Invid Invasion: The New Generation Page 17

  So they stayed together and eventually found their way to the city where the Robotech soldiers were supposedly garrisoned. It was an immense place, far larger than any of the places they had passed through thus far, a former military base (whose buildings had been adapted for civilian use) that had grown up within the confines of an enormous depression in the Earth’s denuded crust, enclosed by the severe walls of an unnatural escarpment. The city now had hotels, restaurants, and a thriving population of five thousand or more.

  Scott left the Alpha concealed outside the city and rode down into the bowl with Lancer and the others. As newcomers, they were questioned and searched at the main gate—an immense security fence watched over by armed guards stationed in nearby ultratech towers—but ultimately permitted to enter.

  Scott, already searching for familiar faces, was perhaps a bit more hopeful than the others if no less puzzled. There were indeed soldiers all over the place, but they were hardly the strac troops Scott had convinced himself he would find. Nor were they Mars Division. Their high-collared, belted jumpsuits were the same ice-blue color as Scott’s own, but the unit patches were unlike any he had seen. Scott glanced around some more, certain he would find what he was after. Here were three soldiers stumbling out of a bar; there, three more drinking on a street corner. Other troops in jeeps and personnel carriers were joyriding through the narrow streets, trash and empty liquor bottles in their wake. Even Annie was stunned.

  “What’s with this place?” she asked from the van. She was standing on the seat in the open back, her arms draped over the vehicle’s roll bar.

  “There’s no shortage of ’Culture, that’s for sure,” Rand observed, motioning to the cruising jeeps.

  Scott tuned in to a nearby conversation—soldiers, new arrivals by the sound of them: “This town’s a gas!” one of them said. “Unbelievable,” said another. “I didn’t think I could ever feel this way again.”

  Scott heard tires squeal behind him and Turned around. A jeep was accelerating drunkenly from the main gate, slaloming its way up the street, four soldiers laughing it up inside. It pulled up shortly next to Scott, one of the soldiers offering a bottle out of the top.

  When Scott refused, the man said: “What’s your problem, pal?” His glazed eyes took in the rest of the group. “You guys look like a war’s going on.”

  “What about the Invid, soldier?” Scott snarled. “A couple hits of that stuff and you forget, huh?”

  The soldiers looked at one another, speechless for a moment, then laughed. “Where you been, Colonel?” asked the driver. “They’re history. We’ve been kickin’ ass and takin’ names all over this sector.”

  “It’s no lie,” said another. “Long as ya stick ’round here, ya got nothin’ to worry ’bout. So, enjoy. The man’s got it covered.”

  “You can get anything you want here, get me?”

  “What man? What are you talking about?” Scott yelled as the jeep screeched off.

  “At ease, Colonel!” one of them yelled, eliciting laughter from the others.

  It was the same scene wherever they went: everyone talking up the town like it was paradise. Drunken soldiers, hookers, scammers, Foragers, rogues, and hustlers, all thrown together in the same pot, reveling and lifting their glasses in toasts to the mystery man who secured all this for them. The search for food and drink led the team into one of the many bars along the strip. Annie’s attempt to flirt with the sideburned bartender ended with his walking off just as Lunk was about to order. Lunk was looking around for something to throw at the guy, when a soldier burst in through the bar’s swinging doors.

  “Wolfe’s back!” he yelled to the crowd at the top of his lungs.

  Almost everyone got the message—out of sheer volume or at mention of the name itself—and many started for the door. Others, too drunk to move, got as far as lifting their heads from various tabletops. Scott took hold of a soldier within reach and spun him around.

  “Who’s Wolfe?” he demanded of the man.

  “The Wolfe, bro,” the man slurred. “The Wolfe.”

  “Jonathan Wolfe?” said Scott.

  The man snapped his fingers, pointed, and winked at Scott, then shuffled off toward the door.

  Rand saw the look of disbelief surface on Scott’s face, but before he could ask about it, Scott was shoving his way through the exiting crowd and making for the street.

