Jack McKinney - Robotech 06 - Doomsday

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Robotech: Doomsday
Book Six of the Robotech Series
Copyright 1987 by Jack McKinney
CHAPTER ONE
Had the Robotech Masters the power to travel as freely through time as they did space, perhaps
they would have understood the inevitabilities they were up against: Zor's tampering with the
Invid Flower was a crime akin to Adam's acceptance of the apple. Once released, Protoculture had
its own destiny to fulfill. Protoculture was a different-and in some ways antithetical-order of
life.
Professor Lazlo Zand, as quoted in History of the Second Robotech War, Vol. CXXII
The dimension of mind...the rapture to be found at that singular interface between object and
essence...the power to reshape and reconfigure: to transform...
Six hands-the sensor extensions of slender atrophied arms-were pressed reverently to the
surface of the mushroomlike Protoculture cap, the Masters' material interface. Long slender
fingers with no nails to impede receptivity. Three minds...joined as one.
Until the terminator's entry disturbed their conversation.
Offering salute to the Masters, it announced:
-Our routine scan of the Fourth Quadrant indicates a large discharge of Protoculture mass
in the region where Zor's dimensional fortress defolded.
The three Masters broke off their contact with the Elders and turned to the source of the
intrusion, liquid eyes peering out from ancient, ax-keen faces. Continual contact with
Protoculture had eliminated physical differences, so all three appeared to have the same features:
the same hawkish nose, the flaring eyebrows, shoulder-length blue-gray hair, and muttonchop
sideburns.
-So!-responded the red-cowled Master, though his lips did not move-Two possibilities
present themselves: Either the Zentraedi have liberated the hidden Protoculture matrix from Zor's
disciples and commenced a new offensive against the Invid, or these Earthlings have beaten us to
the prize and now control the production of the Protoculture.
There was something monkish about them, an image enhanced by those long gray robes, the
cowls of which resembled nothing so much as outsize petals of the Invid Flower of Life. Each
monkish head seemed to have grown stamenlike from the Protoculture flower itself.
-I believe that is highly unlikely-the green-cowled Master countered telepathically-All
logic circuits based on available recon reports suggest that the Invid have no knowledge of the
whereabouts of Zor's dimensional fortress.
-So! Then we must assume that the Zentraedi have indeed found the Protoculture matrix,
ensuring a future for our Robotechnology.
-But only if they were able to capture the ship intact...
The organic systems of the Masters' deep-space fortress began to mirror their sudden
concern; energy fluctuations commenced within the Protoculture cap, throwing patterned colors
against all but breathing bulkheads and supports. What would have been the bridge of an ordinary
ship was here given over to the unharnessed urgings of Protoculture, so that it approximated a
living neural plexus of ganglia, axons, and dendrites.
Unlike the Zentraedi dreadnoughts, these spadelike Robotech fortresses the size of
planetoids were designed for a different campaign: the conquest of inner space, which, it was
revealed, had its own worlds and star systems, black holes and white light, beauty and terrors.
Protoculture had secured an entry, but the Masters' map of that realm was far from complete.
-My only fear is that Zor's disciples may have mastered the inner secrets of
Robotechnology and were then able to defeat Dolza's vast armada.
-One ship against four million? Most unlikely-nearly impossible!
-Unless they managed to invert the Robotech defensive barrier system and penetrate Dolza's
command center...
-In order to accomplish that, Zor's disciples would have to know as much about that
Robotech ship as he himself knew!
-In any event, a display of such magnitude would certainly have registered on our sensors.
We must admit, the destruction of four million Robotech vessels doesn't happen every day.
-Not without our knowing it.
The terminator, which had waited patiently to deliver the rest of its message, now added:
-That is quite true, Master. Nevertheless, our sensors do indicate a disturbance of that
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magnitude.
The interior of the Protoculture cap, the size of a small bush on its three-legged
pedestal base, took on an angry light, summoning back the hands of the Masters.
-System alert: prepare at once for a hyperspace-fold!
-We acknowledge the Elders' request, but our supply of Protoculture is extremely low. We
may not be able to use the fold generators!
-The order has been given-obey without question. We will fold immediately.
High in those cathedrals of arcing axon and dendritelike cables, free-floating amorphous
globules of Protoculture mass began to realign themselves along the ship's neural highways,
permitting synaptic action where none had existed moments before. Energy rippled through the
fortress, focusing on the columnar drives of massive reflex engines.
The great Robotech vessel gave a shudder and jumped.
Their homeworld was called Tirol, the primary moon of the giant planet Fantoma, itself one
of seven lifeless wanderers in an otherwise undistinguished yellow-star system of the Fourth
Quadrant, some twenty light-years out from the galactic core. Prior to the First Robotech War,
Terran astronomers would have located Tirol in that sector of space then referred to as the
Southern Cross. But they had learned since that that was merely their way of looking at things. By
the end of the second millennium they had abandoned the last vestiges of geocentric thinking, and
by A.D. 2012 had come to understand that their beloved planet was little more than a minor player
in constellations entirely unknown to them.
