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  But she was no sooner at a standstill than enemy blasts gouged the runway all around her. The red Bioroid, like a stooping bird of prey, plunged at her. The Guardian’s thrusters gushed, and she leapt it high.

  Gotta take him out! They raced at each other, firing.

  “I copy.” Green turned from the phone to Emerson. “The airbase is putting up only scattered resistance, sir. It could fall at any time.”

  Emerson wondered what would happen if it did. Would the aliens try to annex it—set up ground operations? Or would they simply plunder what Protoculture they could find and torch the whole installation?

  Leonard and the other higher-ups had been adamant that the Hovertanks be used to protect population centers rather than deployed to Fokker Base, where Emerson wanted them in the first place. But now the top brass were out of contact, communication virtually nil, and Emerson had room to use his own personal initiative.

  “Bring in the Hovertanks. Get the Fifteenth over there ASAP.”

  “Even ‘as soon as possible’ isn’t soon enough, sir,” Rochelle observed. “It’ll take too long to get a message through and redeploy them.”

  “Try anyway!” Emerson snapped. Rochelle rushed to obey.

  “Sir, shall I inform all units to be ready to evacuate the base?” Green hazarded the question. Emerson just stared at the tactical displays.

  Marie and the red Bioroid played out their deadly game of high/low hide-and-seek as Bioroids and VTs clashed, fired, and were destroyed on all sides.

  Marie’s Guardian landed and glanced around the repair area in which it found itself, a big pulse laser gun held like a pistol in its cyclopean fist. “Okay, where y’at now?” she murmured.

  She didn’t have to wait long for a reply. The red came swooping over a building at her. The Guardian sprang up to meet it; as in a joust, they passed within arm’s length of each other, firing away, dodging each other’s fire.

  But when Marie landed, the knees of her mecha gave way, cut in half by the red’s energy shots. The Guardian crashed down on its chin, dazing her. She fought back the wooziness, popping the canopy and dragging herself out.

  She pulled off her helmet and shoved it aside, then froze. The red had settled its Hovercraft right in front of her, and she was staring up the barrel of the discus-shaped pistol, a barrel as big as a storm drain. Marie watched, unmoving, waiting for the end.

  But it wasn’t the end either she or the red had expected. A cannon bolt came in, a thin one at high resolution set for long-distance work. The shot didn’t quite take off the end of the Bioroid’s arm; it missed by only a few feet.

  Still, it threw up smoke and rubble, and appeared to stagger the red. Marie hugged the hardtop, shielding her head. Then she looked up, and saw where the shot had come from.

  The 15th was lined up abreast and waiting. Dana stood up in her cockpit-turret, surveying her handiwork proudly as the red Bioroid pivoted to face her. She waved. “Over here, ya big metal dink! Can’t ya even tell when somebody’s shooting at you?”

  As she hoped, the Bioroid rose on its platform, forgetting Marie, and rushed at her. Dana was back in her tank in a moment, the Valkyrie going through mechamorphosis to Gladiator, the rest of the 15th emulating her.

  Dana’s next salvo missed the red but knocked it waffling off course, nearly out of control. The rest of the ATACs were shooting at the blue Bioroids that surged in at them. The massed main batteries of the 15th skeeted alien after alien out of the sky; the air shimmered with heat waves at the vast forces unleashed. Thick smoke from the burning base and the exploded mecha billowed through the air. The squat, massive Gladiators volleyed and volleyed, picking off more invaders while keeping the rest at bay with their tremendous volume of fire.

  The red Bioroid dropped from its platform to the ground, and was joined by a blue, to attack on foot.

  “One on your right, Lieutenant!”

  “I see him, Bowie!” Looking after each other was a habit they would never break, she guessed. That suited her.

  The red popped up from behind a mound of fallen concrete to stitch the side of her Gladiator with a row of shots. Any other mecha in the Earth arsenal would have been severely damaged or blown to smithereens, but Valkyrie was scarcely touched. Dana traversed her gun barrel and whammed away again. The shot went wide, and the red and the blue came charging at the 15th’s position.

