Jack McKinney - Robotech 17 - Rubicon

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Robotech Sentinels: Rubicon

Book 17 of the Robotech Series

CHAPTER ONE

Don't talk to me of Science! The only reference work I consult is the

Encyclopedia of Ignorance. All Science has done is force us to narrow our

definitions, categorize our thinking. It offers us false security at the

expense of spontaneity. I have no use for it. I create my world and change its

rules and guidelines as I see fit. I am the only god this dimension has ever

known; the only one it will ever know!

T. R. Edwards, as quoted in Constance Wildman's When Evil Had It's Day: A

Biography of T. R. Edwards

"At least I won't be pirating it this time," Jonathan Wolff told Lang as the

retrofitted SDF-7-class cruiser nosed into view. The venom in his voice was

palpable, but the scientist either misunderstood or refused to acknowledge it.

"Engineering and astrogation have already been briefed on our

modifications to the Reflex drives and spacefold generators. Improvements, I

should say," Lang added, turning around to face Wolff.

Wolff tried to take a reading of the man's transformed eyes, but staring

into them only made him think of black holes, unfathomable singularities. He

let his gaze linger on the starship instead, his ticket home, whatever that

meant.

"We've moved away from reliance on the Ur-Flower peat toward a more

conventional dialogue between the monopole ore and the Protoculture itself.

Your ship has a bit of the SDF-3 in her, Colonel."

Wolff smirked. "Then maybe it'll find a way back to Earth on its own,

Lang. A milk run."

The scientist cocked his head to one side, offering an appraising look.

"It wouldn't be the oddest thing, commander."

Major Carpenter, whose ship had left Fantomaspace more than six months

ago, had not been heard from. Lang's Robotechs were attributing this to

malfunctions in the ship's deep-space transceivers-a wedding of Tiresian and

Karbarran systemry-but privately Lang had confessed to misgivings about the

very nature of the ship's drives. Not so with this ship, Wolff had been

assured. This was the one the R&D people were puffed up about. This was the

one that would give Wolff the edge; spirit him through space-time in the

blinking of an eye, overtaking en route the Earth-bound spade fortresses of

the Robotech Masters.

Wolff continued to regard the ship from the SDF-3's observation blister

without much thought to Lang's reassurances, or what may or may not lay at

mission's end. To him the ship, this sleek and substantially scaled-down

version of the Super Dimensional Fortress, was simply a way out. There had

been flashes of renewed faith these past few weeks, moments when he saw

himself as reborn-on Haydon IV, for instance, or at seeing the look on T. R.

Edwards's face when his treachery was revealed to the council-but all that had

been emptied from him on the bridge of the Valivarre. Minmei's words still

rang in his ears like a curse; her marriage to Edwards, that sick and sinister

ceremony, replaying itself in dreams and every other waking thought. I've

found happiness at last, she had shrieked from that black altar. Go back to

the family you deserted...make amends with them!

As if it were possible.

He had convinced himself that it wasn't Minmei who was sending him away-

not any flesh and blood Minmei at least. He had succeeded in depersonalizing

her, divesting her of the power to inflict such grief. She was a symbol of the

world gone wrong and Jonathan Wolff's false steps through it; a symbol of

hope's turn toward evil. A symbol of transformed love, of broken promise. A

world once turned on her voice, and now that voice raged against what it had

redeemed.

"The ship's databanks contain a complete record of the mission," Lang

was saying, "along with updated material covering the recent events on Tirol."

Wolff abandoned his dark musings and registered Surprise.

"Longchamps and Stinson, the others who backed Edwards, are holding

their ground. But we've won the battle, as it goes."

"Edwards is halfway to Optera, and they're still not convinced," Wolff

seethed. "They're hedging their bets. They figure he'll be coming back here

with whatever's left of the Invid fleet."

"Possibly that," Lang was willing to concede. "But I think it has more

to do with Earth than Tirol. We can't be certain but there's some chance that

the Southern Cross apparat has gained the upper hand. That would place

Edwards' in a strong position there, despite what has transpired here."

