McKinney, Jack (Brian Daley & James Luceno) - Robotech 07 - Southern Cross

VIP免费
2024-12-22 0 0 214.56KB 64 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
Robotech: Southern Cross
Book Seven of the Robotech Series
Copyright 1987 by Jack McKinney
CHAPTER ONE
Those who were surprised at Dana Sterling's choice of a career in the military displayed not only
a lack of understanding about Dana but also a failure to comprehend the nature of Protoculture,
and how it shaped destiny.
After all, as a mere babe in arms Dana had played a pivotal part in a vital battle in the First
Robotech War, the attack to take the Zentraedi's orbital mecha factory; with two of the greatest
fighters in history as parents, is it any surprise that she would follow the warrior's trade?
But more important, Dana is the only offspring of a Human/Zentraedi mating on Earth, and the
Protoculture was working strongly through her. She is to be a centerpiece of the ongoing conflict
the Protoculture has shaped, and that means being a Robotech soldier in excelsis.
Dr. Lazio Zand, notes for Event Horizon: Perspectives on Dana Sterling and the Second Robotech War
It was a date that every schoolchild knew, though for some its significance had become a bit
blurred.
But not for the people gathered in the auditorium at the Southern Cross Military Academy.
Many of the veterans on the speakers' platform and among the academy teaching staff and cadre knew
the meaning of the date because they had lived through it. Everyone in the graduating class
revered it and the tradition of self-sacrifice and courage it represented-a tradition being passed
along to them today.
"Today we celebrate not only your achievements as the first graduating class of the
Academy," Supreme Commander Leonard was saying, glowering down at the young men and women seated
in rows before him. "We also celebrate the memory of the brave people who have served in our
planet's defense before you."
Leonard continued, summarizing the last great clash of the Robotech War. If he had stopped
in mid-syllable, pointed at any one of the graduating cadets, and asked him or her to take the
story from there, the graduate would have done it with even more detail and accuracy.
They all knew it by heart: how Admiral Henry Gloval had taken the rusting, all-but-
decommissioned SDF-1 into the air for a final confrontation with the psychopathic Zentraedi
warlord Khyron, and died in the inferno of that battle.
They also knew the high honor roll of the women of the bridge watch who had died with him:
Kim Young; Sammie Porter; Vanessa Leeds-all enlisted rating techs scarcely older than any of the
cadets-and Commander Claudia Grant.
Sitting at the end of her squad's row, Cadet Major Dana Sterling looked down the line of
faces beside her. One, with skin the color of dark honey, stared up into the light from the stage.
Dana could see that Bowie Grant-nephew of that same Commander Claudia Grant and Dana's close
friend since childhood-betrayed no emotion.
Dana didn't know whether to be content or worried. Carrying the name of a certified UEG
hero could be a tough burden to bear, as Dana well knew.
Leonard went on about unselfish acts of heroism and passing the torch to a roomful of
cadets, none of whom had yet reached twenty. They had had it all drilled into them for years, and
were squirming in their seats, eager to get moving, to get to their first real assignments.
Or at any rate, most felt that way; looking down the line, Dana could see a withdrawn look
on Bowie's face.
Leonard, with his bullet-shaped shaved head, massive as a bear and dripping with medals
and ribbons, droned on to the end without saying anything new. It was almost silly for him to tell
them that the Earth, slowly rebuilding in the seventeen years since the end of the Robotech War-
fifteen since Khyron the Backstabber had launched his suicide attack-was a regrettably feudal
place. Who would know that better than the young people who had grown up in it?
Or that there must be a devotion to the common good and a commitment to a brighter Human
future? Who had more commitment than the young men. and women sitting there, who had sworn to
serve that cause and proved their determination by enduring years of merciless testing and
training?
At last, thankfully, Leonard was done, and it was time to be sworn in. Dana came to
attention with her squad, a unit that had started out company-size three years before.
Dana stood straight and proud, a young woman with a globe of swirling blond hair, average
height for a female cadet, curvaceous in a long-legged way. She was blue-eyed, freckled, and pug-
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (1 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:57 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
nosed, and very tired of being called "cute." Fixed in the yellow mane over her left ear was a
fashion accessory appropriate to her time-a hair stay shaped to look like a curve of
instrumentation suggesting a half-headset, like a crescent of Robotechnology sculpted from
polished onyx.
The first graduating class received their assignments as they went up to the stage to
accept their diplomas. Dana found herself holding her breath, hoping, hoping.
Then the supreme commander was before her, an overly beefy man whose neck spilled out in
rolls above his tight collar. He had flaring brows and a hand that engulfed hers. But despite what
the UEG public relations people said about him, she found herself disliking him. Leonard talked a
good fight but had very little real combat experience; he was better at political wheeling and
dealing.
Dana was trying to hide her quick, shallow breathing as she went from Leonard's too-moist
handshake to the aide whose duty it was to tell the new graduates their first assignments.
The aide frowned at a computer printout. Then he glanced down his nose at Dana, looking
her over disapprovingly. "Congratulations. You go to the Fifteenth squad, Alpha Tactical Armored
Corps," he said with a sniff.
