Jack McKinney - Sentinels 02 - Dark Powers

VIP免费
2024-12-19 1 0 430.6KB 126 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
Jack McKinney - Sentinels 2 - Dark Powers
Copyright 1988 by Jack McKinney
CHAPTER ONE
All I have learned of the Shapings of the Protoculture tell me that it does not work randomly; that there is
a grand design or scheme. I feel that we have been brought here, kept here, for some reason.
Yet, what purpose can there be in SDF-3's being stranded here on Tirol for perhaps as long as five
years? And during that time will the Robotech Masters be pursuing their search for Earth?
Since tempers are short, I do not mention the Shaping; I'm a little too long in the tooth, I fear, for
hand-to-hand confrontations with homesick, frightened, and frustrated REF fighters.
Dr. Emil Lang, personal journal of the SDF-3 mission
On captured Tirol, after a fierce battle, the Humans and their Zentraedi allies-the Robotech Expeditionary
Force-licked their wounds, then decided it was time to mark the occasion of their triumph. It was, as
nearly as they could calculate, New Year's Eve.
But far out near the edge of Tirol's system, a newcomer appeared-a massive spacegoing battleship,
closing in on the war-torn, planet-sized moon.
Our first victory celebration, young Susan Graham exulted. What a wonderful party! She was just shy of
sixteen, and to her it was the most romantic evening in human history.
She was struggling to load a bulky cassette into her sound-vid recorder while scurrying around to get a
better angle at Admirals Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes Hunter. They had just stood up, in full-dress
uniforms, clasping white-gloved hands, apparently about to dance. There had been rumors that the
relationship between the two senior officers of the Robotech Expeditionary Force was on shaky ground,
but for the moment at least, they seemed altogether in love.
Sue let out a short romantic sigh and envied Lisa Hunter. Then her thoughts returned to the cassette
which she was tapping with the heel of her hand. A lowly student-trainee, Sue had to make do with
whatever equipment she could find at the G-5 public-information shop, or Psy-ops, Morale or wherever.
At last the cassette was in place, and she began to move toward her quarry.
In Tiresia, the moon's shattered capital city, the Royal Hall was aglow. The improvised lighting and
decorations reemphasized the vast, almost endless size of the place.
The lush ballroom music remained slow-something from Strauss, Karen Penn thought; something even
Jack Baker could handle. As she had expected, he asked her to waltz a second time.
And he wasn't too bad at it. The speed and reflexes that made him such a good Veritech pilot-almost as
good as I am, she thought-made him a passable dancer. Still, she maintained her aloof air, gliding
flawlessly, making him seem clumsy by comparison; otherwise, that maddening brashness of his would
surface again at any second.
They were about the same height, five ten or so, he redheaded and freckled and frenetic, she
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
honey-blond and smooth-skinned and model-gorgeous-and long since tired of panting male attention.
Jack had turned eighteen two months ago; Karen would celebrate her majority in three more weeks.
They had been like oil and water, cats and dogs, Unseducible Object and Irrepressible Force, ever since
they had met. But they had also been battle comrades, and now they swayed as the music swelled, and
somehow their friendly antagonism was put aside, at least for the moment.
The deepspace dreadnought was a bewildering, almost slapdash length of components: different
technologies, different philosophies of design, even different stages of scientific awareness, showed in the
contrasts among its various modules. From it, scores of disparate weapons bristled and many kinds of
sensors probed.
With Tirol before it, the motley battlewagon went on combat alert.
On the outer rim of the ballroom, members of General Edwards's Ghost Squadron and Colonel Wolff's
Wolff Pack traded hostile looks, but refrained from any overt clashes; Admiral Lisa Hunter's warnings,
and her promises of retribution, had been very specific on that point.
Edwards was there, a haughty, splendidly military figure, his sardonic handsomeness marred by the half
cowl that covered the right half of his head.
