mud, could feel it singeing the fur on his tail. The cubs had thinned out in a ring one or two deep, all the way around the fire. Hellcats hemmed them in at every turn, forcing them back into the inferno.

  His heightened senses shrieked torment and nightmare at him—agony was like a fog all around him, and gruesome death like electricity shooting up into him from the very ground under his feet.

  “I’d rather die fighting than roasting!” With that, Kami raised the club wearily and began to totter straight at the ’Cat confronting him, preferring a quick death from claws to a slow one from flame …

  Suddenly the ’Cat was bashed aside as something immense and heavy hit it like a multiton lineman. It took Kami a moment to realize that it was a Veritech, an armored Alpha in Battloid mode—white with red markings.

  Battloid and Hellcat tumbled and fought, the feline’s claws ripping at its foe, but the Battloid’s big armored fists pounding and pounding at the ’Cat like huge pistons, staving in its sides, shattering one of its eyes.

  The other ’Cats turned to throw themselves into the fight, but were prevented when Battloids began dropping from the sky on them, back thrusters blaring—Betas and Logans mixed in with the Alphas. Kami skipped back out of the way as the red Alpha and the ’Cat it had jumped tumbled and tore and beat at one another.

  The Skulls had arrived.

  In Guardian and VT configuration, they swooped at the Inorganics over in the barracks area, driving them back or blowing them sky-high. Even the Hellcats who broke and fled found that their speed wasn’t enough to save them; a second attack wave, diving from high altitude, overtook the things and chopped them down with missiles and cannonfire.

  More Invid bipeds, rallying from outposts and patrols, headed for the camp by way of a canyon to the west, forming up to steamroll into the rescuers. The first problem with that plan was that the Wolfe Pack was there, and met them head-on.

  It was no open-country tank battle; it was a murderous set- to in a limited space, both sides throwing themselves into it without restraint, like a knife fight in a commophone booth. Tank and Gladiator mode didn’t offer enough agility, so the Wolfe Pack went to Battloid and grappled, fired, kicked, and punched. The Invid met them with claws, tentacles, chelae, and feet, annihilation disks and explosive globes. The valley was a slaughterhouse, but the heavier and more numerous Hovertanks began pushing back the tide inch by inch.

  Kami watched as the Hellcat rolled to the upper position, determined to bite the Alpha’s throat out or rip its head off with those enormous fangs.

  But the Alpha got one forearm under the ’Cat’s jaw, slowly levering it away. Then the Battloid had both hands on the feline’s throat, squeezing with Robotech strength. The ’Cat screamed and went wild, tail thrashing, but it couldn’t free itself. Alloy groaned and squeaked as it gave way, crushed. The light in the ’Cat’s remaining eye slowly dimmed.

  Then all at once it was dark, and the thing’s body went limp and lifeless. The Alpha rose to its feet, lifting the Hellcat up, then threw it to the ground with an impact that made Karbarra quake under Kami’s feet. The Invid mecha was a shapeless mass of smoking scrap.

  The Skulls had turned things around in minutes. The ground was littered with the remains of Invid mecha, and no enemy was standing. But there were VTs down, too, and their fellows were attending to them.

  The functioning Veritechs deployed repair servos that snaked forth on metal tentacles to fix what damage they could. Many of the disabled mecha were beyond such help, though, and would require the facilities of a full Robotech engineering bay.

  But some of the damaged Skulls would never rise again, and their pilots had paid the final price. The living descended from their ships for the wrenching and ghastly duty of gathering up the remains. In several cases there was simply nothing left.

  The red Alpha turned and walked over through the drifting smoke of battle to look down at Kami. A female voice said over an external speaker, “Sorry we cut it
so fine, my friend.” It was Miriya Sterling.

  Kami could still smell his own singed fur. “It could have been much worse—by several seconds.” She laughed. Then he thought of something. “The shuttle! It disappeared over that way!”

  Miriya paused for a moment—perhaps informing Max of the situation—then blasted away through the air on her back thrusters, quickly mechamorphosing to true Veritech mode, and heading like a missile in the direction Kami had indicated.