Dana had learned how to hide emotions and reactions at the academy; she was an old hand at
it. So she didn't squeal with delight or throw her diploma into the air in exultation.
She was in a daze as she filed back to her seat, her squad following behind. The ATACs!
The 15th squad! Hovertanks!
Let others try for the soft, safe, rear-echelon jobs, or the glamorous fighter outfits;
nowadays the armored units were the cutting edge of Robotechnology, and the teeth and claws of the
United Earth Government's military-the Army of the Southern Cross.
And the 15th had the reputation of being one of the best, if not the best. Under their
daredevil leader, First Lieutenant Sean Phillips, they had become not only one of the most
decorated but also one of the most courtmartial-prone outfits around-a real black-sheep squad.
Dana figured that was right up her alley. She would have been graduating at the top of her
class, with marks and honors succeeding generations would have found hard to beat, if not for
certain peccadillos, disciplinary lapses, and scrapes with the MPs. She knew most of it wasn't
really her fault, though. The way some people saw it, she had entered the Academy with several
strikes against her, and she had had to fight against that the whole way.
Cadets who called her "halfbreed" usually found themselves flat on their faces, bleeding,
with Dana kneeling on them. Instructors or cadre who treated her like just one more trainee found
that they had a bright if impulsive pupil; those who gave any hint of contempt for her parentage
found that their rank and station were no protection.
Cadet officers awakened to find themselves hoisted from flagpoles...a cadre sergeant's
quarters were mysteriously walled in, sealing him inside....The debutante cotillion of the
daughter of a certain colonel was enlivened by a visit from a dozen or so chimps, baboons, and
orangutans from the academy's Primate Research Center...and so on.
Dana reckoned she would fit into the 15th just fine.
She realized with a start that she didn't know where Bowie was going. She felt a bit
ashamed that she had reveled in her own good fortune and had forgotten about him.
But when she turned, Bowie was looking up the row at her. He flashed his handsome smile,
but there was a resigned look to it. He held his hand up to flash five outspread fingers-once,
twice, three times.
Dana caught her breath. He's pulled assignment to the 15th, too!
Bowie didn't seem to be too elated about it, though. He closed the other fingers of his
hand and drew his forefinger across his throat in a silent gesture of doom, watching her sadly.
The rest of the ceremonies seemed to go on forever, but at last the graduates were
dismissed for a few brief days of leave before reporting to their new units.
Somehow Dana lost Bowie in the crush of people. He had no family or friends among the
watching crowd; but neither did she. All the blood relatives they had were years-gone on the SDF-
3's all-important mission to seek out the Robotech Masters somewhere in the far reaches of the
galaxy.
The only adult to whom Dana and Bowie were close, Major General Rolf Emerson, was
conducting an inspection of the orbital defense forces and unable to attend the ceremony. For a
time in her childhood, Dana had had three very strange but dear self-appointed godfathers, but
they had passed away.
Dana felt a spasm of envy for the ex-cadets who were surrounded by parents and siblings
and neighbors. Then she shrugged it off, irritated at herself for the moment's self-pity; Bowie
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (2 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:57 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
was all the family she had now. She went off to find him.
Even after three years in the Academy, Bowie was a cadet private, something he considered
a kind of personal mark of pride.
Even so, as an upperclassman he had spacious quarters to himself; there was no shortage of
space in the barracks, the size of the class having shrunk drastically since induction day. Of the
more than twelve hundred young people who had started in Bowie's class, fewer than two hundred
remained. The rest had either flunked out completely and gone home, or turned in an unsatisfactory
performance and been reassigned outside the Academy.
Many of the latter had been sent either to regional militias, or "retroed" to assorted
support and rear-echelon jobs. Others had become part of the colossal effort to rebuild and
revivify the war-ravaged Earth, a struggle that had lasted for a decade and a half and would no
doubt continue for years to come.
But beginning with today's class, Academy graduates would begin filling the ranks of the
Cosmic Units, Tactical Air Force, Alpha Tactical Armored Corps, and the other components of the
Southern Cross. Enrollment would be expanded, and eventually all officers and many of the enlisted
and NCO ranks would be people who had attended the Academy or another like it.
Robotechnology, especially the second-generation brand currently being phased into use,
required intense training and practice on the part of human operator-warriors. It was another era
in human history when the citizen-soldier had to take a back seat to the professional.
And somehow Bowie-who had never wanted to be a soldier at all-was a member of this new
military elite, entrusted with the responsibility of serving and guarding humanity.
Only, I'd be a lot happier playing piano and singing for my supper in some little dive!
Sunk in despair, Bowie found that even his treasured Minmei records couldn't lift his
spirits. Hearing her sing "We Will Win" wasn't much help to a young man who didn't want anything
to do with battle.
How can I possibly live this life they're forcing on me?
He plucked halfheartedly at his guitar once or twice, but it was no use. He stared out the
window at the parade ground, remembering how many disagreeable hours he had spent out there, when
the door signal toned. He turned the sound system down, slouched over, and hit the door release.
Dana stood there in a parody of a glamour pose, up on the balls of her feet with her hands
clasped together behind her blond puffball hairdo. She batted her lashes at him.
