Force of Arms

by Jack McKinney

  Max's modest, self-effacing shipside persona made him a sort of uninteresting doormat for women. Perhaps he wasn't suave or seductively menacing enough. So when he wasn't out in a Veritech, he kept to himself for the most part.

  But this was different; the Close Encounters arcade was his turf. "Maybe I can get her in a game with me!" Max said, as he went racing down the stairs.

  There was quite a crowd around Miriya; she had rolled up one of the largest scores ever on the Veritechs game. She felt a little irritated, even a bit strange, with all these Micronians gathered around. Yet she endured their gaze, proud and pleased to show off her prowess.

  She briefly considered the idea that her strange sensations had something to do with the damned Micronian food. It was nothing like the cold, processed, sanitized rations of the Zentraedi; human food had strange textures and flavors, odd biological constituents. It was all animal tissue and plant substances, and she suspected it was affecting her system.

  She shook off the feeling and kept playing, rolling her score higher and higher, until she went over the top, beating the game, and more tokens poured into her tray. Getting enough money to survive in Macross had been no problem for Miriya since she had discovered the arcades.

  Now someone pressed through the crowd: an unremarkable-looking VT pilot with a tray of token winnings in his hands. She was inclined to dismiss him; dozens of men had made overtures to her since she first came to the SDF-1.

  But there was something different about this one, she thought.

  Max worked up the nerve to say, "'Scuse me; would you be interested in

  playing a game with me? From what I've seen, I think we'd be equally matched. Don't you?"

  He looked so young and eager that she almost laughed in his face and ignored him. Then she considered the tray of tokens in his hands. Miriya knew enough about the arcades to appreciate how good he must have been to have accumulated so many of the glittering pieces.

  Of course it was beyond the realm of possibility that this slim youngster could be the premier enemy killer, but if he provided some competition, it might make for useful practice.

  She looked at him languidly beneath long black lashes. Max felt his heart pounding. "Are you willing to bet all that?" Miriya asked.

  He gasped happily. "Yes, I am!" He set his tray down next to hers, then scooted around into the seat opposite her. He babbled, "This is absolutely terrific! I know we're gonna have a great game!"

  Watching frorn the sidelines, Rick wondered if there wasn't something else Max could do to screw up his chances of impressing her. Trip over her, maybe; or throw up.

  But once in his seat, Max took on the air of confidence and aplomb that was his in matters regarding the VTs. "How about starting with level B? All right with you?"

  She shrugged, somehow making it seem alluring and yet indifferent. "Fine."

  "All right. Here we go."

  He deposited the tokens, and the screen lit. Miriya had picked red for the color of her VT; Max selected blue, for the trim on his own ship. He didn't notice that Miriya's eyes suddenly narrowed at that choice.

  Little animated Minmei figures walked out from either side of the screen to strike a gong in the center, and the action began. They guided their VTs through the twisting, changing computer-modeled landscape, using control sticks and foot pedals, maneuvering at each other and firing.

  It didn't take long for Miriya to lose her nonchalance. Try as she might, she couldn't gain the advantage on him, couldn't shake him once he'd

  gained on her. A frown crossed her face, then a sudden flare of rage, when his fighter destroyed hers. She hid the expression in an instant, looking at him more closely.

  The video warriors gathered around them were aghast. It had been a master-level fight. Max grinned at her. "Whoops! Looks like I won, huh? Wanna go on to level A?" He winked at her.

  Rick groaned to himself. Somewhere along the line, Max had learned exactly how to antagonize beautiful young women.

  She regarded him coldly. "Yes. Let's go on to level A. That should prove quite interesting." This time she would give the fight serious attention.

  Max fed in more tokens; this time a blue hemisphere sprang from the game, a holoprojection. The muttering of the growing crowd became louder, until the real purists silenced everybody.

  The miniature Veritechs flew over the flat surface of the gaming table now, going to Battloid mode and taking their autocannon in hand at high port. There was a moment in which Miriya gazed through Max's bluetrimmed, ghostly mecha, through his blue aviator glasses, into his eyes.