  At the landing site, each second seemed like an hour on the rack to Lisa. The Destroids had redoubled their efforts to hold out and, in a few places, had even retaken a little ground. But the Invid were pressing hard again.

  Suddenly there was a crackling noise over the command net, and Max spoke, sounding choked up. “We got the kids, Lisa. They’re all okay. Do you roger? I say again, all hostages are safe.”

  Max was starting to talk about arrangements to get the cubs to safety, but Lisa cut him off. “Max, things are deteriorating here. Leave a security force and then get back here with every VT you can spare. Repeat, I need you here ASAP with every mecha you can—”

  “Cap’n! Look!” A Spherian tech was pointing through the vast blister that roofed the bridge.

  “What—” she said, ignoring Max’s efforts to get her to finish her sentence.

  All through the city, doors and windows and access panels were opening up on roofs and other vantage points, and intense fire was pouring forth, mostly Invid-style annihilation disks and beams. From what she could see and what she began hearing over the tac net, Lisa concluded that all the fire was directed at the Invid. It was as if the whole city had been turned into one giant shooting gallery. Caught from behind or above and sometimes even from below, the Invid army was being wiped out before her eyes.

  She told Max, “Wait one, Skull Leader!” Then she got Crysta, who was with Jean Grant in the GMU, on the ship’s internal net. “Crysta, what’s happening?”

  “I—I knew my people were secreting weapons against this time,” Crysta answered. “But Lron and I—we had no idea!”

  It’s not wise to make an enemy of your armorer, it occurred to Lisa. “Crysta, when did they start—how long have the Karbarrans been preparing for this?”

  “Since the hour they took our children,” Crysta answered.

  Lisa watched the weapons fire incandesce as the Karbarrans had their revenge.

  “Baker!”

  Karen Penn went straight for him as he sat there non-chalantly on the rump of a defunct Hellcat, looking off into the distance as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

  That stunt he pulled! Deserting his post in time of battle! Karen just wanted a little piece of him before Admiral Hunter went to work on him.

  Of course, part of her anger was the ignominy of being carried back to the compound in the shuttle by three Battloids, like some kind of broken-down commuter craft. That wasn’t the heart of it though, and she couldn’t have explained just why she was so furious.

  To top it off, he was sitting there with a stupid grin on his face, whistling! “Baker, say your prayers, because I’m gonna—”

  He turned to her with a beatific look on his face. “Hi, Karen. Have a seat and enjoy the show; you’ll never see another one like it.”

  She was clenching her teeth, but decided to see what he meant before the fight commenced. “Huh—Oh!”

  Down the hill a bit, the Karbarran children were being coaxed out of hiding by Dardo and his buddies. Battloids had put out most of the fires, and then stood back; the cubs had good reason to be wary of giant mecha.

  But Dardo and the rest had the hostages coming out now, in droves. Most of the freed cubs were looking around blankly, but some of them were already beginning to caper and skip, jumping for joy.

  Without thinking about it, Karen sat down next to Jack to watch. The cubs rushed around in the sunlight, romping and giving in to elation over their rescue. “I’d rather see this than get a duffel bag full of medals,” Jack said soberly.

  Karen looked at him for a second, then back at the cubs. “You have your moments, Baker, y’know that?”

  “Et tu, Penn.”

  A little while passed. They saw Lron arrive, wading through the cubs, to lift up his son and fling him aloft. The cubs got braver where the mecha were concerned, and some of them were playing ring-around-a-rosy about the foot of Max Sterling’s Battloid.

  “What was that you were whistling?” Karen asked suddenly, without looking at him. “I sort of recognized it.”

  Still watching the cubs, he began again, a half smile touching his lips. After a few notes, Karen found herself laughing and shaking her head at him in exasperation.

  It was “The Teddy Bears’ Picnic.”

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  A tragedy worthy of the Greeks, to be sure, or Shakespeare. A Universal Force or righteous Deity had forged a ring of iron, the Sentinels’ leadership. And yet somehow a flaw had been tempered in.

  One is tempted to paraphrase, “Look upon these frailties, ye mighty, and be humbled.”

