Rubicon

by Jack McKinney

  To some extent, Edwards decided, the outcome to his concerns and the Invid’s dilemma all depended on the Sentinels and how far they wanted to take things at this stage.

  He had this in mind now, as he stood overlooking what one of the white-robed scientists called a “Genesis Pit.” At first Edwards didn’t know what the hell to make of it. An Avernus perhaps—that mythological entrance to Hades the ancients had located in a volcanic lake near Naples—it was the Regent’s attempt to emulate Tiresia’s almost Greco-Roman flavor, as he had done with his quarters and bath.

  But the Genesis Pit hardly seemed an imitation of anything. It was an opening into the planet’s fiery nether regions; an enormous cauldron of harnessed, ectoplasmic energy, a laboratory beaker of bubbling genetic potential.

  The scientists attempted to explain the Pit’s purpose: the transformation of lifestuff. They told of how the Regess had made use of it during her early experiments in self-generated evolution; and of the Regent’s debased practice of using it as a kind of punishment therapy—devolving scientists to the ranks of soldiers and such. They pointed to the so-called Special Children as an example of the Regent’s flawed condition, his lack of creativity and originality. It required a wondrous mind to summon up wonders, the scientists insisted.

  Edwards was still standing in awe of the Pit’s power when a message was received from the situation room his Ghost Riders had set up elsewhere in the hive complex. A radioman reported that long-range scanners had picked up three ships entering the Tzuptum system.

  “Three?” Benson said. “So they’ve brought the Rutland and the Tokugawa.”

  “Uh, negative, sir. What we’ve got is Tokugawa and Ark Angel, and a ship the library’s ID-ing as Karbarran.”

  “Yes,” Edwards said, “I heard those creatures were working on a starship.”

  “Sit room’s awaiting your orders, General.”

  Edwards mulled it over. Three ships was bad news no matter how he sliced it, he told himself. Even the combined strength of the Ghost Riders and the Invid Shock Troopers and Enforcers would be no match for them. The hive shields would allow them to buy some time, of course, but it wasn’t numbers the situation called for now but surprise.

  A creative approach.

  “Can those things undergo further genetic manipulation?” Edwards asked the scientists, indicating one of the Special Children.

  “Why, yes, m’lord,” a scientist replied, bowing. “But surely you do not wish to devolve them.”

  “Devolve them? Why, no, of course not,” Edwards said absently. A slow smile took shape as he turned to face Benson. “I have a more playful idea in mind.”

  CHAPTER

  TEN

  It was [former UEDC-head] Russo who introduced me to Edwards—Russo frightened for his life after Gloval’s unexpected victory, and Edwards scarred and traumatized after his ordeal at Alaska Base. Edwards was not an intelligent man (he had served as a mercenary for the Neasian Co-Prosperity Sphere, and a specialist in covert operations for the UEDC); but I recognized that something powerful had been given shape by the man’s obsession with vengeance. It was both instructive and productive for me to sit at his feet for a time, align myself with the machinations he was working out with Wyatt Moran and Leonard’s Southern Cross command. I tried at that time to interest him in taking the mindboost Lang had ridden to fame and more—the one I had only recently submitted to—but he would have no part of it. Later, the Shapings would hint to me of some grand purpose in Edwards’s refusal; some special role Protoculture had already cast him in.

  Footnote in Lazlo Zand’s Event Horizon:

  Perspectives on Dana Sterling and the Second Robotech War

  The Valivarre led the Sentinels’ three-ship flotilla into Opteraspace. Kazianna Hesh had assumed control of the Zentraedi vessel; she detailed the events of the ill-fated raid against the hive in true warrior fashion—succinctly, stoically—and refused Jean Grant’s offer of medical assistance for the some twenty-five remaining Zentraedi troops. A coffinless ceremony had been held in honor of their former commander; Breetai’s command cloak and campaign ribbons had been placed inside an Officer’s Pod, which the Valivarre had then launched toward Tzuptum’s nuclear core.

