McKinney, Jack (Brian Daley & James Luceno) - Robotech 10 - Invid Invasion
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Robotech: Invid Invasion
Book 10 of the Robotech series
Copyright 1987 by Jack McKinney
PROLOGUE
Somewhere a queen was weeping...her children scattered; her regent a prisoner of the blood lust,
at war with nature and enslaved to vengeance.
But dare we presume to read her thoughts even now, to walk a path not taken-one denied to
us by gates and towers our senses cannot perceive and perhaps never will?
Still, it must have seemed like the answer to a prayer: A planet newly rich in the flower
that was life itself, a profusion of such incredible nutrient wealth that her Sensor Nebulae had
found it clear across the galaxy. A blue and white world as distant from her Optera as she was
from the peaceful form her consciousness once inhabited.
And yet Optera was lost to her, to half her children. Left in the care of one who had
betrayed his kind, who had become what he fought so desperately to destroy. As she herself had...
All but trapped now in the guise that he had worn, the one who lured the secrets of the
Flower from her. And whose giant warriors had returned to possess the planet and dispossess its
inhabitants. But oh, how she had loved him! Enough to summon from her very depths the ability to
emulate him. And later to summon a hatred keen enough to birth a warring nature, an army of
soldiers to rival his-to rival Zor's own!
But he, too, was lost to her, killed by the very soldiers her hatred had fashioned.
Oh, to be rid of these dark memories! her ancient heart must have screamed. To be rescued
from these sorry realms! Garuda, Spheris, Tirol. And this Haydon IV with its sterile flowers long
awaiting the caress of the Pollinators-this coq fused world even my Inorganics cannot subdue.
But she was aware that all these things would soon be behind her. She would gather the
cosmic stuff of her race and make the jump to that world the Sensor Nebulae had located. And woe
to the life form that inhabited that world! For nothing would prevent her from finding a home for
her children, a home for the completion of their grand evolutionary design!
News of the Invid exodus from Haydon IV spread through the Fourth Quadrant-to Spheris and
Garuda and Praxis, worlds already abandoned by the insectlike horde, worlds singled out by fate to
feel the backlash of Zor's attempt at recompense, nature's cruel joke.
The Tirolian scientist had attempted to foliate them with the same Flowers he had been
ordered to steal from Optera, an action that had sentenced that warm world's sentient life-form to
a desperate quest to relocate their nutrient grail. But Zor's experiments had failed, because the
Flower of Life proved to be a discriminating plant-choosy about where it would and would not put
down roots-and a malignantly loyal one as well.
Deriving as much from the Invid as the Invid derived from it, the Flower called out from
Zor's seeded worlds to its former guardian/hosts. Warlike and driven-instincts born of the
Robotech Masters' transgression-the Invid answered those calls. Their army of mecha and Inorganics
arrived in swarms to overwhelm and rule; and instead of the Protoculture paradises the founder of
Robotechnology had envisioned, were planets dominated by the beings his discoveries had all but
doomed.
And now suddenly they were gone, off on a new quest that would take them clear across the
galactic core.
To Earth...
Word of their departure reached Rick Hunter aboard the Sentinel's ships. He was in the
command seat on the fortress bridge when the communiqué was received. Thin and pale, a war-weary
veteran of countless battles, Rick was almost thirty-five years old by Earth reckoning, but the
vagaries of hyperspace travel put him closer to fifty or two hundred and seventy, depending on how
one figured it.
The giant planet Fantoma, once home to the Zentraedi, filled the forward viewports. In the
foreground Rick could just discern the small inhabited moon called Tirol, an angry dot against
Fantoma's barren face. How could such an insignificant world have unleashed so much evil on an
unsuspecting galaxy? Rick wondered.
He glanced over at Lisa, who was humming to herself while she tapped a flurry of commands
into her console. His wife. They had stayed together through thick and thin these past eleven
years, although they had had their share of disagreements, especially when Rick had opted to join
the Sentinels-Baldon, Teal, Crysta, and the others-and pursue the Invid.
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Who would have thought it would come to this? he asked himself. A mission whose purpose
had been peace at war with itself. Edwards and his grand designs of empire...how like the Invid
regent he was, how like the Masters, too! But he was history now, and that fleet he had raised to
conquer Earth would be used to battle the Invid when the Expeditionary Force reached the planet.
Providing the fleet reached Earth, of course. There were still major problems with the
spacefold system Lang and the Tirolian Cabell had designed. Some missing ingredient...Major
Carpenter had never been heard from, nor Wolff; and now the Mars and Jupiter Group attack wings
were preparing to fold, with almost two thousand Veritechs between them.
Rick exhaled slowly and deliberately, loud enough for Lisa to hear him and turn a thin
smile his way. Somehow it was fitting that Earth should end up on the Invid's list, Rick decided.
But what could have happened there to draw them in such unprecedented numbers? Rick shuddered at
the thought.
Perhaps Earth was where the final battle was meant to be fought.