Lang was downplaying things considerably, Wolff realized. Some chance

meant sure thing, no matter how Lang chose to deliver it. An awareness of the

Shapings-Protoculture had left him that talent when it drained the hazel from

his eyes.

"Field Marshall Leonard. Zand, Moran..."

Lang nodded. "Exactly. Longchamps wants them to know where the lines

were drawn."

Wolff muttered a curse. "So we could end up dealing with Edwards all

over again. On Earth this time."

"Which is why I want you to hand-deliver a special report to Major Rolf

Emerson."

Wolff's pencil-thin eyebrows arched. "Emerson?"

"He's the only member of the General Staff we can trust. We don't know

what Edwards's next move will be. Perhaps he'll attempt to convince the Regent

to move against Earth. It's clear now that the two of them have been in

collusion for some time-at least as far back as the assassination of the

Invid's simulagent. If Carpenter's ship made it back safely the tale of our

schism has already been told. But who knows how strong Leonard has become in

the interim, how he might respond to reports of indecision among the Council

members..."

"Earth would welcome Edwards with open arms."

"Edwards and the Regent. He could conquer the planet without loosing a

beam."

Wolff glanced at the ship, then uttered a short laugh as he swung around

to Lang. "The goddamn frying pan to the fire...

"Not if we can hold Edwards here," Lang told him. "The Zentraedi have

volunteered to spearhead an invasion."

Wolff was aghast. "Against Optera?"

"Breetai's forces are our only hope. Hunter and the Sentinels have only

just left Spheris, and their destination is Peryton, not Optera."

"That's lunacy! Show Hunter the transvids of Minmei's wedding if you

want to light a fire under him. He'll say to hell with Peryton."

Lang made a calming gesture with his hands. "I think you're mistaken,

Colonel. But we're trying just that in any event. The Tokugawa under General

Grant's command will launch for Haydon IV shortly after your departure. There

he'll rendezvous with a Karbarran force and proceed to Peryton."

Wolf felt a wave of anticipation wash through him. What chance could his

one lone ship have against a combined enemy force in Earthspace? But to have a

chance to stop Edwards from leaving the Quadrant, to go to guns with him on

Optera, put a personal end to his evil reign-

"So you understand just how critical your mission is," Lang said, as

though reading his mind. "It is imperative that the Defense Force on Earth be

fully appraised of the situation-even if the result is further factionalism. I

trust you follow me, Colonel."

Wolff bit back a half-formed argument on the merits of his remaining on

Tirol and nodded, tight-lipped and near-spellbound in Lang's gaze.

The starship was fully visible now, gleaming in the light of Fantoma's

primary, an arrow in the unseen wind.

"There's one more thing, Wolff," Lang said after a moment. "Your ship

has the capacity for a roundtrip."

"In case I change my mind."

Lang folded his arms. "If you should fail to make contact with us, we

want you to return. We must be informed of the situation."

"That's a hell of thing to ask, Lang. Especially when nobody was

figuring on the Expeditionary mission ending up a one-way ticket."

Lang seemed to consider it, then said: "It's not a request, Colonel.

It's an order."

Lang attended the Wolff Pack's final briefing and shuttled down to Tirol

while the starship was being readied for launch. After a protracted exit from

the Fantoma system, the ship would initiate the first of more than a dozen

spacefold jumps that would eventually land it in Earth-space, clear across the

galaxy. Wolff was to communicate with the SDF-3 after each defold operation,

and the fortress could thereby monitor the ship's progress. The Robotech teams

had taken no such precautions with Major Carpenter's ship, which was to have

completed the same trip in two jumps, dematerializing once some seventy-five

light years out from Tirol before it re-manifested in Earthspace. But the

sensor probes of the abandoned but still-functioning Robotech fortress there

had relayed no indications of the ship's emergence or passage. For all intents

and purposes Carpenter was lost in space.

