The Final Nightmare

by Jack McKinney

It would all be revealed tomorrow anyway, and Nova's tongue had been loosened by the wine with which Zor had been plying her. "Well, I heard that-"

  "So! there you are!" Dana howled, rushing toward the table. The pianist stopped playing and silverware was dropped by startled diners.

  Angelo Dante followed, embarrassed. The Revenge of the Martian

  Mystery Women had been a debacle, animated camp moron-fodder instead of the sizzling interplanetary romance-comedy-adventure Dana was under the impression they would be seeing. Apparently the officer who had told Dana about it was jazzing her. Angelo had laughed so maniacally that she had slugged his arm and dragged him out of the theater. Then she set out on a mission of revenge.

  Now she set her fists on her hips and glared daggers at Zor. "Just who the hell d'you think you are, you double-dealing dirtbag, standing me up so you can take out something like her?"

  Zor looked very confused and almost queasy. Nova said, "I don't think I like the sound of that last part."

  "You're not supposed to, you tramp! It was an insult!"

  Angelo managed to intervene just as Nova was about to vault across the table for a go at Dana, who was waiting to clean Nova's plow before going on to put Zor in traction.

  "Now calm down, ladies!" He looked to Zor for assistance; the maitre d' was already headed their way. "Hey, Zor, you just gonna sit there like a vegetable or what?"

  Zor tried to put his thoughts in order. He couldn't remember why it had been so important to get Nova to tell him those secrets about the relief expedition. Now that Dana had interrupted everything, he could barely recall the impulse that had made him ignore his date with Dana.

  "I-I'm so sorry." He got to his feet unsteadily. "I don't feel well.... " He lurched from his place, and headed for the door.

  "Damn chicken! Come back and die like a man!" Angelo fumed, for he felt that he was about to meet his own fate.

  Outside, Zor stopped to catch his breath, leaning on a railing overlooking a garden near the restaurant's entrance. He heard Nova's voice in his head again, "The relief force is just lifting off for the moon."

  But then there was another voice, a cold one, speaking directly to his mind. It filled him with terror and hate, and he saw an image of an ax-keen, angry face set against a collar that looked like the Invid Flower of Life.

  It said, Message received and understood.

  At Fokker Aerospace Field, on the outskirts of Monument City, the last units of the emergency relief force were lifting off. The larger warships were being helped aloft by the brute power of a dozen flying tugs. The tugs released their cables as the warcraft climbed above Earth's gravitational grip.

  They formed up, making their way out beyond the atmosphere, moving at flank speed, maintaining communications silence. Their ascent was masked by the bulk of the Earth for the time being. Since the Robotech Masters couldn't maintain geostationary position over Monument City and still guard access to Luna, the expedition would have an element of surprise. To someone of an earlier day, the giant battlecruisers would have resembled prenuclear submarines, complete with conning towers, and bulky thruster packages attached to their sterns. Their estimated time of rendezvous with the units from ALUCE, station, barring trouble, was in just

  under six hours.

  At Moon Base ALUCE, Marie Crystal began organizing things for the evacuation, with brave words to the wounded about how they would be on Earth by the next morning.

  Home, she thought, and thought, too, of a certain deuce private-formerly a First Lieutenant-in the 15th squad, ATAC. Sean, Sean! to be with you again!

  Jeddar, group leader of the Clonemasters, glared at Musica sternly. "What exactly is the meaning of this behavior?"

  "Do you realize that you're jeopardizing the very existence of our people?" added bearded Ixtal, the other male in the Clonemaster triumvirate.

  Tinsta, the tall, androgynous female, commanded not unkindly, "Child, explain yourself."

  Allegra and Octavia watched the scene, not daring to say a word. They had already concluded that they would never be able to comprehend Musica's new, aberrant behavior. They were frightened to death of being contaminated or punished for what their triad-sibling was doing. Off to one side, Karno and the other Guard clones looked on.

  Musica sounded as if she was ready to weep again, something with which Allegra and Octavia were becoming uncomfortably familiar. "I'm sorry! I wish I could explain! I don't mean to be disobedient, really I don't!"