Ravaged by the Robotech Masters and their gargantuan agents, the Zentraedi, it was a
miracle that Earth had managed to survive at all. Looking on the planet from deep space, it would
have appeared unchanged: its beautiful oceans and swirling masses of cloud, its silver satellite,
bright as any beacon in the quadrant. But a closer look revealed the scars and disfigurations
those invasions had wrought. The northern hemisphere was all but a barren waste, forested by the
rusting remains of Dolza's ill-fated four-million-ship armada. Great cities of gleaming concrete,
steel, and glass towers lay ruined and abandoned. Wide highways and graceful bridges were cratered
and collapsed. Airports, schools, hospitals, sports complexes, industrial and residential
zones...reduced to rubble, unmarked graveyards all.
A fifteen-year period of peace-that tranquil prologue to the Masters' arrival-saw the
resurrection of some of those things the twentieth century had all but taken for granted. Cities
had rebuilt themselves, new ones had grown up. But humankind was now a different species from that
which had originally raised those towering sculptures of stone. Post-Cataclysmites, they were a
feudal, warring breed, as distrustful of one another as they were of those stars their hopeful
ancestors had once wished upon. Perhaps, as some have claimed, Earth actually called in its second
period of catastrophe, as if bent on adhering to some self-fulfilling prophecy of doom. The
Masters, too, for that matter: The two races met and engaged in an unspoken agreement for mutual
annihilation-a paving of the way for what would follow.
Those who still wish to blame Protoculture trace the genesis of this back to Zor, Aquarian-
age Prometheus, whose gift to the galaxy was a Pandora's box he willingly opened. Displaced and
repressed, the Flower of Life had rebelled. And there were no chains, molecular or otherwise,
capable of containing its power. That Zor, resurrected by the Elders of his race for their dark
purposes, should have been the one to free the Flower from its Matrix is now seen as part of
Protoculture's equation. Equally so, that that liberation should call forth the Invid to complete
the circle.
They came without warning: a swarm of monsters and mecha folded across space and time by
their leader/queen, the Regis, through an effort of pure psychic will. They did not choose to
announce themselves the way their former enemies had, nor did they delay their invasion to puzzle
out humankind's strengths and weaknesses, quirks and foibles. There was no need to determine
whether Earth did or did not have what they sought; their Sensor Nebulae had already alerted them
to the presence of the Flower. It had found compatible soil and climate on the blue and white
world. All that was required were the Pollinators, a missing element in the Robotech Masters'
equations.
In any case, the Invid had already had dealings with Earthlings, having battled them on a
dozen planets, including Tirol itself. But as resilient as the Humans might have been on Haydon
IV, Spheris, and the rest, they were a pathetic lot on their homeworld.
In less than a week the Invid conquered the planet, destroying the orbiting factory
satellite-an ironic end for the Zentraedi aboard-laying to waste city after city, and dismissing
with very little effort the vestiges of the Army of the Southern Cross. Depleted of the
Protoculture charges necessary to fuel their Robo-technological war machines, those warriors who
had fought so valiantly against the Masters were forced to fall back on a small supply of nuclear
weapons and conventional ordnance that was no match for the Invid's plasma and laser-array
superiority.
Even if Protoculture had been available to the Southern Cross for their Hovertanks and
Alpha Veritechs, there would have been gross problems to overcome: the two years since the mutual
annihilation of the Robotech Masters and Anatole Leonard's command had seen civilization's
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unchecked slide into lawlessness and barbarism. Cities became city-states and warred with one
another; men and women rose quickly to positions of power only to fall even more swiftly in the
face of greater military might. Greed and butchery ruled, and what little remained of the northern
hemisphere's dignity collapsed.
Though certain cities remained strong-Mannatan, for example (formerly New York City)-the
centers of power shifted southward, into Brazilas especially (the former Zentraedi Control Zone),
where growth had been sure and steady since the SDF-1's return to devastated Earth and the
founding of New Macross and its sister city, Monument.
Unlike the Zentraedi or the Tirol Masters, the Invid were not inclined to destroy the
planet or exterminate humankind. Quite the contrary: Not only had the Flower found favorable
conditions for growth, the Invid had as well. The Regis had learned enough in her campaign against
the Tirolians and the so-called Sentinels to recognize the continuing need for technology. Gone
was the blissful tranquillity of Optera, but the experiment had to be carried forth to its
conclusion nonetheless, and Earth was well suited for the purpose.
After disarming and occupying the planet, the Regis believed she was more than halfway
toward her goal. By utilizing a percentage of Humans to cultivate and harvest the Flowers, she was
free to carry out her experiments uninterrupted. The central hive, which came to be called Reflex
Point, was to be the site of the Great Work, but secondary hives were soon in place across the
planet to maintain control of the Human sectors of her empire. The Regis was willing to let
humankind survive until such time as the work neared completion. Then, she would rid herself of
them.
There was, however, one thing she had not taken into account: the very warriors she had
fought tooth and claw on those worlds once seeded by Zor. Enslave a world she might, but take it
for her own?
Never!
CHAPTER ONE
The armada of Robotech ships T.R. Edwards had amassed for his planned invasion and conquest of
Earth would be put to that very use years later when Admiral Hunter sent them against the Invid.
