Doomsday Page 5

  night.

  "Sorry I'm late," she answered without turning around.

  "I don't know why we're even bothering to do this gig-there's hardly anyone out there. This is the pits."

  "I don't care that much about the size of the audience," she said into the mirror. "I'm through worrying about all this, Kyle. I'm just going to sing for my fans, just the way I always have."

  "What's with you?" he said, standing over her now.

  Minmei shot to her feet and faced him. "You worry about our take, Kyle!

  I'm just singing for myself, do you understand me? Just for myself!" She pushed past him and left the room.

  Her anger had taken him by surprise. Minmei just singing for herself? he asked himself, then turned to the door with a sullen look.

  He'd see about that.

  Back in New Macross, Rick, Lisa, and Max and Miriya Sterling were summoned to a briefing in Admiral Gloval's quarters aboard the SDF-1. Hunter and Hayes had spent most of the day filling out reports concerning that morning's incident with the Zentraedi malcontents. Rick was sore head to foot from Bagzent's finger flick. Max and Miriya were sans Dana, their child, for a change but joined at the hip nonetheless.

  Gloval looked plain tired. Perhaps, as a former Earth hero had once remarked, "it wasn't the years, it was the miles." He'd been spending more and more of his time in the old ship, and on those rare occasions when he did put in an appearance elsewhere, he seemed impatient and troubled. Gone was the tolerant, accepting paternal figure who shared the sense of fear and purpose that united the rest of them. In his place was a man of secret purpose, bearing the weight of the world on his narrow shoulders. Exedore, who in a sense had become his right-hand man, was also in attendance.

  "What I'm about to tell you is strictly confidential," Gloval told the four RDF commanders. "Not a word of this is to leave this room. If it were to get

  out, the damage would be catastrophic."

  The old man was seated at his desk; behind him the clear starry night poured in through the fortress's massive permaglass window.

  The commanders responded with a crisp, "Yes, sir."

  Exedore stepped forward to address them now, the whites of his eyes practically glowing in the dim room.

  "Yesterday, we finally spotted the Zentraedi automated Robotech factory satellite. Space cruisers large enough to destroy the Earth with a single blast are being constructed within the satellite." He caught their gasps of surprise and hastened to add, "Yes, it is a terrible thing."

  "Listen carefully," said Gloval, more harshly than was necessary. He was standing now, palms flat against the desk. "I want you people to survey that system and bring me additional data on the satellite."

  The four commanders exchanged puzzled looks. There was something the old man wasn't telling them-aside from answering how it was they were supposed to get offworld-unless of course he was planning to recommission the SDF-1 itself.

  "Commander Breetai will fill you in on the details," Gloval explained after a moment. "We have no way of knowing if and when the remaining Zentraedi will attack us again, but for our own defense we have to have as many space cruisers as we can lay our hands on." He turned to them now to emphasize the point, "You understand that."

  "Yes," Exedore said softly. His eyes were closed, his brow furrowed, and one could almost believe that he felt a twinge of pain at the thought of bringing warships to bear against his own kind once again.

  Rick and the others voiced their assent: It not only meant that they would be leaving the planet again, it meant that they would be relying on the Zentraedi as well. And yet Gloval was right: It was for their own defense.

  Minmei stepped onto the stage and grasped the microphone. Colored spots played across the plank floor, until at last a single rose-toned beam of light found and encompassed her in its warm glow. Her face was sad, blue

  eyes wide and full of loss. The crowd was chanting, "We love Minmei, we love Minmei," but all she could think about was Rick, Kyle, those giant Zentraedi who had fought in the streets of New Macross only hours ago.

  She felt as though she had failed everyone.

  She had decided to scrap the first upbeat tune of the set and go immediately into "Touch and Go," a laid-back number that started with a simple piano and string riff and bass slide but grew somber and melancholy at the F-sharp minor/C-sharp 7 bridge, with a sort of crying guitar distortion punctuation backed by a stiff snare beat.