Tiresia, in the wake of Edwards's embattled departure, brought to mind

the city as Lang had first seen it shortly after the Invid conquest. Much of

what Robotechnology had rebuilt had been damaged by the awakened Inorganics,

and vast areas near the pyramidal Royal Hall where the fighting had been

thickest were leveled. And yet Lang couldn't help but think that Tiresia had

never seemed so at peace with itself. Certainly the native populace felt it,

and-as his limo whisked him through the city's evercrete streets-Lang believed

he could detect the same sense of release on the face of the clean-up crews.

Those Hellcats and Scrim Edwards had left behind had been destroyed; skirmish

ships and terror weapons brought to the ground. But more important, the Invid

brain was gone-that slumbering malignancy Longchamps and the rest had let

Edwards keep to himself.

Lang's last face-to-face with Edwards was still strong in his thoughts,

stronger still in his hands, which curled now at the very recollection. He had

to ask himself why he hadn't killed Edwards then; it was just the two of them

in the lab together and who would have been the wiser? At the time he told

himself that humiliation would be a greater indignity than death; but in truth

it was the Shaping-that persuaded him to ease his hold on the man's throat. An

overriding signal sent to his hands that was meant to save Edwards for some

other fate. No good or evil was attached to any of it; simply a kind of

desolate awareness of the appropriate. God knew Lang himself hadn't given it

any shape. Nor did it spring from any vestige of humanity. He and Edwards both

were long past that now. As they all were-a mission of men and women beyond

Human in any primary meaning of the term. They were warped, re-shaped, and

transfigured by wars that spilled across the galaxy, contact with a dozen

lifeforms from as many star systems, and the urgings of Protoculture itself,

the Flower's bad seed.

"How did he react?" Exedore asked when Lang entered the lab.

The Zentraedi stood poised beside one of the room's numerous consoles, a

Tiresian data card in one hand. Lang recounted his conversation with Jonathan

Wolff. "I had the feeling he would just as soon mount his own mutiny as return

to Tirolspace."

"But he understands how critical it is that we learn of the Earth

government's evaluation?"

Lang nodded vacantly. "At this point I'm more concerned with the

spacefold generators. We could be sending Wolff off to his death. If only

there were time to experiment with these monopole drives-"

"There is no time, doctor," Exedore interrupted him. "The Robotech

Masters have been traveling at superluminal speeds for thirteen Earth-standard

years now. Cabell himself thought the journey from Tirol to Earth might

require as little as fifteen. That leaves us two years at best. Two years to

ready a fleet for our return. Two years to arm those ships with sufficient

firepower to defeat the Masters' fortresses." Exedore shook his head. "No,

doctor, there is no time. Wolff must leave as planned."

Lang waved a hand. "I know all this. I'm asking for assurances where

none exist."

"Here, or anywhere."

Lang paced for a moment, hands locked behind his back. "There is a

chance we've overlooked something. Some way to conjure the Protoculture we

need." He crossed the lab to a window in a partitioned-off section of the room

and pressed his fingertips to the permaplas, gazing in on the shaggy creatures

held captive there.

"Cabell has told us all he knows," Exedore said, joining Lang at the

window.

The creatures bore a resemblance to terrestrial moptop dogs, save for

their knob-ended horns and unearthly eyes. They were the Flowers' pollinators-

Lang understood as much-indigenous to Optera, which had been stripped of their

presence when the Flowers were stolen. They subsisted on a farinaceous mix

Cabell claimed to be composed of crushed stems and leaves from the Flowers

themselves.

"Suppose we were to bring them into contact with the Flowers Zor

planted, on Karbarra say, or Garuda, it makes no difference."

Exedore thought a moment and said, "We would perhaps succeed in raising

a viable crop. But we would have only flowers, doctor, not the matrix in which

to contain them. And I'm afraid Zor took that knowledge with him to his

grave."

The Pollinators, who were most often heaped together in a corner of the

small chamber, were on their feet now, watching the two scientists with a

mixture of curiosity and expectation.

"Perhaps not," Lang mused.

"Lang?" Exedore said, the way he once called Breetai commander.

Lang turned and put his hands on the Zentraedi's shoulders, still

misshapen under the confining cut of the REF jacket. "If we can believe our

reports from Janice..."

Exedore raised an eyebrow. "The Zor-clone."

