Force of Arms

by Jack McKinney

  "The shuttle is nearly ready for launch, Captain," a female enlisted-rating tech reported. "Launch in ten minutes."

  Captain Henry Gloval crossed the bridge to glance at several other displays, stroking his thick mustache. "Any signs of Zentraedi activity in our area?" His voice still carried the burred r's and other giveaways of his Russian mother tongue.

  Vanessa answered promptly, "There's been absolutely no contact, no activity at all."

  The stupendous Zentraedi armada still shadowed and prowled around the wandering battle fortress. Time and again the aliens had attacked, but in

  comparatively insignificant numbers. The defectors' information was only now beginning to shed light on the reasons behind that.

  "There's been nothing at all?" Gloval asked again, eyes flicking across the readouts and displays. "Mm. I hope this doesn't mean they're planning an attack." He turned and paced back toward the command chair, a tall, erect figure in the high-rolled collar of his uniform jacket, hat pulled low over his eyes. He clenched his cold, empty briar in his teeth. "I don't like it, not a bit..."

  Lisa was his highly valued First Officer; but she was also much like a daughter to him. It had taken every bit of his reason and sense of duty to convince himself she was the logical one for this mission.

  The first enlisted tech turned to Kim Young, who was manning a position nearby. She knew Kim and the two other enlisted regulars on the bridge watch, Sammie and Vanessa, were known as the Terrible Trio, part of what amounted to a family with Gloval, Lisa Hayes, and Claudia Grant.

  "Kim, does the skipper always get this...concerned?"

  Elfin-faced Kim, a young woman who wore her black hair in a short cut, showed a secret grin. She whispered, "Most of the time he's a rock. But he's worried about Lisa, and, well, there's Sammie."

  Sammie Porter, youngest of the Terrible Trio, was a high-energy twenty-year-old with a thick mane of dark blond hair. She usually didn't know the meaning of fear...but she usually didn't know the meaning of tact, either. She was conscientious and bright but sometimes excitable.

  Lisa's departure had meant a reshuffling of jobs on her watch, and Sammie had ended up with a lot of the coordinating duties Claudia and Lisa would have ordinarily handled.

  "Yellow squad, please go to preassigned coordinates before requesting computer readout," she ordered a unit of attack mecha over the comcircuit. The mammoth Robotech war machines were part of the ship's defensive force. Excaliburs and Spartans and Raidar Xs, they were like some hybrid of armored knight and walking battleship. They were among the units that guarded the ship itself, while the Veritechs sortied out into space.

  Gloval bent close to check on what she was doing. "Everything all right?

  No trouble, I hope."

  Sammie whirled and snapped, "Captain, please! I have to concentrate on these transmissions before they pile up!" Then she went back to ordering the lumbering mecha around, making sure that the gun turrets and missile batteries were alert and that all intel data and situation reports were up to date.

  Gloval straightened, clamping his pipe in his teeth again. "Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt." Kim and Vanessa gave him subtle looks, barely perceptible nods, to let him know that Sammie was on top of things.

  Gloval had come to accept Sammie's occasional lack of diplomacy as a component of her fierce dedication to duty. Sometimes she reminded him of a small, not-to-be-trifled-with sheep dog.

  Gloval considered the Terrible Trio for a moment. Through some joke of the gods, it had been these three whom the original Zentraedi spies-Bron, Konda, and Rico-had met and, not to put too fine a point on it, begun dating and formed attachments to.

  The normally clear lines between personal life and matters of concern to the service were becoming quite muddied. The Zentraedi seemed decent enough, but there were already reports of ugly incidents between the defectors and some of the SDF-1's inhabitants. Gloval worried about the Terrible Trio, worried about the Zentraedi-was apprehensive that; after all, the two races could never coexist.

  On top of that, he couldn't shake the feeling that he ought to be setting curfews, or providing chaperones, or doing something paternal. These things troubled him in the brief moments when he wasn't doing his best to see that his entire command wasn't obliterated.

  "Shuttle escort flight, prepare for launch, five minutes," Sammie said, bent over her console. She turned to Gloval.

