Before the Invid Storm Page 5

  "But how do we know they haven't gotten that factory on-line again, spitting out Battlepods or other armed craft? How do we know they're not going to blow us out of orbit just for suggesting that they side with us against the Invid?"

  For the first time, Marie noticed that Rawley's hands were trembling slightly and that his upper lip was beaded with sweat. "From what I've heard, the Zentraedi aren't especially conversant with technology."

  Rawley stared at her, wide-eyed. "From what you've heard? Well, maybe you should research what they accomplished during the Malcontent Uprisings, Lieutenant. You might feel differently about the transmissions you forced us to send."

  In the first place, Marie told herself, no one had been forced to do anything. But you didn't point that out to a guy who needed to have his medication dosage increased. And as for the flash message Liberty had transmitted, in addition to the recall code, it had contained nothing more

  than a schedule of the Reflex burns the factory would be required to make in order for it to insert in Earth orbit. The trajectory corrections had been based on Dr. Emil Lang's original calculations.

  "If the Zentraedi respond to our request," Marie said finally, "they'll do so as comrades, not—"

  "Paint!" Rawley rasped, shooting to his feet and leaning over the console, practically nose to nose with the vertical threat-assessment board. "I've got major paint on long-range two!" he said into a pickup, spewing coordinates, even while his left hand was fumbling with the release key for the alert-status activation display.

  Marie studied the assessment board as sirens began to blare throughout the station. Rawley pressed his headset against his ear and adjusted the gain on one of the transceivers. "I'm waiting for identification!" he yelled into the microphone. "I have high probability that it's an alien ship! Invid, it has to be Invid!"

  A massive, radish-shaped object took shape on the friend-or-foe display. "It's the satellite!" Marie said, caught up in the emotion of the moment.

  And the next words to issue over the speakers were Zentraedi.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  "We'd heard rumors about Louie Nichols, nothing more than that. For instance, we knew he'd been credited with detecting the bio-magnetic field deployed by the Masters' fortress, which led directly to the grounding of their flagship early on in the war. I mean, if it hadn't been for that, the Southern Cross might never have realized just who or what they were up against. Then, of course, there was Louie's 'pupil pistol'—his targeting glasses. We had no doubts that he'd fit in. In fact, we probably would have kidnapped him if he'd turned down Mr. Shimada's offer to join our team."

  Wilfred Gibley, quoted in Bruce Mirrorshades'

  Machine Mind and Arthurian Legend

  "Gath Yar, dentalla!" Dana yelled as she bounded across the arrival gate at Tokyo's Haneda ("Big Bird") Airport and hurled herself at Terry Weston. The Zentraedi phrase—one her mother had shouted at her repeatedly during her childhood—translated as "Complete the mission, ally," but Dana used it the way Miriya Parino had, meaning, "Pick up after yourself!"

  Terry fended off a flurry of Dana's kicks and punches before she managed to sneak one past him. Months of piloting a Veritech against the Masters' hover platforms had sharpened his mind but slowed his Earthbound reflexes.

  Neither he nor Dana were in uniform. Terry wore black jeans, fly-boy boots, and a tight-fitting shirt; Dana, leggings, a baggy top, and vest. Blond and lanky, Terry was nearly twice her age, but could have passed for a slightly older sibling. Louie Nichols, in a tanker's mechasuit and his ever- present tinted goggles, was the only one who looked the part of a combat veteran.

  Following the backhand that tagged him lightly on the chin, Terry pulled Dana into an affectionate embrace and held her until she had calmed

  down. The point/counterpoint was a habit with them, still operational after all these years. Eventually he stepped back to regard her, though guardedly. "How much of what I've been hearing about you and the 15th is on the level?"

  Dana made her arching brows bob. "Tell me what you've been hearing." "That you were aboard the flagship minutes before it exploded."

  "Guilty as charged."

  "And that it was you who turned the red Bioroid pilot against the Masters."

  Dana's grin faltered. Terry was referring to Zor Prime. "Umm . . . No, I can't take credit for that. The red Bioroid pilot did what he needed to do. I just happened to be there when he did it."

  Terry shook his head in amazement. "Next, they'll be erecting a monument to you."