"Rem," Lang said. "We must learn what he knows."

"Go ahead, question the Zor-clone if it's an explanation you seek!"

Burak pointed an accusing taloned finger at Rem. "It was his seeding of our

world that drew the Invid into our midst! Make him speak!"

The Perytonian contingent rallied behind their self-appointed savior,

raising fists and tapered forehorns, a gathering of demons in medalioned black

robes.

The Sentinels' ship, the Ark Angel, was approaching superluminal speeds

in the outer limits of the Spherisian system. Blaze was behind them, off in

Earth's direction, a cool white and distant disc. Beroth was restructuring

itself without the Sentinels' assistance, a refulgent city in the works under

the guidance of Tiffa and the planet's crystalline elite.

Rem felt Burak's hatred clear across the ship's hold, and looked at Jack

Baker, who was still recuperating from an encounter with the Perytonian's

horns. Burak was thought to have been under Tesla's spell at the time, as both

Jack and Gnea were; but Jack's clenched fist told Rem that all had not yet

been forgiven.

Nonetheless, Rem wished that he had something to offer Burak. Being a

clone of Zor, it was possible that Rem could call up some data regarding

Peryton from his neurons, just as the Regent's scientists had used the Garudan

atmosphere to prompt memories of prelapsarian Optera, Optera before the fall.

Those memories, though, were but half-remembered dreams now, isolated parts of

some other's thoughts and deeds, and Rem considered himself a mere conduit for

their emergence. It weighed on him like an unshakeable burden-the very fact

that he had been cloned, instilled like a Zentraedi warrior with a false past,

lied to by the man who had been father as well as mentor, creator, more like

it. He and Cabell hadn't had occasion to discuss the matter of his laboratory

birth; the old man had been successful in avoiding him after the battle on

Haydon IV, and Rem thought that Cabell's decision to remain there was more

personal than anyone on the Ark Angel was aware. Only Janice seemed to

understand this; and it was she who came to his defense now-this not-quite

human, who had revealed her true face to the Sentinels in the depths of Haydon

IV's inner workings.

"He knows nothing!" she told Burak, pointing a finger of her own. "You

confuse Zor with his offspring."

"Then let him speak for himself, Wyrdling," Burak shot back, using the

Praxian term. Janice was in her lavender-haired human guise, but it was the

artificial person most of the Sentinels chose to see.

"We have told you all we can."

"Enough!" Rick said, loud enough to cut through an eruption of separate

discussions and arguments, Perytonians and Praxians hurling insults at one

another, ursine Karbarrans muttering to themselves. "This isn't helping

anything, Burak. We understand that Peryton has been in a state of perpetual

warfare. But you've got to give us more background on this supposed curse if

you expect us to intercede."

"`Supposed' curse?" Burak mimicked, repeating it for his camp, who

shrieked a kind of angry laugh in response. "There is nothing supposed about

it, human. You will see for yourselves if we ever reach Peryton."

"We will reach Peryton," Rick snapped. "And that's the last I want of

hear of that. You have our word that we'll do everything we can to liberate

Peryton-you've had our word from the onset."

"Your word," Burak sneered, horns lowered, red eyes glaring at Rick.

"Words mean nothing. We have tried words. And we have tried weapons. To no

avail." He swept his arm around the room. "You all know this. Words are

useless. Weapons are useless. You think I am unaware of what transpires here?

You think I am unaware of your secret plans to move against Optera and leave

Peryton to fend for itself? Now that Spheris has been liberated, you see no

need to delay, to involve yourself in my world's insignificant dilemma. It is

just as Tesla warned."

Teal pushed her way to the edge of the circle as the arguments

recommenced. "If that were the case, we wouldn't be here," she told Burak,

indicating her fellow Spherisian, Baldan. "We would have stayed on our own

world."

Burak only snorted a laugh. "A babe and a newborn warrior. How

comforting."

Rick strode to the center waving his arms and motioning everyone silent.

"Peryton is our priority. Anyone who disagrees better step forward now and

present a case, otherwise it's settled, once and for all."

