Devil's Hand

by Jack McKinney

  Yeah!

  These…monstrosities, on the other hand, were about as sleek as an old-fashioned tank.

  Course there were plenty of good things inside-Hovertanks, Logans, and such-but he would have to get himself transferred to the Wolff Pack if he ever hoped to ride one of those.

  Jack decided to circle the GMU and see if he couldn’t find something, something he could get excited about. The thing was huge, maybe five hundred feet long, with eight one-hundred-foot-high globular wheels affixed to massive transaxles, banks of superspot running lights, hidden particle-projection cannon turrets, and multiple-missile launch racks.

  Up front were two retractable off-loading ramps, and up top, behind blast deflectors, two external command stations positioned on either side of the unit’s real prize: an enormous pulse-cannon, which, like a fire engine’s tower ladder, could be raised and rotated.

  Jack was still appraising the unit five minutes later when Karen Penn suddenly appeared on one of the ramp walkways. The body-hugging RDF jumpsuit did things for her figure that the dress hadn’t, and Jack’s scowl gave way to a wide-eyed look of enchantment.

  Karen saw him, smiled, and waved. When she was within earshot she called brightly, “Hey, Baker, what are you doing here?”

  Jack smiled back and cupped his hands to his mouth. “Luck of the draw!”

  “I am beside myself,” Dr. Lang confided to Exedore as the two men completed their prelaunch inspection of the fortress’s spacefold generators and Reflex drives. They were the same ones that had once powered Breetai’s flagship, but Lang’s Robotechnicians had spiffed them up a bit. It had long been the professor’s wish to cannibalize one of the spacefold generators just to take a peek at its Protoculture core, but he knew this would have to wait till a time when fold systemry could be spared. Presently, however, Protoculture remained the most precious substance in the universe, and Lang’s teams had yet to discover the philosophers’ stone that would enable them to create it. So chips and sealed generators were transferred intact from ship to ship or mecha to mecha. But even with all the energy cells the RDF had managed to salvage from the Zentraedi warships that had crashed on Earth, the supply was hardly inexhaustible.

  How had Zor created the stuff? Lang was forever asking himself. He understood that it had something to do with the Flowers Exedore spoke of-the Flowers of Life. But Lang had never seen one, and how in any case had Zor gone from Flower to Protoculture? It was one of the many questions he hoped the Masters would answer once peace negotiations were out of the way. And then there were all the unresolved puzzles centering around Zor himself. But for the time being Lang was content with his own minor triumphs.

  “It’s more than I ever hoped for.”

  Exedore might have recognized the look on Lang’s face as one often observed on the faces of children on Christmas mornings. The Zentraedi ambassador picked up on Lang’s tone of anticipation as well.

  “Well, can you imagine how I must feel, Doctor, to be going home after so many years?”

  Lang looked at Exedore as though noticing something for the first time. “Yes, yes, I see what you mean, my friend. And in a strange way I, too, feel as if I’m returning home.”

  Exedore thought he grasped Lang’s meaning, and shook his head. “No, Doctor. You will see that Tirol is not for you. Earth is your home, and ever shall be.”

  “Perhaps,” Lang said with a glint in his eye. “But we have seen more radical reshapings in the past few years, have we not?”

  Exedore was about to reply when a tech interrupted the conversation to inform Lang that all systems were go and the bridge was awaiting confirmation.

  “Well, give the admiral what she wants, Mr. Price,” Lang declared. “The moment has arrived.”

  A murmur of excitement swept through the crowds waiting in the shuttle boarding area.

  Suddenly people were moving in haste toward the viewports and breaking into spontaneous applause.

  “Now’s our chance!” Minmei said over her shoulder to Janice.

  From the forward seat of the EVA craft where she and Janice had been hiding for the past few hours, Minmei could just discern the rounded, main-gun booms of the SDF-3 nosing into view from the satellite’s null-gee construction hold.

  “Now, Janice, now!” Minmei urged.