  "Shuttle's ready, sir. Lisa will be leaving in four minutes, fifty seconds."

  CHAPTER TWO

  Of course, idle hands are not the devil's workshop; that is a base canard. Rather, it is the sort of hand that is always driven to be busy, turning itself to new machinations, keeping the brew boiling, that causes the most trouble. Those who wish to dispute this might do well to consider what

  happened whenever Khyron grew restive.

  Rawlins, Zentraedi Triumvirate: Dolza, Breetai, Khyron

  Max Sterling, flight helmet cradled in his left arm, strode through the frenetic activity of the hangar deck and heard Sammie's voice echo over the PA. "Sammie's substituting for the commander," he said.

  At his side was a Skull Team replacement, Corporal Elkins, who had been transferred in from Wolf Team to help fill the gaps in Skull's ranks after the last pitched battle with the Zentraedi. Elkins remarked, "I hope she stays calm. Last time she had me flying figure eights around a radar mast."

  Max chuckled, then forgot the joke, distracted. "Hey."

  Elkins saw what Max meant. The techs had rolled out a prototype ship, something everybody in the Veritech squadrons had heard about. It was like the conventional VT, a sleek ultra-fighter, but two augmentation pods were mounted above its wing pivots..

  The conventional VTs were a kind of miracle in themselves, the most advanced use of the Robotechnology that humans had learned from the wreckage of the SDF-1 when the alien-built battle fortress had originally crashed on Earth twelve years before. The SDF-1 had murderous teeth in the form of its mecha, its primary and secondary batteries, and its astoundingly powerful main gun, but the VTs were the ship's claws. And this new, retrofitted model was the first of a more powerful generation, a major advance in firepower and performance.

  "Wouldn't that be something to fly?" Max murmured. He hoped it checked out all right in test flights; the humans needed every edge they

  could get.

  "Whenever they're ready to give me one, I'll take it," Elkins said. "Anyway, watch yourself up there, Max."

  At the top of the shuttle boarding steps, Lisa said, "I've made notes on everything that might be a problem."

  "Don't worry about a thing," Claudia told her. Then she put her hands on Lisa's shoulders. "I'll see you back here in a few days, okay?"

  Lisa tried to smile. What do you say to someone dearer than a sister? "I hope so. You look after things." One of the ground crew whistled, and Lisa stepped back into the shuttle's entry hatch.

  The mobile steps moved away from the tubby shuttle. Claudia threw Lisa a salute for the first time in so long that neither of them could remember the last. Lisa returned it smartly. The round hatch swung to, emblazoned with the Robotech Defense Force insignia.

  There were no other passengers, of course; contact with Earth had been all but nonexistent since the UEDC rulers decided that the dimensional fortress was to be a decoy, luring the enemy away from the planet. Other than a few canisters of classified dispatches and so forth, she had the passenger compartment to herself.

  Lisa found a seat at the front of the compartment, near a com console, and asked a passing crewman, "Is this a secure line?"

  "Aye aye, ma'am. It's best to make any calls now; never can tell what glitches we'll run into outside."

  "I will."

  He was wandering a quiet side street of Macross when the paging voice said, "Repeating: Lieutenant Rick Hunter, you have a call."

  For a moment he wasn't even sure where he was, shuffling along in civvies that felt rather strange-the first time he'd worn anything but a
uniform or a flightsuit in weeks. He'd been brooding a lot longer, trying to sort things out, to understand his own feelings and face up to certain truths.

  He went to one of the ubiquitous yellow com phones and identified himself. The incoming call carried a secure-line encryption signal, keying the public phone with it. While the machines went through their coding, Rick looked around to make sure no one was close enough to eavesdrop.

  People were just passing by, not even sparing a glance for the compact black-haired young man at the phone. He didn't mind that; he needed a few hours respite from being the Skull Team's leader-some time away from, the burden of command.