"Well, it's about time, Bowie. How ya doing?" She walked past him into his room, hands
still behind her head.
He grunted, adding, "Fine," and closed the door.
She laughed as she stood looking out at the parade ground. "Su-ure! Private Grant, who
d'you think you're kidding?"
"Okay! So I'm depressed!"
She turned and gave him a little inclination of the head to acknowledge his honesty.
"Thank you! And why are you depressed?"
He slumped into a chair, his feet up on a table. "Graduation, I guess."
They both wore form-fitting white uniforms with black boots and black piping reminiscent
of a riding outfit. But their cadet unit patches were gone, and Dana's torso harness-a crisscross,
flare-shouldered affair of burnt-orange leather-carried only the insignia of her brevet rank,
second lieutenant, and standard Southern Cross crests. Dark bands above their biceps supported
big, dark military brassards that carried the Academy's device; those would soon be traded in for
ATAC arm brassards.
Dana sat on the bed, ankles crossed, holding the guitar idly. "It's natural to feel a
letdown, Bowie; I do too." She strummed a gentle chord.
"You're just saying that to make me feel better."
"It's the truth! Graduation Blues are as old as education." She struck another chord.
"Don't feel like smiling? Maybe I should sing for you?"
"No!" Dana's playing was passable, but her voice just wasn't right for singing.
He had blurted it out so fast that they both laughed. "Maybe I should tell you a story,"
she said. "But then, you know all my stories, Bowie." And all the secrets I've ever been able to
tell a full-breed Human.
He nodded; he knew. Most people on Earth knew at least something of Dana's origins-the
only known offspring of a Zentraedi/Human mating. Then her parents had gone, as his had, on the
SDF-3 expedition.
Bowie smiled at Dana and she smiled back. They were two eighteen-year-olds about to take
up the trade of war.
"Bowie," she said gently, "there's more to military life than just maneuvers. You can make
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (3 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:57 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
it more. I'll help you; you'll see!" She sometimes thought secretly that Bowie must wish he had
inherited the great size and strength of his father, Vince Grant, rather than the compact grace
and good looks of his mother, Jean. Bowie was slightly shorter than Dana, though he was fierce
when he had to be.
He let out a long breath, then met her gaze and nodded slowly. Just then the alert
whoopers began sounding.
It sent a cold chill through them both. They knew that not even a martinet like Supreme
Commander Leonard would pick this afternoon for a practice drill. The UEG had too much riding on
the occasion to end it so abruptly.
But the alternative-it was so grim that Dana didn't even want to think about it. Still,
she and Bowie were sworn members of the armed forces, and the call to battle had been sounded.
Dana looked at Bowie; his face registered his dismay. "Red alert! That's us, Bowie! C'mon,
follow me!"
He had been through so many drills and practices over the years that it was second nature
to him. They dashed for the door, knowing exactly where they must go, what they must do, and
superlatively able to do it.
But now, for the first time, they felt a real, icy fear that was not for their own safety
or an abstract like their performance in some test. Out in the corridor Dana and Bowie merged with
other graduates dashing along. Duffel bags and B-4 bags were scattered around the various rooms
they ran past, clothing and gear strewn everywhere; most of the graduates had been packing to go
home for a while.
Dana and Bowie were sprinting along with a dozen other graduates, their fifty, then more
than half of the class. Underclassmen and women streamed from other barracks, racing to their
appointed places. Just like a drill.
But Dana could feel it, smell it in the air, and pick it up through her skin's receptors:
there was suddenly something out there to be feared. The cadet days of pretend-war were over
forever.
Suddenly, emphatically, Dana felt a deep fear as something she didn't understand stirred
inside her. And without warning she understood exactly how Bowie felt.
The young Robotech fighters-none older than nineteen, some as young as sixteen-poured out
of their barracks and formed up to do their duty.
CHAPTER TWO
It seems an imprecise thought or ridiculously metaphysical question to some, I know, but I cannot
help but wonder. If the Robotech Masters rid themselves of their emotions, where did those
emotions go?
Would there not be some conservation-of-energy law that would keep such emotions from disappearing
completely but would see them transmuted into something else? Were they all simply converted to
the Masters' vast longing for power, hidden knowledge, Protoculture, immortality?
And is that the byproduct of stepped-up intellect? For if so, the Universe has played us a
dreadful joke.
Zeitgeist, Insights: Alien Psychology and the Second Robotech War
Cold Luna swung in its ages-old orbit. It had witnessed cataclysms in epochs long gone; it had
watched the seemingly impossible changes that had taken place on Earth through the long eons of
their companionship.
In recent times the moon had been a major landmark in the war between Zentraedi and Human,
and looked down upon the devastation of Earth, fifteen years ago.
It was into the moon's cold lee that Captain Henry Gloval attempted to spacefold the SDF-1
at the outset of the Robotech War. There was a grievous miscalculation (or the intercession of a
higher, Protoculture-ordained plan, depending on whether or not one listened to the eccentric Dr.
Emil Lang), and the battle fortress leapt between dimensions to end up stranded out near Pluto.
But Gloval's plan, using Luna as cover and sanctuary, was still a sound one. And today,
others were proving its worth.