Adding irony to irony, it should be mentioned that the warships had serious design flaws which
went unnoticed during their use on Tirol. Assuming this would have been the case even if Edwards
had managed to persevere, the invasion would have failed. Destiny failed to deliver Edwards the
crown he felt justified to wear and likewise failed to deliver Hunter the quick victory he felt
justified to claim.
Selig Kahler, The Tirolian Campaign
A fleet of Robotech warships moved into attack formation above the Moon, a mixed school of
gleaming predators, radiant where the distant sun touched their armored hulls and alloy fins. Each
carried in its belly a score or more of Veritech fighters, sleek, transformable mecha developed
and perfected over the course of the past thirty years. And inside each of these was a pilot ready
to die for a world unseen. War was at the top of the agenda, but in a narrow hold aboard one of
the command vessels a young man was thinking about love.
He was a pleasant-looking, clean-shaven youth going on twenty, with his father's long legs
and the wide eyes of his mother. He wore his blue-black hair combed straight back from his high
forehead-save for that undisciplined strand that always seemed to fall forward-making his ears
appear more prominent than they actually were. He wore the Expeditionary Force uniform-simple gray
tight-fitting pants tucked into high boots and a short-sleeved ornately collared top worn over a
crimson-colored synthcloth bodysuit. The Mars Group patch adorned the young man's shirt.
His name was Scott Bernard-Lieutenant Scott Bernard-and this was a homecoming of sorts.
That fact, coupled with the anxieties he felt concerning the imminent battle, had put him in an
impassioned frame of mind. The fortunate recipient of this not-so-sudden desire was a pretty, dark-
eyed teenager named Marlene, a good six inches shorter than Scott, with milk-chocolate-brown hair
and shapely legs enhanced by the uniform's short skirt.
Scott had Marlene's small face cupped in his hands while he looked lovingly into her eyes.
As his hands slid to her narrow shoulders, he pulled her to him, his mouth full against hers,
stifling the protest her more cautious nature wished to give voice to and urging her to respond.
Which she did, with a moan of pleasure, her hands flat against his chest.
"Marry me, Marlene," he said after she had broken off their embrace. He heard himself say
it and almost applauded, simply for finally getting the nerve up to ask her; Marlene's response
was a separate issue.
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Her surprised gasp probably said the same: that she too couldn't believe he was finally
getting around to it. She turned away from him, nervous hands at her chin it an attitude of
prayer.
"Well, will you?" Scott pressed.
"It's a bit sudden," she said coyly. But Scott didn't pick up on her tone and reacted as
though he had been slapped.
"You'll have to speak to my father first," Marlene continued in the same tone, her back to
him still. "My mother, too." When she turned around, Scott was staring at her slack jawed.
"But they're back on Tirol!" he stammered. "They might not be here for-" Then he caught
her smile and understood at once. He had literally known her for her entire life, and he still
couldn't tell when she was putting him on.
Marlene was smiling up at him now, eyes beaming. But the sudden shrill of sirens collapsed
her happiness.
"Defold operation complete," a voice said over the PA. "All wing commanders report to the
bridge for final briefing and combat assignments."
Scott's lips were a thin line when he looked at her.
"Answer me, Marlene. I might not get another chance to ask you."
The command ship bridge was a tight, no-nonsense affair, with two duty stations squeezed
between the wraparound viewports and four more back to back behind these. There was none of the
spaciousness and calm that had characterized the SDF-1 bridge; here everyone had a seat, and
everyone put duty first. It took something like the first sight of Earth to elicit any casual
conversation, and even then the comments would have surprised some.
"I'm so excited," a woman tech was saying. "I can hardly wait to see what Earth looks like
after all these years.'
Commander Gardner seated at the forward station of starboard pair, heard this and laughed
bitterly to himself. He had served under Gloval during the First Robotech War and had been with
Hunter since. His thick hair and mustache had gone to silver these past few years, but he still
retained a youthful energy and the unwavering loyalty of his young crew.
The woman tech who had spoken was all of seventeen years old, born in deep space like most
of her shipmates. Gardner wished for a moment he could have showed her the Earth of forty years
ago, teeming with life, wild and wonderful and blissfully unaware of the coming tide...
"What does it matter?" the tech's male console mate answered her. "One planet's the same
as another to me. Robotech ships are all I've known-all I want to know."
"Don't you have any interest in setting foot on your homeworld? Our parents were born
here. And their parents, right on back to the first ancestors."
Gardner could almost hear the copilot's shrug of indifference clear across the bridge.
"Just another Invid colony, color it what you will. So this place is blue and Spheris was
brown. It doesn't do anything for me."
"Spoken like a true romantic."
The copilot snorted. "You get romantic thinking about the Invid grubbing around the old
homestead looking for Protoculture?"
Commander Gardner was hanging on the answer when the door to the bridge hissed open
suddenly and Lieutenant Bernard entered.
"Alpha Group is just about ready for launch," Bernard reported.
Gardner muttered, "Good," and rose from the contoured seat, signaling one of the techs to
turn on the ship's PA system.