When no one moved to contradict him, he swung around to the Perytonians,

showing them a determined look. "I'm as short of patience as this ship is of

Protoculture, Burak. Tesla's not around to feed you any more lies, so you're

going to have to begin dealing with us. You don't seem to want to believe that

he's on his way to Optera, but there's nothing we can do about that. What I

want to know is what you need from us. Tesla has you convinced that it's your

destiny to save your world, and maybe that's exactly the case. But you'll need

backup and all we're saying is that you'll have our complete cooperation."

"Then squeeze the Zor-clone for all he's worth," Burak said menacingly.

"Or, by Haydon, we will do it for you!"

In his quarters an hour later, Rick positioned himself in front of a

security camera to get a good look at himself in the monitor. He had been as

thin as a ribbon since Haydon IV and suspected that the Haydonite scientists

must have tampered with his physiology when they were cleaning Garuda from his

system, because he hadn't been able to gain any of his weight back. Stepped up

his metabolism or something. He turned profile for the camera and ran a

forefinger along his larynx, which seemed to be, well, protruding lately.

Could they have taken out his thyroid? No, that wouldn't have done it. He

thought about Veidt as he stared at his on-screen image, flexing the muscles

in his arms and legs, thankful that Haydon IV had left him with those at

least.

There were other things to wonder about as well: whether Vince Grant,

Wolff, and Breetai had been successful in clearing the Sentinels of charges;

how Max and Miriya were faring with their new girlchild; whether the ship

under Major Carpenter's command had been heard from; and just what the hell

the Ark Angel was going to do when it arrived at Peryton.

Despite the bold front he had displayed in the hold, he couldn't deny

that Burak's remarks were not far off the mark. It was true that the Sentinels

had given their word to the Perytonians, and it was certain they would stick

to it; but at the same time there was a kind of mutinous restlessness plaguing

both crew and command-a feverish compulsion to push on to Optera and put an

end to the war. They had had the Regent on the run ever since Haydon IV, and

the sidetrip to Peryton-while an honorable undertaking-was only going to

permit him to regroup his forces and fortify his homeworld stronghold. Rick

could only hope that Tesla's troopships were in pursuit of the Invid leader.

From all reports, he had actually strangled the Regent's simulagent onboard

the SDF-3, and there had been that persuasive speech before the turnaround on

Spheris. But who knew what Tesla had planned for the day after tomorrow? He

was no longer the same being they had encountered on Tirol almost three years

ago.

Rick had no way of knowing Dr. Emil Lang was nursing similar thoughts

about change and transformation clear across the seas and nebulae of the local

group. He knew only that victory was no longer a guarantee of order; in fact,

there seemed to be a measurable quantity of disorder attending the Sentinels

liberation campaign. An entropic dispersal; a scattering and depletion that

grew more pronounced with each world set free. Half his command returned to

Tirol; the Praxians uprooted; Cabell, Max, and Miriya on Haydon IV; Janice Em

and Tesla reconfigured; Burak crazed...And indeed his own image seemed to bear

this out: his nearly shoulder-length hair, the mismatched pieces of uniform

and weaponry.

Rick turned to glance at Lisa, busy at a terminal which by rights had no

place in their bedroom. She was outfitted in knee-high boots, leggings, and a

hide skirt the Praxian Zibyl had given her on Haydon IV. Her admiral's jacket

was worn over a Garudan fringe vest, and a kind of techno-headband kept her

long hair back. There were Karbarran air-rifles in one corner of the room,

Badger assault pistols near the bed, clips and bandoliers, halberds and

grappling hooks. And it wasn't just this room but the whole Ark Angel that

looked like this; not just Rick and Lisa Hunter but the entire crew. If they

were not really the pirates the Plenipotentiary Council had branded them, they

were certainly dressing the part!

"What is it?" Lisa asked over her shoulder, catching Rick staring at

her.

Rick smiled and shook his head. "Nothing. I guess I was just

daydreaming."

Lisa narrowed her eyes. "About?"

"Maybe about the first time we met," he said, coming over to her, taking

her upraised hand and kissing it. "You in civilian clothes. Kim, Vanessa, and

Sammie."