  Janice bit her lower lip and began to activate a series of switches across the craft’s instrument panel. Displays came to life one by one, suffusing the small cockpit with whirring sounds and comforting amber light. Abruptly, the small ship lurched forward as a conveyor carried it toward the launch bay.

  Minmei searched for some indication that they had been spotted, but it appeared that even the techs’ attention had been diverted by the unannounced emergence of the fortress. And before she could complete the silent prayer she had begun, the craft was lauched.

  Minmei had nothing but confidence in her partner’s ability to pilot the craft and position it in close proximity to the SDF-3; she had seen Janice do far more amazing things during their two-year friendship.

  She frequently recalled the first time Dr. Lang had introduced her to Janice. He talked about Janice as though she were God’s gift to the world; and later on Minmei understood that Lang’s hyperboles were not so far off the mark. Minmei felt that Janice was somewhat cool and remote-the only man in her life was that Senator Moran, and it seemed a strange sort of relationship-but Janice could fly, fight, absorb, and retain incredible amounts of information, speak a dozen languages, including Zentraedi. Her considerable talents notwithstanding, however, it was Janice’s voice that Lang had raved about; about how she and Minmei could complement each other in the most perfect way imaginable. And not solely for purposes of entertainment. What Minmei’s voice had achieved with the Zentraedi, Minmei and Janice’s combined voice could replicate tenfold. And should the Robotech Masters decide to send a new wave of bio-engineered warriors to Earth in the SDF-3’s absence, that defensive harmony might very well prove the planet’s saving grace.

  Our songs are weapons, Minmei heard Janice saying.

  Minmei was no stranger to grandiose dreams or grandiose purpose, and she had readily agreed to keep Lang’s secret. Janice, too, agreed, and the two women had become close friends as well as partners. But after two years of that, dreams were suddenly a new priority, and Lang’s concerns seemed paranoid now. So as the EVA craft began to approach the slow-moving fortress, Minmei told Janice to hold to a parallel course.

  “But we can’t remain here, Lynn. The ship is going to fold in a matter of minutes.”

  “Just do it for me, please, Janice.”

  Janice was quiet for a moment; then she said, “You have no plans of returning to the satellite, do you?”

  Minmei swung around in her seat and reached for her friend’s hand. “Are you with me?”

  Janice saw the commingling of fear and desperation in Minmei’s blue eyes, and smiled.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Minmei looked down on Earth’s oceans and clouds, and completed her prayer.

  “Engineering confirms attainment lunar orbit,” Blake updated. “We are go for launch, Admiral.”

  Lisa turned in her chair to study a peripheral monitor screen. There was a steady bass rumbling through the entire ship that made it difficult to hear statements voiced on the bridge. But at the same time Lisa was aware of the background blare of klaxons and alert sirens ordering all hands to their launch stations.

  “Mr. Colton, start your count,” Lisa ordered, hands tight on the command chair’s armrests.

  “T-minus-ten and counting,” Colton shouted above the roar and shudder.

  “Nine…”

  “Admiral!” Blake said suddenly. “I’m showing an unidentified radar blip well inside the fold zone!”

  “Five, four…”

  Lisa craned her neck around. “What is it?!”

  “Ship, sir-EVA craft!”

  “Two, one…”

  “Too late!”

  “Ze
ro.”

  “Execute!” Lisa shouted.

  And the mile-long ship jumped.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  While the life expectancy of a standard Zentraedi mecha pilot had been determined by the Robotech Masters at three years, the life expectancy of a comparable Invid pilot was never even addressed. In effect, all Invid troops (save the sexually-differentiated scientists) could be activated and deactivated at a moment’s notice-initially by the Regis only, and later by the living computers the Queen Mother helped create to satisfy her husband’s wounded pride (after the “affair” with Zor)…A self-generated variety of Protoculture was essential to mecha operation, in the form of a viscous green fluid that filled the cockpit space. It was through this nutrient bath (liquefied fruits from the mature Optera plants) that the living computers, or “brains,” communicated with the ranks.