  "Not likely," Dana said, ready to change the subject. She turned to Louie. "Terry, Louie Nichols."

  Weston extended his hand. "Good to meet you, Nichols." When his gaze returned to Dana, the mirth had left his eyes. "I was sorry to hear about Rolf."

  Dana compressed her lips and nodded. "Rolf's the one who deserves a monument."

  "How's Bowie taking it?"

  "Not good. But he found someone who's helping him through it." She didn't bother to add that that someone was a green-haired alien clone named Musica.

  The Shimada Family had provided a stretch limousine, which was waiting curbside. Dana had been told to expect as much, but the car took her by surprise nevertheless. The Terry Weston she knew was a rough-and- tumble guy who rode motorcycles and piloted Veritechs. And while he maintained that he still rode a vintage Marauder, he seemed awfully at home in the air-conditioned comfort of the backseat.

  "Just why did you agree to play go-between for the Shimadas and the Southern Cross?" Dana asked him when they were under way and the privacy partition had been raised. "After what the Cosmic Units accomplished upside—in spite of Leonard—you sure don't owe command anything above and beyond the call."

  "I probably would have said no to command. Especially if Leonard had survived." Terry worked his jaw in repressed anger. "But once Kan Shimada learned that Dana Sterling might be coming to Tokyo, he asked me to handle things." He grinned at her. "He's eager to meet you."

  Dana snorted. "As celebrated war hero or notorious half-breed?" Terry shrugged. "You'll have to ask him."

  The limo sped down a wide highway, populated large by enormous trucks and fleets of small vans. Though a frequent visitor to near space, Dana hadn't seen much of the planet up close and personal, and far she was disappointed. Tokyo, said to be Earth's twenty-first-century wonder, looked less like a city than a superhighway system run amok. The residential zones had the makeshift look of slums, and everything in between was a smoke- spewing industrial park. "No wonder the Masters left this place alone," she commented.

  Louie and Weston regarded each other and laughed. Louie said, "You're only seeing the roof, Dana."

  The city's single tall structure would have been lost among the former milk-carton towers of Monument, though in fact it turned out to be the Shimada Building. Dana thought about Lazlo Zand; it was from here that he had communicated with the Masters, almost two years before the War. Emerging from the limo, she shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed up at the Shimada's airy crown. "That's our destination, I suppose," she said as Terry was climbing from the backseat.

  But he shook his head. "We're going the other way." He aimed his thumb at the ground. "Down."

  The elevator car had walls of thick glass. After descending several levels through the building itself, the car emerged in Tokyo's vast underground as

  an exterior elevator affixed to the Shimada's hidden self. Dana realized that they were dropping into an interconnected complex of vast domes—the so- called geo-grid—lit by sunlight and fiber-optic arrays. These housed all that was missing from the surface world: offices, shops, sports complexes, casinos, pedestrian malls, and video gardens. But for all the wonder of it, Dana's awe was corrupted by sadness; for Tokyo was emblematic of what had become of Humankind, driven by three generations of war—global and otherwise—to entomb itself in gloriously appointed bomb shelters.

  The elevator stopped well above street level, and Terry led Dana and Louie back into t
he building. They moved down a carpeted hallway toward a room sealed off by traditional Japanese sliding doors. While they were removing their footwear, a male attendant spoke into his lapel mike and announced their arrival, then Terry escorted them inside, where ten men and one young woman were sitting on the floor around a long, low table. Varying in age from twenty or so to sixty, the men bowed from the waist and spoke to one another in Japanese while Louie and Dana folded themselves into cross-legged postures at the near end of the table. Exquisitely wrought faux wood, the table supported an arrangement of porcelain teapots and cups. Save for the overhead lights, there wasn't a piece of technology to be seen.

  "Most revered guests," the silver-haired man at the head of the table said, "you honor us with your visit. Let us hope that this meeting will be the first of many, and that it will lay the groundwork for projects mutually beneficial to our individual and collective causes."