Lisa laughed and-leaned back to glimpse her reflection in the monitor

screen. "And you and Roy all duded up, two hot-shot flyboys on the make. `Mr.

Lingerie!'"

"Macross," Rick said, sighing.

She squeezed his hand. "We've come a long way baby."

"Yeah, look," he said, gesturing to himself and laughing.

She reached up to straighten the collar of his jacket. "I think you look

terrific. I was proud of you today, Rick, the way you handled Burak."

"Even though you knew I was faking it."

"You weren't faking it," she countered. "We're committed to Peryton-

obligation or not. Nothing will change that. Burak has to be made to

understand."

"Not even a chance for a quick end to the war."

Lisa tightened her lips. "Not even that."

Rick looked away from her.

"Let me hear you say it, Rick," she said, suddenly concerned.

"Not even that," he bit out.

Elsewhere in the ship Burak was meeting in private with Garak and Pye,

the two Invid scientists who had been with the Sentinels since the liberation

of Garuda. The Perytonian had the two pinned up against the bulkhead of their

quarters/jailcell, his hands at their throats. Behind him at the door stood

two of his devilish cadre, who had neatly disposed of the rooms' Karbarran

guards.

"Do I need to ask again?" Burak said in the lingua franca, his horns

poised for a pass.

"We know nothing!" Pyre gasped, pleading for his life.

"You had the clone on Garuda. Your scanners peered into his mind. What

did they reveal? How is Peryton to be spared? Speak, or die by my hands!"

Burak held their ophidian eyes in his gaze, willing the truth to surface. The

two had been present when Tesla had first worked his magic; they had seen for

themselves the transmogrification, the link the Invid had established with

Burak that day in this very hold. "Speak!" he commanded them, trying to summon

a similar psychic bolt from his depths.

Just then the door to the hold slid open and Janice Em sidestepped in,

her Badger in an upraised two-fisted grip.

"Hold!" Burak ordered his companions.

The two moved back.

"Release them," Janice said, gesturing to the Invid.

Burak grinned and opened his powerful hands; the scientists slipped from

his grip and fell gasping for breath to the floor.

"They can't tell you anything, Burak."

"You never know until you ask, changeling. And the Zor-clone was not

available."

Janice moved toward a corner of the hold and brought the pistol to her

shoulder, pointing it toward the ceiling. "I can tell you what you need to

know about Peryton."

Burak traded looks with his cohorts and relaxed his stance some. "Speak

to me from your true face, then. Unmask yourself."

Janice complied. Without visible effort, her skin lost color, becoming

transparent and leaving the blood vessels and human-made musculature of her

face revealed. Her eyes emitted an eerie light, and what there was left of her

expression became flat, unblinking, and inhuman.

"You would make Tesla a lovely bride."

Janice ignored the comment and said, "The Awareness opened my eyes to

some things that bear on Peryton's curse, some things which you are meant to

understand. Zor believed he would be helping your world by seeding it with the

Flowers of Life. If you seek someone to blame, you must go further back-to

Haydon."

Burak made a disgruntled sound. "Haydon? Then I may as well blame the

Great Shaper, the Great Geode..."

"It would all mean the same," Janice told him. "When the Invid came they

sealed off Peryton's one chance for salvation; but there is still time to

rescue your world from the brink."

"But how?" Burak asked, eager now, captivated.

"The hive is the key."

Burak took an anxious step forward. "The hive...But tell me, changeling,

do I delude myself, am I to be the one?"

The light from Janice's eyes waned, then grew brilliant again. "You are

the one."

Burak threw back his head and roared. "And Tesla," he sneered after a

moment. "Does he have a role to play in all this, or were his words empty?"

"Tesla has a role," Janice said, "an all-important one."

CHAPTER TWO

"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war."

Albert Einstein

Is this what lay in store for kings and fathers? the Regent asked himself as

he paced the floor of the Home Hive. Mismanagement at the lower levels and a

son's rebellion?