Per Lisa's confidential order, Vince Grant and his Ground Mobile Unit people were keeping an eye on
the rivals, ready to break up any scuffles. So far things seemed to be peaceful-nothing more than a bit of
glowering and boasting.
Hanging in orbit over the war-torn ruin of Tirol, Super-dimensional Fortress Three registered the rapid
approach of the unidentified battleship.
SDF-3 had been tardy in detecting the newcomer; the Earth warship's systems had been damaged in the
ferocious engagement that had destroyed her spacefold apparatus, and some systems were still
functioning far short of peak efficiency.
But she had spotted the possible adversary now. According to procedure, SDF-3 went to battle stations,
and communications personnel rushed to open downlinks with the contingent on Tirol's surface.
Perhaps the strangest pair at the celebration was Janice Em, the lovely and enigmatic singer, and Rem,
assistant to the Tiresian scientist Cabell.
Janice was Dr. Lang's creation, an android, an artificial person, though she was unaware of it.
Lang shook his head and reminded himself that the Shapings of the Protoculture were not to be defied.
He was really quite happy that the two were drawn together.
He turned to Cabell, the ancient lone survivor of the scientists of Tirol.
What were once the gorgeous cityscape of Tiresia and magnificent gardens surrounding the Royal Hall,
were now only blasted wasteland.
Above was a jade-green crescent of Fantoma, the massive planet that Tirol circled. Its alien beauty hid
the ugliness that Lynn-Minmei knew to be there in the light of Valivarre, the system's primary. The green
Fantoma-light cast a spell with magic all its own. How could the scene of so much death and suffering be
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
so unspeakably beautiful?
She shivered a bit, and Colonel Jonathan Wolff slipped his arm around her. Minmei could feel from the
way he had moved closer that he wanted to kiss her; she wasn't sure whether she felt the same or not.
He was the debonair, tigerishly brave, good-looking Alpha Wolf of the Wolff Pack-and had rescued her
from certain death, melodramatic as it might sound to others. Still, there was a danger in love; she had
learned that not once but several times now.
Wolff could see what was running through Minmei's thoughts. He feasted his eyes on her, hungered for
her. The Big, Bad Wolff, indeed-an expression he had never liked.
Only this time, the Big Bad was bewitched, and helpless. She was the blue-eyed, black-haired gamine
whose voice and guileless charm had been the key to Human victory in the Robotech War. She was the
child-woman who, unknowingly, had tormented him with fantasies he could not exorcise by day, and with
erotic fever-dreams by night.
She hadn't moved from the circle of his arm; she looked at him, eyes as wide as those of a startled doe.
Wolff leaned closer, lips parting.
I love her so much, Rick thought, as he and Lisa went to join the dancing. His wife's waist was supple
under his gloved hand; her eyes danced with fondness. He felt himself breaking into a languorous smile,
and she beamed at him.
I can't live without her, he knew. All these problems between us-we'll find some way to deal with them.
Because otherwise life's not worth living.
The music had just begun when it stopped again, raggedly, as Dr. Lang quieted people from the mike
stand. The ship's orchestra's conductor stood to one side, looking peeved but apprehensive.
Everyone there had already served in war. Something inside them anticipated the words. "Unidentified
ship...course for Tirol...Skull and Ghost squadrons...Admiral Hayes and Admiral Hunter..."
The war's come between us again.
Rick started off in a dash, but stopped before he had gone three steps, realizing his wife was no longer
with him. Fortunately, in all the confusion, only one person noticed.
He looked back and saw Lisa waiting there, head erect, watching him. He realized he had reacted with a
fighter jock's reflexes, the headlong run of a hot scramble.
It was the argument they had been having for days, for weeks now-tersely, in quick exchanges, by day;
wearily, taxing to the limit their patience with one another, by night. Rick was a pilot, and had come to the
conclusion that he couldn't be-shouldn't be-anything else. Lisa insisted that his job now was to command,
to oversee flight-group ops. He was to do the job he had been chosen to do, because nobody else could
do it.