"Most of you know what I'm about to say," he began. "But for those who don't know what
this mission is all about, it's simply this: Several months ago we became aware that the Invid
Sensor Nebulae had located some new and apparently enormous supply of the Flowers of Life. The
source of the transmissions turned out to be the Earth itself.
"The Regis moved quickly to secure the Flowers, with the same murderous intent she
demonstrated on Spheris and Haydon IV and a dozen other worlds I don't have to remind you about.
Nor should I have to remind you about what we're going to face on Earth. It seems probable that
the Invid decimated Wolff's forces, but we number more than four times the units under his
command."
Scott noticed that the bridge techs, eyes locked on Gardner and grim faces set, were
giving silent support to the commander's words. Marlene entered the bridge in the midst of the
briefing, whispering her apologies and seating herself at her duty station.
"Admiral Hunter has entrusted us to spearhead a vast military operation to invade and
reclaim our homeworld," said Gardner. "And I know that I can count on every one of you to stand
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firm behind the admiral's conviction that we can lay the foundations for his second wave." He
inclined his head. "May God have mercy on our souls."
A brief silence was broken by the navigator's update:
"Earth orbit in three minutes, Commander. Placing visual display on the monitor, sir."
Everyone turned to face the forward screen. Orbital schematics de-rezzed and were replaced
by a full view of the Earth. They had all seen photos and video images galore, but the sight
inspired awe nevertheless.
"It's beautiful," someone said. And compared to Fantoma or Tirol, it most certainly was:
snow-white pole, blue oceans, and variegated land masses, the whole of it patterned by swirling
clouds.
A computer-generated grid assembled itself over the image as the command ship continued to
close. At her station, Marlene said, "So that's what Earth looks like...I'd almost forgotten."
The commander called for scanning to be initiated, and in a moment the grid was
highlighting an area located in one of the northern continents. Data readouts scrolled across an
adjacent display screen.
"Full magnification and color enhancement," Gardner barked.
Marlene leaned in to study her screen. The forward monitor was displaying an angry red
image, not softened in the least by Earth's inviting cloud cover. She knew what this was but asked
the computer to compare the present readings with those logged in its memory banks. She sensed
that Scott was peering over the top of her high-backed chair.
"That's it, sir," she said all at once, her screen strobing encouragement. "The central
hive. Designation...Reflex Point," Marlene read from the data scroll. "Picking up energy flux
readings and multiple radar contacts...waiting for signature."
Gardner glanced over at her briefly, then turned his attention forward once again. "I want
visuals as soon as possible," he instructed one of the techs.
"Shock Trooper transport," Marlene said at the same time.
Gardner's nostrils flared. "Prepare to repel."
Techs were already bending over the consoles tapping in commands, the bridge a veritable
light show of flashing screens.
"Two minutes to contact," the navigator informed Gardner.
"All sections standing by..."
"Auto-astrogator is off...Ship's shields raised..."
Marlene flipped a series of switches. "Net is open..."
"All right," Gardner said decisively. "Issue the go signal to all Veritechs."
"One minute and counting, sir."
The commander turned to Scott.
"It's up to your squads now, Lieutenant. We've got to get through their lines and set
these ships down." Scott saluted, and Gardner returned it. "Good luck," he added.
"You can count on us."
Marlene had turned from her station, waiting for him to walk past. As he leaned down to
kiss her, she smiled and surprised him by placing a heart-shaped holo-locket into his hand.
"Take this with you," she said while he was regarding the thing. "It's my way of saying
`good luck.'"
Scott thanked her and leaned in to collect that kiss after all. Resurfaced, he found
Gardner and the techs smiling at him; he gave another crisp salute and rushed from the bridge.
"`Good-bye, sweetheart,'" one of the techs stationed behind Marlene mimicked not a moment
after Scott left. "`And here's a token of my undying love.'"
Marlene poked her head around the side of the chair. Marf and one who liked to be called
Red were laughing. "Knock it off," she told them. She was used to the razzing-personal time was
hard to come by aboard ship, and Scott's open displays of affection only added fuel to the fire-
but in no mood for it right now.
"What's the matter, Marlene?" Red said over his shoulder. "Don't you know that absence
makes the heart grow fonder?"
She swiveled about in the cushioned seat and hid her face in her hands. "I don't know how
it could," she managed, suddenly on the verge of tears.
"Don't let them get to you, Marlene," one of her supporters at the forward stations called
out while Red laughed.
Come back, Scott, she prayed. I'd give my life to keep you safe.
Gardner's command ship was actually one of the fleet's many transport vessels-delicate-
looking ships that resembled swans in flight, with long, tapering necks and thin swept-back wings
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under each of which was affixed a boxcarlike Veritech carrier.
Scott, his body sheathed in lime-green armor, was strapping himself into one of the
Veritechs now. Fifteen years had seen only minor changes in armor and craft. Lang's Robotech
design team had maintained the "thinking caps" and sensor-studded mitts and boots that were so
characteristic of the first-generation VT pilots. Armor itself had become somewhat bulky due to
the fact that these third-generation warriors were involved in ground-assault missions as often as
they were in space strikes; but there was none of the gladiatorial styling favored by Lang's
counterparts in the Army of the Southern Cross.