  The red seemed as big as Mount Everest. It and Dana fired at the same moment, near misses that rocked each other. “Bowie, cover me!”

  “You got it!” Bowie drove the red back, firing with everything his tank, the Diddy-Wa-Diddy, had, even though the twin barrels of the secondary batteries scarcely scratched the Bioroid’s hide. The rest of the 15th was busy maintaining the shield of AA fire; Dana went to Battloid mode, springing through the air to confront the red.

  The two mecha catapulted through the air at each other. Dana protected herself from the enemy’s handweapon shots with the thick curve of armor mounted along one arm like an ancient duelist’s targone.

  In the meantime she drew a bead with her own titanic battle rifle, the reconfigured tank-mode cannon. The shot pierced the red’s left shoulder in a spatter of molten metal and oily black smoke, a mecha-wound that spewed sparks and shrapnel and tongues of flame. The red went reeling and flailing back through the air, hit the ground with a crash, and lay sprawled. Dana rushed at it, intending to rip loose the power couplings and tubes connected to the head area, to disable it completely.

  But as Dana charged in, it resumed firing. Only the reflexes of a young professional in superb condition let her leap her Battloid out of the line of fire. The red jumped to cover and so did Dana; in another moment they were playing duck-and-shoot once more.

  “Angie, lay cover for me, can you?”

  “It’s on the way!” The cannonade from the Trojan Horse sent the red bounding in retreat; Dana’s Battloid launched itself after.

  “Gotcha now!” She fired on the fly, scoring another hit on the left shoulder as the red twisted and flipped to avoid. The alien landed awkwardly, nearly toppling. When it spun for another blast at her, she was ready.

  Dana’s rifle-cannon bolt blew the discus-shaped hand weapon right out of the red’s fist; it stood unmoving, as if stunned.

  Dana centered it in her sights. The war’s over for you, hosehead! At last, Earth had a POW.

  Just then the Bioroid was in motion again. Straight for her. “Huh?”

  It strode directly at her weapon’s muzzle. “What the—”

  She fired again, a high-resolution beam that seared a hole right through it at the waistline. The red stumbled, regained balance, and charged her like an enormous defensive tackle.

  Again the visions and strangely compelling images filled her. Was it because this was how she was to die? she wondered. The wash of emotion and disorientation paralyzed her where she would otherwise certainly have cut the foe in two with as many shots as it took.

  Before she could shake off the trance, though, the red drop-kicked her Battloid. She shook off her stupefaction and her Battloid reached to grapple, but the red had already jumped high, its flying disc platform skimming in under it to bear it away into the air.

  The alien fired at her with the weapons emplaced in the steering stem’s pod; she barely rolled out of the way in time to avoid being hit. The red zipped past.

  “That tears it!” The Valkyrie hurled itself into the air, mechamorphosing. It landed solidly on both feet, in Gladiator mode, main battery traversing, Dana’s sight reticle searching. Let’s see how they like it when I clean house on their assault craft!

  She fired off a max-power round, recalling how Bowie’s accidental shot of the day before had momentarily stopped the invaders. She aimed for it and hit the glassy blue dome on the upper side of its nose, presuming that to be the bridge; the shot shattered the dome and elicited a splash of secondary explosion, smoke, and flame.

  The red tottered again, shaken by the bolt as much as the assault craf
t, and its emotionless tinted visor-face swung back for a look at Dana. She and the rest of the 15th opened up on the raiders with everything they had, primaries and secondaries hammering. Three more of the blues fell in the blaststorm, but the red and the rest wove through the fire to return to their smoking, listing ship.

  The raiders dove aboard. The rust-red attack ship realigned, then dove upward out of sight at great speed, before the ATACs could bring weapons to bear on it.

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  Suddenly, a new Triumvirate

  Dana, Nova, Marie,

  Each zigzagging from her side toward

  The center of the triskelion.

  Mingtao, Protoculture: Journey Beyond Mecha

  “THE BIOROIDS WERE ALL TIED IN TO THE ASSAULT ship,” Rochelle reported. “Signal Intelligence and ground observers, sensors, and after-action reports all agree,” he added. “The Bioroids were forced to retreat when Sterling got a round into the ship and disrupted their command capability. At least we’ve got some idea how to handle their mecha.”