Rick saw nothing but confidence in his wife's eyes as she looked at him, her chin held high-that, and a
proud set to her features.
Sue Graham, wielding her aud-vid recorder, had caught the whole thing, the momentary lapse in
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
protocol, in confidence-in love. Now, she rewound the tape a bit, so that the sight of Rick Hunter
dashing off from his wife would be obliterated, and began recording over it.
Just as people were turning to the Admirals Hunter, Rick stepped closer to Lisa. In that time,
conversation and noise died away, and the Royal Hall itself, weighted by its eons of history and haunting
events, seemed to be listening, evaluating. Rick's high dress boots clacked on an alien floor that shone
like a black mirror.
He offered her his arm, formal and meticulously correct, inclining his head to her. "Madam?"
She did a shallow military curtsy, supple in her dress-uniform skirt, and laid her hand on his forearm. The
whole room was listening and watching; Rick and Lisa had reminded everyone what the REF was, and
what was expected of it.
"Orders, Admiral?" Rick asked his wife crisply, loudly, in his role as second-ranking officer present. By
speaking those words, he officially ended the ball and put everyone on notice that they were on duty.
Lisa, suddenly their rock, gazed about at them. She didn't have to raise her voice very much to be heard.
"You all know what to do, ladies, gentlemen. We will treat this as a red alert. SDF-3 will stand to
General Quarters. GMU and other ground units report to combat stations; all designated personnel will
return to the dimensional fortress."
There was already movement, as people strode or hurried to their duties. But no one was running; Lisa
had given them back their center.
"Fire-control and combat-operations officers will insure that no provocative or hostile acts are
committed," she said in a sharp voice. "I will remind you that we are still on a diplomatic mission."
"Carry on."
Men and women were moving purposefully, the yawning hall quickly clearing. Lisa turned to an aide, a
commo officer. "My respects to the Plenipotentiary Council, and would they be so gracious as to
convene a meeting immediately upon my return to SDF-3."
The aide disappeared; Lisa turned to Rick. "If you please?"
Rick, his wife on his arm, turned toward the shuttle grounding area. REF personnel made way for them.
Rick let Lisa set the pace: businesslike, but not frantic.
When the shuttle was arrowing up through Tirol's atmosphere for SDF-3 rendezvous, and the two were
studying preliminary reports while staff officers ran analyses and more data poured in, Rick paused for a
moment to look at his wife as she meditated over the most recent updates.
He covered her hand with his for a moment; squeezed it. "We owe each other a waltz, Lisa."
She gave him a quick, loving smile, squeezing his hand back. Then she turned to issue more orders to her
staff.
To Rem, the Humans and their REF mission had been bewildering from the beginning, but never more so
than now.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
With this news of an unidentified warship, he and Cabell-who had been a father to him, really, and more
than a father-were hastened toward the shuttle touchdown area, to await their turn to be lifted up to the
SDF-3. Their preference in the matter wasn't asked; they were an important-perhaps crucial-military
intelligence resource now, even though they were just as mystified as anybody else.
There were confused snatches of conversation and fragments of scenes as Rem guided Cabell along in
the general milling.
There were the two young cadets Rem had come to know as Karen Penn and Jack Baker. They had
been pressed into service as crowd controllers and expediters of the evacuation. Jack kept trying to
catch Karen's eye and call some sort of jest or other; she just spared him the occasional withering glance
and concentrated on her duties.
Rem couldn't blame her. What could be funny about a situation like this? Was Jack psychologically
malfunctional?
Then there was the singer, Minmei, Janice Em's partner, possessed of a voice so moving that it defied
logic, and a face and form of unsettling appeal. The one they called Colonel Wolff seemed to be trying to
usher her along, seemed to be proprietary toward her, but she wasn't having any of it. In fact, it appeared
that she was about to burst into that startling and alarming human physiological aberration called tears.