"The main engine and boosters are in top shape, sir," a launch tech perched on the rim of
the Veritech bin told Scott before he lowered the canopy. "Good luck and good hunting."
Scott flashed him a thumbs-up as the canopy sealed itself. "Thanks, pal," he said over the
externals. "I'll be seein' you Earthside."
Flashes of green and red light from the cockpit displays played across the tinted
faceshield of Scott's helmet as he activated and engaged one after another of the Veritech's
complex systems. "This is Commander Bernard of the Twenty-first Armored Tactical Assault Squadron,
Mars Division," he announced over the com net. "Condition is green, and we are go for launch."
"The flight bay is open," control radioed back to him. "You are cleared for launch,
Commander."
Scott gave a start as bay doors throughout the carrier retracted. The cloud-studded deep-
blue oceans of Earth filled his entire field of vision. The sight elicited a sense of vertigo he
had never experienced before; it was difficult for him to comprehend a planet with so much water,
a liquid world that offered so little surface...but Scott was quick to catch himself.
"Mars Division attack wing," he said over the net, "let's do it!"
The Veritech lurched somewhat as the bin conveyers began to move the fighters toward the
forward bay. Scott saw that the grappler pylons that would convey the mecha from belt to vacuum
had already attached themselves. He readied himself at the controls, urging his body to relax, his
mind to meld with the VT systems. In a moment he felt the grapplers release, the fighter drifting
weightlessly, before he engaged the thrusters that bore it away from the transport carrier.
"All right, look alive," Scott said as his wingmen came alongside to signal their
readiness. "Once we join up with the main formation, I want eyes open and hands on the trigger."
Earthspace was filled with mecha now, some two thousand Veritechs in a slow descent over a silent
world. Scott heard Commander Gardner's voice over the com net.
"All wing commanders maintain loose battle formation...prepare to break off for individual
combat at the first sign of enemy hostility. It shouldn't be long in coming..."
It is unlikely that many of the men and women who made up the Mars Division (so named by
Dr. Lang to convey a sense of attachment to Earth and its brethren worlds) recognized the
uniqueness of their position: Their invasion represented humankind's first deliberate offensive
against an XT force. Up to that point Earth had always been on the defensive, counterstriking
first the Zentraedi, then those giants' Tirolian Masters, and lastly (and unsuccessfully) the
Invid themselves. In this sense the day was a red-letter event, if not the turning point Hunter
and numerous others had all hoped it would be...
Scott was one of the first to see the enemy ship; it was below him at nine o'clock,
surfacing through Earth's atmosphere at an alarming rate. An Invid troop carrier, one of the so-
called Mollusk Carriers.
"Here they are," Scott said to his wingmen, gesturing with his hand at the same time. The
clamshell-shaped fortress was yawning now, revealing an arena array of Invid Shock Trooper mecha.
"Fall in on my signal."
When Scott looked again a split second later, an Invid column launched itself and was
locked in on an ascent to engage, the ships' crablike hulls and pincer arms a gleaming golden-
brown in Sol's intense light. "Yeah, I think we're gonna see signs of hostility," Scott muttered
to himself as his squadron dropped in to meet the enemy at the edge of space.
At Scott's command the pilots of the Twenty-first thumbed off flocks of heat-seeker
missiles, which streaked into the ascending column. Short-lived explosions of violent fight
blossomed against Earth's blue and white backdrop. The VTs continued their silent descents,
loosing second and third salvos of red-tipped demons against that horde which had overwhelmed
their world. And countless Invid mecha flamed out and fried, but not enough to matter. For every
one taken out there were three that survived, and those which broke through the line of fire began
to strike back. Scott knew there were creatures inside each of those ships-huge bipedal mockeries
of the Human form, with massive arms and heads that resembled elongated snouts.
Unlike the enemy forces of the First and Second Robotech Wars, the Invid relied on numbers
rather than firepower. True, the Zentraedi had a seemingly endless supply of Battlepods and an
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armada of ships four million strong, but by and large the war was fought in conventional terms. Up
against the Masters this was even more the case, with the number of mecha on both sides
substantially reduced. With the Invid, however, humankind encountered a horde mentality to rival
any that nature had produced. And true to form, whether army ants or swarms of killer bees, the
Invid carried a sting.
As Scott and the others knew from their previous encounters, initial fusillades were what
counted most. Once separated from its column, the individual Invid ship was blindingly
maneuverable and often unstoppable. In close it favored two approaches: ripping open mecha with
its alloy pincer claws and embracing a ship and literally shocking it to death with charges
delivered by the ships' Protoculture systems. Scott saw both variations of this occurring while he
did his best to keep his own fighter out of reach.
Veritech and crabship were going at it across the field, Mars Division troops and Invid
mecha in deadly pursuits and dogfights, crisscrossing in the upper reaches of the stratosphere
amidst tracer rounds, missile tracks, and laser-array fire from the command ships. Scott saw one
of his team taken out by a claw swipe that opened the Veritech tail to nose, precious atmosphere
sucked from the fractured canopy, the pilot flailing for life inside. In another part of nearby
space, several Veritechs floated derelict after loveless Invid embraces.
