Miriya was content, she would be able to return to her own mission without having to concern herself with the progress of the war. Breetai was doing his part, Miriya, hers.
She left the amphitheater, pushing her way through throngs of busy Micronians, deliberately stepping between male-female couples whenever she had the opportunity.
Miriya was on her way to one of the fighter pilots' training centers-at least that was what she reasoned it to be. VIDEO ARCADE, she read above the doorway. Whatever that meant. Inside were two floors of electronic fighter-training devices for young Micronians. It was no wonder the so-called VT pilots were so adept at handling their mecha; they were trained from infancy to fly and fight. Several of the training devices were even designed to perpetuate archaic hand-to-hand combat techniques. Miriya
had become fascinated by one of these in particular, a device called "Knife-Fight." It was possible that when the time came for Miriya to face off with her Micronian archenemy, there would be no battle mecha available. She therefore planned to prepare herself for any and all eventualities.
"What are you looking at, Rick?" "That girl," he started to say.
"She was pretty rude if you ask me, pushing between us like that when she could just as easily have stepped to the side."
"Yeah, but that green hair..." "You find that attractive?"
"No...no, of course not, Lisa. It's just that Max has been looking all over for some green-haired girl, and that might be her."
"Tell Max she's rude."
"Yeah, sure, but did you see where she went?" "I really wasn't looking, Rick."
"Must've turned off into one of those stores, maybe the arcade." "Do you want to stop and look for her or what?"
"Huh? No, no way. I'll just let Max know that I saw her." "You do that."
They were on a walking tour of the damage; no particular place to go. People were scrambling around getting things done, taking care of business, fixing this and that. "Public works," one of Rick's more cynical VT friends had said, "keeps their minds off the war."
"Is it like this all over?" Lisa asked, wanting to change the subject.
Rick nodded. "Nearly every part of the city was damaged in the attack." "I wonder what the casualty figures will be like."
"I don't know," said Rick. And he didn't want to know.
Eventually their wanderings brought them around to the White Dragon. (Let Rick have the lead and you always seem to end up here, Lisa told herself.) The building itself looked untouched, but an overturned delivery van was still smoldering in the street. There were enormous breaches in the
overhead tier in this section-jagged holes and lightning fissures. Uncle Max and his wife Lena, Macross City's oddest couple, were just exiting from the hexagonally shaped doorway. Rick called out to them and broke into a run.
"Rick!" said Max. "What in the world are you doing here? Are you all right?"
"I'm fine, but what about you? Where are you two off to?"
"We've been worried sick about Kyle and Minmei," said Aunt Lena. "We heard that the Star Bowl was practically destroyed, and I just can't stand waiting around here any longer, praying they'll show up."
Max took his wife's hand and gave it a reassuring squeeze.
"They're at the hospital," Rick told them. "But there's no need to worry; they're both fine."
"Oh, thank God!" said Lena.
"Kyle is bruised up, and Minmei just went along to hold, ah, look after him, see that he was all right."
"Do you think we'd be allowed to see them, Rick?"
"It's a bit of a mess over there right now," said Lisa. "But they'll let you through, I'm certain of it."
Rick suggested that they give it a try and spontaneously volunteered to keep an eye on the restaurant during their absence. Lisa agreed, and Rick's surrogate family hurried off.
Inside, they had their work cut out for them. Large portions of water-damaged gypsum board had collapsed from the ceiling; water dripped from a broken overhead pipe. Tables and chairs were overturned; pictures had fallen from the walls; the remains of dishes and glassware shaken from cabinets littered the floor. On every horizontal surface from the smallest ledge to the only still-standing table was a gritty black coating of resinous ash. Ultimately the entire place was going to need a couple of coats of paint, but until then they could at least take care of the custodial chores-cleaning, sweeping, scrubbing.
Rick opted for the shovel and broom detail while Lisa attacked the tables and chairs with a detergent fluid. Rick noticed that she hummed to
herself while she worked. It brought a smile to his face each time she stepped from behind that commander's mask. Here she was being domestic...Here he was being domestic! And he actually felt good, just losing himself in the mindlessness of it and seeing immediate results for a change. There was a beginning and an end to this task.
