End of the Circle Read online

  Hodel shot back, “There is if you all listen to orders! Now, link your operators to my controllers, who will coordinate all strikes. We’ll soften them up with the suicide ships, then blow them away!”

  “More readings from the forearm booms,” Ntor said to him.

  Hodel whirled. “Any sign of offensive capability?”

  “No, Captain, just power buildup.”

  Hodel barked a laugh. “Much good it will do them when ten ships punch in at once. Controllers! Prepare for a unified strike operation—simultaneous hits all across that empty suit of tin out there.”

  As the fleet re-formed and moved in again, all decoys and kamikaze ships leaping ahead for the coordinated attack, Exedore checked and collated data back in the Royal Hall.

  “I don’t know how they did it, Cabell. Perhaps the Haydonites learned something when they were holding us captive, or perhaps it’s something uncovered back when the Regent had the Sentinels captive on Haydon IV.”

  “It may be much simpler, something implicit in Robotechnology that Haydon discovered just as the Micronians did.”

  Exedore shrugged helplessly. “Just so. In any case it proves that we don’t know what we’re up against. We must get Hodel and the others to break off the attack.”

  “Retreat: something Karbarrans have never been good at,” Cabell observed.

  At least Hodel had the caution to stay well back while launching his attack wave.

  Fire from the plasma batteries was less effective now that the drones were down and strafing the planet’s surface; those that had been dispatched to scout the far side were brought back and hurled into the assault. As Hodel had observed, the racing pinpoint barrier shield circles could not be everywhere at once.

  But just as it had served SDF-1 so well decades before, the defense cut into the attackers’ advantage dramatically. Nevertheless, the decoy craft wreaked havoc all over the near side of Haydon IV.

  Of the ten nuke-primed ships sent ahead to smash resistance, two were destroyed by fire while still far above the artificial world, and another two on approach, even though by then the decoys had put many gun emplacements out of action.

  Hodel, howling in battle lust, ignored Exedore’s attempts to reach him by commo. Ntor watched the buildup of the energy in the booms but dared not bring them up again.

  The surviving ships streaked down to strike as planned, dispersed across Haydon IV. Three were met by pinpoint barriers, but the other three struck in the chest, neck, and lower abdomen of the Robotech figure that was the artifact world. This time the planet shook from superbombs so massive that even a continent of armor was not proof against them.

  Haydon IV was ripped open in three places, energy and vaporized systemry fountaining from it. Secondary explosions rattled the megacosm-figure and vented themselves in the vicinity of the right shoulder, blasting it open. The streams of annihilation discs died away.

  The Karbarrans on the Tracialle’s bridge, growling their war chants, led the way in to the attack. The rest of the Local Group ships raced after, some of the other races even taking up the Karbarrans’ chant.

  Haydon IV loomed near, and the fleet primed its weapons for a last decisive assault. At last Exedore managed to override the fleet’s communications and put his image on their screens.

  “Reverse course, you fools! Retreat! The booms—the booms are weapons too!”

  The precise nature of the threat had worked at his mind even as it eluded him, until he chanced to glance over at a schematic in the communications center there in the Royal Hall. On it, the figure of Haydon IV was represented as a sort of crude outline, and he saw things for what they were.

  Instead of the articulated Robotech waldos and forearms, the planet’s limbs might have been clubs, or the arms of a horseshoe magnet, or a tuning fork …

  Or the bows of the SDF-1.

  “Get out, get out before it’s too late!” Exedore screamed, but few were listening.

  One was Prah in the Quartzstar. “Attention, Hodel! Urgently advise you break off attack until considering Exedore’s advice. Energy buildup along forearm booms has intensified.”

  Hodel wasn’t having any, and neither was anybody else aboard the Tracialle. Around the booms, bubbles of snapping, coruscating energy were forming and bursting in brilliant effervescence, but that did not deter the rest of the fleet for a moment. Prah, however, began to deviate from course, shearing away from the attack run and demanding that Hodel and the rest do the same, heeding Exedore, before it was too late. The Valivarre emulated her, largely because of the Tirolian clones’ respect for Exedore and Cabell. The bulky mining vessel fell in behind the glittering, glassy bauble that was Quartzstar even as Hobel growled his contempt for them and returned to his assault.