It was inconceivable: Optera under assault-again! Not that much remained

to waste; the Robotech Masters' warrior giants have seen to that. Nevertheless

the planet was still the Invid homeworld, and whether bountifully flowered or

as barren as some rogue moon it would always remain so. Only this time it

wasn't Zentraedi-but Invid against Invid, with the renegade Tesla at the helm

of the assault.

The Regent whirled on his personal guards, a formidable dozen in full-

body armor standing alert by the base of the hive's bubble-chambered brain. On

the floor in front of them in postures of genuflection were three barefoot

Invid scientists in sashed jackets and white trousers suggestive of a martial

arts gi.

"You have wasted our most precious reserves," the Regent told the three.

He was referring to the hive's recently transmuted Special Children, who

were suffering heavy losses at the hands of the troops and Inorganics Tesla

had mustered on Spheris. The Regent had been expecting much more from the

egglike things the Regis had left behind on Optera, but his scientists had

disappointed him-a mistake no being could make twice.

"These were to be our grand warriors," the Regent continued to rave,

"and instead you feed them to Tesla as if they were but scraps of discarded

fruit!"

"We tried, Your Grace," one of the three whimpered, risking a look up at

his twenty-foot-tall judge and monarch. "But we dare not make demands of the

Genesis Pits. I beg you to recall-"

"Silence, slug!" With a slight downward motion of his four-finger hand,

the Regent summoned a lieutenant forward.

"My lord," the soldier said, smartly snapping to.

"To the Pits with them," the Regent bellowed, his cobra hood puffed,

suffused with violent color. "Devolve them and see that they are sent to the

front."

As the scientists were dragged screaming from the chamber, the Regent

turned his attention to the communication sphere, live images of battle

strobing from within its cellular, confines. Waves of Inorganics, Hellcats,

Scrim, and Odeon clashed in the outlying districts, sterile hillsides and

valleys that had once provided spiritual nourishment for a world and an

inward-turning race. While overhead, through skies as pale as death, a battle

raged to the very edge of space, ship against ship, Invid against Invid,

locked in a war of like minds. And somewhere above the madness was death's

harbinger-a Special Child of his ex-wife's own making, transfigured by the

Fruits of half-a-dozen worlds into something beyond reckoning.

"Is the link established?" the Regent demanded of a cowering tech at the

controls of an instrumentality sphere. The screams of the scientists could

still be heard, a hollow roar in the passways that led to the Genesis Pits.

"Not quite-"

"See to it!"

Given a choice, the Regent would have opted for a long soak in the tub,

a bit of wave-making in the Perytonian nutrient fluids of his bath. There had

been too little of that lately, save for the occasion when Edwards had

interrupted him with a somewhat panicked transmission from Tirol. Where was

the one-eyed Human now? he wondered. He had presented Edwards with a way out

of his difficulties in the hope of forging an alliance, but there had been no

word from the general since. Nor any word from his lost queen, the Regis, for

that matter. Off following one of her sensor nebulae, the Regent supposed,

chasing the Protoculture matrix Zor had spirited out of the Quadrant.

The Regent shut his liquid black eyes to the thought, only to find

himself pursued by cruel memories of the Zorlike things that had sent him

scurrying from Haydon IV; his brief but painful stay on that diabolical world.

The replayed psy scans of the clone, the sight of Tesla hunkered down in his

new form...

The Regent heard the tech announce that a comlink had been established

between the Home Hive and Tesla's troop-carrier flagship. Eyes opened now, he

was brought face-to-face with the insurgent as he appeared in the

communications sphere, and the image was even more gruesome than he had

recalled. Tesla was huge and hairless, five-fingered and almost... Human!

Horrified, the Regent fell back from the sphere, eliciting an amused cackle

from his opponent. Was this form some trick of the Fruits, or was Tesla

consciously seeking the mutated path the Regis had followed? He refused to

contemplate that there was something predestined here, a road not taken.

"But that is exactly what you must contemplate," Tesla said, discerning

his thoughts. "You are the devolved, a dead end for our race, and it is my

primal responsibility to remove you from rule."