Two hours later the mess had been cleared, the tables and chairs uprighted.
"You know what would be good right now, Rick? A cup of fresh tea. I'll do the honors."
Rick said, "Be my guest," and walked over to straighten one last picture. It was a framed photo of Minmei taken over a year ago, sometime after the Miss Macross pageant. He reached out a gloved hand and tipped it back to vertical, the harsh memory of that stage kiss replaying itself as he did so, a continuous loop that time and endless viewing had yet to erase. It's over now, he was saying to himself when Lisa entered from the kitchen with two cups.
I've lost her to stage, screen, Kyle, and now to the enemy! "Don't burn yourself," she warned him.
They sat at one of the tables overlooking the street. Work crews had moved into the area to cart off debris and undertake floor-by-floor searches of each building. Lisa watched a group of strange-looking men busy themselves clearing rubble as she sipped her tea. They seemed downright enthusiastic, and it got her to thinking.
"You know, Rick, these simple activities don't mean much to us, but to the Zentraedi our everyday, humdrum world must seem wonderful by comparison. It doesn't surprise me at all that Rico and those other two decided to defect. Sometimes I think I'd like to desert. Just forget about the military and get myself back to basics." She laughed to herself. "Get myself back. Listen to me. I've never even been there."
"Are you thinking about the Zentraedi or Kyle?" Rick asked smugly. She grinned wryly. "It's a pipe dream, and I know it. I'm Ms. Military,
and he hates the military. Great way to begin a relationship, right? But it's
true that I've been nursing some doubts since I met him. He's a ghost who's come back to haunt me. Everything about him: his looks, all his antiwar speeches. I keep seeing Karl. And it doesn't help any when we've got to hear Maistroff and Caruthers expressing the same old...you know what I'm talking about."
"So much for playing it by the book, huh?"
"Who knows? And as for Lynn-Kyle, he doesn't know I exist. I've got two strikes against me: this uniform and Minmei." She saw Rick's face grow long and apologized.
"If you don't want to talk about it..."
"There's nothing to talk about." Rick turned his face away. "I'm angrier at myself than I am with her. I mean, how could I have been so sure that we had something together when as far as she was concerned we were just friends? Someday you'll have to get me drunk and I'll tell you all about our wonderful two weeks together in the basement of this ship."
"I'm a good listener, Rick. I'm not going to judge you or anything."
He shook his head. "Maybe some other time. I'm just sick of getting all twisted up by the whole thing. Let her stay with her cousin. Let her marry him for all I care. I just wanna have all this behind me for a change. It's really bizarre, and that's the long and short of it. Back on Earth I could at least move to another town or another country. But we're all stuck on the ship for the duration, the whole nine yards. Just one big happy family of space wanderers."
He had tears in his eyes when he looked at Lisa again, but his voice was self-mocking. "This was probably how it
was at the beginning, a few thousand hominids running around the Serengeti and every one of them in love with the wrong person."
Lisa laughed and covered her mouth with her hand.
"I think you're writing yourself off too soon, Rick. Maybe it'll just take time. Have you ever actually told her how you feel?"
Rick shrugged. "My actions speak for me."
"Not enough. Sometimes it's just not enough. You have to tell her.
Otherwise, she's in the dark and Kyle will take her away. Of course, you'll get to hold on to your regrets and your self-pity...
Lisa recalled Claudia telling her as much.
"Is that what I'm doing? Is that how you really see it?" His watery eyes were locked on hers, searching.
She exhaled slowly.
And a warning siren went off outside.
"Another attack!" said Lisa, jumping up from the table. "You better get back to the base! I'll lock up in here and meet you at the rail line!"
"Don't take too long," he told her from the doorway. "Sammie can't handle your station!"
"Be careful!" she called after him, but he was already gone.
"Enemy battle mecha," said Claudia Grant. "Course heading zero-zero-niner, Third Quadrant. Looks like the same group to me, Captain."