Little was known of the early history of Tirol, save that its inhabitants were a humanoid
species-bold, inquisitive, daring-and, in the final analysis, aggressive, acquisitive, and self-
destructive. Coincidental with the abolition of warfare among their own kind and the redirecting
of their goals toward the exploration of local space, there was born into their midst a being who
would alter the destiny of that planet and to some extent affect the fate of the galaxy itself.
His name was Zor.
And the planet that would become the coconspirator in that fateful unfolding of events was
known to the techno-voyagers of Tirol as Optera. For it was there that Zor would witness the
evolutionary rites of the planet's indigenous life form, the Invid; there that the visionary
scientist would seduce the Invid Regis to learn the secrets of the strange tripetaled flower that
they ingested for physical as well as spiritual nourishment; there that the galactic feud between
Optera and Tirol would have its roots.
There that Protoculture and Robotechnology were born.
Through experimentation, Zor discovered that a curious form of organic energy could be
derived from the flower when its gestating seed was contained in a matrix that prevented
maturation. The bio-energy resulting from this organic fusion was powerful enough to induce a
semblance of bio-will, or animation, in essentially inorganic systems. Machines could be made to
alter their very shape and structure in response to the prompting of an artificial intelligence or
a human operator-to transform and reconfigure themselves. Applied to the areas of eugenics and
cybernetics, the effects were even more astounding: Zor found that the shape-changing properties
of Protoculture could act on organic life as well-living tissue and physiological systems could be
rendered malleable. Robotechnology, as he came to call this science, could be used to fashion a
race of humanoid clones, massive enough to withstand Fantoma's enormous gravitational forces and
to mine the ores there. When these ores were converted to fuel and used in conjunction with
Protoculture drives (by then called reflex drives), Tirol's techno-voyagers would be able to
undertake hyperspace jumps to remote areas of the galaxy. Protoculture effectively reshaped the
very fabric of the continuum!
Zor had begun to envision a new order, not only for his own race but for all those
sentient life forms centuries of voyaging had revealed. He envisioned a true mating of mind and
matter, an era of clean energy and unprecedented peace, a reshaped universe of limitless
possibilities.
But the instincts that govern aggression die a slow death, and those same leaders who had
brought peace to Tirol soon embarked on a course that ultimately brought warfare to the stars. Co-
opted, Robotechnology and Protoculture fueled the megalomaniacal militaristic dreams of its new
masters, whose first act was to decree that all of Optera's fertile seedpods be gathered and
transported to Tirol.
The order was then issued that Optera be defoliated.
The bio-genetically created giants who mined Fantoma's wastes were to become the most
fearful race of warriors the quadrant had ever known-the Zentraedi.
Engrammed with a false past (replete with artificial racial memories and an equally
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counterfeit history), programmed to accept Tirol's word as law, and equipped with an armada of
gargantuan warships the likes of which only Robotechnology could provide, they were set loose to
conquer and destroy, to fulfill their imperative: to forge and secure an intergalactic empire
ruled by a governing body of barbarians who were calling themselves the Robotech Masters.
Zor, however, had commenced a subtle rebellion; though forced to do the bidding of his
misguided Masters, he had been careful to keep the secrets of the Protoculture process to himself.
He acted the part of the servile deferential pawn the Masters perceived him to be, all the while
manipulating them into allowing him to fashion a starship of his own design-for further galactic
exploration, to be sure-a sleek transformable craft, a super dimensional fortress that would
embody the science of Robotechnology much as the Zentraedi's organic battlewagons embodied the
lusts of war.
Unbeknown to the Masters, concealed among the reflex furnaces that powered its hyperspace
drives, the fortress would also contain the very essence of Robotechnology-a veritable
Protoculture factory, the only one of its kind in the known universe, capable of seducing from the
Invid Flower of Life a harnessable bioenergy.
By galactic standards it wasn't long before some of the horrors the Masters' greed had
spawned came home to roost. War with the divested Invid was soon a reality, and there were
incidents of open rebellion among the ranks of the Zentraedi, that pathetic race of beings
deprived by the Masters of the very essence of sentient life-the ability to feel, to grow, to
experience beauty and love.
Nevertheless, Zor ventured forth in the hopes of redressing some of the injustices his own
discoveries had fostered. Under the watchful gaze of Dolza, commander in chief of the Zentraedi,
the dimensional fortress embarked on a mission to discover new worlds ripe for conquest.
So the Masters were led to believe.
What Zor actually had in mind was the seeding of planets with the Invid flower. Dolza and
his lieutenants, Breetai and the rest, easily duped into believing that he was carrying out orders
from the Masters themselves, were along as much to secure Zor's safety as to ensure the Master's
investment. The inability to comprehend or effect repairs on any Robotech device and to stand in
awe of those who could was programmed into the Zentraedi as a handicap to guard against a possible
grand-scale warrior rebellion. The Zentraedi had about as much understanding of the workings of
Robotechnology as they did of their humanoid hearts.