  I always think of you, Dream of you late at night. What do you do,

  When I turn out the light? No matter who I touch,

  It is you I still see. I can't believe

  What has happened to me.

  Tears began to form in her eyes as she sang. The audience was mesmerized by her performance. She sensed this and began to experience an extraordinary sense of nostalgia and yearning, entering the tune's bridge now:

  It is you I miss.

  It's you who's on my mind, It's you I cannot leave behind.

  If the connection could always be this strong, she said to herself. If only she had the strength to will things right, and good, and peaceful. If only she had the power to become that symbol once again, that perfect chord everyone would vibrate to...

  It's me who's lost-

  The me who lost her heart- To you who tore my heart apart.

  But loss was the world's new theme; loss and betrayal, anger and regret. And what could she hope to achieve against such malignant power? She had tried and failed, and the day would come soon when song itself was but a memory.

  If you still think of me How did we come to this? Wish that I knew

  It is me that you miss Wish that I knew

  It is me that you miss...

  CHAPTER FIVE

  [The joint Terran/Zentraedi exploration of the SDF-1] was the only occasion when Breetai allowed himself to undergo the micronization process [prior to the SDF-3 Expeditionary Mission to Tirol]. As soon as it became obvious that Zor's prize [i.e., the Protoculture matrix] was likely to remain hidden for some time longer, Breetai immediately had himself returned to full stature. He had little of the curiosity for Micronian customs that Exedore had; nor did he share the same fascination for Minmei that was responsible for so many other deviations from the Zentraedi way. Breetai enjoyed being looked up to...

  Rawlins, Zentraedi Triumvirate: Dolza, Breetai, Khyron

  Ground fog lay like spun sugar across Lake Gloval and swirled through the early morning streets of New Macross like autumn ghosts. In the shadow of the gargantuan dimensional fortress-like some techno-Neptune protector-a three-stage rocket added its LOX exhaust to the mist. An RDF shuttle (the same that had carried Lisa Hayes from the SDF-1 to Alaska Base two years ago) was affixed. to the rocket's main booster pack.

  In another part of the field, nine Veritechs were also holding in preflight status. Each ship was outfitted with deep-space augmentation pods and positioned atop individual blast shield transports.

  The Shiva was fully primed for launch; gantries and attendance vehicles had already been pulled back, and the sound of the countdown Klaxons lent an eerie sound track to the scene.

  In the control tower, techs ran last-minute crucial checks on the shuttle's propulsion and guidance systems. Readouts flashed across myriad monitor screens too quickly for the untrained eye to make sense of, and two dozen voices talked at once but never at cross-purposes. Robotechnology had simplified things substantially since the pioneering days of space travel, but certain traditions and routines had been maintained.

  "Calculations for orbital fluctuations have been received," one of the shuttle crew said through the comlink "We have lock and signal, control."

  "Shuttle escort," a male controller directed toward one of the Veritechs, "we are at T minus fifty and counting. Your lift-off is at T three."

  A second Veritech pilot was being questioned by a female tech: "Escort V-oh-one-one-two, your gravitational tracking status is what? Please clarify."

  "Tower control
," the pilot responded. "Uh, sorry about that. Little snafu with the guidance switch, if you know what I mean..."

  "Watch it next time, mister," the tech scolded him.

  On the field Max and Miriya, strapped into their respective blue and red Veritechs, went through final systems checks. Max flashed his wife a thumbs-up from the cockpit as he lowered the tinted faceshield of his helmet.

  Evacuation warnings were being broadcast through the field PA: "All ground support vehicles evacuate launch area immediately...All Veritechs complete final systems check...We. are go for lift-off. Repeat-we are go for lift-off...Countdown commencing-T minus thirty seconds..."

  In Skull One, Rick surveyed the field as the transport's massive hydraulic jacks lifted the Veritech to a seventy-two-degree launch angle. Simultaneously a thick blast shield was elevated into position behind the Veritech's aft rockets. Thinking about the importance of the mission, he was overcome by a wave of nostalgia, a curious sense of homesickness for space. He realized suddenly how disappointed he would have been had the admiral left him out of this one...