Six stupendous ships, five miles from end to end through their long axes, materialized
soundlessly and serenely in the dawn. They were as strong and destructive and Robotechnologically
well-equipped as the Masters could make them.
Still, they were wary. Earth had already provided a charnel house for mighty fleets; the
Robotech Masters had no more Zentraedi lives to spend, and had no intention of risking their own.
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (4 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:57 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
The voice of one of the Robotech Masters echoed through the command ship. He was one of
the triumvirate that commanded the expedition, that ruled the ships, the Clonemasters, soldier-
androids, Scientist Triads, and the rest.
He had sprung from the humanlike inhabitants of the planet Tirol, creatures who were
virtually Human in plasm and appearance. But the Robotech Master's words came tonelessly,
expressionlessly, and without sound; he was in contact with the Protoculture, and so spoke with
mind alone.
He sent his thoughts into the communications bond that linked his mind with those of the
transformed overlords of his race, beings like him but even more elevated in their powers and
intellect-the three Elders.
The disembodied words floated in the chilly metallic passageways. /We are in place, Elders-
behind the moon of our objective, the third planet. All monitoring and surveillance systems are
fully operational. You will begin receiving our primary transignal immediately./
The technical apparatus of the ships pulsed and flowed with light, and the power of
Protoculture. Some parts suggested blood vessels or the maze of a highway system, where pure
radiance of shifting colors traveled; others resembled upside-down pagodas, suspended in the air,
made of blazing materials like nothing that had ever appeared in the Solar System before.
The enigmatic energies opened a way across the lightyears, to a sphere like a blue
sapphire fifteen feet across. It threw forth brilliance, the glare splashing off the axkeen, hawk-
nosed faces of the three Elders who sat, enthroned in a circle, staring up at it. From far across
the galaxy the Elders reached out with their minds to survey the Robotech Masters' situation.
The Elders were of a type, fey and gaunt, dressed in regal robes but looking more like
executioners. All three had bald or shaven pates, their straight, fine hair falling below their
shoulders. Under their sharp cheekbones were scarlike creases of skin, suggestive of tribal marks,
that emphasized the severity of those laser-eyed faces.
They studied the images and data sent to them by their servants, the Robotech Masters.
One of them, Nimuul, whose blue hair was stirred by the air currents, mindspoke. His
disembodied voice was thick as syrup. /The first transignal is of the area where the highest
readings of Protoactivity have been recorded. Preliminary inspection indicates that it is
unguarded./
That pleased the other Elders, but none of them evinced any emotion; they were above that,
purged of it long ago.
Hepsis, of the silver locks, cheek resting on his thin, long-fingered fist, forearm so
slender that it appeared atrophied, watched the transignal images balefully. /Hmm. You mean those
mounds of soil and rock?/ His voice was little different from Nimuul's.
/Yes./
The three were looking at the transignal scene of the massive artificial buttes that stood
in the center of what had once been the rebuilt Macross City. Although they didn't know the
history of that long climactic battle of the Robotech War, and didn't realize what they were
studying; the transignal was showing them the final resting places of the SDF-1, the SDF-2, and
the flagship of Khyron the Backstabber.
All three ships had been destroyed in those few minutes of Khyron's last, suicidal attack;
all had been quickly buried and the city covered over and abandoned due to the intense radiation,
the last place ever to bear the name Macross.
Nimuul explained, /Zor's ship is probably-Wait!/
But he didn't have to draw their attention to it; Hepsis and Fallagar, the third Elder,
could see it for themselves. For the first time in a very long time, the Elders of the Robotech
Master race felt a misgiving that chilled even their polar nerves.
Three night-black figures wavered in the enormous transignal globe, defying the best
efforts of the Masters' flagship's equipment to bring them into focus. The entities on the screen
looked like tall, sinister wraiths, caped and cloaked, high collars shadowing their faces-all dark
save for the light that beamed from their slitted eyes.
Three, of course-as all things of the Protoculture were triad.
/The area is guarded by a form of inorganic sentry,/ Nimuul observed. /Or it could be an
Invid trap of some kind./
Fallagar, his hair an ice-blue somewhere between his comrades' shades, gave mental voice
to their misgivings. /Or it might be something else,/ he pointed out. /Something to do with the
thrice-damned Zor./
The images of the wraiths faded, then came back a bit against a background of static as
the transignal systemry struggled to maintain it. It seemed that the ghostly figures knew they
were under observation-were toying with the Masters. The lamp-bright eyes seemed to be staring
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (5 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:57 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
straight at the Elders.
Then the image was gone, and nothing the Scientist Triad or Clonemasters could do would
bring the Protoculture specters back into view. White combers of light washed through the blue
globe of the transignal imager again, showing nothing of use.
By a commonality of mind, the Elders did not mention-refused to recognize-this resistance
to their will and their instrumentality. The guardian wraiths would be discussed and dealt with at
the appropriate time.
/What do you wish to view next, Elders?/ asked a deferential Clonemaster.
Nimuul was suddenly even more imperious, eager to shake off the daunting effects of the
long-distance encounter with the wraiths. /Show us the life forms that protected this planet from
our Zentraedi warriors and now hold sway over the Protoculture Matrix./
/Yes, Elder,/ the Clonemaster answered meekly.