So, on Spheris, Garuda, Haydon IV, Peryton, and numerous other planets, Zor worked with
unprecedented urgency to fulfill his imperative. The Invid were always one step behind him, their
sensor nebulae alert to even minute traces of Protoculture, their Inorganics left behind on those
very same worlds to conquer, occupy, and destroy. But no matter: In each instance the seedlings
failed to take root.
It was at some point during this voyage that Zor himself began to use the Flowers of Life
in a new way, ingesting them as he had seen the Invid do so long ago on Optera. And it was during
this time that he began to experience the vision that was to direct him along a new course of
action. It seemed inevitable that the Invid would catch up with him long before suitable planets
could be sought out and seeded, but his visions had revealed to him a world far removed from that
warring sector of the universe where Robotech Masters, Zentraedi, and Invid vied for control. A
world of beings intelligent enough to recognize the full potential of his discovery-a blue-white
world, infinitely beautiful, blessed with the treasure that was life...at the crux of transcendent
events, the crossroads and deciding place of a conflict that would rage across the galaxies.
A world he was destined to visit.
Well aware of the danger the Invid presented, Zor programmed the continuum coordinates of
this planet into the astrogational computers of the dimensional fortress. He likewise programmed
some of the ship's Robotech devices to play a part in leading the new trustees of his discovery to
a special warning message his own likeness would deliver to them. Further, he enlisted the aid of
several Zentraedi (whose heartless conditioning he managed to override by exposing them to music)
to carry out the mission.
The Invid caught up with Zor.
But not before the dimensional fortress had been successfully launched and sent on its
way.
To Earth.
Subsequent events-notably the Zentraedi pursuit of the fortress-were as much a part of
Earth's history as they were of Tirol's, but there were chapters yet to unfold, transformations
and reconfigurations, repercussions impossible to predict, events that would have surprised Zor
himself...had he lived.
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"Farewell, Zor," Dolza had said when the lifeless body of the scientist was sent on its
way to Tirol. "May you serve the Masters better in death than you did in life. "
And indeed, the Robotech Masters had labored to make that so, having their way with Zor's
remains, extracting from his still-functional neural reservoir an image of the blue-white world he
had selected to inherit Robotechnology. But beyond that Zor's mind had proved as impenetrable in
death as it had been in life. So while Dolza's Zentraedi scoured the quadrant in search of this
"Earth," the Masters had little to do but hold fast to the mushroom-shaped sensor units that had
come to represent their link to the real world. Desperately, they tried to knit together the
unraveling threads of their once-great empire.
For ten long years by Earth reckoning they waited for some encouraging news from Dolza. It
was the blink of an eye to the massive Zentraedi, but for the Robotech Masters, who were
essentially human in spite of their psychically evolved state, time moved with sometimes agonizing
leadenness. Those ten years saw the further decline of their civilization, weakened as it was by
internal decadence, the continual attacks by the Protoculture-hungry Invid, a growing rebellion at
the fringes of their empire, and heightened disaffection among the ranks of the Zentraedi, who
were beginning to recognize the Masters for the fallible beings they were.
Robotechnology's inheritors had been located-"Zor's descendants," as they were being
called-but two more years would pass before Dolza's armada made a decisive move to recapture the
dimensional fortress and its much needed Protoculture matrix. There was growing concern,
especially among the Elder Masters, that Dolza could no longer be trusted. From the start he
seemed to harbor some plan of his own, reluctant to return Zor's body twelve years ago and now
incommunicado while he moved against the possessors of Zor's fortress. With his armada of more
than four million Robotech ships, the Zentraedi commander in chief stood to gain the most by
securing the Protoculture matrix for himself.
There was added reason for concern when it was learned that "Zor's descendants" were
humanoid like the Masters themselves. The warrior race literally looked down on anything smaller
than itself and had come to think of normally proportioned humanoids as "Micronians"-ironic, given
the fact that the Masters could have "sized" the Zentraedi to any dimension they wished. Their
present size was in fact an illusion of sorts: Beating inside those goliath frames were hearts
made from the same genetic stuff as the so-called Micronians they so despised. Because of that
basic genetic similarity, the Robotech Masters had been careful to write warnings into the
Zentraedi's pseudo-historical records to avoid prolonged contact with any Micronian societies.
Rightly so: It was feared that such exposure to emotive life might very well rekindle real
memories of the Zentraedi's bio-genetic past and the true stuff of their existence.
According to reports received from Commander Reno (who had overseen the return of Zor's
body to Tirol and whose fleet still patrolled the central region of the empire), some of the
elements under Breetai's command had mutinied. Dolza, if Reno's report was to be believed, had
subsequently elected to fold the entire armada to Earthspace, with designs to annihilate the
planet before emotive contagion was spread to the remainder of the fleet.
The Zentraedi might learn to emote, but were they capable of learning to utilize the full
powers of Robotechnology?