  Rand and the others followed Scott out and found him amid a mob that had gathered around a jeep. Scott was standing rigidly by the curb, mouth half-open in amazement, staring at the man who was climbing out from the driver’s side of the vehicle. A celebrity, Rand thought. Either that or a Robo officer who fancied himself one. The man was of medium build but square-shouldered and muscular. He had brown hair, thick and combed straight back, well-defined eyebrows, and a mustache, clipped clear in the center. He was wearing dark glasses and a gray uniform offset by a wide black belt and a red ascot. There was, however, something stern and humorless about him that made Rand wonder at the reception he was getting.

  People in the crowd were firing questions left and right, some of which Wolfe took the time to answer and others he ignored. At the same time, a wounded soldier in the rear of the jeep was singing Wolfe’s praises. “He saved my life,” the man bit out. “Picked me up and carried me on his back through the Invid lines … then went back for the Protoculture canisters he knew we needed.…”

  “Celebration time!” yelled a black man behind Rand. “Drinks on the house !”

  But Rand heard someone else mutter: “Wolfe’s a damn hero every time he comes back. How d’ ya figure it?”

  Scott swung around at the comment, his face dark and angry, but said nothing. Until he turned back to Jonathan Wolfe. Then Rand heard him say: “I can’t believe he’s alive—alive!”

  Colonel Jonathan Wolfe … Graduated first in his class from the Robotech Academy on Macross Island but left the SDF-1 after its first homecoming. Nevertheless, he had distinguished himself during that period by openly criticizing the Council’s decision to turn its back on the fortress’s crew and unwitting civilian population and was resolute in his opposition to Russo, Hayes, and Edwards and their plan to use the Grand Cannon against the Zentraedi. He rose to the fore again during the planet’s two-year period of reconstruction and was finally handpicked by Admiral Hunter to head up the ground-base division of the Robotech Expeditionary Force.

  But it was on Tirol that Wolfe’s name became legend and his special forces—known by then as the Wolfe Pack—rode to glory. Throughout the Tirolian campaign against the Invid, it was Wolfe’s forces who turned the tide of battle time and time again. And it was Wolfe who came to play a crucial part in the schism that all but destroyed the Pioneer Mission.

  Even that wasn’t enough for the man. Leaving Dr. Lang and his Saturn group in charge of things on Tirol, Wolfe had gone off with Hunter and that group of galactic freedom fighters who called themselves the Sentinels. To Spheris, Gáruda, Karbarra, to every world that had fallen to the Invid, to every world reduced to slave colonies by the Regent and his limitless army of Inorganics.

  Then, for reasons few understood, he had volunteered for a more hazardous assignment: to follow in the tracks of Major John Carpenter in attempting to return a warship to the Earth all of them had left behind. An Earth that had been ravaged by the very Tirolian Masters the Pioneer Mission had aimed to disempower and now faced an even greater threat from the race those same Masters had turned savage and indomitable.

  Wolfe left Tirol, but not before he had saved the life of a young man who idolized him from afar … an assistant to the celebrated Dr. Lang named Scott Bernard.…

  Silently, Scott ran over the facts and memories while waiting for a chance to speak with Wolfe. It was incredible enough that the man had made it back from Tirol, given the then primitive state of the hyperdrive units, but for Scott to find him now, after all these years, was nothing less than miraculous.

  From what he had managed to piece
together since first seeing Wolfe earlier in the day, Scott learned that Wolfe had arrived on Earth shortly after the destruction of the Robotech Masters’ fleet, only a few months before the arrival of the Invid. His Wolfe Pack had led the counteroffensive but had been decimated along with most of the Army of the Southern Cross. But Wolfe himself had survived. Driven underground, he had spearheaded the resistance and ever since had been on the go continually, moving from place to place to recruit and reconnoiter, waiting for the moment when the rest of the Expeditionary Force returned to wage the final battle.

  Still, the boisterous atmosphere of the town disturbed Scott. Where was the discipline that had made the Pack such a respected outfit? And why weren’t the troops being organized for a coordinated assault against Reflex Point? Why, in fact, was Wolfe here, so far south of the central hive, and where were the survivors of Mars Division?

  Scott had all these things on his mind when he stepped into Wolfe’s personal quarters that night and offered salute.

  “Lieutenant Commander Scott Bernard, Robotech Expeditionary Force, Mars Division.”