  Haydon IV was being shaken by massive internal quakes and eruptions. The pinpoint loci were gone. The fleet’s sensors marked a hundred great exposed, defenseless targets and too many smaller ones to count. In its eagerness, the Tracialle outran the rest of the Local Group ships, hot to draw blood.

  Tongues of orange starflame were slithering and looping around the booms and writhing up and down them, seemingly eager to be set free. Hodel thought the booms not worth bothering about but fired a bow sweep of missiles at them as he neared, just to be sure.

  Flashing along at attack speed, the Karbarran was nearly past the booms when his missiles struck, and doomsday fell.

  All at once the energies in the booms surged, unleashed, just as the SDF-1’s bows had configured into a main gun and fired on her launch day so many years ago. Hodel’s missiles were vaporized.

  A cloud of swirling energy appeared between the booms, and a raving torrent of utter destruction shot out from it. The superbolt, miles in diameter, lanced out and washed across the oncoming Local Group ships; where it had played, nothing was left behind but elementary particles.

  Valivarre and Quartzstar, both damaged by the mere peripheral wash of the volley, braced for another. But none came. Indeed, the booms were blackened and leaking power fluxes. The volley had damaged Haydon IV as well as wiping out most of the flotilla.

  “We—we’ll pull back and wait,” Prah said in a subdued voice; the clones on the converted Zentraedi ore ship concurred.

  The Tracialle, damaged by the abrupt appearance of the power storm between the booms behind it, somehow escaped annihilation by a split second. Shuddering and breached, its commo systems fried and others threatening to fail, it dived for the planet.

  “I don’t think any of the others made it, sir,” Ntor reported. “At least, I have no visuals on them. Most other sensors were knocked out.”

  “Then it’s up to us,” Hodel said calmly. “Aim for the heart.”

  They all saw what he meant, an exposed control nexus as big as a floodplain on the mecha figure’s upper right chest. What little data they had indicated that it was a vulnerable point.

  They also knew that there was no going back, even if the booms were inoperative. The Tracialle’s engines were going fast—they would overload in moments. Like most of the others, Hodel and Ntor felt that they had already witnessed this death once, in their augury chants.

  The few cannonades of discs the plasma guns could manage were a pale imitation of their former selves, hopelessly low-power and inaccurate. The far greater danger was that the Sekiton-fueled ship would shake apart, but somehow it held together.

  By some fluke of technology or caprice of the Shapings, the Karbarrans’ commo began functioning again just at the end, and the survivors heard their roars as the Tracialle’s crew went to sink their fangs into their enemy’s heart.

  Down and down their ship plummeted, into the breast of Haydon IV like an avenging comet. The detonations it set off sent the artifact worldlet into lethal convulsions.

  Quartzstar and Valivarre, carrying out repairs to restore life support and some measure of maneuvering power, were lit by the distant nova of Haydon IV’s death blow. Prah watched sadly and was about to turn away, when someo
ne said, “I’m scanning spacecraft—many of them!”

  Prah rapped, “Origin?”

  “They are sphere ships; I believe they emerged from the far side, just before the end.”

  For a moment Prah thought that it was to be the end of her vessel, after all. But the swarm of sphere ships, a hundred and more, formed up and set off without paying Quartzstar or Valivarre any heed.

  Their course pointed straight for Tirol.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  This cadet-graduate will make either a passable officer or a very troublesome convict.

  Final evaluation from the file of Southern Cross Lieutenant Dana Sterling

  There was nothing for the ground party to do but return to the landing zone; the Regess ignored their demands that she come back, listen to reason, answer their questions, show some mercy.

  The quietest among them were the children, who seemed distracted and uncommunicative. Scott noticed that Marlene was very much like them. He realized he had been holding his breath, dreading the moment when arcane forces would suck her soul and body into the oneness of the Invid race that was the Regess.