  "You are going to rendezvous with the Zentraedi flagship, " Gloval had explained at the briefing. "Only at that time will you receive your final instructions. I have put Commander Breetai in charge of this mission for reasons that will become clear to you later."

  Rick glanced over his shoulder at the Shiva, the shuttle piggyback on its gleaming hull. It was amazing, he decided: going off to rendezvous with Breetai, the Zentraedi who had once torn his Vermilion Veritech limb

  from limb. He wondered if Lisa was remembering that time, that kiss... "Shuttle to tower control...all systems on-line and awaiting green light." "Roger, shuttle," the controller radioed to the crew. "Stand by..."

  Inside the shuttle, Lisa leaned toward the permaglass porthole closest to her seat. It was not an easy maneuver, but she hoped to catch a glimpse of Rick's lift-off. One by one the Veritechs were being nosed up now...Max's, Miriya's...Rick's...She pulled herself away from the view and sighed, loud enough for Claudia and Exedore to hear her and inquire if she was all right. It was a strange mixture of emotions that tugged at her thoughts: memories of the time she'd spent in Breetai's ship and recent events that continued to confuse her feelings. In some ways this return to the stars was less like a mission than a vacation.

  "Shuttle escort launch at signal zero-now!"

  The Veritechs lifted off, the sound of their blasts like a volley of thunderclaps echoing around the lake. Then, with a more continuous roar, the Shiva rose from its pad, a fiery morning star in the scudded skies over New Macross.

  Breetai's ship, one-time nemesis and subsequent ally of the SDF-1, was holding at a Lagrange point inside the lunar orbit. More than ten kilometers in length, armored and bristling with guns like some nightmare leviathan, the vessel had never put down on Earth. But teams of Lang's Robotechs, working side by side with Zentraedi giants, had retrofitted the ship to accommodate human crews. Elevators and air locks had been incorporated into the hull; holds had been partitioned off into human-size work spaces and quarters; automated walkways were installed; and the astrogation hold now contained control consoles and the latest innovations from Lang's projects-development labs. All this had been child's play for the Earth techs-many of the same men and women who had overseen the original conversion of the SDF-1, had later fabricated a city for 60,000 inside the fortress itself, and were currently involved in the construction of the SDF-2-but it had struck the Zentraedi (who had no understanding of the

  Robotechnology bequeathed to them by the Masters) as near miraculous.

  Now, while the shuttle craft carrying Exedore, Lisa, and Claudia entered one of the flagship's docking bays, the nine Veritechs under Rick's command were reconfiguring to Guardian mode and putting down in formation on an external elevator. In the bay a human voice announced the shuttle's arrival in English.

  "All personnel in docking zones D-twenty-four and D-twenty-five-attention: Micronian shuttlecraft now commencing final docking procedures in upper landing bay."

  The use of the term "Micronian" was no longer considered to be pejorative, in spite of its derivation; it had simply come to mean "human-size" as opposed to "microbelike." So Lisa and Claudia were not fazed; nor was Rick, topside, when a shock trooper welcomed the Veritechs aboard likewise.

  The Zentraedi shock trooper stood a good sixty feet tall, but the fact that he was wearing armor and a helmet suggested that he might be one of the inferior class of warriors incapable of withstanding the vacuum perils of deep space unless properly outfitted.

  "Uh, thanks," Rick told him through the com net. "It's good to be here." The trooper flashed him a grin and thumbs-up. "If you're ready, let's bring her down," Rick added.

  The giant proudly displayed a device in his gloved hand. He tapped in a simple code, and the elevator began to drop into the ship.

  Elsewhere, Lisa, Claudia, and Exedore exited the shuttle's circular doorway and descended the stairway to the hold floor. Breetai was waiting for them there, his blue uniform and brown tunic looking brand-new.

  "My Micronian friends-welcome," his voice boomed.