Gloval agreed with her assessment after studying the readout. The same two dozen Zentraedi pods and fighters had appeared on the threat board after the attack on Macross, moving erratically from quadrant to quadrant, half the time in pursuit of the fortress and at other times speeding from it. There was reason to believe that these were the very ships that had escaped from the fortress after the CD forces had gained the upper hand. Perhaps, Gloval now speculated, under the command of this apparently crazed Zentraedi officer named Khyron, whom the three defectors had mentioned over and over, sometimes referring to him as "the Backstabber." Rico had actually credited him with more Battlepod kills than the combined total of the Defense Forces.
"Skull Team is up and away, Captain," Gloval heard Sammie report from Lisa's station. He noticed that her foot was tapping nervously. "Kirkland," she continued, "prepare to supply cover. They'll be coming about on your right flank."
"Left flank," Claudia corrected her. "Their cat's away from
Prometheus."
"Uh, scratch that, Kirkland. Look for Delta on your left flank. Indigo, your signal is 'buster.' Return to base immediately. Uh, uh...Damn it! Where is Commander Hayes? I'm going crazy-"
"Right behind you, Sammie," Lisa said breathlessly. She turned a quick salute to the captain: "Sorry I was delayed, sir."
"It's all yours," Sammie said, stepping aside. "Estimate five minutes to contact," said Vanessa.
Gloval glanced over at the board. The Zentraedi warships were still holding at their post-attack coordinates. What could this small contingent of pods have in mind?
"Looks like a kamikaze run," said Claudia. "They should know better than that by now."
Lisa turned to her. "Judging from what the defectors had to say, I wouldn't put it past them to try anything from now on." She raised Skull Leader on the net. "Bandits will be in your lap in three minutes, Lieutenant."
"Roger," Rick answered her. "I show them on wide beam." "Try telling them to go home, Lieutenant Hunter."
Rick's laugh came through the speaker, followed by a loud and seemingly sincere, "Go home!"
Still unwilling to rule out miracles, Lisa checked the displays. "Uh, sorry, Skull Leader. Nice try, but it didn't work."
"I copy that, Commander. Guess we've gotta speak to them in the only language they understand."
Lisa's screen began to light up; the enemy mecha had opened fire. Skull and the other teams were engaging them. Radar blips began to disappear from the board, VTs and enemy paint.
"Never say die, Rick," she said softly into her mike.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
...But if such a contest existed, I would cast my vote without hesitation for Khyron-history's principal man in the middle. Distrusted by Dolza, dismissed by Breetai, feared by his own troops, and now fixed upon by the "Micronians," Khyron had moved into what might be called transparanoia (or better still, metanoia). He simply was all those things normal paranoid personality types delude themselves into believing: persecuted, grandiose, and essentially pivotal in the great scheme of things.
Rawlins, Zentraedi Triumvirate: Dolza, Breetai, Khyron
The Zentraedi flagship had self-sealed itself; an undetectable patch of green armor covered the damage done to its blunt nose by the ramming arm of the fortress-a design feature the Robotech Masters had engineered into the ships of the fleet. Would that breaches in command were so easily sealed, thought Breetai, and breaches in discipline.
Just now he was pacing the floor of the observation booth, as always, under the analytical gaze of his misshapen adviser.
Though limited in emotional range, the Zentraedi commander had run the gamut of available responses since the inception of Exedore's plan to assault the SDF-1 right through to Khyron's news of mass desertion among the ranks. Things had looked good early on: He had forced the Micronians to launch their so-called Daedalus Maneuver, their Destroids had been destroyed, and Regault squads of Battlepods had been successfully inserted into the fortress. There were indications of a massive battle having taken place in the population center inside the Robotech ship; the Micronians had recalled most of their fighters to deal with, the threat, and follow-up transmissions on the tac net suggested that the Zentraedi had scored a decisive victory. Much to Breetai and Exedore's surprise, Khyron's Botoru teams had also infiltrated the enemy's defense. Breetai had grown confident of a sure Micronian surrender. Zor's Protoculture matrix would soon be his,
and with it would come greater glory than any had hitherto known.