  The Ark Angel was above the Invid homeworld now, Rick and Lisa on the cruiser’s bridge, silent as the planet swung the hive complex into scanner range. The Valivarre and Tokugawa waited further out. The Karbarran ship, Tracialle, had attained low orbit and was rapidly heading for darkside.

  Monitor schematics depicted the hives as an extensive network of interconnected semispheres and slave-domes, a blistered patch on Optera’s sterilized surface that was plainly visible to the naked eye even from an altitude of several thousand miles. Rick watched contour lines form on one of the monitor screens as computers began to rotate the color-enhanced schematic complex ninety degrees for topographical mapping. Data scrolled alongside the image—thermal readouts and dimensional notations. All four ships were on full alert, but thus far there had been no sign of Invid troop carriers or the SDF-7–class dreadnought Edwards had commandeered on Tirol. The flotilla had been scanned on its arrival, however, and Rick felt certain Edwards would soon attempt contact. The Zentraedi were maintaining that the renegade was in control of the Invid forces, but Rick refused to believe it. He was willing to accept that something like this had occurred in Tiresia, but suspected that Kazianna’s claims were tainted by residual superstition from the Masters’ conditioning. Perhaps the Invid did go on fighting after the Regent’s death; but couldn’t that be a kind of reflex behavior, Rick asked himself, a genetic winding down?

  It wasn’t encouraging to find that no one else was buying the explanation. Rick had hoped a show of force would be enough to persuade Edwards to come along quietly. But if he was in fact in control of who knew how many Invid troops, Optera would present the Sentinels with the gravest challenge they had yet faced.

  “Incoming message from the surface, Admiral. We have a visual signal.”

  “Put it up,” Lisa told her crewmember.

  Lines of diagonal static flashed from the main screen, then resolved to a tight shot of Edwards himself. The camera pulled back to locate him on a massive thronelike couch, legs stretched out in front of him, crossed jackboots resting on the backside of a prone Hellcat wearing a gem-studded collar. The general was smiling, filing his nails in a casual way.

  “Regards from Optera, Mr. and Mrs. Hunter,” he began. “And you, too, Grant, if you’re out there listening. Been having a wonderful time down here. Lots of sun and sand, fruit drinks and heavenly bodies. I’m glad you could make it. We’re just about ready to commence our little, uh, ground-breaking ceremony.”

  Rick positioned himself in front of the bridge pickup. “We have a proposal to make to the Invid. We know that the Regent is dead. But we’re ready to address this to the new commander in chief.”

  “A proposal?” Edwards said, putting his feet on the floor. “Well, by all means, Hunter.”

  “For the Invid commander in chief.”

  “You’re looking at him,” Edwards snarled.

  Rick motioned for a brief interruption of the audio signal and turned to one of the techs. “Get a fix on the source of the transmission.”

  “Trying, sir.”

  “I’m waiting, Hunter,” Edwards was saying.

  Rick’s jaw muscles clenched. “I don’t know how you did it, Edwards. But the only message we have for you is an order from the council for your arrest. We can promise you safe escort back to Tirol—”

  “Surrender?!” Edwards threw his head back and laughed. “But what about the party I had planned? I was even going to have Minmei sing for you, Hunter. Why don’t you ask the Zentraedi how they liked it?”

  “Anything?” Rick asked the tech while Edwards was speaking.

  “Coming up now, sir.”

  Rick eyeballed the monitor nearest him. Scanners revealed two primary power sources in the centermost hive, Edwards’s present po
sition pinpointed midway between them. He returned his attention to the main screen and said, “Your last chance, Edwards.”

  Edwards laughed again.

  “Sir! Showing three—no, make that four vessels coming around from darkside. Three troopships, one Robotech fortress.”

  Lisa tightened her grip on the arms of the command chair. “Ready all stations.”

  “Ready, sir.”

  “Veritechs standing by.”

  “Tokugawa is moving in on vector zero-zero-niner.”

  Edwards’s face was still on-screen. “Troubles up there, Admiral?”

  Rick showed his teeth. “We’re coming for you, you bastard!”