  But apparently the trauma she had undergone had insulated her from that for good. She really was herself. He was grateful for that but furious at the trick of fate that had put them back together at last only to schedule Armageddon a few days or hours away.

  Still, when he reached tentatively for her hand and she smiled bittersweetly, taking his hand fondly, there was a lightness to his soul that had not been there since the death of Marlene Rush on a day long gone.

  There wasn’t much vigilance to their withdrawal in spite of Rick and Lisa’s disspirited promptings. What good to keep your guard up when all of newspace might well attack at any moment?

  Rick thought twice before approaching Louie Nichols; the Regess might be listening in. But then, the same could be said about the deepest security vault on the SDF-3.

  “Louie? What about the Peter Pan? Can we make a run for it if we have to?”

  Louie worked his shoulders, adjusted his goggles, and went through some more of his repertoire as they walked along. “I doubt it. It turns out that the sphere ships aren’t exactly like I thought they were. Not really built with a return trip in mind.

  “Think of ’em as bobsleds, created for a single voyage along a particular flow of force—down a snowy hill, if you see what I mean. The Peter P. might be forced up the hill, but I wouldn’t bet on it.”

  He looked so downcast that Rick figured Louie was regretting that he had ever gotten involved in the rescue attempt. He patted one skinny shoulder. “I don’t know if I ever said thanks, Louie. I’m grateful for your being here to help, grateful as an officer and grateful as a man with a family in danger.”

  That seemed to take Louie by surprise, but he mumbled some acknowledgment. Then he picked up his pace, head bent in thought.

  Max Sterling had to restrain himself from grabbing Aurora and clasping her to him, shielding her with his body. That way, the Black Knight media—or whatever it was that his combat skills had brought into existence in newspace—would have to come through him to get her. But she was so fragile, so ethereal that he didn’t want to frighten her. And so he hung near her like a shadow, peering and glaring in all directions, sweat running down his face.

  He was a fighter jock, a mecha warrior; his talents lay elsewhere, and he always felt insufficient to cope with the expanded powers and perceptions of his youngest. And now she had sensed some terrible peril, become its focus, and there was little, perhaps nothing, he could do to help.

  Nothing but protect my daughter with my life.

  At least one person in the group had kept her training in mind and was maintaining a high level of alertness as she went, though. Dana was carrying a Wolverine rifle at the ready, more than willing to open up if a target presented itself, wishing for one, if the truth be known.

  She had fallen far back to walk rear guard, relieving Lron. The sight of Minmei and Rem leaning on each other had abraded her nerve endings and left her in an empty, murderous mood. Even in the worst of those days after her parents had left on the SDF-3—times when she had found herself in some agency-sponsored home or care institution—she hadn’t felt quite so resentful and drained.

  That was because she hadn’t met Zor Prime yet, no doubt. And once in a while she got a visit from a friend who loved her unconditionally.

  She heard the chirping yip faintly. The person ahead of her—Dr. Penn, his mind apparently a million parsecs away—did not seem to notice it. But Dana recognized it at once.

  “Polly!” She said it softly, not wanting the others to come barging back to her. The Pollinator was her pet, her lifelong friend.

  Only, how had Polly gotten there? He had disappeared—let’s see—back on Tirol, just before she’d lifted for Haydon IV. Well, if walls and doors were no barrier to him or his kin, why should space be?

  Manifestly, it wasn’t, because there he sat, like an animated mophead, thirty feet back the way she had just come. His head was tilted to one side, and he gazed at her bemusedly, as if she were the one who’d disappeared without warning and he was the aggrieved party.

  SOP said that she should signal for a halt and request permission and backup before fetching him, but by that time Polly might take it into that cute knob-horned head of his to vanish again. Dana glanced to make sure Harry Penn hadn’t noticed—he was still going his way deep in thought—and turned back to make the pickup on the Pollinator.

  “Don’t give me that innocent look, you little deserter!” She knelt by him, shifting her rifle so that she had a free hand to scoop him up. “Maybe I oughta tie a bell to your collar. Or better yet, get a spacefold leash—he-eeyy!”