This was the question the Robotech Masters had put to themselves.
It was soon, however, to become a moot point.
Hyperspace sensor probes attached to a Robotech fortress some seventy-five light-years
away from Tirol had detected a massive release of Protoculture matrix in the Fourth Quadrant-an
amount capable of empowering over four million ships.
CHAPTER TWO
Throughout the territories we traveled (the southwest portion of what was once the United States
of America) one would encounter the holed hulks of Zentraedi warships, rising up like monolithic
towers from the irradiated and ravaged wastelands...At the base of one such apocalyptic reminder
sits the crosslegged skeleton of a Zentraedi shock trooper, almost in a pose of tranquil
meditation, still clad in his armor and bandoliers, a Minmei doll insignificant in his huge
metalshod hand.
Dr. Lazlo Zand, On Earth As It Is In Hell: Recollections of the Robotech War
"Therefore, it is our conclusion, based upon the available information, that human and Zentraedi
are descended from very nearly the same ancestors!"
Exedore leaned back in the chamber's straight-backed chair to cast a look around the
circular table as the weight of his pronouncement sank in. Continued exposure to Earth's sun these
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past two years had brought out strong mauve tones in his skin and turned his hair an ochre red.
To his immediate right was the somewhat dour-looking Professor Zand, a shadowy figure who
had emerged from Lang's Robotech elite; to Zand's right were two Zentraedi, micronized like
Exedore and sporting the same blue and white Robotech Defense Forces uniforms. Clockwise around
the table to Exedore's left were Claudia Grant, the SDF-2s First Officer-a handsome and
intelligent representative of Earth's black race-Commanders Lisa Hayes and Rick Hunter (Made for
each other, Exedore often said to himself), and Admiral Gloval, serious as ever.
The rich golden warmth of Earth's sun poured into the fortress through two banks of
skylights set opposite each other in the conference room's cathedral ceiling.
Exedore had been working side by side with Dr. Emil Lang and several other Earth
scientists, deciphering some of the numerous documents Zor had thought to place aboard the SDF-1
over a decade ago. But his announcement of Terran and Zentraedi similarity came as the result of
an extensive series of medical tests and evaluations. The distinction Human or Zentraedi no longer
applied; indeed, it was beginning to look as though there existed-lost somewhere in time-an
ancestor race common to both.
Exedore had noticed that the Terrans accepted this with less enthusiasm than might
otherwise be expected. Perhaps, he speculated, it was due to the fact that they continued to
reproduce in the natural way, whereas the Zentraedi had long ago abandoned that unsure method for
the certainty of genetic manipulation. In Earthspeak the word was "clone"; the Zentraedi
equivalent approximated the English term "being."
New discoveries awaited them in the documents, especially in the latest batch of trans-
vids uncovered. Exedore had yet to view these, but there were indications that they would provide
answers to questions concerning the historical origins of the Zentraedi race, answers that might
shed light on the origins of the Terrans as well. All evidence pointed to an extraterrestrial
origin, an issue hotly debated by Earth scientists, most of whom believed that the Human race
evolved from a tree-dwelling primate species that had roamed the planet millions of years ago.
But if all these protohistorical answers were coming fast, the whereabouts of the
Protoculture matrix Zor had built into the ship remained a mystery. Hardly a place had been left
uninvestigated by Exedore, Breetai, Lang, and the others; and Zand had even suggested that the
Protoculture was in hiding!
Responses to Exedore's announcement proved varied: The misshapen, gnomish Zentraedi heard
Claudia's sharp intake of breath and Lisa Hayes's "Ah-hah," voiced in a fashion that suggested she
had expected no less. Commander Hunter, on the other hand, sat with eyes wide in a kind of fear-
the personification of a certain xenophobic mentality that permeated Terran Cultures.
Gloval was nodding his head, saying little. His white commander's cap was pulled low on
his forehead, so Exedore couldn't read his eyes.
"So, Admiral," Exedore continued, leaning into the table. "There is little doubt-our
genetic makeup points directly at a common point of origin."
"That's incredible!" Gloval now exclaimed.
"Isn't it? While examining the data, we noticed many common traits, including a penchant
on the part of both races to indulge in warfare."
This brought startled reactions around the Terran side of the table.
"Yes," Exedore said flatly, as if to forestall any arguments before they had a chance to
flare up. "Both races seem to enjoy making war."
Rick Hunter held his breath, counting to ten. How could the Zentraedi believe his own
words, he asked himself, when it was love and not war that had doomed the Zentraedi to defeat? The
Zentraedi race had started the entire conflict, and Rick nursed a suspicion that this
pronouncement of Exedore's was his way of letting himself off the hook.
Exedore seemed to be enjoying his so-called micronized state, and Rick further suspected
that this had more to do with a new sense of power the small man had gained than it did with
exploring the ship for this Protoculture factory that had yet to turn up. Exedore couldn't bear to
admit to himself that his commanders had waged a war for something that didn't even exist; they
had nearly brought destruction to both races, chasing after some goose that was supposed to lay
golden eggs. Truly, this was the saga that would go down in their history as legend: the pursuit
of a ship that supposedly held the secrets of eternal youth, the capture of one hollow to the
core.