  He had been a cocky civilian when he first came aboard the dimensional fortress two years before. He had been drawn into military service only grudgingly by Roy Fokker, his unofficial Big Brother-Claudia Grant's lover. Rick Hunter had survived more dogfights than he could remember, had written so many condolence letters to the families of dead VT pilots that he forced himself not to think of them, had stood by at the funeral of Roy Fokker and others beyond counting. He only wanted to shut them out of his mind.

  He was not yet twenty-one years old.

  The comcircuit was established. "Rick? It's Lisa."

  He felt as though he had been under observation as he walked the streets aimlessly. Lisa and Minmei; Minmei and Lisa. His brain failed him in that emotional cyclone where his feelings for the two women swirled and defied all analysis, all decision.

  "What can I do for you?" Ouch. Wrong. He knew that as soon as he said it, but it was too late.

  "I wanted to let you know, Rick. I'm leaving the SDF-1. I'm on my way to Earth to try to get them to stop the fighting."

  He looked around again quickly to make sure no civilians had any chance of hearing. There was enough unrest in the dimensional fortress without spreading new rumors and raising expectations that would in all probability be dashed. At the same time, he felt an emptiness. She's leaving!

  "Why wasn't I told ab-"

  "It's all top secret. Rick, I might not be allowed to come back." Lisa

  cupped the handset to her, staring at it sadly, as the shuttle was moved onto the aircraft elevator for the trip to the flight deck. Max Sterling's VT was next to it.

  "So...I want to tell you something," she struggled. Oh, say it! Claudia's voice seemed to holler at her. But she couldn't.

  "I appreciate all you've done, and it's been an honor serving with you," Lisa said instead. "Your observations about our captivity in the alien headquarters will be an important part of my report when-"

  "What are you talking about, Lisa?" Something that had been murky to him moments ago was crystal clear now. "I don't care about reports or anything else if you can't come back here!"

  Tell him! Say it! But she ignored the voice, couldn't face the rejection. He loved the luminous superstar, Minmei, and Minmei cared for him. Who could compete with that?

  She found herself saying, "Please watch over the Zentraedi defectors, Rick. A lot of our people haven't had time to reason things out yet, and the aliens are in danger."

  The stubby shuttle was on the flight deck, boxed up for launch by the cat crew, the hookup people clear, the blast deflector raised up from the deck behind the spacecraft. Off to one side, Max's VT swept its wings out and raised its vertical stabilizers.

  Lisa held the handset tenderly. "We're launching. Good-bye. And thanks again."

  "What? Wait!" But the circuit was dead.

  He got up to an observation deck just in time to watch a tiny cluster of distant lights, the drives of the formed-up flight, dwindle into the darkness.

  "Shuttle craft and escorts proceeding according to flight plan," Vanessa told Gloval quietly. Nobody had actually said that Lisa's flight was to be monitored so closely; but no one had objected to the idea, either, and the Terrible Trio were keeping close tabs.

  Back at her duty station, Claudia was alert to every nuance of voice, like everyone else there. When Vanessa said, "Captain!" in a clipped, alarmed tone, Claudia's heart skipped a beat.

  "Elements of the Zentraedi fleet are redeploying. They're on intercept course, closing in on the shuttle."

  Gloval looked over his situation displays, threat boards, computer projections. Claudia kept one eye on the board, one on Gloval.

  He sounded very calm. Now that battle had come, he was a well of tranquility. "Order them to take evasive action as necessary or return to the SDF-1 if possible."

  Claudia almost blurted out a plea to send reinforcements, but she could read the displays as well as anyone. More Zentraedi forces were moving into place, apparently to cut the shuttle off from the dimensional fortress. Pummeled and undermanned, the SDF-1 could ill afford to risk an entire VT team to save one shuttle and its escorts.

  No matter who might die.

  Alarms and emergency Hashers brought Lisa out of a dim gray despair. The shuttle pilot was announcing, "Enemy craft approaching. All hands, general quarters. Secure for general quarters."

  There was a heavy grinding sound as sections of padded armor shielding slid up into place around Lisa's seat. She calmly pulled her briefcase into the questionable safety of the metal cocoon with her, securing her acceleration harness, and the ship's drive pressed her back into the seat's cushioning.