  But it was obvious the enemy would be much more careful next time. Emerson rubbed his face wearily, feeling the bristles and looking forward to some sleep. “At least there’s a little good news.”

  “Yessir. Um—” Rochelle broached a very delicate subject. “About Lieutenant Sterling abandoning her post and disobeying ordere—what d’we do?”

  Everyone knew Emerson was Bowie Grant’s official guardian and Dana’s unofficial one, but that had never made any difference as far as the young people’s treatment in the Southern Cross military. Emerson knew what he would do to any junior officer who had done what Dana had, and after a moment’s hesitation conceded to himself that it was only just.

  Dana was singing loudly and, as usual, badly off key. The shower spray came down at her steam-hot, and she massaged out bruises and sore muscles. She bit her lip once or twice, pausing in her song to fight back images of the red Bioroid.

  Maybe these thoughts were some alien weapon? In any case, she mustn’t fall prey to them again!

  The battle had been bad enough, but there was also a row of sleepless nights ahead, repairing and running maintenance, getting in replacements and shuffling the TO&E and doing yet more training, to get the 15th combat-ready again in less time than it could possibly take.

  There was a pounding at her bathroom door. She could hear Nova Satori’s voice over the rushing water, “Just can the arias, Lieutenant, and get a move on.”

  Dana reluctantly left the shower, winding a towel around her, and emerged from the tiny bathroom cubicle in a cloud of steam. “What d’you think, Nova? Do I have a future in show business?”

  The MP lieutenant sneered. “Sure, sweeping up after the circus parade. Now, hurry up; we’re late.”

  Dana was perfectly content to dawdle; Nova refused to tell her where she was being taken, or why, but it seemed pretty plain. “Aw, take it easy! You’ll have me back in your lockup soon enough!”

  Nova was leaning against the wall with arms folded. She blurted out angrily, “The ceremony’s already—” She stopped, saw that Dana had caught it, shrugged to herself, and went on. “I’m taking you to receive a promotion for valor.

  “They’re bumping you to first looie.”

  “Come in, Space Station Liberty! Space Station Liberty, Space Station Liberty, this is Earth Control, Earth Control, please acknowledge, over.”

  The transmission had been going out ever since the Masters appeared to begin their probings of Earthly defenses. The UEG and Southern Cross were certain that Liberty was still there in its Trojan Lagrangian point—Number Five—out near Luna’s orbit. All indications were that the crew was still alive. In some way the scientists and engineers were still trying to understand, the Masters seemed to be watching everything on the spectrum out Liberty’s way. An op would no sooner try a frequency than it was jammed, at least as far as Earth-Liberty links were concerned.

  With the flagships’ arrival in Earth orbit, even the relay telesats had gone dead, and in the wake of that first barrage from Captain Komodo, the satellites had been blasted from the sky. Earth-based commo lasers were useless, what with the distortion caused by the planet’s atmosphere.

  But the communications people doggedly kept trying. Radio Station Liberty, with its unique Robotech long-range commo gear, was Earth’s only hope for eventual contact with the SDF-3 and Rick Hunter’s expedition. More, Liberty’s personnel were Human beings, cut off from their home planet; Earth must make every effort on their behalf. A rescue mission out to Liberty was impossible, though. Earth lacked the ships, equipment, and facilities to mount such an expedition in the foreseeable future, now that its main aerospace installation had been so badly ravaged by the Bioroids.

  But a research team over in the encryption systems shop at Signal Security came up with a makeshift solution. Earth and Liberty could phase their equipment to jump frequencies, seemingly at random, from one to the next, in milliseconds, and get in brief communications on each one before the Masters could jam it. The result would be resumed communications with Liberty and, it was hoped, Moon Base survivors.

  The only problem was, somebody had to get the word, and the meticulously worked out schedule of freq jumps, through to Liberty.

  “Now, I’m not going to b-s you,” the briefing officer said to the young unit commanders ranged around the big horseshoe table. “Getting a tight-beam commo laser up into orbit and punching through a signal to Liberty is going to be one hairy mission.”