Scott realized the hopelessness of their situation and ordered his squadron to reconfigure
to Battloid mode.
Mechamorphosis, or mode selection, was still controlled by a three-position cockpit lever,
along with the pilot's mecha will, which interfaced with the fighter's Protoculture-governed
systems. But where all parts of the first-generation Veritechs participated in reconfiguration,
the augmentation packs and energy generators of the Armored Alphas (essential for the space and
ground missions that typified the Expeditionary Force) remained intact during the process. The
forward portion of the craft telescoped to accomplish this, arms unfolding from behind the canopy
while radome and cockpit rotated up through a 180-degree arc, now allowing the underbelly laser
turret to become the Battloid's head, and the underbelly rifle/cannon to become the weapon that
was grasped in the mecha's right hand.
Thus transformed, Scott's squadron fell in to reengage the Invid, blue thrusters bright in
Earth's dark side.
Meanwhile, a second wave of Veritechs was launched from the transports to respond to
another column of Invid approaching swiftly from Delta sector.
Scott's displays flashed coordinates and signatures of the second Mollusk Carrier even
before he had visual contact. He ordered his team to form up on his lead and throw themselves
against the column. Once again heatseekers found their marks and took out scores of Invid ships;
and once again orange hell-flowers blossomed. But reinforced, the Invid launched a frenzied
counterstrike. Shock vessels broke through the front lines and went for the transports themselves
in suicide runs and massed charges. Particle beams, disgorged from bow guns, swept like
insecticide through their ranks, annihilating ship after ship.
Scott's team regrouped and gave chase to any that survived, blasts from the VTs' chain-
guns blowing pincers to debris and holing carapaces. Still, Scott could hear the death screams of
the unlucky ones piercing the tac net's cacophony of commands and reactions. VTs and Invid ships
drifted from the arena, locked in bizarre postures, obscene embraces. Here, an Invid pincer was
apparently caught in the canopy of the ship it had ensnared; there, another held a VT to itself,
exchanging lightning flashes of death.
Scott, sweat beading up across his forehead, was in pursuit of two Invid ships that were
closing in on Commander Gardner's transport; he had heard Marlene's terror-stricken call for help
only a moment before and had one of the enemy ships bracketed in the chain-gun's sights now. He
fired once, shooting a hole through its groin, and smiled devilishly as it disintegrated in a
brief burst of crimson light. The second Invid, its pincers raised for action, was moving toward
the bridge viewports. But fire from Scott's cannon decommissioned it before it attained striking
distance.
"Saw two, swatted same," Scott told Marlene over the com net, a confident tone returned to
his voice. The Invid were falling back on all sides.
"Good job, Commander," Gardner congratulated him before Marlene had a chance to speak.
"Signal your team to begin their atmospheric approach. Our thermal energy shields are already
seriously drained."
"Roger," said Scott, at the same time waving the chain-gun to signal his wingmen. "We'll
escort you through."
Scott saw the transport's thrusters fire a three-second burst, realigning the ship for its
slow descent. He sat back and punched up orbital entry calculations inn the data screen, fed these
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over to the autopilot, and returned his attention to wide-range radar. Suddenly Marlene was on the
net again, alerting him to a unit of bandits moving against him at four o'clock. He glanced over
his shoulder and glimpsed them even as their signatures were registering on the mecha's radar
screen.
"I see them," he answered her calmly.
Scott permitted the half dozen Invid to close in, enabling his onboard targeting computer
to get a fix on all of them. It was a calculated risk but one that paid off a moment later when
the Battloid's deltoid compartments opened and each launched a missile that homed in on its
target. Scott boostered himself away from the silent fireworks and rechecked the screen: There was
no sign of enemy activity.
"We're all clear, Commander," he reported, easing up the thinking cap's faceshield.
Gardner's face now flashed into view on the cockpit's small commo screen. "Scott! We must
try to slip through and hit Reflex Point before the Regis's drones have a chance to regroup.
Understood?"
"Roger Commander," Scott returned. At a signal from the HUD; he dropped the faceshield,
the inside surface of which was displaying approach vectors and numerical data. He opened the tac
net. "Our entrance azimuth is one-two-one-one...Reconfiguring for orbital deviation."
Scott armed the Veritech's shield after it had shifted mode and brought the fighter
alongside Gardner's descending transport. The hull temperature of his own ship was reaching
critical levels, and he reasoned that the same thing had to be occurring on the larger ship. A
glance told him he was correct and more. The underside of the command vessel was radiating an
intense glow that suggested an improper angle of approach. Scott waited for the vessel to correct
itself, and when it didn't, he went on the net.
"Recommend you recalculate entry horizon, Commander. The ship appears to be entering too
quickly."
"It can't be helped, Scott. We've got to put down. Our shields will never see us through
another attack."
"Sir, you'll never live to see another attack if you don't readjust your course heading,"
Scott said more firmly. "That ship wasn't built for this kind of gravitational pull. You're going
to tear her apart!"
