The Zentraedi Rebellion Page 5

  “Now you’re the one making me sound like a hero.”

  “I’m sorry, Rick, but you are a hero. I suggest you get used to it.”

  Rick laughed to himself. “You know what I remember most about that last day in Macross? Your telling Minmei that if she loved me she would let me do what I do best.”

  “I meant what I said.”

  “Yeah, but what you said was, ‘He’s a pilot, that’s his life.’ ”

  Lisa was silent for the remainder of the drive to Fokker Aerospace.

  Three hours after launching, the shuttle was entering the smallest of the factory satellite’s five docking bays—a recent installation, necessitated by the confounding fact that the four principal bays responded solely to Zentraedi ships.

  A lieutenant colonel was on hand to meet Rick, Lisa, and the thirty-eight other officers and techs who had filled the shuttle to capacity. A second colonel, at the controls of a four-seater cart, drove Rick and Lisa to a private cabin where they could rest after the flight and acclimate to the factory’s slightly-less-than-Earth-normal gravity. En route, they rode past a series of enormous viewports that opened on the factory’s null-g heart, where Breetai’s three-mile-long, 270,000,000-ton flagship was docked.

  A fully automated repair and production station, the factory was a marvel, even by Zentraedi standards. Rose-colored and radish-shaped, with fissures and convolutions suggestive of cerebral matter, it was some twenty miles wide and could easily accommodate 1,500,000 full-size Zentraedi. At the end of transfer-tube spokes issuing from its midsection were half-a-dozen secondary pods that were hollowed asteroids. When operational, the factory could effect interior and exterior repairs on as many as ten ships simultaneously. A Queadol-Magdomilla like the one Khyron had commanded could be refitted with weapons, replenished with Protoculture, and restocked with battle mecha in less than eight Earth hours. For the giant warriors in wait, there were vast holds designed for exercise, recuperation, combat simulation, and resizing.

  The upper eight levels of the central body were devoted to living spaces and command and control of astrogation and fold operations. The capacity of each level varied, but the height from deck to ceiling was never less than two hundred feet. The lower eight levels comprised the factory area itself. At the heart of the facility, between the two sections, was the zero-gravity chamber where flagships were overhauled.

  The factory had been won from Commander Reno two years earlier in a joint Zentraedi-RDF attack led by Breetai. After Reno’s defeat, it had been folded to lunar orbit, then moved under conventional power to a Lagrange point, closer to the Earth. As late as the spring of 2014, the factory had been manufacturing partially complete Tactical Battlepods, though glitches had since forced its shutdown. Doctors Lang and Bronson were understandably eager to get the thing back on-line, but they hadn’t a clue as to how to do so.

  Rick and Lisa’s escort reappeared after three hours to convey them to a conference room located in the factory’s “six o’clock” pod, the only one scaled to Human size, though the main plant abounded in cabinspaces and passageways suitable for Micronized Zentraedi. Exedore, Bronson, Harry Penn, and several others were waiting at a massive round table, which had as its centerpiece a Zentraedi projecbeam port. Sundry Human-friendly computers and an array of flatscreens had been retrofitted along the short walls of the room. Most of the long, curving outer wall was given over to a blister port which looked out on Earth.

  “Breetai, along with Dr. Lang and Professor Zand, will be attending as a telepresence,” Exedore explained as he was showing Rick and Lisa to their seats. His white, tight-fitting RDF uniform had gold piping, and had been tailored in a way that minimized his physical deformities. The room’s harsh lighting, however, only intensified the mauve tones of his skin and drew attention to his peculiar eyes.

  “Ah, here is Lord Breetai now.”

  Rick and Lisa turned their attention to a large screen that dominated the room’s rear wall. Breetai had had himself returned to full size since the downside surveys, and back in place was the alloy half cowl that covered the horribly scarred right side of his face. In place of the dead eye beneath the cowl was a shining light-gathering crystal.

  “Can you hear and see us, Your Excellency?” Exedore asked.

  Breetai’s voice thundered through the speakers. “Perfectly, Exedore.”

  A tech made hasty volume adjustments while Exedore went on to explain that Breetai was speaking from his personal cabin aboard the flagship. Lang and Zand—communicating from the Robotech Research Center in Monument—came onscreen to the left of Breetai.