  He looked around at the leaders from Cosmic Units, TASC, ATAC, and the rest. “Supreme Headquarters is calling for volunteers. Personally, I think it should be done by assignment, but there it is. So far, only Lieutenant Crystal of TASC has consented to go on this mission.”

  Dana knew very well whom he was waiting for. Along with the Black Lions, her 15th had the only real combat experience in dealing with enemy mecha, and the heavily armored Hovertanks were the most effective weapons Earth had. Like any soldier who had been around for a while, she knew that one of the basic rules of existence was never to volunteer. Still, a little something extra would be expected of the ATACs; she knew that when she applied for training, and so had everybody else in the 15th.

  She swallowed and rose to her feet. “You can deal us in, sir.” Marie lifted one eyebrow and gave Dana a half smile.

  “Very commendable,” the briefing officer nodded. “But we’re going to have room for only three Hovers. You pick.”

  Dana got the point of what a critical assignment she had volunteered for when she discovered that the mission briefing was to be given by General Emerson himself.

  He wasn’t sweet, gruff Uncle Rolf then; he was all business and military precision. His only concession to their former relationship was when, shaking her hand—as he had Marie’s and the others’—he gave her a short, minimal flash of smile and growled, “Good luck, Lieutenant Sterling; go get ’em.”

  She decided to take Angelo and Bowie. Bowie accepted it without any show of emotion, with barely a word of acknowledgment. Angelo had to put on an elaborate show, with a lot of talk about going head-on against an enemy armada single-handed, but Dana had confidence in him ever since he went along with her “personal initiative” decision to race to the rescue at Fokker Base.

  The rest of the 15th showed some disappointment about being left behind, but kept it to themselves, even Sean. Dana reminded herself to be wary of the ATACs’ own heartbreaker, but she was beginning to feel that she could rely on him, too.

  Emerson and Green stood studying the image of the enemy dreadnaught. “Are you sure Sterling and Crystal are qualified to command this mission, sir?” Green’s voice echoed through the command center. “They do seem rather young for so much responsibility.”

  Emerson nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, but they’re the best we have at leading our most powerful mecha, and they’re the only two unit commanders alive who’ve engaged the Bioroids. And both did it effectively.”


  Emerson pursed his lips for a moment, then added ominously, “If anyone can do it, they can.”

  A command center captain named Anderson pointed out changes in the readouts; the enemy mother ship was in motion again. “They’re moving into a lower orbit again, looks like.”

  All the launchpads for the real heavyweights were still out of commission. There were only two left that could accept shuttles, and so the mission was built around that limit; the launchpads were reusable, of course, but not in a short enough turnaround time to be of any help. Repair to damaged pads was going on around the clock, but that was of even less use today.

  The two tiled white shuttles sat like delta-winged crossbow quarrels on the inclined launch ramps. Marie was in the pilot’s seat in the number one ship, the Challenger IV; only a few hundred yards away sat the Potemkin.

  Her copilot, Heideger, was an experienced captain from Cosmic Units. It was only over Cosmic’s objections that a TASC officer had been given command, but Marie was glad to have Heideger as her first officer anyway; the man really knew his job.

  They were completing the long preflight checklist. “We’re now on internal computers,” Heideger said. The flight deck door slid open and Dana and Bowie entered. They were unarmored, the expected g-load being what it was, and Dana carried—Marie couldn’t believe her eyes—a magazine! As if this were some commuter hop!

  “You’re late,” Marie bristled.

  “We were securing the tanks—” Bowie began, taken aback.

  “Stow it, Private, and get to your station!” Marie spat.

  Now it was Dana’s turn to bristle. “He was following my orders, Lieutenant. Or would you like a few dozen tons of Hovertank bouncing around during launch?”

  Marie drew a deep breath. “Dana, zip your lip and siddown! We’re already in pre-ignition.”

  Voices from launch control were talking to her and to Heideger. Marie turned back to her instrument panel and began tapping touchpad squares; Dana and Bowie got to their seats just as the main engines began firing up. All systems were green.