World Killers Read online

  Wolff, standing near on one of, the high catwalks Humans used for face-to-face conversations with the giants, begged, "At least let me try a commo channel with him one more time! He'll talk to me, I know!"

  Breetai hid his pity behind a stern military mien, but ordered that it be done. The colonel said, "Edwards, this is Wolff. Answer me! Edwards, I challenge you to answer me!"

  He was about to give up in despair, the SDF widening its lead on the Zentraedi ship. But to everyone's surprise Edwards's contemptuous smile appeared on the main screen.

  "Jonathan, old man! Sorry I can't dawdle, but tempus fugit, and so must I. You understand."

  "I challenge you," Wolff said again. "One on one. VTs, Hovertanks, bare hands-name it."

  The Zentraedi on duty on the bridge grunted a certain grudging respect for Wolff then, even though he had shown certain weaknesses; this was a challenge worthy of a Zentraedi!

  But Edwards shook his head in mock exasperation. "Still the romantic, eh, Jonathan? Well, I'm afraid I haven't got time to play black knight to your Galahad. I've other things to do, as you can see."

  The camera angle shifted to a long shot, and Wolff moaned.

  He and the others in Valivarre were staring at the most outlandish wedding scene conceivable. Inorganics formed a guard of honor. Ghost Riders stood in ranks in a "chapel" that was a vacant hold. The altar appeared to be the unadorned spacefold mountings, presided over by Benson, one of Edwards's aides.

  The pickup followed Edwards as he went to the altar. Waiting for him there was Minmei, still wearing the clothes she had worn in her cell but with the addition of a veil improvised from gossamer antivermin netting.

  The pickup zoomed in on Minmei. She seemed a little pale, but her eyes were bright and adoring as she took the general's hand. She turned to the camera for a moment.

  "Good-bye, Jonathan. I've found happiness at last. I do really think it's time you go home to the family you deserted and try to make amends to them, don't you?"

  Then she and Edwards knelt before Benson, as he raised his arms to the crowd and intoned, "My fellow Edwardsian warriors, we are gathered here-"

  The commo link was broken at the SDF's end.

  Wolff was sobbing and shaking his head. "It's a trick! It's a phony tape, or he's got her drugged!"

  "Intel officer?" Breetai snapped crisply, turning to his staff.

  "Voice-stress and imagery-interpretation computers confirm authenticity," a giant tech

  officer answered. "No indications of coercion or chemical manipulation."

  "That can't be!" Wolff howled, then put his face in his hands. Some of the other Humans got him off the bridge.

  Breetai's eyes stayed with his instruments in the vain hope that a power failure or a change of mind would put Edwards back within his grasp. He castigated himself for not giving in to one of his hundred impulses to kill the man, despite his Zentraedi oath of fealty to the REF.

  And he felt a pang of sorrow for Wolff. Breetai, as much as anybody, knew what hurt the love of Minmei could inflict.

  The Crann, Scrim, and Odeon watching the wedding service hadn't the vaguest idea what it meant, so they weren't surprised when the bride went berserk, just as the soft music began to play.

  The Humans did understand, but tried to ignore her rising shriek as she leapt up from her kneeling position and turned on Edwards, trying to claw out his good eye. Edwards hissed out a few perfunctory vulgar words as he fended her off. The two Hellcats flanking the altar backed away, spitting.

  He had come so close. Experimenting with the power of the Invid Brain he now controlled, he had learned how to bend Minmei to him. The effort had taken the major part of his will-to the point where the Inorganics were little more than awkward puppets-because somewhere deep inside, Minmei was fighting him every inch of the way.

  It had almost been perfect; his Living Computer control of her made it almost seem as if she really loved him.

  It was that damned music! Song had always been her unique power, and when the bland strains played over the PA system, the innermost part of her began to sing along. With that, she had thrown off his hold over her in moments. He fought to reassert it, but something told him that she would never be vulnerable to that particular kind of domination ever again. Not while the voice within her lived.

  Edwards lost patience and swung his fist. Minmei dropped, senseless. He tried to insinuate his mind into hers, greedy to have her as his living puppet again. But the song was still there; he was shut out of her mind and her love forever.

  Minmei came to blearily in discomfort and pain. She felt like vomiting as she blinked her eyes open. It took seconds to realize where she was and what had happened to her.

  She was shackled to a crudely hewn wooden X that had been erected on the bridge of Edwards's stolen starship. Before her were the screens and consoles, and loyal Ghost Riders who ignored her moans.

  Edwards, noticing that she had come around, left his command chair to put his hand under her chin. "I want you to enjoy the ride, darling," he said, showing his teeth. "After all, you're my most important passenger."

  The soul-song that protected her from him had made him remember how her voice played a pivotal role in Earth's victory in the Robotech War. Undeniably, Fate had been working in his favor when he fought to take her with him on Tirol. In addition to the SDF, his own loyal troops, the Brain, and the Inorganics, he had the secret weapon that had won the war!