The Ghost and Skull and GMU teams were cooperating like mind-linked Triumvirates, though Rem had
seen them ready to come to blows only a short time before.
He look about for Janice Em, Minmei's partner and harmony and, in some measure, alter ego, but
couldn't see her. She had been with Lang only moments before, but now Lang was gone, too. Rem tried
to push troubling thoughts from his mind, such as the rumors that were rife about Lang and Janice. Lang
was supposed to be like an uncle to her, though some said he was "much more."
But what? Rem barely understood the concept "uncle," and had no idea what "much more" might mean.
Yet his cheeks flushed, and he felt a puzzling rage when he thought of Jan having some nebulous
relationship to Lang that would make the old Human scientist more important to her than, than...
Then all at once Rem and Cabell were being rushed into a shuttle, and a sliding hatch cut off the haunted
nighttime view of ruined Tiresia.
CHAPTER TWO
I never got tired of covering the Hunters, the admirals. To me, they were a perfect couple, the best the
Earth could field But in another sense, the enemy had fielded his worst
Susan Graham, narration from documentary Protoculture's Privateers. SDF-3, Farrago, Sentinels, and
the REF
On the bridge of the Superdimensional Fortress Three, Lisa Hayes surveyed the preparations for battle
and despaired, thinking the REF diplomatic mission might be doomed to find nothing but war.
Approximately twenty minutes had passed since the unidentified dreadnought was spotted, and it was
nearly upon them. Yet it had not responded to any visual or electromagnetic signal. Peace was important
to her, but so were the lives of her crew and the survival of her command. She was as edgy as any
enlisted-rating gunner, but didn't have the luxury of simply hoping she could shoot first.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
And, the SDF-3 was only partially combat-worthy; letting the enemy get to close range might mean
ultimate disaster. Still, the REF mission had to mean something more than crossing the galaxy only to fight
battle upon battle, had to mean more than war without end.
She went over every detail, to see if there wasn't one more preparation she could make. Lisa looked
around the bridge. There was the same small bridge watch-gang setup that her mentor, Captain Gloval,
had used, except that the three enlisted-rating techs were male, as were the watch officer and Lisa's
exec, Commander Forsythe.
Rick and the other officers from the Tactical Information Center-the ship's cavernous command,
communications, and control facility-kept up the flow of information, but none of it was very helpful. The
Plenipotentiary Council, the civilian body in overall control of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, had
convened just long enough to give Lisa operational control over the situation; they were satisfied that she
wasn't trigger-happy, and that she was well aware of the dicey tactical dilemma.
Veritechs were scrambled, sent out to block the newcomer's way, and intercept and engage if necessary.
Alphas, Betas, and Logans were deployed to their appointed places. Lisa's eye found the tactical display
symbol for the Skull team for a moment, and she thought of Rick-trapped down there among the rows of
consoles and techs' duty stations, monitors, and instruments. She knew he was longing to be out there
with his beloved former outfit.
She supposed his heart was even more with them in this moment than it was with her. If so, that was
something she could understand, could forgive, as long as he carried out his current assignment.
She thrust the thought aside; the Veritechs were coming within range of the unidentified dreadnought.
Although the ship was as big as any Earth battlecruiser, it was still far smaller than the mammoth SDF-3.
It maintained its worrisome silence.
According to the rule book, the next step should be a close flyby, performed by VTs-a warning to the
intruder. If there was still no acknowledgment, it would be time for a shot across the battlewagon's bow.
She found herself about to order Ghost in for the flyby, avoiding the use of Skull, but stopped herself.
Although Rick would want to be with his old outfit in the thick of things, he would just have to maintain
his duties as a commander. Edwards was too rash-he might even enjoy goading the newcomers into a
shooting incident. Max Sterling, who had taken over Skull, was a more reliable man and the best flier in
the REF.