  Somehow, she knew in that moment; all the rest of the game would only be proof of what her instincts were telling her.

  The little Battloid computer images looped and fired, maneuvering on each other, going to Guardian or Veritech as their players decreed. There were outbursts and yells from the onlookers as the game moved. It was the fastest, most canny maneuvering anyone had ever seen; even though side bets were strictly illegal, everybody was making them.

  Frankie Zotz projected it onto the arcade's main screen. Veteran players looked on in awe at the amazing dogfight. Tiny missiles and tracers spat; the computers could barely keep up with the instructions coming from the control sticks. The minuscule mecha circled and attacked.

  Miriya used the same tactics she had used that day in her Quadrono armor; his responses were the same. For a moment, it seemed to her that her simulacrum Battloid had become a miniature Quadrono. Any doubts she had were swept away.

  Max was thinking, Boy, is she beautiful! as he played his best at the machine. Another VT pilot, a lady's man, might have lost to Miriya on purpose. But then, another VT pilot probably couldn't have won.

  People were whooping and cheering on the sidelines. In her mind's eye, Miriya saw the apocalyptic combat in the streets of Macross, as her own powered armor smashed through buildings and wreaked havoc, backpack thrusters blaring. She also saw that one-on-one final confrontation, when she had bolted rather than die in a point-blank shootout.

  And just as his autocannon rounds had defeated her that day, Max's VT image destroyed hers. The red VT fragmented and flew into modeled, spinning bits, then de-rezzed to nothingness.

  The blue hemisphere faded away, leaving her openmouthed and blinking. I lost! This cannot be! I will not be humiliated again!

  The victorious Battloid image's head turret swung back, and a little figure that looked suspiciously like Rick Hunter appeared, crying the word "STRONG!!" as a tiny Minmei raced up to throw her arms around his neck, kissing him and kicking her feet. The real Rick Hunter, still standing on the staircase, edged back in order to be more inconspicuous and thought dark thoughts about the sense of humor of video game designers.

  An onlooker was saying to Max, "I dunno how you pulled that off, buddy."

  "Aw, there were a couple of tight spots in the middle and near the end, but all in all, it wasn't too tough."

  "Oh!" Miriya breathed. The insult of it. So she'd presented him with little challenge, eh? She rose, turning on one booted heel.

  Max forgot his warm victory feelings and plunged after her. He caught her wrist, not knowing how close he was to getting a fist in the throat. "Wait, I've been wanting to speak to you for a long time. I think you're wonderful, and I want to get to know you better. This is my only chance to get your name and phone number."

  His grip was very strong but not painful; his palm very warm. For a moment Miriya felt as though her wrist were burning.

  "My name is Miriya," she said coldly. "And I don't currently have a phone number." She turned to go, tugging at his grip. The feel of his skin against hers made her feel a typical Zentraedi loathing of contact between the sexes but stirred something else, something she couldn't put a name to.

  Now that she had met her archenemy, Miriya was confused. Killing him on the spot was out of the question; she suddenly didn't know how to cope with her mission. What he said about her brought back the strange, blurry feelings that t
he Micronian food gave her.

  Max kept hold of her wrist. "Then, would you meet me in the park this evening? By the Peace Fountain, at nine o'clock?"

  Fool! You've sealed your fate! she thought. Somehow the thought of slaying him made her angry rather than exultant. "Oh, whatever you want! Just let me go!"

  His fingers loosened, and she snatched her wrist away, saying an icy, "Thank you." Then she whirled and ran, fleet as a deer, driven by a storm of conflicting emotions.

  Max watched admiringly, breathing, "Isn't she something? Whew!"

  Looking down from the staircase, Rick silently wished Max better luck than he was having.

  CHAPTER SIX

  When you're caught up in a war and thinking mostly about the enemy, it's easy to forget that there are other fronts on which you should at least attempt to strike a truce.