  “Enemy closing to engage. We’ve got multiple paint signals, sections one, two, four, five …”

  “I’m waiting for you, Hunter! You and your wife! Minmei and I have been dying to have you over!”

  “Edwards, you—”

  “Skull, Black Angels, and Diamondbacks are away.”

  “Nothing but us ghosts down here, Hunter! My past, your past, all wrapped up in one tidy bundle.”

  “What’s going on out there?” Rick heard Lisa ask from the chair. He turned his back to the main screen, leaning in for a look at the threat board. The troopships had disgorged several hundred Pincer ships into the arena; but instead of launching into their usual random attack maneuvers, the battle mecha were forming up in huge squares behind individual group leaders.

  Rick called for a closeup of one of the lead mecha.

  And was sorry when he got it.

  It was difficult to tell whether it was a ship, a living creature, or some unholy mating of the two. Bilaterally symmetrical, the thing was about the same size as a Shock Trooper; but in place of integument and alloy armor was what looked like actual flesh and bone. This one happened to be female—a naked one at that—with plasma cannons where breasts would be, and the face and hair of Lisa Hunter.

  Rick’s reaction was typical: he grunted a disgusted sound, let go the first curse that came to mind, and averted his eyes from the screen.

  “Destroy that thing!” Lisa was screaming.

  Edwards taunted her. “I wasn’t sure I got the measurement right, Admiral. Are the proportions correct?”

  Rick had the scanners close on another group leader—an equally obscene caricature of himself this time, grinning madly like some horrific piece of Aztec art. And the rest of the REF command were out there as well: Vince and Jean Grant, Max Sterling and Miriya Sterling, Dr. Lang and Minmei.

  “You’re insane, Edwards!” Rick screamed.

  “And loving you for it,” Edwards replied, laughing. “Welcome home, Hunter. Welcome to your worst nightmare!”

  Edwards’s instructions to the Home Hive brain had resulted in a creative restructuring of the Invid assault strategies. He knew from personal experience exactly what Hunter and Grant’s Veritech teams expected to face: a swarm of bloodthirsty mecha lacking any semblance of order or command, intimidating more in terms of numbers than anything else. Oh, at first their appearance and firepower had taken some getting used to, but the Sentinels were way beyond that now. Which was why he had taken such pains to reshape the Special Children into commanders with a little something extra in the way of shock value. But more than that, he had equipped them with a new set of tactical directives—culled not from the RDF or Southern Cross manuals, however, but from a wide array of video games his generation had grown up on.

  So it came as quite a surprise to the first VT teams launched from the Tokugawa to see columns of Pincer Ships peel off from opposite ends of the Invid attack grid, accelerate out ahead of the main body as two tight-knit, double-columned groups, and maneuver through identical high-speed curlicues that any fan of fighter-jock daredevil try would have applauded. Some of the Veritech pilots were doing just that, in fact, and were so caught up in the visual display they barely felt the annihilation disks coming.

  But come they did—streams of them, wiping out a good portion of the Diamondback attack wing in one fell swoop. The Veritechs dispersed and tried to lure the Pincers into one-on-one combat, but the Invid kept their group intact, ignoring the fact that return fire from the Humans was decimating their formation. Columns of Invid ships were continuing to break away into dazzling routines, though—pinwheels and whorls, loop-di-loops and loop-di-lies—and the VT pilots had something even more bizarre to contemplate when the lead ship—one of the Lisa Hunter monstrosities—split into two Lisas, then four, before it could be entirely destroyed.

  And it was the same throughout the field the enemy had staked out in Optera’s surrounding void. Whole blocks of Invid ships would suddenly launch themselves into lateral maneuvers, or invert themselves and drop toward the planet, only to reappear on the scene moments later as a spinning wheel of plasma fire. Elsewhere, they were actually capturing Battloids, powering them back into their midst where they were often drawn and quartered, or crippled and tossed about like comedic acrobats.