  Wolfe was on the bed, his shirt-sleeves rolled up. “Mars Division?” he said, reaching for his dark glasses; then he laughed shortly: “Well, one of you made it through after all.”

  Scott lowered his hand from his forehead, somewhat stunned. “Then you haven’t rendezvoused with any of the survivors, sir?”

  Wolfe got off the bed and walked over to the bureau. “Lieutenant—Bernard, you said?—you’re the first I’ve seen.” When he saw Scott agape, he laughed again. “Welcome to Earth, Lieutenant. Care for a drink?”

  Scott declined and watched Wolfe pour a tall one for himself. The small room reeked of stale sweat and liquor and was littered with the remains of half-eaten meals and empty bottles. Scott noticed that Wolfe’s hand shook as he downed the drink.

  “Well, let’s not stand on ceremony, Bernard,” Wolfe said exuberantly. “Have a seat. You can tell me about your ill-fated offensive and I’ll tell you about mine.”

  “Sir, I’m not really here to socialize …”

  “Oh, I see,” Wolfe said from the couch, with mock seriousness. “What’s this about, then?”

  Scott stared at the man before replying, fighting an impulse to turn around and leave the room before matters got worse. “You don’t remember me, do you, sir? I knew you on Tirol. I was part of the Saturn group, an assistant to Dr. Lang.”

  Wolfe’s grin straightened; he turned his face away from Scott. “That was a long time ago, Bernard. And a lot of miles from here.” He put the drink glass aside. “I’m sorry about this, Bernard. We lost quite a few good men today. And there’s damn few left.”

  “Sir, about this town … The Wolfe Pack—”

  “This isn’t the Wolfe Pack, Lieutenant!” Wolfe barked. “The Wolfe Pack is dead, every last one of them.” He got up and returned to the bottle. “I know what you’re thinking, Bernard. That the noble Jonathan Wolfe is but a ghost of his former self and that he can’t even control his troops. But you don’t know the full story, Bernard. Not the half of it!”

  Wolfe scowled and set the drink aside without tasting it. “These men aren’t soldiers—they’re rogues and thieves and Foragers and every other kind of riffraff this planet has spawned during the past twenty years. I do what I can with the few real soldiers I cross paths with. But this is Earth, not Tirol. And our enemy behaves differently here … As we all do.”

  Scott wasn’t sure what to say, so he simply came to the point. “I’d like to be part of your team, sir.”

  Now it was Wolfe’s turn to stare. “You obviously know what you’re in for, Bernard.”

  “I’ve fought my way through a thousand miles, if that’s what you mean.”

  Wolfe’s eyebrows went up behind the dark glasses. “Impressive.”

  “In fact,” Scott said excitedly, “if it’s good troops you’re looking for—”

  “No,” Wolfe cut him off firmly. “I don’t care how good they are. If they’re not Robotech-trained, I don’t want them.” He turned his back to Scott to stare out the window.

  “But, sir—”

  “That will be all for now, Bernard.”

  Scott buttoned his lip and saluted. “Your orders?”

  “Oh-five-hundred sharp at the main gate,” Wolfe said without turning around.

  Four Cyclone riders suited up in battle armor left the basin base at sunrise, ascended the escarpment, and headed into the lush forests an hour’s ride east. Wolfe, Todd, Wilson, and Bernard. Scott had made no mention of his meeting with Wolfe to Rand or the others. He had gone as far as bunking with them in a room they had managed to secure in one of the base’s barracks turned hotels and had crept out under the cover of darkness after leaving a scrawled note of explanation on his bedroll. He had to admit that it felt strange and discomforting to be without them, his surrogate family and personal “wolf pack.” But he told himself it was time to begin distancing himself from them; his new loyalties would have to lie with Wolfe and whatever missions lay ahead of them.

  The four men left their Cyclones in the woods and followed Wolfe’s lead along a faint trail that coursed over low hills to an enormous clearing. Through the foliage, Scott caught glimpses of a massive red hemisphere of some sort. It troubled him that they had left the Cyclones behind and were closing on the Invid Protoculture farm armed only with hand weapons. Wolfe’s explanation made sense—that they wouldn’t be able to get near the place on Protoculture-fueled mecha—but even so, it was hard to imagine that simple H-90’s could effect much damage.