Rick looked hard into Exedore's lidless pinpoint-pupiled eyes. He didn't like the idea of
Exedore poking into every nook and cranny in the fortress, acting as if it was more his property
than Earth's. Only a moment ago the Zentraedi had seemed to be sizing him up, well aware of the
effect of his words. Rick wasn't about to disappoint him.
"Well, with all due respect," he began acidly, "I disagree. We don't fight because we like
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to-we fight to defend ourselves from our enemies. So, under the circumstances we have no choice in
the matter. Do you understand?"
Rick's hand was balled up into a fist. Lisa and Claudia looked at him in surprise.
"That's nonsense, Commander," said Professor Zand, who had Dr. Lang's marblelike eyes. He
stood up, palms flat on the table, to press his point. "There have always been wars in progress
somewhere on Earth, even before the invasion from space. I think this clearly indicates the
warlike nature of Humans."
Another Zentraedi sympathizer, thought Rick. And talking like an alien to boot. He began
to stammer a response, always feeling outgunned when up against academics, but Zand interrupted
him.
"A perfect example: Look what happened on Earth when the peacemakers tried their best to
prevail. They formed the League of Nations and the United Nations, both of which failed!"
Rick got to his feet confrontationally. What did all this have to do with Humans enjoying
war? The best he would allow was that some humans enjoyed war but most didn't. Most
enjoyed...love.
"I can't believe you'd simplify the facts like that," Rick shouted. "You're practically
rewriting history!"
"Facts, sir, do not lie," said Zand.
Rick was about to jump over the table and convince the man, but Exedore beat him to the
punch, fixing Zand with that unearthly gaze of his and saying:
"We're merely telling you the results of our best data analysis. Please don't interject
your opinions."
So when we have something to say, it's an opinion, and when they have something to say,
it's a fact, Rick thought, restraining himself.
Gloval cleared his throat meaningfully.
"Fascinating...So we're all descended from the same race, are we? And who can say in what
direction all of us are headed. We may never know..."
Rick dropped back into his seat, staring off into space. Whatever happens, he told
himself, we mustn't ever allow ourselves to become like the Zentraedi, devoid of emotions-no
better than robots. Never!
The conference room, scene of Exedore's briefing, was located on level 34 of the new
fortress, the so-called SDF-2, which had been under construction for almost as long as the city of
New Macross itself. The space fortress was a virtual copy of the SDF-1 and currently sat back to
back with it, linked to its parent by hundreds of transfer and service corridors, in the center of
the circular human-made lake known now as Gloval, in honor of the admiral. The arid, high plateaus
of northwestern North America seemed ideally suited to the reconstruction of the city that had
once grown up inside the original super dimensional fortress. The area was cool compared to the
background radiation of the devastated coastal corridors, untainted water was plentiful enough,
the climate was temperate, and there was no shortage of space. As a result the city had risen
swiftly, prospered, and spread out from the lake, a burgeoning forest of skyscrapers, high rises,
and prefab suburban dwellings. In the two years since its founding, the population of New Macross
had increased tenfold, and its was considered (though not officially recognized as) the Earth's
capital city.
New Macross had its share of Zentraedis, though not nearly as many as the cities that had
grown up at alien crashpoints throughout the continent-New Detroit and nearby Monument City chief
among them. The Zentraedi enjoyed less freedom than the Humans, but this was conceived of as a
temporary measure to allow for gradual readjustment and acculturation. Most Zentraedi had opted
for micronization, but many retained their original size. However, control of the Protoculture
sizing chambers fell under the jurisdiction of the military government, the Robotech Defense
Force, alternatively known as the Earth Forces Government. Micronization was encouraged, but the
return to full size of a previously micronized Zentraedi was rarely if ever permitted. This had
given rise to a separatist movement, spearheaded by Monument City, which advocated the creation of
autonomous Zentraedi free states. Critics of these proposals pointed to increasing incidents of
Zentraedi uprising as justification for maintaining the status quo. The innate blood lust that had
earned the Zentraedi their reputation as fearsome warriors was not always so easily overcome and
controlled.
At factories in the industrial sector of New Macross City, humans and aliens worked
together toward the forging of a united future. The Zentraedi were fond of work, having had no
previous experience with it during their long history of enslavement to war. Manual labor or
assembly line, it made no difference to them. Giants hauled enormous cargos of wood and raw
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materials in from the wastelands, while their micronized brethren worked at benches completing
electronic components, adding Protoculture chips to Robotech circuit panels-chips that had been
salvaged from the ruined ships that dotted the landscape.
But there was tension in the air on this particular day. Unused to a life without war,
some of the aliens were beginning to question the new life they had chosen for themselves.