  Now the problem was how to use it. "My beloved," he added, kissing her cheek, tasting the salt tears there.

  Deep within, her newfound patience settled in again, so that she could wait however long it took, bear whatever she had to, until she could kill him.

  "We asked you here, Commander Grant," Lang said, "because we require your opinion. Despite the setback of Edwards's mutiny, we shall be ready soon to send an expedition back to Earth. The new ships will be quite space-worthy within weeks."

  "But-the fold drives-" Vince objected.

  Exedore tut-tutted. "They are already completed, as in fact was the one for the ship Edwards pirated. The drives are all in safekeeping here in Dr. Lang's complex."

  Strolling along in the middle of Lang's Robotech wonderland, Vince rumbled with laughter. Good old Lang, one jump ahead all the way!

  But a sudden thought stopped Vince. "I hope you gentlemen aren't about to ask me to volunteer." Much as he ached to go home to his son and the world he loved best, to leave without Jean was unthinkable.

  "No, no" Exedore was saying, placing a small hand in the center of that massive, V-shaped back. "But we want your opinion on the person we have chosen."

  He explained quickly the circumstances of Edwards's escape as Breetai had relayed them. "And the Valivarre will be making planetfall soon. We want to put Jonathan Wolff in overall command of the expedition back to Earth."

  The REF was an expedition; it sounded strange to be talking about an expedition home. But the more Vince thought about it, the more logical a choice Jonathan was, what with Rick and Lisa, Max and Miriya unavailable and Vince himself unwilling.

  If reports were true, then Wolff had no motive to stay and every reason to go home again, reunite with his family, and put Minmei and the REF behind him. More to the point, he was a brilliant and capable commander-diligent and honest.

  And, with the threat of the Invid and the Robotech Masters on the loose, somebody had to carry the warning to Earth. There had been no reply from Carpenter's expedition; it was time for a recon in force.

  "I'd say that for once, Hobson's Choice has given us a winner," Vince told them.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  The more information we accrue on the subject of the being known as Haydon, the more convinced I am that my work is only beginning.

  Dr. Emil Lang, personal notes on the SDF-3 mission

  "Listen to me, honey: I want you to push again now. Okay?"

  Miriya caught her breath, stopped sobbin
g, and nodded.

  "That's my girl," Jean Grant said, the encouragements automatic as she concentrated on her job. "Max, are you holding her hand?"

  "Yes." Max and Miriya exchanged finger squeezes, but hers was so weak.

  "Okay, Mommie and Daddy; let's do it," Jean said. "Bear down, hon."

  Miriya did, biting her lower lip until it bled, then groaning in pain. No battle wound had ever given her suffering like this; no enemy torture could be more horrible.

  Jean didn't have time for an indecent turn of phrase. Medical advances had made the safe, relatively painless delivery of babies a run-of-the-mill thing, but those advances didn't apply to a Zentraedi woman impregnated by a Human male when by all rights it should have been impossible. Or a gestation period that only lasted a few months but had, by all indications, come to full term. Or a pregnancy that had come close to taking the mother's life several times for no discernible reason.

  "What is it? What's wrong?" Max asked Jean, as there was a flurry of activity. He couldn't see what was happening from where he sat by Miriya's end of the delivery med-table,

  holding her hand.

  "We're bringing a baby into the world. Isn't that worth giving your wife a kiss?" Jean said distractedly through her mask. But inside, she despaired. Miriya was hemorrhaging badly, and nothing Jean could do seemed to help.

  Miriya screamed, and Max, clasping her hands and babbling words of reassurance, saw her eyes rolling up into her head. He ripped his own mask off.

  "Mir! Mir! Don't do this! Please please, stay with me!"

  She began convulsing, and Jean, checking the vital signs, thought, We're losing her.

  Max was bending against his wife, holding her head to his, weeping and begging her not to die. "Jean, do something!"

  "Shhhh! I'm trying, Max." But it was hopeless.

  Don't worry, Mother; I am with you.

  Max wiped his eyes. "Wh-what'd you say, Jean?"

  "I didn't say anything, Max. I thought you did." The nurses and techs and two other attending physicians had nothing to add.

  Put your minds at rest. All will be well; you'll see.

  Jean didn't have time to wonder if she was going nuts-hearing voices directly in her mind. Miriya's convulsions stopped and her vital signs rose and stabilized. The hemorrhaging slowed to a trickle, then ceased.

  And other developments continued. There were a few busy seconds, but Miriya went through them with her eyes closed and a blissful smile on her face.

  "You've got yourselves a beautiful little daughter, folks," Jean said. The child was crying heartily. Miriya's eyes opened and she and Max laughed and wept, hugging each other.

  But Jean, seeing to the umbilical word, felt a cold wind blow through her. She was no obstetrician, but she had delivered plenty of babies.

  And this was the first newborn she had ever seen come into the world already breathing, with eyes open and teeth already sprouting.