  It was only when they reached the edge of the clearing that Wolfe made the rest of the plan clear: It was imperative that they make off with enough Protoculture to fuel the massive rescue operation Wolfe was planning. Each previous mission had brought him closer to this goal, and today’s could complete the rescue team’s requirements. Beyond that, the four of them simply had to keep themselves from being fried by annihilation discs. Scott had a clear view of the farm now and understood why Wolfe hadn’t attempted to describe the place earlier—it had to be seen to be believed. It was a hemisphere, all right, but one that stood more than three hundred feet high and was nearly a mile in circumference. It was a kind of blood-red, organic-looking geodesic dome, lit from within by a pulsing light. And from its techno-system base extended ten tentaclelike projections, each a good fifty feet around. Scott imagined that it must have resembled a jellyfish creature from above.

  Wolfe whispered a warning to his men. “Don’t be fooled just because you don’t see any Invid. They’re around, you can be sure of it.” Wolfe had the faceshield of his Cyclone helmet raised; he had his dark glasses on.

  Scott had to admit that the man was cool and alert, not the boozing, self-pitying Wolfe he had seen the night before but the Wolfe who had led the Pack up the glory road.

  “There are two entry points above the foundation. The Protoculture is stored just inside these,” Wolfe said, gesturing to two arched portals in the membranous portion of the hemisphere wall. He told Todd and Wilson to take the south one. “Bernard and I will take the other one.”

  The three men nodded.

  “Don’t overburden yourselves,” Wolfe added. “Just take what you can carry without weighing yourselves down. Remember, you might need a free hand for those blasters.” Wolfe grinned. “But I hope it won’t come to that.”

  Wilson and Todd moved off, using one of the tentacles for cover. Wolfe waved Scott forward a moment later.

  Halfway along one of the segmented tentacles, Wolfe and Scott stopped, huddling down with their backs against the thing, waiting for Wilson and Todd to reach the south portal.

  But something unexpected occurred just as Wilson was stepping through.

  “Wolfe!” Scott heard Todd shout over the suit’s tac net. “There’s a force field of some kind!” He and Wolfe turned at the same moment: Wilson seemed to be suspended in the entrance, arms up over his head, his body shaking as energy coursed through
his suit. The ground was rumbling all of a sudden, and before they could take a step toward their two comrades, an Invid Trooper erupted from the ground not twenty feet in front of them.

  The shock of seeing the thing must have been enough to break the charge that held Wilson, Scott guessed, because now both he and Todd were heading back toward the woods at a run, dodging a pincer swipe along the way. Scott and Wolfe adopted a similar tactic, only to find their route back to safety blocked by a second Invid. The Trooper emerged with enough force to throw Scott off his feet.

  A third Trooper had cut off Wilson and Todd’s retreat as well, and the two men were depleting their blaster charges against it.

  Wolfe was shouting for Scott to get up, all the while pouring energy from his handgun into the face of the alien. Peripherally, Scott saw a flash of white light and experienced a wave of searing heat; he turned in time to see Wilson and Todd disintegrate beneath a storm of annihilation discs, their death screams a piercing sound track through the net.

  Wolfe, meanwhile, had managed to chase off the Invid that had been looming over them only a minute before. Scott couldn’t figure out how he had pulled it off but didn’t stop to question it. He was on his feet now, Wolfe’s commands to run for it in his ears. The tree line was only fifty feet away, and he made a mad dash for it.…

  CHAPTER

  FIFTEEN

  The incident with Jonathan Wolfe dealt a severe blow to the team. Not only because the episode touched them more deeply than they thought possible—they were not as inured as they liked to think—but primarily because it seemed to shift the burden of responsibility entirely onto their shoulders: There was no resistance, except for their own meager efforts. But they would get over Wolfe’s treachery. How could they not, once confronted with the disillusionments that lay ahead?

  Zeus Bellow, The Road to Reflex Point

  The note Scott left for the team only made matters worse. It read: “Don’t anyone worry—I can’t tell you where I’m going or what I’ll be doing, but I’ll be back around sunset. Scott.”