  "Your mate has been selected, Musica," Tinsta said. "And he is Lieutenant Karno. You will submit to this decision."

  "The survival of your own people requires it." Jeddar pressured her.

  She shook her head, her long, deep-green hair swinging around her face, moaning, "No...no..."

  "Yes!" Jeddar shot back. "Disobedience cannot be tolerated!"

  Musica, moaning, seemed to undergo some sort of seizure. Then she slumped to the deck. Her sisters rushed to kneel by her. The Clonemaster triumvirate gaped; finally, Jeddar found words. "This is far worse that I had imagined."

  "Has she ceased to live?" Lieutenant Karno asked numbly.

  Jeddar replied, "She has fallen into what the Humans call a 'faint."' A cold current rippled through him. Until this moment, he had been sure that his Robotech Masters ultimately would be victorious. But as Musica now knew emotions, so did Jeddar begin to know the meaning of doubt.

  Everything was on schedule, and the relief force was expecting rendezvous with Marie's contingent, when the chilling news came.

  "Enemy ships spotted at mark seven niner, closing on us fast!"

  General quarters sounded, armor-shod feet pounding the deck as men and women rushed to battle stations. Cannon and missile tubes were run forth from their turrets as the rust-red, whiskbroom-shaped assault ships of the Robotech Masters plunged at the relief force.

  Fast-moving and mounting formidable firepower, the assault ships

  dodged the Terrans' shot patterns and began scoring hits almost immediately. Hulls were penetrated by fusion-hot lances of energy; there were explosions and explosive decompression in the breeched warcraft. Southern Cross soldiers died in flames, in whirlwinds of shrapnel, and in vacuum.

  Battlecruiser number three, the Austerlitz, disappeared in a furious fireball. Other vessels were taking heavy damage. The Terrans had been taken by surprise, and no one could answer the question, How could this have happened? How could they have been waiting for us, as if they knew we were coming?

  But the Humans struggled to throw up a screen of AA fire, bring damage under control, and simultaneously launch mecha of their own. In moments the A-JACs, rotors folded for space combat, howled forth from the battlecruisers to engage in battle.

  As soon as the A-JACs began their counterattack, the hatches opened in the sides of the assault ships, and enormous Bioroids rode forth to give battle on circular antigrav Hovercraft. The Bioroids deployed for the fight, looking like vaguely human-shaped walking battleships. They swarmed angrily, outnumbering the Human mecha.

  "Air Cavalry One to Lieutenant Crystal," the call came over the command net. "I'm breaking radio silence to request immediate assistance. We are under heavy attack and request immediate assistance."

  Marie, on the bridge of the destroyer escort Mohi Heath, saw the worried look on the face of Lieutenant Lucas, the Aircav commander. She opened her headset mike to transmit. "Roger, Aircav One; we're on our way."

  The ships of the patchwork evacuation force went to maximum speed. Marie threw the headset aside and ran for her own A-JAC, and the rest of her TASC outfit, the Black Lions, hot-scrambled.

  The Bioroids were enjoying good hunting.

  The relief expedition was short on mecha, since so many had been committed to the first strikeforce and many more had to remain behind to guard Earth. So, the enemy assault ships stayed back and let the clone-operated Bioroids ride their Hovercraft, and slaughter the enemy.

  The relief force A-JACs and others fought valiantly, but the
sheer unevenness in numbers became apparent at once. Bioroids blazed away with the weapons mounted in the control stems and platform bows of their Hovercraft, and with the disc-shaped handguns that were as big as fieldpieces. A-JACs blazed into explosive death one after another.

  Lieutenant Lucas, his unit half gone, was calling to ask permission for a hasty withdrawal; there was no point in throwing away Earth's valuable mecha. Then, suddenly, there was a blue Bioroid on his tail, the gun in its control stem spewing annihilation discs. Lucas only had a split second to wonder who would take over (his exec being dead already) and to hope that the strikeforce somehow would survive.

  But then the Bioroid disappeared in a flaming ball of gas, and a strange A-JAC bearing a rampant black lion came zooming past. "Crystal, this is Lucas! Crystal, is that you?"