  The baby moved feebly, but its eyes fixed on hers.

  Thank you, Jean, that same voice said.

  "We have to move with all deliberate speed, Admiral," Burak told Rick in a controlled/impatient tone. "Tesla's efforts to liberate Peryton are welcome, of course, and I'm grateful that he's led the vanguard, but I am the one who has been chosen by Destiny to free my people and become their Lord.

  "While I sympathize with the Spherisians and the rebuilding they must do, the fact is that they have been freed, while my folk lie under a terrible curse. You can see my point, I'm sure."

  Burak was cleaned up and dressed in new garments, Jack Baker's blood washed from his horns. Rick had been avoiding him for days, but at last the Perytonian had buttonholed him, on his way to another strategy meeting.

  "Um, I see what you mean, Burak. I'll make sure everyone in the leadership understands."

  "Please see that you do. I will await word in my quarters."

  Burak turned and strode off in kingly fashion, followed by a few of his people. Rick couldn't figure out if they were just humoring Burak out of loyalty and pity, or if they really believed all his claptrap about being the messiah of his planet.

  Certainly, nobody could disabuse him of the conviction that Tesla had gone off to begin the liberation of Peryton, even when they showed Burak the tracking plots on Tesla's escaped ships headed in the direction of Optera.

  Rick had been ready to chalk it all up to Tesla's hypnosis, or whatever the Invid used, but Gnea and Jack showed no signs of any residual effects while Burak was still walking around talking like a locked-ward case. He shrugged to himself, and made a note to have security keep surveillance on the Perytonians.

  Ironically, Burak's home planet was, at long last, next in line on the Sentinels' long campaign. But before that battle could be mounted, the Sentinels had to tend to their wounded and bury their dead. There were also repairs to make to Ark Angel, mecha, weapons, and equipment.

  And, despite his increasing behavioral quirks, Burak was being more cooperative in that he and his followers showed more willingness to answer the intel officers' specific questions about their homeworld. Though the general consensus was that they were holding back a lot, the Perytonians had given the rest of the Sentinels more to ponder with regard to that tragic, cursed planet.

  There was also the plight of the Spherisians to consider: their cities in ruins, their economic and industrial infrastructure-the aboveground portion, at any rate-wrecked. Though they could survive in the planet's interior and rebuild on their own, in time, the Sentinels felt it their duty to help the Spherisians as much as possible before lifting off.

  A partial message had been received from Max Sterling, and though Rick and Lisa were gone at the time, they were overjoyed to hear that Miriya had given birth to a baby girl the couple had named Aurora. The tape of the transmission was fuzzy and broken up by static, but Rick thought Max looked troubled, even though mother and daughter were both reported to be doing fine.

  Of more importance to the mission was the fact that the Haydonites had established intermittent contact with Karbarra. The big ursinoids there had many of their technical problems licked, and production of REF-type mecha and smaller craft was due to start within weeks-as was construction of a prototype SDF-7 class cruiser. That didn't change the Perytonian invasion timetable, but it heartened the Sentinels-the Human members in particular. The fleet that would take them home was now a-building!

  The Regent paced through his vaulted organic halls, followed by his faithful bodyguard. He had lost all contact with Spheris, and could guess the rest.

  He had issued orders to strip all outposts and planetary garrisons, to bring home every Invid trooper to protect the Home Hive. But he knew that if an enemy was on its way from Spheris, there was no time for reinforcements.

  He stood at last before the Special Children, the bio-manipulated embryos left behind by the Regis with the exhortation that he let them grow into what she had intended them to be, and respect the things she had designed into them.

  "Bah! What use are they to the Invid if the Home Hive falls?" He had refrained from violating her wishes in the constant hope that someday she would return to him; he preserved her Special Children as a sign of his longing for her. But what good to honor her request if it meant his defeat and death?

  He swept his hand out at the ranks and ranks of silent, glistening eggs. "Quicken and hatch them! Feed in the richest nutrients and do all other things to maximize their-potential!"

  He spun on his bowing entourage. "See to it that all defenses are prepared and on alert. And make ready my combat armor."

  If it was his fate to preside over the end of the Invid empire, he would see that it didn't overtake him gently or at small cost.

  Once Jack was out of danger from his wounds, his love-hate relationship with Karen began swinging quickly back to its old sweet-and-sour tune.

  There were a couple of days there-he was awake on and off, but in guarded condition and as weak as a ki
tten-when she was actually sweet to him. Especially when he managed a little sheepishly, "Thanks for riding to the rescue, Lancelot."

  However...

  "As soon as I'm well enough to do anything about it, y'turn back into Attila the Penn," he sneered.

  She eluded his embrace nimbly and threw a clean, bundled uniform in his face. "The doc says you're on convalescent status now, you drooling sex fiend, so you're gonna convalesce. Veidt's flier meets us on the roof in ten minutes, so move it, Mister!"