Utema was one of these. A massively built red-haired Goliath who had served under Breetai,
he had worked in New Macross for eighteen months, first assembling steel towers in the Micronian
population center, then here, scouring the countryside for usable materials. But on one of these
forays, he had stumbled upon an encampment of former warriors who had abandoned the Micronian
ways, and ever since he had harbored an anger he could not articulate. An urge to...destroy
something-anything!
His eyes had seized on one of the factory trucks parked in the fenced-in yard, a harmless
tanker truck used for the transport of fuels. He approached it now and booted it, experiencing a
long-lost thrill as the toy vehicle exploded and burst into flames.
Laborers at their work stations inside the factory heard Utema bellow:
"I quit! I can't stand it! I quit! This is stupid!"
The explosion had rekindled his rage. He stood with his fists clenched, looking for
something else to demolish, ignoring the protests of his giant coworker. The two had faced off.
"It's worse than stupid-it's degrading!" Utema roared. "I've had enough!"
Violently, he side-kicked a stack of dressed logs, a guttural cry punctuating his swift
move.
"Shut up and don't interfere," he warned his companion. "I'm leaving!"
The second giant made no move to stop Utema as he stepped over the chain-link fence and
headed off toward the wasteland. Two others had arrived on the scene, but they too let him walk.
"But where are you going?" one of them called out. "Utema-come back! You won't survive out
there!"
"It's you that won't survive!" Utema shouted back, pointing his finger. "War! War is the
only thing that will save us!"
At a supper club in Monument City, Minmei, wearing a gauzy blue dress that hung off one
shoulder, stood in the spotlight, accepting the applause. It was nowhere near a full house, and,
disappointed by the turnout, she hadn't put on her best show. Nevertheless, those few who had been
able to afford tickets applauded her wildly, out of respect or politeness, she couldn't be sure.
Perhaps because most of her fans rarely knew when her performance was off-she was her own most
demanding critic.
The light was a warm, comfortable curtain she was reluctant to leave.
Kyle was waiting for her backstage in the large and virtually unfurnished dressing room,
leaning against the wall, arms crossed, looking sullen and angry. He was dressed in jeans and a
narrow-waisted jacket with tails. She could tell he'd been drinking and wondered when he would go
into his Jekyll and Hyde number again. No doubt he'd caught all her off notes, tempo changes, and
missed words.
"Hi," she greeted him apologetically.
"That was terrible," Kyle snapped at her, no beating around the bush tonight. It was going
to be a bad evening, perhaps as bad as the night he had kicked a bottle at her.
"Sorry," she told him mechanically, heading straight for the dressing table, seating
herself on one of the velour stools, and wiping off makeup.
Kyle remained at the wall.
"I'm worried about that charity concert tomorrow-if it goes like this."
"I'll be okay," she promised him, looking over her shoulder. "There were so few people
tonight that I was really taken by surprise. Don't worry, I'll be all right tomorrow."
"This is a high-class club," Kyle persisted. "We let our patrons down."
She sighed. He wasn't going to let go of it. She couldn't do anything right anymore. He
was constantly lecturing her and trying to change her behavior.
"I know," she said meekly, sincerely depressed-not for disappointing Kyle but for giving
anything less than her all to the audience.
"Well, there's nothing we can do about it now-the damage is done."
She began applying crème to her face. "You could have reduced the admission price a bit,
right?"
"Y' get what you can," Kyle said defensively, shaking his fist at her or the world, she
didn't know which. He approached her. "And then, don't you forget, my pet-we'll be sharing the
dough we earn with all the poor people, right?"
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His scolding voice was full of sarcasm and anger, hinting that she was somehow to blame
for his actions: He had to charge a lot for the tickets because she was the one who insisted on
splitting all the profits with the needy. Little did Kyle know that she would gladly have worked
for no profit. It just didn't seem right anymore to work for money with so much need, so much
sadness and misery, in what was left of everyone's world.
"Then why don't we give all the money to charity?" she asked, meeting his glare. "We have
enough."
Kyle was down on one knee beside her now, anger still in his eyes but a new tone of
conciliation and patience in his voice. He put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her
face.
"We have, but not enough to make our dreams come true. You certainly ought to be able to
understand that!"
"Yeah, but-"
"We promised ourselves we'd build a great concert hall some day and do all our work there-
right?"
She wanted to remind him that they had made that promise years ago, when such things were
possible. A great concert hall now-in the middle of this wasteland, with things just beginning to
rebuild and isolated groups of people working the land who never strayed five miles from home? But
she just didn't have the energy to argue with him. She could imagine the accusatory tone in his
voice: You're the one who ought to understand about dreams-you had so many...
"Now, get cleaned up," Kyle ordered her, getting to his feet. "After you get dressed, I'll
take you out for a good dinner, okay?"
"I'm not very hungry, Kyle," she told him.
He turned on her and exploded.
"We're going to eat anyway! I'll get the car."
The door slammed. She promised herself she wouldn't cry and went to work removing the rest
of her makeup, hoping he would mellow somewhat by the time she met him at the stage door. But that
didn't happen.
