Genesis

CHAPTER FIVE

The stars shimmered and wavered as if shivering with dread. And well they should.

The forces that bound the universe were briefly snarled by a tremendous application of energy. The dimensional warp and woof pulled apart for a moment.

In a precisely chosen zone of space beyond Luna's orbit, it was as if a piece of the primordial fireball that gave birth to the cosmos had been brought back into existence.

Motes bright and hot as novas, infinitesimal bits of the Cosmic String, were spewed out of the rift in spacetime like burning sparks of gunpowder from some unimaginable cannon shot; the burning detritus of nonspace moving at speeds approaching that of light itself, consumed almost as soon as they came in touch with three-dimensional reality.

Larger anomalies, like furious comets, flared here and there in the wash of light. Then there was another explosion beyond any description: the pure emission of unadulterated hell. It pushed outward from a rip in the fabric of the universe, taking on shape and shedding a raging wave of incandescence as if it were water. The shape became longer, more forceful, menacing.

The Zentraedi had come at last.

First was the great flagship, sheets and wind racks of ravenous light streaming away behind it to reveal its shape: nine miles long, an irregular blunt-nosed cylinder.

A vessel many times the size of SDF-1, the flagship was a seemingly endless span of mighty weapons and invulnerable shields, of combat-ship bays and mountainous armor and incalculable firepower. The pride of the Zentraedi fleet, searching the solar system in an instant and knowing where its prey waited.

The flagship had been built with only military conquest, warfare, and destruction in mind. Manning it was a race of beings bred for that single purpose.

The ship was like a leviathan from the deepest oceans of human nightmares, with superstructure features that might be gills here or titanic eyes there, huge spines that were sensor spars, nubbles of the secondary and lesser weapons batteries, projections like questing fangs. Lighted observation ports, some of them a hundred yards across, suggested bulging, multiple eyes.

Behind it came a fleet surpassing any the Zentraedi had ever assembled before, cascading from the spacefold warp that had been their shortcut past the endless light-years. They were a school of gargantuan armored fish numerous enough to fill all the oceans, plated and scaled in sinister greens and browns and blacks, with pale underbellies in sickly grays and blues.

There were more of them than the visible stars. They were the mightiest Zentraedi armada ever seen, and yet they were cautious. They followed a flagship that knew no equal in any fleet they'd ever encountered, and yet they were wary.

If translated into human terms, their caution would mean something like: Even wolves can be prey to the tiger.

Having pursued the single wounded tiger across space and time, the fleet of so many hundred thousand ships formed up around the flagship.

In the transparent bowl of the Supreme Commander's flagship, Breetai, tall and stiff in his dress uniform, gazed down on his operations center. Even for a Zentraedi, he was a mighty tower of bone and muscle, as strong as any trooper under his command and as good a fighter. Like many of his engineered race, his skin was a mauve shade suggestive of clay.

A projecbeam drew a two-dimensional image of the target planet in midair, a puny and an unremarkable blue-white sphere, nothing much to look at. Rather disappointing, really.

Breetai reached up one hand to touch the cold crystal-and-metal half cowl that covered much of his head, thinking back to the day so long ago when Zor had died, and the dimensional fortress had been lost. The failure still burned at him.

He'd accepted that with a warrior's fatalism, and with a warrior's lust for triumph he contemplated the final victory that would be his this day.

Breetai studied the Earth coldly. "The finder beam has locked on this planet. Are you sure this is the source of those emanations?" His voice was huge and deep, with a resonance that shook the bulkheads.

Off to one side, Exedore, Breetai's adviser, kowtowed slightly, showing deference from habit even though he wasn't in Breetai's line of vision. "Yes, sir, I'm positive."

Breetai pursed his lips in thought. "They could have executed a refold." The thought of losing his quarry again was almost unbearable, but Breetai avowed no emotion to show.

"It's doubtful, sir," Exedore said quickly. "There was no evidence of a second jump into hyperspace."

Savagely, Breetai thought again of those traitors to his race and their narrow escape. "Hmm. They couldn't have gone far in their condition. And they would have to land in order to repair the ship." He looked to Exedore. "That's a logical conclusion, I think."

Exedore inclined his head respectfully. "I agree. It would seem very likely, sir."

Breetai was used to acting on his own instincts and deductions; but it was reassuring that Exedore, the most brilliant intellect of the Zentraedi race, was in accord.

Breetai considered Exedore for a moment: small, almost a dwarf by the standards of their species, and frail into the bargain. Gaunt, with protruding, seemingly lidless eyes and a wild thatch of odd, rust-red hair, Exedore was still the embodiment of Zentraedi law and tradition-and more valuable to the towering commander than any battlefleet. Yet with all that, he was loyal, almost selfless in his devotion to Breetai.