  Max Sterling accepted the news almost amicably. The heritage that was the fighter pilot's proud tradition remained strong. Dying was sometimes unavoidable, but losing one's cool was inexcusable.

  "Enemy approaching on our six," he said, with less emotion than most people used talking about the weather. "Form up in gamma deployment and stick with your wingmen."

  The other VTs rogered and moved to comply. Max was going to give Lisa an encouraging wave, but the armored cocoon had already swallowed her up.

  He peeled off to take up his own position. The aerodynamic maneuvers of the VTs looked strange in the airlessness and zero g of space, but the pilots came from a naval aviation tradition. They thought a certain way about flying, and thinking was half the key to Robotechnology. The aerodynamic maneuvers wasted power, but Robotechnology had plenty of that.

  Max hoped this was another feint. Like Gloval and many others, he had noticed that there seemed to be two distinct factions-almost a schizophrenia-among the enemy. One side was playing a waiting game, determined to capture the SDF-1 intact for reasons that the humans still couldn't guess and that the low-ranking defectors, not privy to strategic information, couldn't clarify.

  The other element-rash, unpredictable, almost irrational-mounted sudden, vicious attacks on the dimensional fortress, apparently intent on destroying it with no thought to the consequences. It was becoming clear that the enemy commander responsible for this had a name known to, and even feared by, all Zentraedi.

  Khryon the Backstabber.

  "Commander, the target has changed course," a Zentraedi pod pilot said, the facebowl of his combat armor lit by his instruments. "And the Micronian fighters are redeploying for intercept."

  The alien mecha, two dozen and more, were in attack formation-huge ovoid bodies quilled with cannon muzzles, mounted on long reverse-articulated legs so that they resembled headless ostriches. Most would have been considered "armless," but the Officers' Pods mounted heavy guns that suggested gargantuan derringers.

  In the lead pod was Khyron the Backstabber.

  He didn't fit most stereotypes of the brutal warlord. Quite contrary to

  the Zentraedi conventionalities-their Spartan simplicity, their distaste for mannerisms-Khyron would have been called a fop if such a word or concept had existed among his race.

  Youthful-looking and sinisterly handsome, he gazed into the screens of his pod's cockpit, contemplating the kill. He had been forbidden to attack the SDF-1 again on pain of immediate execution, but no one had issued any orders with regard to a juicy little convoy.

  Four times now, the Micronian vermin had humiliated him. With each defeat, his hatred had grown geometrically. It went incandescent when he saw the sor
ts of perversions the humans practiced: males mingling with females, the sexes somehow coming into contact and expressing weak-willed affection for each other. They behaved seductively, something unknown to the Zentraedi. The Micronians paired off, sometimes forming lifelong bonds, driven by impulses and stimuli Khyron was only beginning to perceive.

  It repelled and fascinated him; it obsessed and possessed him. So he knew he had no other choice but to destroy the Micronians utterly or go completely insane.

  "Nothing can save them," he gloated. "All units: Attack immediately!"

  The pods closed in, riding the bright flames of their drives, guns angling, answering their targetting servos. The VTs swept out to meet them.

  "Captain, the shuttle has reached coordinates Lambda thirty-four," Sammie called out. "Should we send reinforcements?"

  The bridge crew watched Gloval, hoping he would say yes as much as he himself wanted to. But that would have left the SDF-1 underprotected; the Zentraedi had already tried similar diversionary maneuvers to set up a major attack.

  With the number of spaceworthy VTs critically low until the Robotech fabrication machinery could produce replacements, he simply couldn't risk sending out another team of fighters or risk the pilots who were so crucial to the ship's survival.

  "Not unless we absolutely have to," he said stonily. The women turned back to their jobs in silence. Gloval did not elaborate on the question of reinforcements, but he had already decided: He couldn't risk a flight of VTs, but there was one desperate gamble he could take if the shuttle's situation got worse.

  In the volume of empty space designated Lambda thirty-four, Max Sterling's Veritech went through a lightning change. It was what Dr. Lang, the eerie Robotech genius, termed "mechamorphosis," the alteration of the fighter's very structure.