"Come on, get in," he ordered her, throwing open the sports car's passenger door.
She frowned and slid into the leather seat. Kyle accelerated even before she had the door
closed, burning out as they left the club. He knew that she hated that almost as much as she hated
the car itself-a sleek, dual frontaxled all-terrain sports car, always hungry for fuel and
symbolizing all that she detested in the old world as much as the new: the idea of privilege,
status, the haves and have-nots.
"Where would you like to eat?" Kyle said unpleasantly, throwing the vehicle through the
gears.
"Your dad's restaurant. We haven't been there in a long time."
"I don't want to go there."
"Then why do you bother asking me where I want to eat, Kyle? Just let me off and I'll go
there myself!"
"Oh?" Kyle started to say, but swallowed the rest when he realized that Minmei had thrown
open the door. An oncoming van veered off, narrowly missing them, as Kyle threw the steering wheel
hard to the left to fling her back into the vehicle. But he overcorrected coming out of the
resultant fishtail and ended up in a swerve that brought him into oncoming traffic. The car went
through several more slides before he could safely brake and bring them to a stop on the shoulder.
Afterward he leaned onto the steering wheel and exhaled loudly. When he spoke, all of the anger
and sarcasm had left him.
"Minmei...we could have been killed..."
Minmei was not nearly as shaken by the incident, having achieved some purpose.
"I am sorry, Kyle. But I'm really going there, even if I have to walk." She opened the
door again and started to exit. "Good-bye."
"No, wait." he stopped her. "Get back in the car."
"Why should I?"
"I'll...I'll drive you as far as the city line."
She reseated herself and said, "Thank you so much, Kyle."
The doors of the rebuilt White Dragon slid open as Minmei approached just short of closing
time. Still the center of the city as it had been on Macross Island and later in the SDF-1, the
restaurant was packed even at this late hour.
"Hi! I'm here," she called, cheerful again, the argument with Kyle long behind her now.
Aunt Lena was cleaning up. Tommy Luan, the barrel-chested mayor of Macross, and his fusty
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wife, Loretta, were having tea.
"Oooh, you're back!" said Lena, a warm smile spreading across her face, the mother Minmei
had lost.
"Heyyy!" called the mayor, equally happy to see his long-lost creation.
She greeted Lena with an embrace.
"Welcome back, darling! But shouldn't you be rehearsing for your concert?" Minmei was the
daughter Lena had never had as well as a replacement for the son she seemed to have lost.
"Uh huh," Minmei told her and let it drop. "Mr. Mayor, how are you?"
"I'm just fine, Minmei."
"Good seeing you, dear," said his stiff wife. A head taller than her husband, she had a
long, almost emaciated face underscored by a prominent chin. She wore her wavy auburn hair pulled
back into an unattractive bun and kept the collar of her blouse tightly fastened at the neck by a
large blue brooch.
Loretta and Tommy were almost as unlikely a couple as lithesome Lena and squat Max, who
was just stepping from the kitchen now, his cooking whites and chef's hat still in place.
"Heyyy, Minmei," he drawled.
"Uncle!...Would it be okay with you if I stayed here tonight?"
"Of course it'd be okay! M' girl, you can even have your old room back again."
"Oh, thanks, Uncle Max," Minmei said, suddenly overcome with a feeling of love for all of
them, happy to be back in the fold, away from the lights, crowds, attention...Kyle.
"Isn't that great?" the mayor crowed. "She hasn't changed a bit, even after becoming
famous!"
Three male customers had left their table to surround her, wondering what she was doing
there, taking advantage of the casual nature of her visit to ask for autographs.
"Success hasn't spoiled our Minmei."
"She's still our little girl," said Max.
Which is just what she wanted to feel like at the moment: to be the one taken care of
instead of the one who always had to keep things going. But she said, laughing:
"Oh, no! That makes me sound like a little child who hasn't grown up at all!"
"Oh, I didn't mean it that way!" Max recanted, joining the laughter.
After signing autographs and having something to eat-Lena refused to take no for an answer-
Minmei excused herself and went upstairs to her room. There were no questions about Kyle; it was
as if he were no longer part of the family.
Lena and Max hadn't changed a thing even after the relocation of the restaurant from the
hold of the dimensional fortress; they must have put everything back where it had been-even the
whimsical pink rabit's head bearing her name that she had tacked to the door.
Once inside, a flood of memories began to overwhelm her:
Her first night in this very room when she'd arrived on Macross Island from Yokohama-the
balcony view from these very windows of the reconstructed SDF-1; the Launching Day celebration and
the madness that had ensued; the years in space, and the strange twists of fate that had brought
her fame...And through it all she saw Rick journeying along with her, accompanying her, though not
always by her side.
She looked up at the corner of the room damaged by Rick's Battloid on the day fate had
thrown him a curve. The cornice of the room had been repaired, but the place never seemed to hold
paint for very long, as though the spot had decided to memorialize itself.