  The Human pilots were too overwhelmed to take charge—naked Ricks and Lisas and Glovals and Langs coming at them from all directions, squadrons of Pincer Ships willingly sacrificing themselves for the sake of demonstration. And all the while Edwards’s SDF-7 and two of the troop carriers were closing on the Tokugawa, trading salvos of blinding light with the sleeker ship. The Valivarre had no real firepower left to contribute to the fray, but it sent out those few Zentraedi who were still capable of piloting Battlepods and Power Armor Suits.

  Edwards, meanwhile, was monitoring the battle from the hive’s sanctum sanctorum, amid the grostesque parodies of classical splendor the Regent had brought to his personal quarters, and he couldn’t have been more pleased with himself.

  Minmei was close at hand, sprawled across the bed, mumbling to herself incoherently. Edwards realized that he should have instructed Benson to clean her up a bit—better if Hunter saw her gussied up than disheveled. He glanced over at the Regent’s bathtub and wondered whether Minmei’s attitude would be improved by a quick dip in the tepid green nutrient.

  Local space had been transformed to precisely the video screen he had imagined. All it lacked was sound and options that allowed top gun aces to participate in bonus rounds or enter their initials and kill count side-by-side. Missiles and anni disks crosshatched the night; VTs and Pincers were snuffed out in novas of glory. But there were no extra lives or invincibility auras to award today; you paid your money and you took your chance.

  He knew, however, that the battle would be short-lived, and he could see it drawing to a close even now. The VT pilots had overcome whatever revulsion or fascination his bit of genetic legerdemain had stirred, and they seemed to be getting into the spirit of things, going after the dwindling ranks of Invid mecha with gusto.

  But the assault had already achieved its purpose; the SDF-7 and the troop carriers—both commanded by Invid crews—had maneuvered close enough to the Tokugawa to successfully complete their kamikaze runs. The Zentraedi ship posed no real threat, and by all accounts the Ark Angel and the Karbarran vessel were already making planetfall, which put Hunter and the rest just where he wanted them. An army of Inorganics would be out there waiting for them. Not to mention the one or two surprises he had yet to pull from his bag of tricks.

  The Karbarrans hit the surface in dropships launched from the Tracialle and spilled across Optera’s denuded landscape with a ferocity hitherto unknown among that ursinoid race. It was clear, however, that every warrior among them was remembering Hardargh Rift and the prison camp where their cubs had almost died.

  Lron and Crysta led the charge against the hive, for once forsaking their small-bore air rifles in favor of Wolverines and Owens Mark IX riot guns fresh from the REF armories. Their mission was to clear a path to the centermost of the hives, while the Ark Angel’s main gun hammered away at the energy shield Edwards had thrown up over the inner complex. The only things standing in their way were several hundred Inorganics backed by an equal number of armored soldiers and a few d
ozen Shock Troopers.

  The Home Hive’s living computer had counseled Edwards about the Karbarrans, to the effect that they were a fatalistic lot by nature and would probably prove unresponsive to psychological influences. But the brain had suggested that they were vulnerable to manipulations of a physiological sort, and this Edwards could achieve with a bit of meteorological magic. So in place of the body sculpted mecha he was hurling against the space corps, Edwards saw to it that the Karbarrans were faced with a impromptu cold front. The brain provided for this by allowing him to exercise some control over the microclimates set up by the hive’s barrier shield.

  The unsuspecting Karbarrans charged headlong into the subzero air mass, and the result was bedlam—not unlike the confused state Minmei’s songs had left the Zentraedi in. While the ursinoids tried to remain gung ho and continue the offensive, they couldn’t ignore the shutdown signals being sent from the instinctual side of their makeup. Even Lron couldn’t fight off the effects of Edwards’s localized winter. Behind him, Crysta and Dardo had stopped to rest, and some of the front-line foot soldiers were actually curling up on the wind-chilled ground, cuddling against one another, Wolverines and Badgers discarded. Lron turned to shout them into motion, but all that emerged was a long, seasonal yawn that had worked its way up from inside of him. Standing there on wobbly elephantine feet, he used the riot gun to support himself and showed his sleepy followers a lethargic wave, which seemed more a dismisive motion than an incentive to advance.