  The silver-haired one was Kan Shimada himself. On his right sat his sons, Eiten, Yosuke, and Chosei, and on his left, his most trusted advisors, including Miho Nagata, whose name Dana knew. Closer to her and Louie's end of the table—and dressed way down for the occasion—were two of Shimada's top researchers, Wilfred Gibley and Shi Ling. The young woman's name was Misa Yoshida.

  Dana found the first moments of eye contact telling. People who knew anything about her ancestry tended to regard her with a certain wary

  curiosity; but the penetrating gaze of the Shimadas added respect to the mix, which was something new to her. In a year's time, she seemed to have graduated from half-breed upstart to half-breed war hero. And while she felt gratified, she wished she could have brought along a couple of the Tirolean clones, if only to siphon off the Shimadas' flagrant inquisitiveness. Gibley and Shi Ling, on the other hand, gave her only a moment's gaze before fixing their attention on Louie Nichols, whose whiz-kid reputation had obviously preceded him. As for Misa Yoshida, her dark eyes darted not between Dana and Louie, but between Dana and Terry, who wasn't even seated at the table, but behind Dana, near the sliding doors.

  "Mr. Shimada, I, too, hope that something productive can come of our meeting," Dana said when she'd had about all she could take of the silent scrutiny. "But as an emissary of the provisional government and the allied defense forces, I'm obliged to mention that we were hoping President Misui would be included."

  Kan Shimada nodded gravely. "Rest assured, Miss Sterling, that everything said here will reach the ears of the president. From our previous dealings—though they may not have been face-to-face—it should be obvious to you, at least, that I am a man of my word."

  Shimada was referring to the intercepted communiqué between Lazlo Zand and the Masters. Where the yakuza family could have kept the intelligence to itself, Kan Shimada had instead tasked Terry Weston to bring it to the attention of Rolf Emerson, who Terry eventually reached through Dana. As a result, Emerson had been able to use the data to thwart Anatole Leonard's plan to usurp the power of the UEG and crush the Robotech Defense Force. The Shimadas hadn't exactly kept quiet about what they knew—that the Masters' fleet had already arrived in the Solar system—but they had gone about their work of empowering Tokyo without once resorting to blackmail.

  "Mr. Shimada, I only needed to hear that President Misui would be apprised of our discussion," Dana said at last. "My adoptive father often said that you would be one of the people on whom Earth's future would rest,

  and I never doubted that for a moment."

  The Shimada daimyo inclined his head toward her. "I am deeply saddened by Rolf's death—though all of us should wish for such an honorable ending to our lives." He allowed a moment of silence before asking, "What assistance can Tokyo provide to the beleaguered leaders of the world government and the defense forces?"

  Dana switched from a cross-legged position to a kneeling posture. "We know that you have been doing research into something called 'machine mind.' It's rumored that you've discovered a way to bypass the Protoculture interface in controlling mecha. Defense Force command is eager to know if there is any truth to this rumor, and if so, whether you would be willing to share aspects of your research with Robotech Research and Development."

  "For the war effort, you mean."

  Dana thought for a moment. "Let's say, for the next war effort." Shimada grinned, showing even, white teeth. "Ah, but here in Tokyo,

  our sole interest lies in backing the peace effort."

  Dana grinned faintly. "Tokyo was certainly within its rights as a sovereign city to exclude itself from the War. But may I respectfully submit that the Masters did not come in peace. If it wasn't for the Macross mounds, Tokyo might have suffered the same fate that Monument City has."

  Shimada showed the palms of manicured hands. "Who can say for certain? Had the Masters been granted access to the mounds, a war might have been averted. Zand and Leonard must have known this. But each, for his own reasons, opted for contest over negotiation. I respectfully submit to you, that, even if it existed in the shadow of the mounds, Tokyo would have responded differently."

  "Perhaps," Dana granted. "But it's pretty obvious now that we all exist in the shadow of the Invid. What will Tokyo do when they arrive?"

  Shimada's eyes glinted. "Treat them as guests before we brand them as enemies." He paused for effect. "For all anyone knows, the Invid will seek out only those areas where the Flowers of Life are growing in greatest profusion. And should that prove the case, it may be possible to coexist with

  them. For a time, we shared this planet with the Zentraedi. Why, then, shouldn't we be prepared to share it with the Invid?"