Scott tried to suppress a mounting feeling of panic. He heard Marlene tell Gardner that
the reserve thermal energy shields were now completely exhausted. Gardner ordered her to engage
the retros.
Scott craned his neck to see if the retros were having any effect, his guts like a knot
pressing against his diaphragm. He saw something break free from the tail section of the
transport, glow, and burn out. He was trying to maintain proximity with the ship, but as a result
his own displays were suddenly flashing warnings as well. I'd better slow down myself if I don't
want to be decorating a big part of the landscape.
Scott pulled the mode selector to G position and stepped out of his fear temporarily to
think the Veritech through to Guardian mode. As the legs of the mecha dropped, reverse-
articulating, he engaged the foot thrusters, substantially cutting his speed. At the same time,
Gardner's transport was roaring past him in an uncontrolled plunge.
"Commander, pull out!" he cried into the net. Marlene!
Caught between self-sacrifice and desperation, Scott could do little more than bear
witness to the agonizingly slow deterioration of the command ship-the end of all he held dear in
the world. The transport was a glowing ember now, slagging off fragments of itself into the void.
The intense heat would have already boiled the blood of those inside...
Marlene!
His mind tried to save him from the horror by denying the events, cocooning him in much
the same way the Veritech did. But averting his gaze only worsened matters. Everywhere he looked
ships-of-the-fleet were breaking apart, flaming out as they plunged into Earth's betraying blue
softness, wings and stabilizers folded by heat, delicate necks snapped, molten alloy falling like
silver tears in the night.
The Veritechs were faring better, but columns of Invid were now on the ascent to deal out
their own form of injustice.
They fell upon the helpless transports and command ships first, helping nature's cruel
reversal along with deliberately placed rends and breaches, spreading further ruin throughout the
fleet. Scott saw acts of bravery and futility: a Battloid already crippled and falling backward
into the atmosphere pouring cannon fire against the enemy; two superheated Veritechs attempting to
defend a transport against dozens of Invid claw fighters; another VT, boosters blazing, in a
kamikaze run toward the head of the column.
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Scott instructed his ship to jettison the rear augmentation pack and increased his speed,
atmosphere be damned. There was still an outside chance that some of Gardner's crew had made it
into the evacuation pods. If only the Invid could be kept away from the hapless transport.
"Please, pull out!" Scott was screaming through gritted teeth. "Please, please..."
Then, all at once, the transport's triple-thrusters died out, and an instant later the
ship was engulfed in a soundless fireball that blew it to pieces.
Marlene! Scott railed at the heavens, his fists striking blows against the canopy and
console as the Veritech commenced a swift unguided fall.
CHAPTER TWO
I don't think I'll ever forget the first time I laid eyes on Scott Bernard-beneath all that
Robotech armor, I mean. He had the Look of the Lost in his eyes, and a stammer in his voice that
was pure tremolo. The latter proved to be a case of offworld accent-some Tirolian holdover-but
that Look...I just couldn't meet his eyes; I sat there tinkering with the Cyclone, trying to
figure out whether I should run for the hills or off the guy then and there. Later on-much later
on-he told me about that first night in the woods. I've got to laugh, even now: Ask Scott Bernard
the one about the tree falling in the wilderness-and prepare to have your head bitten off?
Rand, Notes on the Run
Tirol, once the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, then an Invid colony when the Masters had
uprooted the remnants of their dying race and journeyed to Earth in search of Protoculture, was a
reconfigured planet, much of its surface given over to humankind's needs, its small seas and
weather patterns tamed. Not like this Earth, Scott thought, with its solitary yellow sun and
distant silver satellite. He yearned for Tirol. It had been his home as much as the SDF-3 had
been; he missed the binary stars of Fantoma's system, the protective presence of the motherworld
itself. How remote one felt from the heavens on this displaced world.
Scott recalled Admiral Hunter's rousing send-off speech, his talk of the "cool green hills
of home"-his home, Earth. Scott laughed bitterly to himself, the planet's native splendor lost on
him.
The Alpha had found a soft spot to cushion its fall in some sort of highland forest. Oak
and fir trees, Scott guessed. The VT was history, but cockpit harnesses and collision air bags had
kept him in one piece. However, the crash had been violent enough to plow up a large hunk of the
landscape. He had lost his helmet and sustained a forehead bruise; then came a follow-up thigh
wound of his own making when he had rather carelessly climbed from the wreck.
He was sitting in the grass now, his back against the fighter's fuselage, his head and
left leg bandaged with gauze from the ship's first-aid kit. He had gotten rid of his cumbersome
armor just before nightfall but kept his blaster within reach.
The forest was dark and full of sounds he could not identify, although he was certain
these were all natural calls and chirps and whistles-from what he had seen thus far, Earth was
primitive and uncontrolled.
And there were just too many places for an enemy to hide.
"Give me a scorched Martian desert any day," Scott muttered.
He heard a rustling sound in the brush nearby and reached out for the blaster-a discette-
shaped weapon developed on Tirol that was a scaled-down version of the one carried by the Masters'
Bioroids during the Second Robotech War.