Hepsis told the other two, /The Humans who obliterated our Zentraedi are no longer
present, according to my surveillance readings, my Brothers. But their fellows seem ready to
protect their planet with a similar degree of cunning and skill./
The transignal was showing them quick images of the UEG forces: Cosmic Unit orbital forts
and Civil Defense mecha, ATAC fighting machines, and the rest.
One intercepted TV transmission was a slow pan past the members of the 15th squad,
monitored from a Southern Cross public information broadcast. The Elders saw Humans with a hard-
trained, competent look to them, and something else...something to which the Elders hadn't given
thought in a long, long time.
It was youth. The camera showed them face after face-the smirking impertinence of Corporal
Louie Nichols; the massive strength of Sergeant Angelo Dante; the flamboyance of their leader, the
swashbuckling ladies' man, Lieutenant Sean Phillips.
The Elders looked at their enemies, and felt a certain misgiving even more unsettling than
that of the wraiths' image.
The three rulers of the Robotech Masters, privy to many of the secrets of Protoculture,
were long-lived-would be Eternal, if their plans came to fruition. And as a result of that, they
feared death, feared it more than anything. The fear was controlled, suppressed, but it was
greater than any child's fear of his worst nightmares, more than any dread that any mortal
harbored.
But the young faces in the camera pan didn't show that fear, not as the Elders knew it.
The young understand death far better than their elders will usually acknowledge, especially young
people in the military who know their number could come up any time, any day. The faces of the
15th, though, told that its members were willing to accept that risk-that they had found values
that made it worthwhile.
That was disturbing to the Elders. They had clones and others who would certainly die for
them, but none who would do so of their own volition; such a concept had long since been ground
mercilessly from their race.
There was once more that unspoken avoidance of unpleasant topics among the Elders. Nimuul
tried to sound indifferent. /It is hard for me to believe that these life forms could offer any
resistance to us. They are so young and lack combat experience./
He and his fellows were purposely ignoring an unpleasant part of the equation. If, in war,
you're not willing to die for your cause but your enemy is willing to die for his, a terrible
weight has been set on one side of the scales.
The Elders shuddered, each within himself, revealing nothing to one another. /I've seen
enough of this,/ Fallagar said, gathering his cloak like a falcon preparing to take wing, letting
impatience show.
/What images would you view now, Elders?/ asked the unseen Clonemaster tentatively.
Fallagar's silent voice resounded through the viewing chamber. /I think we have enough
information on these life forms, so transmit whatever else you have on line. No matter how
interesting these abstractions may be, the time has come for us to deal with the problems at
hand!/
The globe swirled with cinnamon-red, came back to blue, and showed the headquarters of the
Army of the Southern Cross.
It was a soaring white megacomplex in the midst of Monument City. The countryside was
marked with the corroded, crumpled miles-long remains of Zentraedi battlecruisers. They were
rammed bow-first into the terrain, remnants of the last, long-ago battle.
The headquarters' central tower cluster had been built to suggest the white gonfalons, or
ensigns, of a holy crusade hanging from high crosspieces. The towers were crowned with crenels and
merlons, like a medieval battlement.
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (6 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:57 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
It all looked as if some army of giants had been marshaled. The architecture was meant to
do just that-announce to the planet and the world the ideals and esprit of the Army of the
Southern Cross.
The name "Southern Cross" was a heritage of those first days after the terrible Zentraedi
holocaust that had all but eliminated Human life on Earth. Less damage had been done in the
southern hemisphere than in the northern; many refugees and survivors were relocated there. A
cohesive fighting force was quickly organized, its member city-states all lying within view of the
namesake constellation.
/Yes; we are through studying this planet for now,/ Fallagar declared. /Now establish
contact with our Robotech Masters./ It was time for decisions to be passed down, from Elder to
Robotech Master, and so on down the line at last to the Bioroid pilots who would once more carry
death and fire to Earth in their war mecha.
Signals sprang among the six ships' communications spars, which looked for all the world
like huge, segmented insect legs.
/What you have shown us has pleased us,/ Fallagar said with no hint of pleasure in his
tone. /But now we must communicate with the inhabitants of this planet directly./
While the Robotech Masters were being alerted to hear their overlords' word, blue-haired
Nimuul said to his fellows, /I would make a point: these invisible entities who guard the
Protoculture masses within the mounds on Earth may require special and unprecedented-/
Another voice came as the globe showed the gathered Robotech Masters. /Elders! We hear and
serve you, and acknowledge your leadership and wisdom!/
Younger and at an earlier stage of their Protoculture-generated personal evolution, the
Robotech Masters looked in every way like slightly less aged versions of the Elders. The Masters
had the gleaming pates, the chevronlike skin seams under each cheekbone, the fine, straight hair
that reached far down their backs and down their cheeks in long, wide sideburns. Their mental
voices had been given that eerie vibrato by direct exposure to Protoculture. They wore monkish
robes with sash belts, their collars in the shape of a blooming Invid Flower of Life.
Like virtually everyone in their culture, the Robotech Masters were a triumvirate. The
slight differentiations among members of a triad, even differences of gender, served only to
emphasize their oneness.