Breetai gave Exedore a curt nod. "Very well; dispatch a scout team for a preliminary reconnaissance."

In the Zentraedi warrior religion, efficiency was a virtue ranking only behind loyalty and courage in battle. The words were scarcely out of Breetai's mouth when two of the fleet's heavy cruisers detached themselves and advanced on the unwary planet.

At the festivities in the shadow of the SDF-1, Rick was getting his first close look at a Veritech fighter that had been put on display. Because he was accompanied by Roy, Rick was allowed into the roped-off area around the craft and permitted a hands-on examination of the ship.

"Whew, this fighter's a real beauty, all right." He looked at it enviously; he had no desire to fly combat, but that didn't stop him from longing to sit at the controls of the fantastic machine, high in the blue.

He ran his hand along the fuselage. "It looks great. How does it handle?"

Roy thought that one over. "Hmm. Well, why don't you climb aboard and see for yourself?"

"You really mean that?"

"Uh huh. I'll ride piggyback behind you." It was, perhaps, bending the rules a bit, though familiarization flights were scheduled for VIPs later in the day. Still, a little sample of what the Veritech could do might change Rick's attitude about military service, and the service could sure use a flier like Rick Hunter.

Rick was already scrambling up the boarding ladder, peering into the cockpit. "The controls look pretty complicated," Roy called up, "but I'll check you out on them."

Rick looked down and smirked. "I'm not worried. If you can learn to fly one of these things, I sure can."

Roy snorted, "Don't be so modest!"

When Rick was in the pilot's seat and Roy was in the rear seat, Roy handed Rick a red-visored Robotech flight helmet.

Rick turned it over in his hands, examining the interior. "Whoa, what kind of helmet is this? What's all this stuff inside?"

"Receptors. They pick up electromagnetic activity in your brain. You might say the helmet's a mind reader, in some ways."

The receptors were just like part of the helmet's padding: soft, yielding-no safety hazard. But Rick wasn't so sure he liked the idea of having his head wired. "What're they for?"

"For flying a Veritech, buddy boy. You'll still handle a lot of manual controls, but there are things this baby does that it can only do through advanced control systems."

Rick hiked himself around in his seat and leaned out to look back at Roy. "Look, I saw your guys flying, remember? What's so special about these crates that you have to wear a thinking cap just to steer one?"

Roy told him, "The real secrets aren't supposed to go public until the politicians are through with all their blabbing, but I'll tell you this: The machine you're sitting in isn't like anything humans have ever built-it's as different from Mockingbird as Mockingbird is from a pair of shoes.

"Because you don't just pilot a Robotech ship, Rick; you live it."

On the main reviewing stand high above the crowd, Senator Russo stood at the speaker's rostrum, his voice echoing out over the throngs, amplified so that it reached to the farthest shores of the sea of people. Flags snapped in the wind, and the moment felt like a complete triumph.

"This is the day we've all been looking forward to for ten years! The Robotech project has been a tremendous asset to the economy of Macross City and to the welfare of our people!"

Captain Gloval, standing to one side with a few other dignitaries, tried to keep from yawning or simply throwing up his hands in disgust. So far, all Russo and his cronies had done was take credit for themselves and do some not-too-subtle electioneering.

Gloval cast a critical eye at the weather and gave it his grudging approval. He was impatient to launch; various other Earth military forces were already deployed in space, patrolling and awaiting the start of the SDF-1's first space trials. But the politicos didn't care who they kept waiting or what careful timetables they spoiled when they had the spotlight.

A liaison officer came up the steps at the rear of the reviewing stand and approached Gloval as Russo went on. "More important, though, is the fact that the technology developed here will benefit all mankind, now and in the future. And I need not mention what it means to the defense of our great planet, Earth!"

The liaison cupped his hand to Gloval's ear and said, "Excuse me, sir: urgent message from the space monitoring station. A strange flash of light and an explosion, tremendous radiation readings, accompanied by irregularities in solar gravitational fields."

In spite of the warmth of the day, Gloval suddenly felt cold all over. "The same sort of event occurred ten years ago. You know what happened then, don't you?"

The aide was trying to conceal his fear, nodding. "That's when the alien ship arrived."

Gloval assumed the icy calm of a seasoned captain. "Better check it out. Come with me."

Gloval was descending the platform steps as Russo announced what a great honor it was to introduce the commander of SDF-1, Henry Gloval.

For once, Russo didn't know what to say. "Come back here! You have to make a speech!" he shouted.

Gloval never even looked around. The time for speeches was over.

On the SDF-1 bridge, the women who were the battle fortress's heart worked furiously to make some sense of the sudden chaos around them.

"What's going on here, anyway?" Claudia demanded, trying everything she could think of to interpret her instruments and reassert some control over the ship's systems.