Minmei crossed over to her bureau, opened one of the drawers, and retrieved the gift Rick
had given her more than three years ago on her sixteenth birthday. The titanium Medal of Honor he
had received after the battle of Mars. She recalled how he had appeared beneath her balcony only
minutes before midnight and tossed the gift to her. "It says what I can't say to you," Rick had
told her then.
The memory warmed her heart, thawing some of the sadness lodged there. But suddenly she
felt far away from the joy and love of those earlier times; something inside her was in danger of
dying. She sobbed, holding the medal close to her breast:
"Oh, Rick, what have I done?"
CHAPTER THREE
What do I remember about those days in New Macross?...Anger, strident conversations, despair-it
almost seemed as if Protoculture's shape-shifting capabilities had taken hold of fate itself,
changing and reworking individual destiny, transforming and reconfiguring lives...
Lisa Hayes, Recollections
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The sun rose into cirrus skies above New Macross City, autumn's first crisp and clear day. The
stratospheric dust and debris that for two years now had led to blue moons, sullen sunsets, and
perpetual winters was at last dissipating, and there was every indication that Earth was truly on
the mend.
Minmei, dressed in a white summer-weight skirt and red sweater, stepped out of the White
Dragon and took a deep breath of the cool morning air. She felt more rested than she had in
months; the comfort of her own room and the company of her family were warm in her memory. A
newsboy, brown baseball cap askew on his head, rushed by and dropped off the morning edition; she
greeted him cheerfully and started off down the street, unaware that he had turned startled in his
tracks, recognizing the singing star instantly and somewhat disappointed when she hadn't stopped
to talk with him for a moment.
She had a lot on her mind, but for a change she felt that there was all the time in the
world to see to everything. The band would be expecting her for rehearsal, but that was still
hours off, and she wanted nothing more than to walk the streets and say hello to the city in her
own way. That's no EVE projection up there, she had to remind herself, unaccustomed to sunny
skies. She had been a creature of the night for too long, victimized by her own needs as much as
she was by Kyle's grandiose plans for the future.
Last night's argument seemed far removed from this new optimism coursing through her. If
Kyle could only be made to understand, if he would only stop drinking and return himself to the
disciplines that made him unique in her eyes...Sometimes he appeared to be as displaced as the
Zentraedi themselves, yearning for new battles to wage, new fronts to open. He detested the
presence of the military and continued to blame them for the nearly total destruction of the
planet. Minmei pitied him for that. The military had at least managed to salvage a place for new
growth. And as for their presence, the threat of a follow-up attack was a real one-not
manufactured, as Kyle claimed, to keep the civilians in line. The Earth had been ravaged once, and
it could happen again.
But these were dark thoughts to have on such a glorious day, and she decided to put them
from her mind. There was beauty and renewed life everywhere she looked. Skyscrapers rose like
silver towers above the rooftops, and Lake Gloval, looked as though it had been sprinkled with
gems....
In the outskirts of New Macross Rick had already commenced his morning run, in full sweats
today, a beige outfit Lisa had given him for his birthday. The city was still asleep, taking
advantage of the chill to spend a few extra moments cuddled under blankets, and there was no
traffic to fight; so he jogged without any set course in mind, along the lakefront, then into the
grid of city streets. Flat-bottomed cargo crafts ferried supplies to and from the supercarriers
still attached to the SDF-1, while launches carried night-shift work crews away from the SDF-2,
back to back with its mother ship and rapidly nearing completion.
Breathe in the good, breathe out the bad, he chanted to himself as he ran-and there was a
great deal of the latter he needed to get rid of. If asked what he was so angry about, he probably
wouldn't have been able to offer a clear explanation. Only this: He was tense. Whether it had
something to do with his situation with Lisa, or Minmei's situation with Kyle, or Earth's with the
Zentraedi, he couldn't be sure. Probably it was a combination of everything, coupled with an
underlying sense of purposelessness that had given rise to this unnatural cynicism and despair.
"Both races seem to enjoy fighting," Exedore had said. He regretted now that he had turned
the briefing into a debate-he would have felt differently had he been able to make his point-but
was still certain of his feelings: that the Zentraedi, for all their genetic similarities to
humans, were no better than programmed androids. All one needed to do was look around to see that
he was right: The Zentraedi were hungry for war-biologically hungry. They were deserting their
positions, sometimes violently-the recent incident in New Portland was a case in point-to take up
with their fellow malcontents in makeshift compounds in the wasteland, off limits to humans, who
would not be able to withstand the lingering radiation. Perhaps a mistake had been made in
attempting to band together despite the gains to New Macross thanks to the literary larger labor
force? But Rick was certain it was only a matter of time before all the Zentraedi followed suit
and returned to war.
He exhaled harshly and increased his pace.
Just down the street from the White Dragon, only a few blocks from Rick's present course,
a delivery van pulled to a stop in front of a two-storied building with a red and white striped
awning and a rainbow-shaped sign that read CLEANING. At the wheel was Konda, one of the three
former Zentraedi spies.
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