  Sheamus Bronson asked that everyone break the seals on the security envelopes that had been distributed and familiarize themselves with the contents. The feasibility of utilizing Breetai’s leviathan to reach Tirol had been assigned top priority.

  “Based on the ship’s performance during the raid on Reno’s forces,” Lang was saying a moment later, “I’m confident that we can execute a jump to Tirolspace without depleting the fold system of the Protoculture necessary to return us to Earth. That much said, readying the mission basically entails completing the retrofitting that was begun in advance of our capture of the factory.”

  The hopeful murmuring that erupted around the table endured only until Exedore spoke.

  “While I’m hardly the one to argue with Dr. Lang’s evaluation of the fold system, I feel compelled to state that a hyperspace jump undertaken without certain precautions will end in tragedy.”

  When Lang asked for an explanation, Exedore deferred to Breetai, who was stroking his square chin with the fingers of his left hand. “Dr. Lang, you have overlooked the fact that Commander Reno was expecting us when we folded to the factory. Dolza had of course informed him that I had become Admiral Gloval’s ally in the fight for the SDF-1.”

  “But Reno and his forces are dead,” Dr. Bronson thought to point out. His full beard, thick hair, and flaring eyebrows lent a disturbing intensity to an otherwise handsome face.

  “If Reno knew, the Masters know,” Breetai told him.

  Lang was nodding his head. “The Masters will launch an attack the moment the flagship defolds in the Valivarre system.”

  “Is there a way to make the ship unrecognizable to the Masters?” Lisa asked.

  Exedore turned to her. “With the destruction of the Grand Fleet, the Invid are surely ravaging the Masters’ empire and closing on Tirol. The Masters will be doubly wary of any incursions into the Valivarre system of worlds.”

  Zand started to ask if Exedore was suggesting they scrap the mission, but Lang cut him off.

  “He’s proposing that we alter the signature of the flagship to mimic one that the Masters would welcome. Am I correct, Exedore?”

  “Correct, Dr. Lang. The best solution would be to restructure the ship along the lines of Zor’s dimensional fortress. If the Masters can be deceived into believing that Zor’s ship—”

  “Impossible,” Bronson said. “If we had twenty years, if we had a century, we couldn’t redesign the flagship to reconfigure. We could barely get the SDF-2 to sit up straight.”

  Again, Zand started to speak only to be interrupted by Lang. “We might attempt to mimic the look of the SDF-1 in cruiser mode. Needless to say, we’d also have to alter the Reflex engines to produce a different energy signature …”

  Rick broke the short silence.

  “I don’t see the point of spending years redesigning Breetai’s ship on the chance that the Masters will be duped. We’d be better off using the time to rebuild the Defense Force. By itself, the flagship packs awesome firepower, and if we could get the factory to start producing Battlepods again … I mean, how can we be sure the Masters even know where to come looking for us? Breetai didn’t tell them, and we don’t know that Dolza did, even if he did tell Reno about Breetai’s, uh, defection.”

  Rick was suddenly aware that everyone at the table, Lisa included, was looking anywhere but at him. “What haven’t I been told?” he ask
ed at last.

  Lang cleared his throat. “It’s nothing we know for certain, Admiral Hunter, but we suspect that we may have already furnished the Masters with Earth’s location.”

  Rick turned to Lisa. “How?”

  “By bringing to factory here,” she said quietly.

  Rick shut his eyes and shook his head. “Which means they’ll be coming here if we don’t go there.”

  “Most assuredly, Admiral,” Exedore told him.

  “Dr. Lang,” Lisa said quickly, “I want your best estimate of the time required to complete the redesign.”

  Lang drew a breath. “We’ve learned quite a bit since Macross Island, Admiral Hayes. But this …” He paused for a moment, then showed the camera a determined look. “Assuming that we’ll have the necessary funding and personnel, I’d say it can be done in three years. And I’m certain we’ll be spending most of that time restructuring the bow of the flagship to conform to the twin-boomed design of the SDF’s reflex cannon. It will be like fashioning a racing car from a block of wood, but in the end you’ll have a fold-capable fraud to pilot to Tirol. I promise that much.”

  Zand, among others, looked dubious. “And just where, Dr. Lang, will the raw materials for this miraculous transformation come from?”