  "Looks like this time the settlers have come to rescue the cavalry," she said. She added to her own outfit, "Okay, boys; let's wrassle 'em around some."

  But that was already happening. Marie Crystal's Black Lions had come in on the enemy's rear flank, undetected, and hurled themselves into the furious dogfight. They had already changed the odds; within seconds they were turning the kill ratios around. Before fifteen seconds passed, eight surprised Bioroids had been shot to fragments or utterly destroyed.

  But the enemy seemed determined to stand its ground, as it were, and fight. The Lions, having been mauled so badly on their first assault only days before, were more than willing to oblige.

  Dogfight? Rat race? Oh, yes! Marie thought. Now you pay! And if somebody asks who your accountants are, you just say, "the Black Lions"!

  The engagement got even hotter. Marie did a classic "Fokker Feint,"

  flamed a blue, then raised Aircav One again. "Lieutenant Lucas! Now's your chance! Head for ALUCE base!"

  It was too sensible a suggestion for Lucas to argue with; the units still on the moon would need the relief force, and Marie's pilots were keeping the enemy busy. Lucas disengaged his A-JACs even as the relief warcraft made their way past the distracted Bioroids to recover Aircav One and its birds on the fly. He headed for ALUCE at top speed.

  Some of the enemy tried to give chase, and Marie led several of her A-JACs to stop them. She decided to change the mix a bit, and went to Battloid mode. Other A-JACs followed suit, screaming after the enemy with back and foot thrusters blaring.

  The A-JACs launched missiles, and three more Bioroids got waxed. The rest broke off their chase, to turn on their tormentors. Aircav One and the rest of the relief force were already disappearing for their rendezvous with Luna.

  The Black Lions hit the Bioroids with everything they had, driving them back, until Marie judged that the evacuation force had enough of a head start. With the enemy ranks drastically thinned out and their attack broken, the A-JACs got in a final barrage that blew one of the invader assault ships to atoms. As before, destruction of their field-command nerve center confused and demoralized the Bioroids; the A-JACs took advantage of that to break contact and return to their convoy at max thrust.

  Soon Earth loomed huge and blue-white before them.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Very well; I can't stop you. Take the Protoculture from me! Seal my fate, and seal your own as well!

  The original Zor to the Lords of Tirol

  The Robotech Masters' anger was not assuaged by their warriors' excuse that Zor Prime had mentioned nothing of a second force coming from Luna to catch the Bioroids in a pincer. If the Masters were not so short of functioning servants, many clones, both in the command structure and in the ranks, would have been deactivated and sent to reclamation.

  The Clonemasters cut short the reports and turned to one another, as they waited fearfully. "Well then," Dag said to the Clonemaster group leader, Jeddar, "I presume that is all the evidence we need. We know we can no longer depend on Zor Prime's transmissions."

  Jeddar bowed. "That is correct, Master. He has been overexposed to the emotional contagions of Humanity. But there is a matter of more immediate concern."

  "And that is?" Bowkaz demanded, looking down at him.

  "Taking Musica as an example," Jeddar responded, "we are seeing an upsurge in emotionality and counterproductive behavior similar to what we now know happened to the Zentraedi giants when they tried to recover the Protoculture Matrix."

  Shaizan declared to the other Masters, "It seems to me that the time has come to begin all-out production of our Invid Fighters."

  The Masters' Invid Fighters were different from the mecha of the same designation once used by the Zentraedi giants. But like the Zentraedi's, the Masters' Invid Fighters-more commonly referred to as the Triumviroid-were the most powerful mecha in the Masters' inventory. The clone/fighting machine system had been developed rather recently by their stagnated standards-and incorporated certain characteristics of the savage

  Invid with whom the Masters had fought a long and unrelenting war.

  The reason there were not more Triumviroids in the Masters' forces was because their production was so costly. But the Masters now faced the choice of either losing the war or launching a crash program to create a fighting force of Invid Fighters-even if it meant cannibalizing their conventional blues, combat vessels, and their own instrumentality.