  Selig Kahler, The Tirolian Campaign

  “Yes, my boy, I’ve been meaning to show you this place for quite a long time,” Cabell confessed, gesturing to the wonders of the subterranean chamber. The scientist and his apprentice were deep in the labyrinth beneath Tiresia’s pyramidal Royal Hall. “A pity it has to be under these circumstances.”

  It was a laboratory and monitoring facility the likes of which Rem had never seen. There were wall-to-wall consoles and screens, networktops piled high with data cards and ancient print documents, and dozens of unidentifiable tools and devices. In the glow of the room’s archaic illumination panels, the place had a dusty, unused look.

  “And this was really his study?” Rem said in disbelief.

  Cabell nodded absently, his thoughts on the Pollinators and what could be done with them now. The shaggy creatures had become quiet and docile all of a sudden, huddling together in a tight group in one corner of the room. It was as if they had instinctively located some sort of power spot. Cabell heard Rem gasp; the youth was staring transfixed at a holo-image of Zor he had managed to conjure up from one of the networks, the only such image left on Tirol.

  “But…but this is impossible,” Rem exclaimed. “We’re identical!”

  Cabell swallowed and found his voice. “Well, there’s some resemblance, perhaps,” he said, downplaying the likeness. “Something about the eyes and mouth…But switch that thing off, boy, we’ve got work to do.”

  Mystified, Rem did so, and began to clear a workspace on one of the countertops, while Cabell went around the room activating terminals and bringing some of the screens to life.

  The old man knew that he could communicate directly with the Elders from here, but there was no need for that yet. Instead, he set about busying himself with the transponder, and within an hour he had the data he needed to pinpoint the source of its power.

  “As I thought,” Cabell mused, as schematics scrolled across a screen. “They are almost directly above us in the Royal Hall. Apparently they’ve brought some sort of command center down from the fleet ships. Strange, though…the emanations are closer to organic than computer-generated.”

  “What does it mean?” Rem asked over Cabell’s shoulder.

  “That we now know where we must direct our strike.” He had more to add, but autoactivation sounds had suddenly begun to fill the lab, drawing his attention to a screen off to his left, linked, Cabell realized, to one of Tirol’s few remaining orbital scanners. And shortly, as a deepspace image formed on the screen, it was Cabell’s turn to gasp.

  “Oh, my boy, tell me I’m not seeing things!”

  “It’s a starship,” Rem said, peering at the screen. “But it’s not Invid, is it?”

  Cabell had his palms pressed to his face in amazement. “Far from it, Rem, far from it…Don’t you see?-it’s his ship, Zor’s!”

  “But how, Cabell?”

  Cabell shot to his feet. “The Zentraedi! They’ve recaptured it and returned.” He put his hands on Rem’s shoulders. “We’re saved, my boy. Tirol is saved!”

  But the moon’s orbital watchdogs weren’t the only scanners to have picked up on the ship.

  Inside the Royal Hall-converted by Enforcer units to an Invid headquarters-the slice of brain Obsim had transported to Tirol’s surface began to speak.

  “Intruder alert,” the synthesized voice announced matter-of-factly. “An unidentified ship has just entered the Valivarre system on a course heading for Tirol. Estimated arrival time: one period.”

  The cerebral scion approximated the appearance of the Regent’s living computer, and floated in a tall, clear fluid bubble chamber that was set into an hourglass-shaped base.

  “Identify and advise,” Obsim ordered.

  “Searching…”

  The Invid scientist turned his attention to a spherical, geodesiclike communicator, waiting for an image to form.

  “Insufficient data for unequivocal identification.”

  “Compare and approximate.”

  “Quiltra Quelamitzs,” the computer responded a moment later. A deepspace view of the approaching ship appeared in the sphere, and alongside it the various memory profiles the brain had employed in its search.

  “Identify.”

  “Zentraedi battlecruiser.”

  Obsim’s snout sensors twitched and blanched. The Zentraedi, he thought, after all these generations, returned to their home system. He could only hope they were an advance group for the Masters themselves, for that would mean a return of the Flower, the return of hope…

  He instructed the computer to alert all troopship commanders immediately. “Stand by to assault.”