  Lisa Hays, Recollections

  In a corridor deep in UEDC Headquarters, Lisa Hayes sat fretfully, shifting and fidgeting. She heard footsteps approaching and looked up to see her father. "Well, I talked to them," he said.

  Tension twisted her middle. "Did they make any decisions?"

  "You can never be certain about these things, but I think they're ready to accept the idea of peace talks."

  She drew an excited breath, then smiled at him fondly. "I'm so proud of you for having the courage to take on this fight!" She stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek.

  Later, as they sat on an upholstered bench in a lift car, she asked him, "Is anything wrong, Father?" He had been staring at her strangely for minutes.

  "I've been thinking of how you remind me of your mother. And how proud she'd be."

  Shy blushed, very pleased. "Thank you, Father."

  He shocked her by saying, "So, tell me how your love life's going these days. Are you going out with anyone special? Anybody I should know about?"

  It took her so off guard that she found herself admitting, "Well, there is a young man..."

  "He's military, of course?" her father said.

  "Yes, he is. In fact, he's the one who rescued me from the alien ship." Admiral Hayes nodded slowly. "Ah yes. Sounds like a good man."

  They walked and chatted as they hadn't done in more than three years.

  The admiral led Lisa through the enormous base, coming at last to a vertical shaft nearly a mile across. It was lined with operations ports, energy systems, and power routing. High above, at ground level, a faceted dome like a cyclopean lens covered the shaft.

  "Was there something in particular you wanted to show me out here?" After the relative confinement of the base passageways, it did feel like being outside.

  Her father led her out to the end of a gantry overlooking the cavernous shaft. They could see down for miles, see up almost as far.

  He waved a hand at it. "I wanted you to see the Grand Cannon, Lisa. Before we enter into any peace negotiations with the aliens, we're going to fire it at them."

  She couldn't believe her ears. "What?" The cry seemed lost in the abyss that was the cannon's barrel.

  Admiral Hayes wore a grim look, his strong jaw set. "Even though the satellite reflector system isn't in place yet, we expect to wipe out a large segment of the enemy fleet by pulling off a surprise attack spearheaded by a volley from the Grand Cannon. Once they've seen its power, we think they'll enter the negotiations in good faith."

  The original plan had been to put huge orbiting mirrors in place to direct the cannon's bolts as needed; otherwise, its field of fire was very narrow indeed. But with the alien warships so numerous and so close to Earth, it was really only a matter of time before part of their fleet drifted into range.

  Lisa spat, "This Grand Cannon probably couldn't wipe out a small division of Battlepods, much less one of their nine-mile-long mother ships! Don't you understand? We have to approach them without trying to escalate the war!"

  "Some of them have defected to us already! I'm sure the Zentraedi will listen to our peace proposals without the use of weapons."

  The admiral looked out at the barrel of the gun. "Lisa, how can you be so naive?" He turned to her. "The only thing a warlike power understands is

  a demonstration of greater power! We can't let the Zentraedi mistake our peace overtures for a sign of weakness. We must deal from strength!"

  He paced to the observation platform at the very end of the gantry, hands clasped behind him. "How can you expect peaceful intentions from a race bred and trained for nothing but war? Even if their genetic structure is identical to ours, we have no real knowledge of what factors in their background motivate them, or how strongly."

  "But Father," she began hopelessly.

  He forged on. "No, Lisa! If history tells us anything, it's that caution and strength are needed when dealing with an unpredictable foe. We've already set a date for the firing of the cannon; we'll see about the peace talks after that."

  She stood mutely, hair stirred by air currents in the yawning shaft. "I'm sorry, dear," he told her. "But there's nothing more to discuss."

  "Yes. So I see."

  Even with strange rumblings of unseen events on the war front, the public demanded that its hunger for other news be fed. The interest in celebrities and media idols was never satisfied for long.

  A press conference had been called in the lobby of Macross General Hospital. It was crowded with print and broadcast journalists, shoving and elbowing, aiming lights and lenses and microphones. In the middle of it all was Lynn-Minmei, the reigning queen of Macross and the SDF-1.