The Masters stood each upon a small platform, in a circle around their control monitor, an
apparatus resembling a mottled technological mushroom five feet across, floating some five yards
above the deck. It was the Protoculture cap, source of their power.
Nimuul held his perpetual scowl. /Your transignal images were sufficiently informative,
and you have reported that your war mecha are prepared. But now we must know if you are ready for
us to join you./
Fifteen years before, the race that called itself the Robotech Masters had sensed the
enormous discharge of Protoculture energy in the last battle on Earth. But their instrumentality
was depleted because the rebellious genius Zor had sent the last Protoculture Matrix away in the
SDF-1, and the Zentraedi's destruction and the endless war against the Invid had made great
demands on the remaining reservoirs.
The Masters lacked the Protoculture power to send their armada to the target world by the
almost instantaneous shortcut of hyperspace-fold generation. Therefore, the Elders had dispatched
the six enormous mother ships, with their complements of assault craft and Bioroids, on a fifteen-
year voyage by more conventional superluminal drive. Now that the journey was over, the Elders
meant to rejoin the expedition by means of a small spacefold transference-of themselves.
But Shaizan, who most often spoke for the Robotech Masters, answered, his blue-gray hair
flowing with the movements of his head. /No, Elders! We are very close to regaining the lost
Protoculture masses and recovering secrets that Zor attempted to take to the grave with him. But
we must not make the same mistakes the Zentraedi made!/
/We must know more about their strengths and weaknesses,/ added Dag, another Master,
gazing up at the Elders' image.
Nimuul's frown deepened. /You must not fail./ The Robotech Masters all bowed deeply to
their own Masters, the Elders.
When the Elders broke contact, the Robotech Masters looked in turn to the Clonemasters and
the other triumvirates gathered below the hovering Protoculture cap. Shaizan, gathering his blue
robes about him, his collar hanging like an orange flower around his neck, snapped, "Now, do you
understand the plan, and do you anticipate any problems, group leader?
The Clonemasters and the rest looked in every way like Human males and females, fair-
skinned for the most part. They tended toward an aesthete slimness, with long hair and form-
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (7 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:58 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
fitting clothing that might have come from the early renaissance, draped with short capelets and
cloaks. Among their triumvirates there was little differentiation in appearance or clothing.
The Clonemaster group leader replied in a voice somewhere between that of a Human and that
of a Robotech Master. "Master, every Bioroid pilot is briefed and prepared to execute the first
phase exactly as you have decreed. The only problem is in keeping our operators functional; our
Protoculture supplies are quite minimal."
Shaizan frowned at the group leader as the Elders had frowned upon the Robotech Masters,
with that same angry ruthlessness. "Then double the numbers of Bioroid fighting mecha assigned to
the attack. You may draw additional Protoculture from the ships' engines only if it proves
absolutely indispensable to success of the mission."
Dag, more lantern-jawed than his triumvirate-siblings, the most intellectual of them,
added, "If possible, I would like some Human captives for experimental purposes."
Bowkaz, the most military of the three Robotech Masters, contradicted, as was his
prerogative in tactical matters. "No," he told Dag. To the group leader, he added, "You will
proceed, but only as per our original orders. Understood?"
The group leader inclined his head respectfully. "As you will."
Shaizan nodded, inspecting the Clonemasters and the other triumvirates coldly. "Then we
look forward to your success and trust that you will not fail."
The group leader said emotionlessly, "We understand the consequences of failure, Master."
As did everyone on the expedition, the Robotech Masters' last desperate throw of the dice.
The group leader met their scowls. The Bioroid war machines were waiting to bring destruction to
the unsuspecting Humans.
"We will not fail you," he vowed.
When the clone triumvirates had hurried away to execute the probing attack, the Robotech
Masters summoned up an image of the maze of systemry in their flagship. The living Protoculture
instrumentality suggested internal organs, vascular tubes, clear protoplasmic tracts strobing with
the ebb and flow of energy.
Dag bespoke his fellows. "If we could capture a Human, our mindprobe would reveal whether
they've discovered any hint of the existence of the Protoculture Matrix."
"Not necessarily," Bowkaz replied.
They all looked at the shrunken mass of Protoculture left to them. The secret of making a
Matrix had died with Zor, and there was no other source of Protoculture in the known universe.
This Matrix was the Robotech Masters' last chance for survival.
"There will be time to interrogate the Humans once they lie defeated and helpless beneath
our heel," Shaizan said.
CHAPTER THREE
I couldn't really tell you who said it first-commo op, Black Lion, cruiser crewmember-but somebody
did, and, given the circumstances, everybody just naturally picked it up, starting then and there:
the Second Robotech War.
Lieutenant Marie Crystal, as quoted in "Overlords,"
History of the Robotech Wars, Vol. CXII
Space Station Liberty swung slowly in its Lagrange Five holding place, out near Luna. It combined
the functions of outpost fortress, communications nerve center, and way station along the routes
to Earth's distant colonies on the moon and elsewhere. Its complex commo apparatus, apparatus that
wouldn't function as well on Earth, was the Human race's only method of maintaining even
intermittent contact with the SDF-3 expedition. Liberty was in many ways the keystone to Earth's
defenses.