  Lisa looked up at him standing there with arms akimbo and found herself smiling. These past two years had worked a subtle magic on the commander. It was well known that he refused to micronize himself, but merely working with humans had been enough to change him somehow, soften him, Lisa thought. The gleaming plate that covered one side of his

  face seemed more an adornment now than anything else.

  Meanwhile Exedore had stepped forward and offered a stiff human salute.

  "Greetings and salutations, your Lordship. We are at your service."

  Breetai bent down, a look of affection contorting his face. "It's good seeing you, Exedore...It's nice to have you back on the ship."

  Exedore must have noticed the change also, because he seemed genuinely moved. "Why, uh, thank you, sir," he stammered.

  Breetai turned to Claudia and Lisa, their upturned faces betraying gentle amusement. "And I especially wish to extend a welcome to you," he told them, making a gallant gesture with his hand. "I am deeply honored to have you under my command."

  Lisa, versed in Zentraedi protocol, returned: "It's a great honor, sir, to have this opportunity."

  Breetai came down on one knee to thank her. "As you know, my people are unaccustomed to contact with beauty such as yours," he said flatteringly. "So don't be offended by any strange reactions you may encounter."

  Lisa and Claudia turned to each other and laughed openly as Breetai drew himself up to full height again.

  "Now then...if you'll permit, I'll show you to your quarters."

  In the hangar space below the docking elevator, Max stood beneath Miriya's scarlet Guardian. He called up to the open-canopied cockpit, "Okay, that's it," signaling her with a wave of his hand. "Now bring the cradle pod down."

  Miriya activated the device only recently installed in her Veritech. "Here it comes," she told him.

  Servomotors whined, and a royal-blue cylindrical pod-which could have passed for a turn-of-the-century bomb-began to drop from the rear seat, riding a telescoping shaft down beneath the legs of the fighter.

  A Robotech delivery, Max said to himself as he approached the pod. He went to work disengaging fasteners, and in a minute the pod's blunt nose

  swung open. Max peered inside the heavily padded interior, smiled, and said, "There..."

  He reached in and pulled Dana into his arms, a tiny wiggling astronaut in a white helmet with tinted faceshield and a pink and white suit that fit her like Dr. Dentons. Dana cooed, and Max hugged her to himself.

  Miriya saw him step from beneath the Veritech with Dana cradled in his arms. Max assisted Dana in a wave; Miriya smiled and felt her heart skip a beat.

  Breetai paced the observation bubble deck anxiously. Terran techs had effected changes here as well. The bubble shield had been dismantled and an openwork semicircular flattopped walkway installed in its place; humansiz
e consoles occupied a flyout platform at the center of the arc. In addition, the circular monitor screen Max Sterling had once piloted a Veritech through was back in one piece.

  "Any fluctuations from the satellite factory?" Breetai inquired into one of the binocularlike microphones.

  "Negative," answered a synthesized voice. "Maintaining solar stasis." "Notify me immediately of any change," he ordered.

  "Yes, sir," the computer responded.

  Breetai assumed the command chair and steepled his fingers. "Think, Breetai-think of a plan," he said aloud, as demanding of himself as he was of his troops. "If we are able to convince Reno that we have the Protoculture, we will have little difficulty in securing his complete cooperation...Otherwise, we will have quite a fight on our hands. Our forces will be vastly outnumbered."

  Claudia turned from her console and monitor station on the walkway. "But we don't possess any Protoculture," she saw fit to remind him, her console mike carrying her words to the commander. "How do we convince him that we do...uuhh," clearing her throat here, her eyes going wide for an instant, "assuming we're given the chance?"

  Breetai grinned. "We'll have our chance," he said certainly. "But for

  now, entering hyperspace is our immediate concern, wouldn't you say?"

  Claudia traded looks with Lisa, seated at the adjacent station. It was obvious now that Breetai's musings were not really meant for their ears at all. Whatever the plan, it seemed likely they would be the last to know.

  Max and Rick stood together on one of the moving walkways, marveling at the changes the ship had undergone and reveling in memories that time had rendered less severe.