  Lang’s marblelike eyes glistened. “First, we’ll have to strip everything we can from the Zentraedi ships that litter near space and stipple Earth’s surface. Then, we’ll have to cannibalize the unfinished Southern Grand Cannon.” He uttered a short laugh and pressed the palms of his hands together. “We may even have to ready a mission to Plutospace to pick up those pieces of Macross Island we couldn’t take aboard the SDF-1.”

  Downside, grouped around a simple, square table in a run-down motel several hours south of Monument City, Macross Council President Milburn met in secret conclave with Senator Stinson, formerly of Macross, Senator Longchamps, Human member of the Monument City Council, and General Maistroff and Colonel Caruthers of the RDF. The cramped and airless room was devoid of computers, flatscreens, or recording devices of any sort. There was a distant view of the Grand Tetons from a cracked and grimy picture window, but Milburn had ordered the window’s heavy green drapes pulled shut.

  “We can’t go on living like we’re diplomats on foreign soil,” Milburn was saying. “There aren’t perks enough to make the job worthwhile and we’ve got no room to maneuver. That’s the hell of having devolved into polities, each ruled by its own council. Goddamned Lang and the rest of them … They should be down here building me a new city instead of playing space cadets in that miserable factory.”

  Longchamps leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest. “Is this just a grievance session, Milburn, or did you have something constructive to propose?” A rangy man of fifty, he’d seen autonomy coming for Monument long before the Macross Council granted it, and had positioned himself as an advocate of Zentraedi rights to reap the rewards.

  Milburn smirked in Longchamps’s direction. “Keep your shirt on, Philipe, I’m coming to that,” His gaze lingered on Longchamps a moment longer. “I recommend we put our heads together and compile a list of people we can trust in Detroit, Denver, Mexico, Brasília, and the rest. We then propose to all of them the formation of a new United Earth Defense Council, to which, naturally, everyone on our team will be elected. The people will back the idea. They crave united leadership. They want to believe some ultimate authority is looking out for them.”

  The always debonair Senator Stinson mulled it over and shook his head. “It’ll never fly. A UEDC will conjure up memories of Russo and the mistakes he and his bunch made during the War.”

  “What mistakes?” Longchamps asked. “You think Dolza would have extended the peace pipe if the UEDC hadn’t fired the Grand Cannon? The mistake was in not giving Dolza the SDF-1.”

  Maistroff glared at him. “Easy for you to say, Longchamps, safe and sound on Earth while Gloval and I were getting our asses handed to us every day.”

  Maistroff was a tall, humorless man, known to be something of a xenophobic martinet. As an air group officer aboard the SDF-1, he had occasionally relieved Henry Gloval on the bridge, and had personally conducted the debriefing of Hunter, Hayes, Dixon, and Sterling after their escape from Breetai’s flagship. He had also—much to his distaste—been the first to shake the hand of Micronized Exedore and to lead him on a tour of inboard Macross City. Maistroff would never forget the expression on the Zentraedi’s face when he got his first look at a revealing poster of the suntan-salon spokesmodel, Miss Velvet.

  Milburn was holding up his big hands. “Enough of this. What’s done is done. If the UEDC won’t work, tell me what will.”

  Longchamps thought for a moment. “Suppose we revive the United Earth Alliance?”

  Stinson vetoed it. “Same Russo problem.” He paused, then added, “Although you might consider using the United Earth Government. It not only has a better ring to it, but it harkens back to the days of the Global Civil War when everything was just as parceled up as it is now.”

  Longchamps steepled his fingers and looked at Milburn. “When you say only our players will serve on this new UEG or whatever it’s going to be called, who exactly among the five of us did you have in mind?”

  All eyes turned to Milburn.

  “To be honest, I think I’d stand the best chance of getting myself elected. But if any of you gentlemen want a crack at it, be my guest. So long as the five of us share a common vision of the future.” He glanced around. “Do we?”

  “Of course we do,” Maistroff said, answering for everyone.

  Milburn smiled without showing his teeth. “Now, speaking of Russo, it might not be a bad idea to borrow his idea of uniting everyone around a common threat. The arrival of the SDF-1 and concerns about the coming of giant aliens worked to end the Civil War, but I doubt we can work the same magic with the Masters or the Invid. People are too preoccupied worrying about where the next meal’s coming from to be worrying about aliens. Lucky for us, though, we’ve got something better to work with.”