  Dana recalled his introductory words to her. You honor us with your visit. Let us hope that this meeting will be the first of many, and that it will lay the groundwork for projects mutually beneficial to our individual and collective causes. Was that how Shimada planned to greet the Invid?

  He spoke before she could reply. "It is only because the Defense Force will assume that the Invid are our enemies that we are reluctant to share our research with them. We are without ulterior motive in this. You can assure those to whom you answer that we are not like the Southlands' Starchildren cult, readying some dream ship that is meant to deliver us far from Earth and its troubles."

  "I'm sure they'll take great comfort in that," Dana said disingenuously. "But make no mistake about it, Mr. Shimada, the Invid are going to disappoint you. True, they probably won't wage war on us like the Zentraedi and the Masters did. They aren't coming to reclaim a hijacked battle fortress or a Protoculture Matrix. They're coming for the Flowers of Life and for the planet on which they've taken root. And they will see us as nothing more than troublesome pests infesting their gardens. They will simply eradicate those of us who resist and enslave the rest. They will construct hives in every part of the world and create orchards and gardens around them. And we will be the ones tending those gardens and picking the Flowers, Mr. Shimada. Ask the inhabitants of Karbarra, Spheris, Praxis, Garuda, and countless other worlds. They'll confirm what I'm telling you, because they've lived with it."

  Shimada traded baffled glances with his sons. "I know nothing of these places."

  "Worlds that were once ruled by the Masters," Dana explained. "But when their empire began to crumble, the Invid rushed in to claim them. This comes direct from the Expeditionary mission, Mr. Shimada. From the commander of the one ship the REF has managed to return home."

  "Why wasn't this made public?" Wilfred Gibley asked. "All we heard

  was that Major Carpenter's ship had been destroyed by the Masters' fleet."

  Dana smiled thinly in Gibley's direction. "Whatever my personal indebtedness to you for what you did to Zand, you were hardly considered a Southern Cross ally. Command released only that information that bore directly on the war. I guess it struck Leonard as counter-productive to whip everyone into a frenzy about the Invid while we were still trying to deal with the Masters. Probably the only right choice Leonard ever made."

  Shimada steepled his fin
gers and touched them to his lower lip. "You made no mention of this when you asked if we would be willing to share our technology. Are you proposing some sort of trade—our research for what you know about the Expeditionary mission and the SDF-3?"

  Dana glanced at Louie, who gave his head a barely perceptible shake. "I'm not going to lie to you," she said, when she looked back at Shimada. "Major Carpenter was shocked to find the Masters here—in Earthspace. Apparently, it took the SDF-3 several years to fold to Tirol, and it took Carpenter's ship almost as many to refold. He thought he'd be returning to the year 2023, not 2032. In other words, his information about the REF is already years out of date. Anything could have happened. The Invid might have been defeated in Tirolspace, or vice versa. We just don't know."

  Shimada took a long moment to respond. "What is your personal hunch about the Expeditionary mission?"

  Dana was nonplussed. Shimada continued.

  "I'm not suggesting that you've had some sort of revelation. But, surely, you have a gut feeling about the SDF-3. What with your parents onboard . . ."

  Dana was tempted to tell him about her vision, but rejected the idea. Not in this setting, she told herself. Not in her position as emissary. "I'll say this much, Mr. Shimada: I believe with all my heart that the Invid will come to Earth. I wouldn't be here, otherwise. Nor would I have agreed to play this same role with the Zentraedi."

  Shimada's sons and advisors muttered and shook their heads. "More surprises from the not-so-guileless Ms. Sterling," Kan's eldest, Chosei, said.

  Dana glanced at him. "The Zentraedi have agreed to return the factory satellite to Earth orbit. We're hoping we can use it to ferry some of our disabled warships to what we've determined to be a Sensor Nebula, dispatched by the Invid to search for Flower-rich worlds. Presently, the Nebula is some twenty million miles away. That's why we're interested in knowing what you've learned about media control. The reasoning is that the more firepower we can bring to bear on the Nebula, the greater the chances of destroying it. But most of our ships and craft are depleted of Protoculture. We have to find some other way to activate them."