And so it was the natural target.
"Liberty, this is Moon Base, Moon Base!"
The Moon Base communications operator adjusted the gain on his transmitter desperately,
taking a moment to eye the radar paints he had punched up on a nearby display screen.
Five bogies, big ones, had come zooming around from the moon's dark side. The G2 section
was already sure they were nothing the Human race had even used or seen before. Performance and
power readings indicated that they were formidable vessels, and course projections had them headed
straight for Liberty, at appalling speed.
"Why won't they answer? WHY?" The commo op fretted, but some sort of interference had been
jamming everything since the bogies first appeared. And nothing Moon Base could get off the ground
could possibly catch the UFOs.
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (8 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:58 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
The op felt a cold sweat on his brow, for himself as well as for the unsuspecting people
aboard the space station. If Liberty were knocked out, that would leave Moon Base and the other
scattered Human sentry posts in the Solar System cut off, ripe for casual eradication.
The indicators on his instruments suddenly waffled; either the enemy had been obliged to
channel power away from jamming and into weapons, shields, or whatever, or the signal-warfare
countermeasures computers had come up with a way to punch through a transmission. A dim, static-
fuzzed voice from Liberty acknowledged.
The Moon Base op opened his headset mike and began sending with frantic haste.
"Space Station Liberty, this is Moon Base. Flash message, I say again, flash message! Five
bogies closing on you at vector eight-one-three-slash-four-four-niner! You may not have them on
your scopes; they have been fading in and out on ours. We didn't know they were here until we got
a visual. Possible hostiles, I say again, possible hostiles. They're coming straight for you!"
In the Liberty Station commo center, another op was signaling the duty officer that a
flash message-a priority emergency-was incoming, even as he recorded the Moon Base transmission.
When it was done, he turned and exercised a prerogative put in place during the rebuilding
of Earth after the Zentraedi holocaust. There wasn't time for an officer to get to the commo
center, evaluate the message, get in touch with the G3 staff, and have a red alert declared. Every
second was critical; the Human race had learned that the hard way.
No op had ever used it before, but no op had ever faced this situation before. With the
decisive slap of a big, illuminated red button, a commo center corporal put the space station on
war footing, and warned Earth to follow suit.
He tried to piece together the rest of what the Moon Base op was saying just as he spied a
watch officer headed his way. The op covered his mike with his hand and called out, "Red flag,
ma'am! Tell 'em to get the gun batteries warmed up, 'cause we're in trouble!"
The commo lieutenant nodded. She turned at once to a secure intercom, signaling the
station's command center. Klaxons and alarm hooters began their din.
"Battle stations, battle stations! Laser and plasma gunners, prepare to open fire!"
Armored gunners dashed to their posts as Liberty went on full alert. The heavily shielded
turrets opened and the ugly, gleaming snouts of the twin- and quad-barreled batteries rose into
view, traversing and coming to bear on the targets' last known approach vector.
Near the satellite fortress, a flight of patrol ships swung around to intersect the
bogies' approach. They were big, slow, delta-shaped cruisers, slated for replacement in the near
future. They were the first to feel the power of the Robotech Masters.
The five Robotech Master assault ships came, sand-red and shaped like flattened bottles.
The leader arrowed in at the Earth craft, opening up with energy cannon. A white-hot bolt opened
the side of the cruiser as if gutting a fish. Atmosphere and fireballs rushed from the Human ship.
Within it, crewmen and women screamed, but only briefly.
The Masters' warcraft plunged in, eager for more kills.
"I can't raise any of the patrol cruisers, ma'am," the Liberty Station commo op told TASC
Lieutenant Marie Crystal. "And three of them have disappeared from the radar screens."
Marie looked up at the commo link that had been patched through to her by the commander of
the patrol flotilla with which her Tactical Armored Space Corps fighter squadron was serving. She
nodded, her delicate jaw set.
She was a pale young woman in battle armor, with blue eyes that had an exotic obliqueness
to them, and short, unruly hair like black straw. There was an intensity to her very much like
that of an unhooded bird of prey.
"Roger that, Liberty Station. Black Lions will respond." She ran a fast calculation; the
flotilla had diverted from its usual near-Earth duties when the commo breakdown occurred, and was
now very close to Liberty-close enough for binocular and telescope sighting on the explosions and
energy-bolt signatures out where the sneak attack had taken place, beyond the satellite.
"Our ETA at your position in approximately ninety seconds from launch." He acknowledged,
white-faced and sweating, and Marie broke the patch-up. Then she signaled her TASC unit, the Black
Lions, for a hot scramble.
"Attention all pilots. Condition red, condition red. This is not a drill, I say again,
this is not a drill. Prepare for immediate launch, all catapults. Black Lions prepare to launch. "
The decks reverberated with the impact of running armored boots. Marie led the way to the
hangar deck, her horned flight helmet in one hand. There was all the usual madness of a scramble,
and more, because no one among the young Southern Cross soldiers had ever been in combat before.
Marie boarded her Veritech fighter with practiced ease, even though she was weighted down
by her body armor. The scaled-up cockpit had room for her in the bulky superalloy suit, but even
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (9 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:58 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt
so, and even after years of practice she found it a bit more snug than she would have liked.