"Claudia, give me a readout!" Lisa called calmly. All around her, the bridge was a din of alarms, flashing indicators, malfunctioning controls, and overloaded computers.

Claudia looked up from her hopeless efforts. "Every system on the ship is starting up without being turned on!"

Unprecedented, impossible-to-interpret mechanisms had self-activated in the ship's power plant-the great, sealed engines that not even Lang had dared open. And the many different kinds of alien apparatus connected to it were doing bewildering things to the SDF-1's structure as well as its systems, making the humans helpless bystanders.

"The defense system is activating the main gun!" Claudia reported, horrified.

Far off at the great starship's bow, gargantuan servomotors hummed and groaned. The huge twin booms that made up the forward portion of the ship moved to either side on colossal camlike devices. The booms locked into place, looking like a fantastic tuning fork. The ship's reconstruction had the bow high up now, pointed out above the end of Macross Island's cliff line at the open sea.

Lisa's mind raced. The main gun had never been fired; no one was even sure how powerful it was. That test was to be reserved for empty space. But if it salvoed now, the ensuing death and destruction might well be greater than that created by the ship's original crash.

At the same time, everyone aboard could feel the supership shifting slightly on the massive keel blocks-the monolithic rests on which it lay. Warning klaxons and horns were deafening.

The SDF-1's aiming its gun, Lisa realized. But at what target?

"Shut down all systems!" she ordered Claudia.

Claudia, trying the master cutoff switch several times to no effect, looked at Lisa helplessly. "It doesn't work!"

A sudden glare from the bow lit the bridge with red-orange brilliance, throwing their flickering shadows on the bulkhead behind them.

Around and between the forward booms, tongues of orange starflame were shooting and whirling and arcing back and forth. The fantastic energy cascade began sluicing up the booms toward their tips, sparks snapping, seemingly eager to be set free.

And still Lisa could think of nothing she could do.

Just then the hatch opened and Gloval hurried in so quickly that he bumped his head on the frame. He didn't spare time or his usual swearing at the people who'd refitted the largest machine ever known for not providing a little more headroom.

"Captain, the main guns are preparing to fire!"

Gloval assessed the situation in seconds, but Lisa could see from his expression that he was as much at a loss as she.

"I can't control them!" Claudia told Gloval. "What'll we do?"

Lisa absorbed a terrible lesson in that moment. Despite what they might teach in the Academy and the War College and Advanced Leadership School, sometimes there was nothing you could do.

The energy storm around the booms had built to an Earth-shaking pitch, a noise like a million shrieking demons. Then huge eruptions of destructive energy streaked off the booms.

The bolts streamed off into the distance, thickening into a howling torrent of annihilation, a river of starflame as high and wide as SDF-1 itself, shooting out across the city.

Lisa expected to see everything in the volley's path consumed, including the gathered populace.

But that didn't happen. The superbolt went straight out over the cliffs and over the ocean, turning water to vapor and roiling the swells, raising clouds of steam that wouldn't settle for hours. The shot was direct, the curve of the Earth falling away beneath it as it lanced out into space.

And just as Lisa Hayes was registering the fact that the city still remained, intact and unharmed-that her father was down there somewhere, still alive-new information began pouring in on scopes and monitors.

The Zentraedi heavy cruisers, closing in on the unsuspecting Earth, barely had time to realize that they were about to die. By some unimaginable level of control, the blinding shaft of energy split in two.

The twinned beams holed each heavy cruiser through and through, along their long axes. Armor and weapons and hull, superstructure, and the rest were vaporized as the beams hit, skewering them. They expanded like overheated gas bags, skins peeling off, debris exploding outward, only to disappear, blown to nothingness, an instant later in globes of bright mass-energy conversions.

From his command station, Breetai watched impassively, arms folded across his great chest, as the projecbeam displayed the death of the two heavy cruisers.

"Now we know for sure: The ship is on that planet!" This time he didn't bother soliciting Exedore's advice. "All ships advance, but exercise extreme caution!"

The Zentraedi armada took up proper formation, ships-of-the-line moving to the fore, and closed on the target world.

Clouds of superheated air blew out across the ocean; gulls cried in the aftermath of the SDF-1's single volley.

Gloval was at the bridge's protective bowl-its "windshield"-his face all but pressed against it, scanning through the steam and fog. He breathed a prayer of thanks that the city was unharmed.

"Some sort of magnetic bottling," Sammie reported, focused on her work. "All the force was channeled directly out into space, except for some very marginal eddy currents."

"We have control over all systems again, sir," Claudia announced calmly. "What happened, sir?"

Gloval suddenly felt old-older than the ship, the island, the sea. He wasn't about to speculate aloud, not even to his trusted bridge gang, but he was just about certain he knew. And if he was right, it put the weight of a planet on his shoulders.