She opened her mouth to give the command to Skull, when one of the male enlisted-rating techs said,
"The incoming ship is decelerating, Captain. Changing course for possible insertion to Tirol orbit. It's
deactivating its weapons systems."
As soon as the tech relayed the information, a female voice from the Tactical Information Center came
up. TIC commo instruments were intercepting radio transmissions from the newcomer.
When the transmissions were patched through to the bridge, Lisa found herself listening to a strange,
voice-processed-sounding garble. But bit by bit, she began to recognize syllables.
"Zentraedi," Lisa's bridge officer, Mister Blake, said softly, but Lisa was already turning to have a
comline opened to Dr. Lang's science/research division.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"Respond, please," the transmissions came, in that strange, processed-sounding voice that might have
been computer generated. "Alien vessel, please respond."
Alien? Lisa pondered as Lang came onscreen. He was flanked by Breetai, and Exedore. Once
Humanity's greatest enemies, these two Zentraedi were now staunch allies.
"Can you speculate on what this means, Doctor?" Lisa asked. "Or Commander Breetai? Lord Exedore?"
It was Exedore who answered, his voice still holding something of the weird Zentraedi quaver, even
though he had been Micronized to Human size.
His was the greatest mind of his race, and the storehouse of its accumulated-in some cases,
fabricated-lore and history. "The language is Tiresian," he confirmed, "with loan-words from our own
battle language and some elements of the Robotech Masters' speech. But it is being spoken by a
non-Zentraedi, non-Tiresian.
"As for the ship, it fits no profile known to my data banks, although certain portions of it bear
resemblances to the spacecraft of various spacefaring cultures."
"But this is no Zentraedi ship," boomed Breetai. "Of that I feel sure. Our race conquered thousands of
worlds, contacted tens of thousands of species. The language of Tirol became the lingua franca of much
of this part of the galaxy. This warcraft might come from anywhere in the entire region, or even beyond."
All of them heard the next transmission from the battleship. "We come in peace," that eerie voice said.
"We come in friendship. Do not fire! We are desperately in need of your help!"
"Identify yourselves," a commo officer transmitted in her clear contralto. "Incoming vessel, who are you?"
"We are the Sentinels," the eldritch voice answered. "We are the Sentinels."
Down in the TIC, Rick Hunter had a sudden vision of black obelisks and dire events to the tune of Also
Spracht Zarathustra.
Lisa looked at the bridge's main viewscreen.
Suddenly Edwards's face appeared in an inset at one corner of it. "It's some kind of trick! Admiral, you
can't let them-"
"General, that...will...do!" Lisa thundered, and blanked him from the screen. A moment later she was
talking to the Plenipotentiary Council.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I recommend that we allow the, er, alien ship to land under close escort by our
VTs and with its weapons systems inert. We can track it with the SDF-3's main gun, and cover it with
the GMU's as well, once it's down. If it turns out that they want to fight, let it be from a position of such
tactical disadvantage."
That touched off a hectic, bitter debate in the council. Some members shared Edwards's attitude after the
almost mindless hatred with which the SDF-3's arrival had been greeted by the Invid.
It was Lang who cut through the rancor with a single quiet plea, perhaps the most Human thing he had
said since that Protoculture boost so long ago.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
"My dear companions, we've traveled across the better part of the Milky Way galaxy with the express
hope of hearing the word they've just used: friendship."
Permission to land was carried unanimously.
Exedore was less the frog-eyed, misshapen dwarf he had once been, thanks to Human biosurgery and
cosmetic treatments. It seemed to make people more at ease in his presence, but other than that it meant
little to him.
Now he pushed back his unruly mass of barn-red hair and squinted at the readouts as his own data
banks interfaced with those of the SDF-3 mainframes, with input from the detectors tracking the
newcomer battleship's descent. As had happened so often in the past, he could feel great Breetai looming
nearby.
Exedore, Breetai, and many of the star players of the REF were in the Tactical Information Center.