"Is there somebody out there?" he asked of the dark.
When the movement suddenly increased, he fired off a charge; it impacted with a blinding
orange flash against a tree, flushing two small long-eared creatures from the undergrowth. Scott
mistook them for Optera cha-chas at first-the Flower of Life Pollinators-then realized that they
were rabbits.
What's happening to me? he asked himself, shaken by the cold fear that coursed through
him. Marlene and everything I loved destroyed, and now I'm losing my nerve. He set the blaster
aside and put his gloved hands to his face. It was possible he had sustained a concussion during
the crash. A delayed onset of shock...
Lifting his head, he found that Earth had another surprise in store for him. The sky was
dumping droplets of water on him-it was raining! Scott got up and walked to a clearing in the
woods. He had heard about this phenomenon from old-timers but hadn't expected to encounter it.
Scott could see that rain might not be a bad thing under certain conditions, but right now it was
only adding to his discomfort. Besides, there was something else in the air that had come in with
the rain: periods of a short-lived, rolling, explosive roar.
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Clouds backlit by flashes of electrical charge were moving swiftly, obscuring the Moon and
plunging the world into an impenetrable dark. Soon the angry bolts responsible for that
stroboscopic light were overhead, launched like fiery spears toward the land itself, earsplitting
claps of thunder in their wake.
Scott found himself overwhelmed by a novel form of terror, so unlike the fear he was
accustomed to that he stood screaming into the face of it, his feet seemingly rooted to the
ground. This had nothing to do with enemy laser fire or plasma annihilation discs; it had nothing
to do with combat or close calls. This was a larger terror, a deeper one, springing from an
archaic part of himself he had never met face to face.
Unnerved, he ran for the safety of the Veritech cockpit as lightning struck and ignited
one of the trees, toppling it with a second bolt that split the forest giant along its length. He
lowered the canopy and hunkered down in the VT seat, hugging himself for warmth and security. Eyes
tightly shut, ears filled with crackling noise, he shouted to himself: What am I doing on this
horrible planet?
As if answering him, his mind reran images of the command ship's fiery demise, that slow
and silent fatality.
"Marlene," he said through tears.
His hand had found the holo-locket she had given him on the bridge. But his forefinger was
frozen on the activation button, his mind fearful of confronting the ghosts the device was meant
to summon up. Still, he knew that he had to force himself to see and hear her again...before he
could let the past die.
The metallic green heart opened at his touch, unfolding like a triptych; from its blood-
red holo-bead center wafted a phantom image of Marlene.
"Scott, my darling, I know it isn't much, but I thought you'd get a kick out of this
trinket. I'm looking forward to living the rest of my life with you. I can't wait till this
conflict is all behind us. Till we meet again, my love..."
The voice that had been Marlene's trailed off, and the shimmering message returned to its
place of captivity. Scott closed the heart and clutched it tightly in his fist, wishing
desperately that he could so easily de-rezz the images held fast in his own heart. Outside, the
storm continued unabated, echoing the dark night of his soul. Lighting fractured the alien sky,
and rainwater ran in a steady stream across the protective curve of the VT's canopy.
In the morning Earth's skies seemed as blue as the seas Scott had seen from space; the air
smelled sweet, washed clean of last night's violence. But this was little consolation. Fear and
sorrow had lulled him into a fitful sleep, and the stark images of Marlene's death were with him
when he awoke.
At a clear stream near the crash site, he filled his canteens with water. Taking in
morning's soft light, the spectacle of the forest itself, the profusion of bird life, he suspected
that Earth could be a tolerable place, after all, but doubted that he would ever feel at home
here. He promised himself that he would turn his thoughts to the mission and only the mission from
this point on. Insanity was the only alternative.
He returned to the Veritech and stowed the canteens with the survival gear he had already
retrieved from the mecha. He had enough emergency rations to last him the better part of an Earth
week; if he didn't come across a settlement or city by then, he would be forced to forage for
food. And given what little information he had about edible plants and such, the thought was
hardly an appetizing one.
He turned his attention now to the one item that was likely to rescue him from edible
plants or privation: the Cyclone vehicle stored away in the fighter's small cargo compartment. A
well-concealed sensor panel in the fuselage gave him access to this, and in a moment he was
lifting the self-contained Cyclone free of the cargo hold. In its present collapsed state the
would-be two-wheeled transport was no larger than a foot locker, but reconfigured it was
equivalent to a 1,000-cc twentieth-century motorcycle. Which in fact it was, after a fashion.
Originally one of Robotechnology's first creations, it had undergone some radical
modifications under Lang's SDF-3 teams. The Expeditionary Force had come to rely upon the vehicle
as much as it had on the Veritech fighters, even though its design was still a basic one: a hybrid
piston and Protoculture-powered transformable motorcycle that was a far cry from the Hovercycles
developed on Earth during the same time period. Unlike that Southern Cross marvel, the Cyclone
required the full interaction of its pilot, whose "thinking cap" and specially designed armor were
essential to the functioning of the vehicle's Protoculture-based mechamorphic systems. In
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