  The Robotech Masters were also constantly aware that their own masters, the Triumvirate of the Elders, waited far across the dark lightyears, expecting results. Nearly all of Tirol's remaining resources had been thrown into this expedition to obtain the last Matrix; the Elders, who were left in the shambles of their empire with a mere handful of clones, expected results-and were impatient.

  The decision didn't take the Masters long; they lusted for the power of the Protoculture Matrix more than any vampire ever thirsted for lifeblood. They desired immortality and feared death with a terror greater than any short-lived Human or clone could ever imagine.

  The Robotech Masters turned to their slaves and nodded as one.

  Supreme Commander Leonard let Marie make her brief report. Leonard was more pleased with the battle as a propaganda victory and a bolster to his influence with the UEG council than he was with it as a military success. But he was pleased with that aspect of it, too-his loathing of aliens bordered on the psychotic.

  After she was dismissed, Marie stepped back into the corridor only to discover Dana, Angelo Dante, and Sean Phillips coming toward her.

  Marie was still dressed in smudged battle armor, dirty and weary, but she didn't let that stop her from crying out his name and running toward him, as he hurried to embrace her. "Oh, Sean, Sean, you came!"

  He was the same as she had pictured him a thousand times since leaving Earth, the smiling, roguish ladykiller of the 15th. Sean had been its commanding officer not too long ago, with Dana his untried executive officer fresh out of the Academy. But a certain scandal concerning a

  colonel's daughter had gotten Sean busted to deuce private in the Hovertank outfit he had formerly commanded.

  The romance started when he saved her life during a firefight. Marie had been very wary of his advances at first, refusing to be one more notch on his bedpost. They had fought like alley cats. But in time she had come to believe his declarations of love, and let herself admit that although she had never been in love before, she was now.

  "Darlin', I thought maybe we'd lost you," he grinned, to hide all the worrying he had been doing. Sean was used to being the reckless swashbuckler, going into danger while a woman kept the light in the window, not vice versa.

  Then he held her at arm's length again, and saw her eyes brimming. "Marie, what's wrong?"

  She didn't let herself surrender to tears. But after the long, exhausting mission, the death and the killing, shouldering all burdens and enduring sleeplessness while sustaining the morale of all around her, she laid her head against his chest and let her breath go, running her fingers through his hair. "Oh, Sean, I-I wasn't sure you really...really cared"

  He hugged her and rubbed her alloy-clad back, while the others cleared
their throats and turned to look at something else, anything else. Then he held her face in his hands to gaze into her eyes. "It's you and me, Marie Crystal. From now on. Always."

  In the conference room, Supreme Commander Leonard turned to his subordinates.

  "The relief force has the materials and know-how to turn ALUCE into a strategic military base. With it, we will be able to attack the enemy on two fronts."

  But Leonard knew he couldn't afford to fight a two-front war, one against those obscene alien invaders and one against the damned meddling council. However, he had come up with what he considered a brilliant strategy for solidifying his place as Supreme Commander: eliminate the one

  man who could conceivably be tapped to replace him, and whose military genius threatened to eclipse his.

  He turned to Major General Emerson with a fulsome smile. "And Rolf, I have a great little surprise for you."

  Emerson, already three steps ahead of Leonard, resigned himself. He's got my range and coordinates this time.

  The 15th was on stand-down, relaxing in the ready-room, when Louie Nichols charged in with his news.

  Bowie Grant sat at the piano, playing sadly and brooding over Musica, as he had since he first met her. He had thought of and discarded a hundred plans for getting back to her somehow, for being with her, for finding some kind of life together with the Mistress of the Cosmic Harp. She had enthralled him-magicked an enchanted ring round his heart, so that he could think of nothing and no one else. If he had taught her what love was, she was also teaching him, even-especially-in their separation.

  Louie Nichols burst in, babbling and running around in such a lather that Dana, Angelo, and the rest thought they were going to have to kneel on his chest to get him to spill out what he knew. It sounded as if he was about to begin blubbering, but it was hard to tell with Louie because he always wore big, square, tinted tech goggles, day and night.