Techs, intel, and ops officers were scurrying around the compartment, which was two hundred feet on a
side and half as high, crammed with screens and instrumentation. A main screen fifty feet square
dominated the place.
Exedore was matching disparate parts of the newcomer's hull features with profiles in Zentraedi files.
"You see? That portion toward the stern, starboard-it's Praxian! A-and the section there just forward of
midship's starboard: is that not a Perytonian silhouette, I ask you?"
Nobody there was about to argue with him, but nobody understood what it meant-and neither did
Exedore. "It's as if these Sentinels slapped together a variety of space vessels and united them with a
central structure-you see?-to form, oh, I don't know-a sort of aggregate. Certainly, it's not a design well
suited to atmospheric entry."
Exedore was correct. The assemblage ship, asymmetrical and unbalanced in gravity and atmosphere,
was already being battered as it fought its way down toward Tirol's surface.
But by some miracle the lumbering vessel held together. Rick Hunter found himself rooting for the
Sentinels, whoever they were. He felt emotions he hadn't felt in years-buried exaltation from his days in
his father's air circus.
"Our analyses of their power systems don't make any sense," a female tech officer reported to the bridge.
"Some indications are consistent with Protoculture, but other readings are totally incompatible. We're
even picking up systemry that appears to be-well, like something from the steam age, Captain."
"Thank you, Colonel," Lisa said, and the woman's image disappeared from the bridge's main screen.
She turned to Exedore and Breetai. "Gentlemen-friends-can you tell me what we've encountered?"
Breetai drew a breath, expanding his massive chest, then crossed his tree limb arms across it. "It is galling
to us, Lisa, and so we were slow to bring it up, but many of the memories of the Zentraedi are
false-constructs of the Robotech Masters, implanted when they-"
For once she saw Breetai's head, as huge and indomitable as a buffalo's, hang in dejection. Lisa could
feel immense grief and loss coming from him. "They deceived us; made a mockery of our loyalty, our
valor, our sacrifices..."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
Exedore hastened to fill the ensuing silence. "We know less of this local star group than we do of
far-distant ones; the Zentraedi were expanding the Masters' empire-the outer marches, as your ancient
Romans might put it. But you must understand, Mrs. Hunter-um, Captain!-that we cannot trust our own
memories in matters like these."
Breetai's chin had come up again. "Still, we'll tell you what we know. Praxis, Peryton, Karbarra, and the
other planets whose technology you see mingled there-they were all valued parts of the Masters' empire.
Planets of the local star group, easily reached, they were allowed to keep a large measure of their
self-determination so long as they subordinated themselves to the Robotech Masters' ambitions. They
survived, in their fashion, in the eye of the storm."
"So-they would be the last to fall to the Invid," Lisa said slowly.
Exedore nodded. "The last, except for Tirol. And worlds upon which the Invid Regis and Regent might
wish to vent their anger, or as much of it as they can mount, now that both sides have been so reduced in
numbers."
It was true that the Invid were victorious in the long war against the Masters, but in many cases what they
ruled was an empire of ash. Planets, even suns, had died. What was left in that region of the galaxy
seemed scarcely worth taking.
Rick's face appeared on the main screen. "Landing party standing by, Cap'n." He saluted his wife. He
showed nothing but an unerring precision, aware that his demeanor and expression would be studied on a
thousand other screens throughout the SDF-3. Behind him were the two heavily armed landing craft that
would fly down with the expedition's envoys to greet the Sentinels. Max's Skulls were forming up to fly
escort and cover. The GMU had already churned into position, its titanic cannon trained on the grounded
space-battleship.
Lisa returned Rick's salute. They cut their hands away from their brows smartly, just like the manual said.
She wondered if anyone who was witnessing the exchange could tell how happy he was, now that he
was once more venturing into danger. She wondered if he knew it himself.
The Sentinels' ship had chosen a big patch of ground that would serve as its landing pad. VTs and ground
units came in to cover; fearsome armored vehicles clanked and wheeled on their tracks. The descent of
the landing craft kicked up clouds of sand and dust that settled quickly.