The Tactical Armored Space Corps' front-line fightercraft had been decreased in size quite
a bit since the Robotech War because they no longer needed to go to a Battloid-mode size that
would let them slug it out toe-to-toe with fifty-foot-tall Zentraedi warriors or their huge
Battlepods.
Her maint crew got her seated properly and ready to taxi for launch. As Marie sat studying
the gauges and instruments and indicators on her panel, she didn't realize how much like a slim,
keen-eyed Joan of Arc she looked in her armor.
Strange, she brooded. It's not like I thought it would be. I'm anxious but not nervous.
Crewpeople with spacesuits color-coded to their jobs raced around, seeing to ordnance and
moving craft, or racing to take their places in the catapult crews. They, too, tended to be young,
a part of Robotechnology's new generation, shouldering responsibilities and facing hazards that
made them adults while most of them were still in their teens. Even in peacetime, death was a part
of virtually every cruise, and the smallest mishap could cost lives.
The Black Lions launched and formed up; the enemy ships turned toward them but altered
course at the last moment, launching their own smaller craft.
"What are those things?" Second Lieutenant Snyder, whose callsign was Black Beauty, yelled
when the enemy fighters came into visual range, already firing.
Gone were the simple numeral callsigns of a generation before; Earth was a feudal hegemony
of city-states and regional power structures, bound by virtually medieval loyalties, under the
iron fist of the UEG, and the planet's military reflected that. So did the armor of the Southern
Cross's ultratech knights, including Marie's own helmet, with its stylized horns.
"Shut up and take 'em!" Marie snapped; she hated unnecessary chatter on a tac net. "And
stick with your wingmen!"
But she didn't blame Black Beauty for being shocked. So, the Zentraedi are back, she
thought. Or somebody a lot like them.
The bogies that were zooming in at the Black Lions were faceless armored figures nearly
the size of the alien invaders who appeared in 1999 to savage Earth and initiate the Robotech War.
These were different, though: They were Humanoid-looking, though insectlike; Zentraedi Battlepods
were like headless alloy ostriches bristling with cannon.
Moreover, these things rode swift, maneuverable saucer-shaped Hovercraft, like outlandish
walking battleships riding waterjet platforms.
But they were fast and deadly, whatever they were. The Hovercraft dipped and changed
vector, prodigal with their power, performing maneuvers that seemed impossible outside of
atmosphere. Up until today that had always been a Veritech specialty.
About twenty of the intruders dove in at a dozen Black Lions, and the dogfighting began.
Fifteen years had gone by since the last time Human and alien had clashed, and the answered
prayers that were peace were suddenly vacated.
And the dying hadn't changed.
The small volume of space, just an abstract set of coordinates, became the new killing
ground. VT and Bioroid circled and pounced at one another, fired or dodged depending upon who had
the advantage, maneuvered furiously, and came back for more.
The aliens fired extremely powerful energy weapons, most often from the bulky systems
packages that sat before them on their control stems. That gave the Lions the eerie feeling that a
horde of giant metallic water-skiers was trying to immolate them.
But the arrangement only looked funny; incandescent rays flashed from the control-stem
projectors, and three TASC fliers died almost at once. The saucer-shaped Hoverplatforms turned to
seek new prey. This time they demonstrated that they could fire from apertures in the bodies of
their saucercraft as well as those in the controlstem housings.
"Black Beauty, Black Beauty, two bogies on your tail!" John Zalenga, who was known as
White Knight, called out the warning. "Go to turbo-thrust!" Marie spared a quick glance to her
commo display, and saw Zalenga's white-visaged helmet with its brow-vanes on one side of a split-
screen, Snyder's ebony headgear, like some turbaned, veiled muslim champion's on the other.
But before Snyder could do anything about his dilemma, the two were on him, their fire
crisscrossing on his VT's tail. Marie heard the fight rather than saw it, because at that moment
she had the shot she wanted at a darting alien Hovercraft.
VT armament had changed in a generation: gone were the autocannon and their depleted
transuranic shells. Amplified laser arrays sent pulses of destructive power through the vacuum.
Armored saucer-platform and armored alien rider disappeared in a cloud of flame and shrapnel.
Marie's gaze was level and intent behind her tinted visor. "We lost Black Beauty; the rest
of you start flying the way you were taught! Start flying like Black Lions!"
file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20Southern%20Cross.txt (10 of 64) [1/19/03 4:59:58 PM]
摘要：

file:///F|/rah/Jack%20McKinney/McKinney,%20Jack%20-%20Robotech%2007%20So\uthern%20Cross.txtRobotech:SouthernCrossBookSevenoftheRobotechSeriesCopyright1987byJackMcKinneyCHAPTERONEThosewhoweresurprisedatDanaSterling'schoiceofacareerinthemi\litarydisplayednotonlyalackofunderstandingaboutDanabutalsoafai...

展开>> 收起<<
McKinney, Jack (Brian Daley & James Luceno) - Robotech 07 - Southern Cross.pdf

共64页,预览13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：64 页 大小：214.56KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-22

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
/ 64
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注