But then word had been received from Khyron about the desertions. Breetai refused to believe it.
"This must be the tremendous force the Robotech Masters have been speaking of," Exedore said. "The legends have been most specific: Continued contact with Micronians is to be avoided at all costs. They are said to be in possession of a secret weapon which could ultimately destroy us, leaving this quadrant wide open for an attack by the Invid. I have long dreaded this day, m'lord."
Breetai expected no less; his advisor had been quoting the legends to him since that first day when the fleet defolded from hyperspace near the Micronians' homeworld.
"So you think I should have paid attention to those ancient warnings, do you?"
"Perhaps, m'lord."
"And what of Commander in Chief Dolza, Exedore? What would we do about him?"
"The question remains not what we would have done, Commander," Exedore countered, "but what we will do about him."
Desertion had turned the battle around. Although Breetai had yet to formulate a clear picture of the events, Commander Khyron reported that he had been forced to take punitive measures against some of the Zentraedi troops. Soldiers had been abandoning their mecha and expressing a wish to live among the Micronians. Some sort of psychological assault had been launched against them-Khyron said that the deserters had referred to it as a "Minmei." Obviously the perfected form of the weapon the Micronians had been experimenting with for at least a year by their own reckoning. Breetai recalled those early days: the low-frequency transmissions from the fortress which had so confused Exedore's three Cyclops operatives, and later, the disturbing effects produced by the male and female captives. Subsequently there was the strange behavior of the returned spies and the trans-vids of that Micronian battle record and death ray demonstration.
The secrets of Protoculture were theirs!
Driven from the dimensional fortress, Khyron had since been pursuing a group of potential deserters, dispatching them one by one. He now had them regrouped and headed again toward the SDF-1 on a suicide run. Breetai, however, was having second thoughts: It was too late to undo any of his past mistakes, but he might yet be able to profit from this latest upset. Commander Azonia had informed h
im that Quadrono leader Miriya was still aboard the fortress. Surely she'd see to it that the deserters wouldn't live long enough to do the Zentraedi any harm. And as for these few stragglers...
"Tell Khyron to call off his attack," Breetai now told his advisor. "We will remove all our troops from Micronian influence immediately."
Exedore bowed slightly. "And then, m'lord?"
"Interrogate the deserters. You must see if you can determine the nature of this power the Micronians have exerted. We may yet find a way to resist their control."
"It shall be done."
Khyron had centered one of the Battlepods in his targeting screen. It would require only a glancing blow to the upper right of the sphere to bring the thing back into line. Mustn't let them stray too far from the fold, he said to himself. All Micronian sympathizers have to stick together. He was just elevating one of the mecha's handguns and bringing it to bear on the pod when Exedore raised him on the comlink.
Breetai's orders were relayed.
"Isolate the deserters and lock them up?!" Khyron shouted into his communicator. "Exedore, are you mad? What next, if we let them get away with this?"
"You have your orders, Commander."
Khyron slammed his fist down on the control console of the Officer's Pod. "We might just as well surrender to the Micronians!"
"Order your troops about, Commander. Commander Breetai has
ordered me to employ the nebulizer if you fail to comply."
"And what about the deserters aboard that ship?" Khyron demanded. "Do you realize what damage they can do?"
"Miriya will see to them, Commander."
Khyron was stunned. "Miriya? Miriya Parino is aboard micronized?!
Why wasn't I informed of this?"
"That is Commander Breetai's prerogative," Exedore said plainly. "Bah!"
Khyron shut down the comlink. So this was how it was going to be, he said to himself. New lines were being drawn. And sooner or later he and Breetai were going to find themselves on opposite sides. A sinister smile began to surface. Let Breetai have his deserters, the infected ones. The illness would spread through his fleet like an epidemic, and Dolza would hear about it. With both Azonia and Breetai out of the way, Khyron would be put in command. Then the real purge would commence; and not just against the Micronians but against all those who defied the Zentraedi imperative!
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