The protocol had been argued a bit, but nobody on the council wanted to be the one to go up and knock
on the Sentinels' door. So it was Lisa and Rick, flanked by Breetai and Exedore and Lang, who
approached the ship unarmed. The group walked under Fantoma's light and the glare of a hundred of the
two-legged Tiresian Ambler spotlights, to what appeared to be the main hatch of the Sentinels' starship.
But when the main hatch of the ship rolled open, there were none of the dramatics Lisa had
unconsciously braced herself for. Instead, a robed figure stood there, at the top of a ramp extended like
an impudent tongue from the side of the Sentinels' ship.
Actually, the figure floated there; the hem of its robe billowed gently an inch or two above the ramp.
Lang had been elected to speak for the REF. He coughed a bit in the swirling dust, one foot on the ramp
where it met the sand. "If you come in friendship, I offer you my hand, on behalf of all of us, in
friendship."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
The being looking down on him was virtually smoothfaced, like some blank mask. "I cannot offer mine,"
it said in the same voice they had heard over the commo.
Other figures, larger, loomed up behind it. Still more crowded at the sides, lower and surreptitiously
slinky. Out-gassing from the Sentinels' ship's atmosphere put a sudden mist in the air of Tirol, and it got
even harder to see.
Then Rick heard Lisa's scream, and he cried out her name. All at once he was grappling hand-to-hand
with the devil.
CHAPTER THREE
I suppose we shouldn't have been surprised. We had already discovered, back during the Robotech
War, that wherever the basic chemical building blocks of life coexisted, they linked preferentially to form
the same subunits that defined the essential biogenetic structures found on Earth. In other words, the
ordering of the DNA code wasn't a quirk of nature.
The formation and linking of ammo acids and nucleotides was all but inevitable. The messenger RNA
codon-anticodon linkages seemed to operate on a coding intrinsic to the molecules themselves. We knew
that life throughout the universe would be very similar, and that some force appeared to dictate that it be
so.
But that didn't keep the sight of the Sentinels from knocking most of us right off our pins.
Lisa Hayes, Recollections
The devil who was fending Rick off wasn't quite the one from Old Testament scare stories. At least he
seemed to lack the power of fire and brimstone, and was trying to reason in accented Tiresian rather than
condemning Rick to the Lower Depths and Agony Everlasting.
"Release me! Unhand me!"
All Rick could see was a grinning, slightly demonic face from which horns grew. Then Rick felt himself
pulled away with such strength that he thought the massive Vince Grant or even Breetai himself had laid
hands on him.
To Rick's astonishment it was Lang, carefully but forcefully preventing a diplomatic catastrophe.
The Protoculture, working through him? the young admiral wondered.
The air was clearing and a riot had been averted. The Humans' jaws dropped in wonder as the Sentinels
presented themselves.
"I am Veidt, of Haydon IV," the robed one-the one who had refused Lisa's hand-said. "And as I was
about to say, I cannot offer you my hand, for I have none, nor have I arms, as you understand the
concept. Yet, I welcome your words of friendship, and reaffirm mine." Veidt floated down the ramp
toward them and inclined his head solemnly.
Lisa, finding no words, returned the gesture.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
摘要：

JackMcKinney-Sentinels2-DarkPowersCopyright1988byJackMcKinneyCHAPTERONEAllIhavelearnedoftheShapingsoftheProtoculturetellmethatitdoesnotworkrandomly;thatthereisagranddesignorscheme.Ifeelthatwehavebeenbroughthere,kepthere,forsomereason.Yet,whatpurposecantherebeinSDF-3'sbeingstrandedhereonTirolforperha...

展开>> 收起<<
Jack McKinney - Sentinels 02 - Dark Powers.pdf

共126页,预览26页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：126 页 大小：430.6KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-19

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 126
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注