  Ann London, Ring of Iron: The Sentinels in Conflict

  In the aftermath of the Sentinels’ first true conquest—while the Karbarrans were still exacting their fearsome revenge and the cubs had yet to be calmed down for transport back to their parents—there were details that slipped through the cracks. Trying to bring order out of the chaos, and make sure they had really won the day—that there were no Invid backup divisions waiting in the wings—was keeping almost everybody busy beyond any reasonable demand.

  And so no one noticed when Burak of Peryton rather than the regular duty officer showed up at the head of the security squad that was supposed to take Tesla back to his cell.

  Burak was certainly on the roster as being able to commandeer a security detachment; he was within his rights as a principal signatory of the Sentinels to take custody of Tesla. But he had chosen this time because he didn’t want to be interrupted, didn’t want to be overheard, while he spoke to the enemy. Once Tesla was back in irons, the aurok-horned young male of Peryton dismissed the mixed unit of Praxians and Spherians, and stood regarding the captive.

  Tesla had turned away, but it came to him that Burak was still there. “Well? Can’t you leave a helpless victim of war to his misery? I’ve given you what you wanted.” An Invid stronghold was in flames, dashed under an invader’s foot, and he, Tesla, had been instrumental in that. “Go away! Or, kill me. I no longer care which.” He fingered the gorgeous collar with its hidden explosives.

  “I want to save Peryton,” Burak got out at last. “And if you don’t help me, I will kill you.”

  Tesla saw that he meant it; a young Perytonian, scarcely more than a boy, he was as headstrong as any from the planet where there was still an annual ceremony in the rubbing off of the velvet from the males’ horns and where fights over females still frequently led to death.

  So, here was Burak, determined to short-circuit the Sentinels’ judicious timetable because he suspected, not without reason, that it wouldn’t address Peryton’s crisis in time. “How do I save Peryton, Invid?”

  Tesla saw that Burak had somehow gotten the detonator switch for the collar around his neck. But for once, Tesla wasn’t afraid—no, not at all. Standing there in his grand robes with the shimmering gems draped from his neck, he saw that the key to Burak was that Burak was vulnerable: Burak needed knowledge.

  A certain kind of knowledge, but that didn’t matter. That kind of craving put any seeker at a disadvantage if the teacher was unprincipled enough. And conniving was Tesla’s specialty, even before he availed himself of the Sentinels’ hospitalities.

  Tesla came up close to the bars, so close that Burak backed away a step, one hand holding the detonator and the other a little firearm that seemed to be made of white ceramic and hammered brass.

  But as he neared the front of his cage, Tesla settled down. He folded his tree-bough legs and sat in a meditative pose, the level of his gaze
still higher than Burak’s. Tesla’s thoughts were like drowning rats, seeking any avenue of escape, marshaling in vaguest terms things that Burak might want to hear.

  “The answers lie more within you than within me,” Tesla intoned. “My powers tell me that your hour comes near. You have been chosen by Destiny to free your people from the curse under which they live second to second, constantly. This source of such pain to you has made it your Destiny. You have been aware of this for some time now.”

  Tesla could barely keep himself from dissolving in laughter. What blather! What transparent ego-stroking! Surely, the very Regent, end-all of egotism, would have struck Tesla down for saying such things.

  But Burak was an untried youth whose planet was near disaster, and to him it was something of a miracle that he hadn’t been swallowed up by it already.

  He sat down, cross-legged like Tesla but safely out of the Invid’s reach, on the other side of the bars. “Teach me what I need to know, and I’ll free you.”

  Tesla had already anticipated that, and knew that he had to up the ante. Besides, the robes and the gemstones and the turn of events had him thinking along new pathways now.

  He tried to think up something suitably muddled and nebulous, something appropriate for a hazy Sentinel mind. “Free? All beings are free. It is only distorted awareness that imprisons them.”

  Tesla was beginning to enjoy this. “But there are specific things, things like the process for reversing the damage that has been done to Peryton, and freeing all your people from their terrible curse.”

  Tesla leaned toward the bars with what he calculated to be the correct fervor. “And these things are not so difficult! I shall help you accomplish them. And you will deliver up your people.”