  Not even nineteen yet, she was used to the lights and attention, a gamine, black-haired lovely. Her tremendous charm and vivacity had bolstered the ship's morale through its darkest moments and won the heart of almost everyone on board.

  Next to her sat her costar and third cousin, Lynn-Kyle, a saturnine, sullen young man with flowing black hair that reached down past his shoulder blades. Kyle, the pacifist who was nonetheless an unbeatable martial-arts expert, wore a bandage around his head. He was completing his convalescence after having saved Minmei from a falling spotlight during a

  Zentraedi attack on the battle fortress.

  Lynn-Kyle glared at the reporters and the camera and sound people. He always held the public in some contempt, scorning them for their willingness to let the military prosecute the war.

  "Minmei," one man was saying, waving a mike at her, "is it true you've been helping Kyle recover, remaining right beside his bed for the whole week?"

  Minmei frowned at him, and Kyle glowered, but they were used to that kind of innuendo by now. "I don't think I'd put it quite that way," she replied.

  A woman persisted. "Rumor has it both of you are about to get married.

  Got anything to say about that?" "Absolutely untrue!" she fired back.

  That didn't keep another guy from asking, "Can you tell us how your ex-boyfriend reacted when you told him about these marriage plans?"

  She felt like blowing her stack, then saw that this might be a chance to divert the focus of the interview. "Oh, you must mean Rick Hunter." She gave a silvery, laugh. "He was just a friend."

  Sitting up on his bunk, knees clasped to himself, watching the live coverage, Rick made a sour face, shaking his head. "Yeah. I guess that's all I was."

  He felt like an idiot, a complete sucker. Time and again he had convinced himself that Minmei cared for him.

  There was something about her, something flirtatious and impulsive. It was something that didn't want to release anyone who had fallen under her spell because, he supposed, that would be too much like rejection. So every time he had come close to getting over her, she had shown up to raise his hopes all over again.

  Well, it looked like that wouldn't be a problem anymore. A little trip down the aisle for the two darlings of stage and screen would at least cut Rick free once and for all.

  But the reporters weren't having any of Minmei's evasion. "Oh, come on, now! That's not what we heard!" "You used to be pretty close to him, right?" "You mean to tell us you and Hunter n
ever discussed marriage at all.

  Minmei looked vexed but didn't answer. Rick thought back once again to those long days they had spent together, stranded and lost in a remote part of the SDF-1, when they first met. When it looked like they weren't going to make it, she had admitted to Rick her lifelong desire to be a bride.

  They held a mock ceremony, marked by a very real kiss, only to be interrupted by rescuers before they could say their vows. Rick wondered if any of that was passing through Minmei's beautiful head or if she had dismissed it from her mind as she seemed to dismiss anything that didn't fit with her desires and attitudes of the moment.

  He told himself that he would probably never get a clearer sign. It was finally time to put her out of his thoughts and try to get back to living his life.

  In other quarters, the micronized Zentraedi defectors were gathered around a screen, utterly enthralled as they gazed at Minmei.

  They were dressed in ordinary work clothes and came in the assortment of sizes and shapes that any random group of human males might include. Except for a few skin tones that seemed a little odd-mauve, albino-white, a pale, pale green-there was nothing to mark them as alien. Since the incident with Karita and the muggers, they all took great pains to avoid trouble. The military's decision to keep them all confined to their quarters chafed but was accepted.

  The SDF-1 authorities had provided them with quarters and rations and so forth and were spending long hours debriefing them, though as low-ranking warriors there was little of strategic value the defectors could tell. No one had yet begun a systematic orientation program to familiarize them with human life; since the military believed there was always the chance they might return to the Zentraedi fold, the less they knew, for now at least, the better.

  But they could watch Minmei and listen to her voice-the voice that had enticed them away from war making.

  Now, one of them said, "Rico, what do they mean by 'marriage'? Why do they keep talking about it?"