  Wait a minute! Polly had somehow gotten himself not just across space but into newspace. That must mean there was some way back out!

  “Oh, baby! Wait’ll Louie and Lang hear this—umph! You been puttin’ on weight, or what?”

  The Pollinator dragged at her arm, nearly pulling her to her knees, the sheer mass of him unbelievable. “What’s wrong—holy f-fff—”

  Polly, back on his little muffin feet, was no longer the adorable teleporting pet she loved. His feet sprouted black claws, and his sheepdog face took on an evil leer. What really sent shivers down her spine, though, was that he was growing like an inflating life raft, only faster.

  Dana gave a yell and stumbled back, bringing her rifle up, wondering if the Pollinator had fallen prey to some weird newspace rabies. Her finger was on the trigger, but she hesitated; this was one of her few true friends, after all, and friends meant everything to her.

  Polly’s hide showed through the molting white pelt as the creature grew: black, smooth, and hard-looking. Polly heightened and broadened, bigger than Dana already, rearing back on two lengthening hind legs.

  Dana had hesitated to give the alarm, fearing that someone would shoot her dog, but that ceased to matter. The Pollinator let out an eerie inorganic sound, like a processed challenge roar.

  “Polly, stop! Stay back!” She had the Wolverine up, centered, backing away herself. The thing in front of her took a step toward her, though, and when its massive black foot touched down, there was a distinct metallic sound.

  It leaned toward her, and from its sheepdog face there appeared a single red-yellow lens.

  Dana howled fiercely for a universe that would turn a dear pet and friend into a deadly foe. She brought the Wolverine up and fired a sustained burst at the thing that had been the Pollinator.

  Farther up the line, everybody froze. Harry Penn blinked, coming out of his distraction, getting his bearings. “It’s Dana!” he yelled to those ahead of him, and turned back, drawing his Badger.

  Max, farther toward the front of the column, caught the news as it was passed along. People were yelling conflicting questions, answers, and orders.

  Max moaned aloud. “Dana!” He pressed Aurora into Miriya’s arms. “Hang on to her!” Rick and Li
sa had come hurrying back down the column, berating people to set up security and guard against a surprise attack from another quarter. Lisa was calling in air cover; Rick was trying to find out what was going on at the rear.

  People formed up to defend the children, Kazianna towering among them and unlimbering her oversized weapons. Max shoved his wife and daughter toward them. “Vince! Don’t let anything happen to them!”

  Then he was off to the rear, leaving Louie and his cyber-team where they had set up rifle positions, dodging Scott Bernard, who had Marlene clasped to him protectively.

  Max broke through the final screen of foliage to see something immense and black standing with its back to him, the sun of Omphalos doing little to relieve its intense darkness.

  Those who had already gotten to the scene—Harry Penn, Bowie, Lron, and a few others—wavered, holding their fire, not sure what was going on. The black mecha had bent to pick something up. It turned toward them, straightening to its full height, with Dana in its armored fist.

  Lron raised the squad laser weapon that he carried like a rifle and would have fired into the black mecha’s leg in hopes of bringing it down; Max knocked the laser’s thick barrel down. “Hold your fire, all of you!”

  The thing clutching Dana raised its free hand, pointing at Max. She was struggling determinedly but weakly to break out of its grip; the effort was hopeless, and she did not seem to have the breath to yell to those below. Huge, humped, and misshapen as a giant troll, the black mecha leaned toward Max as if about to speak.

  But before it could, thrusters shook the ground and one of the escort Veritechs arrived, a Beta in Guardian mode. It landed like an eagle ready to do battle, its balled armor fists cocked.

  Its pilot couldn’t open up, though, since Dana was in the line of fire. The pilot began to shift his VT through mechamorphosis, going to Battloid, but before he could, the black mecha leapt at him and with one swing of its fearsome fist smashed the VT down.

  The Guardian/Battloid crashed to the ground, broken and smoking. Even as people raced toward it to rescue the pilot, the black mecha hit its foot thrusters and shot away into the sky, still clasping Dana.