  Much as spacefold was a warping of the continuum, it was a mind-bending experience as well. The world was filled with a thousand voices speaking at once, and dreamtime images of externalized selves loosed to live out an array of parallel moments, each as real and tangible as the next, each receding as swiftly as it was given birth. The stars would shimmer, fade, and emerge reassembled. Light and shadow reversed. Space was an argent sea or sky shot through with an infinite number of black holes, smeared with smoky nebulae.

  This marked Lisa’s sixth jump, but familiarity did nothing to lessen the impact of hyperspace travel, the SDF-3’s tunnel in the sky. It felt as though she had awakened not on the other side of the galaxy but on the other side of a dream, somehow exchanged places with her nighttime self, so that it was her doppelganger who sat in the command chair now. Voices from the bridge crew surfaced slowly, muffled and unreal, as if from a great depth.

  …reports entry to Valivarre system.”

  “Systems status,” she said weakly and by rote. “Secure from launch stations.”

  Some of the techs came to even more slowly than she did, bending to their tasks as though exhausted.

  “All systems check out, Admiral. Dr. Lang is onscreen.”

  Lisa glanced up at the monitor just as the doctor was offering his congratulations. “I’ve taken the liberty of ordering course and velocity corrections. Hope you don’t mind, Lisa.”

  Lang seemed unfazed by their transit through hyperspace; it was one of the strange things about a jump: like altitude sickness, there was no way to predict who would and would not suffer side effects. She was certain that a number of the crew were already being removed to sick bay. Surprised at her own state of well-being, Lisa shook her head and smiled. “We’ve made it, then, we’ve actually made it?”

  “See for yourself,” Lang said.

  Lisa swung to study a screen, and there it was: a magnified crescent of the ringed and marbled jadelike giant, with its distant primary peeking into view-a magnesium-white jewel set on the planet’s rim. A schematic of the system began to take shape, graphics highlighting one of Fantoma’s dozen moons and enlarging it, as analytical readouts scrolled across an ancillary screen.

  “Tirol,” said Lisa. The moon was closing on Fantoma’s darkside. Then, with a sinking feeling, she recalled the EVA blip.

  “Still with us,” a tech reported in an anxious tone. “But we’re leaving it farther behind every second.”

  “Dr. Lang,” Lisa started to say. B
ut all at once alert signals were flashing all over the bridge.

  “Picking up multiple radar signals, sir. Approach vectors coming in…”

  Lisa’s eyes went wide. “Sound general quarters. Go to high alert and open up the com net.

  And get me Admiral Hunter-immediately.”

  “We’ve got them,” Rick was saying a moment later from a screen.

  “Do we have a signature?” Lisa asked the threat-board tech. Her throat was dry, her voice a rasp.

  “Negative, sir. An unknown quantity.”

  Lisa stood up and moved to the visor viewport. “I want visuals as soon as possible, and get Exedore and Breetai up here on the double!”

  “Well?” Lisa said from the command chair, tapping her foot impatiently. Klaxons squawked as the ship went on alert. She had not forgotten about the EVA craft, but there were new priorities now.

  Exedore turned to look at her. “These are not Tirolian ships, Admiral, I can assure you.”

  Breetai and Rick were with him, all three men grouped behind the tech seated at the threat board. “Enhancements coming in now, Lisa,” Rick said without turning around.

  The computer drew several clamlike shapes on the screen, pinpointing hot areas.

  Breetai straightened up and grunted; all eyes on the bridge swung to fix on him. “Invid troop carriers,” he announced angrily.

  “Invid? But what-”

  “Could they have formed some sort of alliance with the Masters?” Lisa thought to ask.

  “That is very unlikely, Admiral,” Exedore answered her.

  Rick spoke to Lang, who was still onscreen. “We’ve got company, Doctor.”

  “The ship must be protected.”

  “Sir!” a tech shouted. “I’m showing multiple paint throughout the field!”

  Rick and the others saw that the clam-ships had opened, yawned, spilling forth an enormous number of small strike mecha. Pincer Ships, Breetai called them.