  “The SDF-3,” Caruthers said knowingly. Thin-lipped and rather pallid, Caruthers had served as Maistroff’s adjutant aboard the SDF-1.

  Milburn looked at him and laughed. “The sooner that the SDF-3’s completed and launched, the better for the rest of us.” He put his elbows on the table and leaned forward conspiratorially. “I’m talking about the demobilized hostiles, the recidivists, the recalcitrants, the malcontents, whatever the RDF’s calling them now. People are already starting to think of the Zentraedi as walking time bombs.”

  “Which happens to be an actual problem,” Longchamps said, “as opposed to a perceived one.”

  Milburn nodded. “That’s the beauty of it. Hell, I’m as worried about the malcontents as anybody. But the trick is to convince the RDF that a United Earth Government can take the problem off their hands. My—that is, our—first suggestion would be that all Zentraedi aboard the factory satellite, full-size or Micronized, must remain there.”

  “Might have to make exceptions for Breetai and Exedore,” Sanson said.

  Milburn waved a hand in dismissal. “Those two don’t pose any threat. They’re wannabes. As for the ones in the North American Sector, I say we herd any potential trouble-makers onto the Arkansas Protectorate for safekeeping.”

  “Herd, how?” Maistroff asked.

  “What’s it matter? Offer them advanced training in technology or construction, free room and board, whatever it takes.”

  “And the Micronized aliens in the Southlands?” Longchamps wanted to know.

  “A bit more problematic,” Milburn admitted. “What would be great is if we could tag the troublesome ones and monitor them like we used to do with endangered animals.”

  Caruthers mocked the idea. “Shoot them with tranquilizer darts and clip tags to their ears, huh?”

  Milburn glowered at him. “They’re hungry, right? So what say we earmark some supplies just for them, and we get Lang or somebody t
o invent a kind of transmitter that can be introduced into their bodies when they eat. Then we use a specially equipped AWAC-EC-33 to plot their whereabouts.”

  Everyone paused to consider it.

  “You know what we could do,” Maistroff said, laughing and getting with the program. “We could loft a network of satellites—telecast satellites just for the Zentraedi—that would actually be our eyes in the sky.”

  “How so?” Stinson said.

  “By encouraging the aliens to phone in requests for music or some other thing and plotting the sources of the calls.”

  Milburn was beaming. “I have a friend, Tom Hoos, who would be perfect to get this off the ground.”

  “Lang would never agree to it,” Stinson said.

  Longchamps cracked a smile. “I’ll bet Zand would.”

  “I’ll leave it to you to convince him,” Milburn said. “In any case, the malcontent groups we can’t tag, we infiltrate with Earth-loyal Zentraedi spies. Even the RDF would have to agree to that.”

  Stinson proposed using Miriya Parina but Milburn shook his head. “She’s one I’d like to see tagged—her and her husband and that half-breed kid of theirs. It’s suspicious enough that they’ve distanced themselves from the Expeditionary mission, but my sources report they’re in the Southlands as we speak. For all anybody knows, they’ve been wheedling information out of Hayes and Hunter and passing it on to their Zentraedi friends.”

  Milburn rubbed his hands together. “Getting back to convincing the RDF of the need for this. What we do is go to them with a name to head up the surveillance operation. Someone Lang and Reinhardt can put their full trust in.” He paused briefly. “My choice would be Niles Obstat. He had plenty of experience running intelligence operations during the Civil War, and he has just enough ties to the old UEDC to offset people’s concerns about him going soft on the malcontents.”

  “Obstat would undermine us,” Longchamps said. “It’s true he had ties to Russo and Hayes, but he was pretty tight with Gloval.”

  “So then we partner him with one of our own,” Milburn said, as if he had been expecting an argument. He stood up, went to the door to the adjoining room, and said something to the armed guard on the other side. A moment later, a tall man of fifty or so years entered the room. He was lean and square-jawed, and what could be seen of his long hair was sun-bleached blond; the rest was concealed behind an irregularly shaped black alloy plate that covered most of the right side of his skull.