"You, you are not one of us anymore, Tesla," the Regent managed, his

nasal antennae twitching convulsively. "Go join with my faithless wife on her

metaphysical quest if it pleases you. Only leave me to my task here."

Tesla enjoyed a laugh, obviously pleased with his newgrown mouth. "You

are pathetic. The shadow our race casts across the Quadrant. And because of

that I cannot allow you to live."

Tesla's words sent a flame through the Regent's heart, melting whatever

fears had gathered there and steeling him. The bloodlust coursed through him

like a fix of the finest Flowers, a madness that worked its own frightening

transformations. Even Tesla could sense it where he sat sheltered in his ship,

as the Regent vented his anger on the comma sphere.

"Come and take me, then!" he screamed, frightening in his aspect. "Don

your battle armor and settle this thing between us. I vow to see you live to

face the Pits, to watch as all the fine stuff of your new self is drained from

your being, sucked dry by the very powers I have sanctified in this place.

Come to me, Tesla! I await you like an impassioned lover. Come and slip into

death's embrace!"

With that, the Regent cut off the link and smashed his fists into the

geodesiclike sphere, caving it in with hammer blow after blow. Spent then, he

collapsed cross-legged to the floor, his cerulean robe falling about him like

a tent, and stared up at the eyeless, now agitated organ in the bubble

chamber.

We need a miracle, he told himself.

"Entering the Tzuptum system, General Edwards," a Ghost Rider tech

reported from his duty station on the bridge. "Optera on-screen."

Edwards leaned forward in the command chair to gaze at the darkside

disk, its single oblate moon. There was a thrill attached to the moment that

cut through all his concerns. Three years ago the planet hadn't meant anything

to him; but in the time since, it had overtaken Tirol itself in importance.

The world that had given the Quadrant the Flowers of Life, the Protoculture by

extension; the focal point of a galactic war and in this sense-though the

ship's scanners might disagree-a kind of Earth-mate. A celestial twin or

doppelganger.

"Any traffic?" Edwards asked.

"Negative, sir. Heavy interference on all frequencies. Trying again."

Edwards steepled his fingers and brought his chin to rest on his thumbs.

What the hell was going on now? Was this some sort of test the Regent had set

up-a way to gauge his reactions to the unexpected, a way to appraise him?

Edwards had in fact expected as much, coming in like a fugitive on the run

with damned little to offer the partnership: a half-complete starship, a

handful of loyal fighters, some mecha and weapons. But he wasn't about to

grovel. They had a common enemy and a similar lust for conquest, and that

would have to count for something. And there was the section of living

computer Edwards had taken from the nave of Tiresia's Royal Hall-slumbering

now with precious few Inorganics to direct, but programmed with all the Code

Pyramid data Edwards had fed into it on Tirol. The strengths and weaknesses of

the REF; psy profiles on the Expeditionary Force's commanders and council

members; research data on Lang's delvings into Protoculture; schematics

pinpointing the vulnerable places of the expedition's new breed of

dreadnought.

If it came to that.

Edwards threw a nervous look over his shoulder, certain he had glimpsed

something sneaking up on him. But there was only a tech seated at his station,

bent over his console, his back turned to Edwards. No one on the bridge had

picked up on his turn, but Edwards made a covering move just in case. It had

been happening more and more lately, this sense of peripheral threat, ever

since he'd helped that Lynn-Kyle into the afterlife. The suicidal fool.

Edwards forced out a breath and returned his attention to the forward

screens, Optera a golden crescent now. Things had been worse, he decided,

recalling a few low spots in times past. Especially toward the end of the

Global Civil War, what with the Neasians steadily losing ground and his

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RobotechSentinels:RubiconBook17oftheRobotechSeriesCopyright1988byJackMcKinneyCHAPTERONEDon'ttalktomeofScience!TheonlyreferenceworkIconsultistheEncyclopediaofIgnorance.AllSciencehasdoneisforceustonarrowourdefinitions,categorizeourthinking.Itoffersusfalsesecurityattheexpenseofspontaneity.Ihavenousefor...

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Jack McKinney - Robotech 17 - Rubicon

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