Part Ten: Who Made Who
Chapter One:
"I see life, and it's passing right before my eyes;
and the past is the past, don't regret it -
Time to realize...
I need to walk on the wire, just to catch my breath;
I don't know how or where, but I'm going -
It's all that I have left"
Marietta - "Destination Unknown", from the Top Gun soundtrack
6 January 2030
From The Collected Journals of Alex Tyler:
"We had already attacked the Masters' ship twice in the last three weeks; first when we shot it down, and ten days later as a follow up attack. Now, High Command had come up with the craziest idea we'd ever heard. They wanted to blow a hole in the craft (which had been unbreachable by conventional means), and send us through the resulting hole. I'm not sure if we could have prevented a lynching, had Leonard been actually present when the order was given to us. At least we'd been able to finally confirm what, up to now, had been rumor. The 'aliens' were the Robotech Masters of Tyrol, creators of the Zentraedi. The brass probably knew it months ago, but never would confirm or deny it till now.
"At least, they had given us a day to prepare for the mission, which Dana utilized by giving us "Cinderella Passes", which required us to be back before midnight. Noel and I went into town to see a friend of Bowie's perform. George is a decent pianist, but a lousy vocalist, so Noel and I volunteered to help him out on a few pieces. Noel sang "Valentine", dedicating it to me (causing me to blush visibly). I borrowed a sax, and we next performed "Only your friend", and unrecorded Minmei song Noel had found as a teenager in her music teacher's studio. We got a standing ovation, and we were soaking it up when we realized it was 2340, and I had to drive like a maniac to get us back in time.
"While we had no trouble in town, Bowie had gone to one of the off-limits areas, and got caught. As a result, he would spend the night in lockup, while the rest of us spent the night worrying about the coming fight. In a way, it was for the best, as he'd been acting kinda spacey in combat. I think the mounting death toll among his teammates and academy classmates was starting to take it's toll on him. For once, Dana did the right thing, and didn't try to cover for him, and let him go to detention - a move that shocked even Nova, who had evidently been looking to get some thing or favor from Dana in trade for Bowie's release.
"The night in solitary must have done Bowie some good, as Emerson saw fit to spring him in the morning. Bowie pulled into formation just as we set up for our attack with a much better attitude than been showing lately, with him there we had our largest force yet, eighteen hovertanks. If enough of us survived, half our enlisted personnel would become the core of a new squadron and some Academy rookie's problem.
"The air forces were actually holding their own, for once, as the suppression fire prevented the enemy Bioroids from mass launching and turning the tables. We waited on the hillside, watching the massed gunfire, as the RPV loaded with explosives came flying in NOE and slammed into a large hatch cover. This was our cue to rush the resulting hole.
"We actually made it into the ship without casualties, but we lost two rookies and the tank of a third when we ran into the Bioroid response team sent to cover the breach. We put Simon into the passenger seat of Jordan's tank, and ordered Jordan and Tensen back out of the ship, while the rest of us continued inward.
"Half-way down the length of the ship, the tunnel divided, yet we hadn't seen any doorways. Angie took his squad to the left, while Dana led the rest of us to the right. A few hundred meters later, we hit another fork, and Dana sent Sean and his team left there, Keeping us closer to the interior of the ship. It was about a minute later when I used that well-worn line to Dana, not realizing how prophetic it was..."
"Dana, I've got a bad feeling about this. I think we've got ourselves in a trap. Why are there no doors and no people?"
"The doors are probably well concealed. But our outside comm frequencies just went down; I can't reach the other teams, either. You may be right."
"Dana, he IS right; look!" Noel exclaimed, pointing to the blast doors that were beginning to descend from the ceiling.
"HIT IT!" Dana screamed. "Full Power!"
"Damn it, now I KNOW I've seen this movie before."
"Shut up and drive, Alex!"
"Watch out!" Noel threw her Hovertank into a skid stop as the farthest wall dropped quicker than the rest. The others did so as well, putting all of them into one space between the walls.
"That wasn't the movie," Dana smirked. "Any ideas?"
"The doors appear to be blast resistant alloys," Louis commented. "However, the walls do not."
"Good idea, Louie." Dana swung her tank around 90 degrees, and fired. A section of the wall disappeared with a satisfying boom, revealing the room beyond. "Okay guys, let's see what's behind door number three."
The room was filled with what appeared to be part of the ship's life support system. A faint tonal melody seemed to echo from the ventilation ducts, though none of them could identify what kind of instrument would make those kinds of tones. They were discussing attempting to trace the sound when Louis found a hidden door by falling through it, trying to lean on the wall.
"Louie, are you okay?"
"I think so." Louie stood up looking at his surroundings. "Check this place out!" The room he'd found was filled with machines, turning out android parts. "Are you sure that Bioroid pilot you saw in the ruins was human?"
"Definite, Louie;" Alex replied. "These parts are fairly lifelike, but I'm a doctor. I know natural movements and reflexes when I see them. More than likely these are slave units for the human elite. What do you think Bowie?" Bowie didn't answer. "Bowie? Where did he go?"
"I don't know," Dana replied. "He was here a minute ago."
"He probably found another door," Alex commented, "He'll let us know if he's in trouble."
"I hope so," Noel replied uneasily. "Alex, there's something familiar about that music. It's almost as if I recognize it but not quite."
"Noel, I feel the same way," Dana added "What could it be?"
"Frankly, ladies I don't know. We need to get moving, and find Bowie before he gets into trouble."
Suddenly the music they had been hearing went dissonant, then stopped.
"Alex, the music stopped! Somehow, I knew it's not supposed to do that!"
"Maybe Bowie found its source," Dana guessed, not knowing the truth within her statement. "Alex, set Bowie's auto-destruct, and we'll move out through the main hatch. The last thing we need is for one of them to get one of our tanks intact to study."
Alex did what he was told, and they rode out into the interior corridor. He could only wonder what would happen when the tank he left behind blew sky high; he just hoped Bowie wasn't near it when it happened.
Chapter Two:
"In my heart, I feel the heat
of something burning deep inside of me
I'll be the man I never thought I'd be
Now that I've found you."
Three Dog Night - "In My Heart",
from Eve Tokamatsuri's unfinished rock opera, Underground.
"A harp of light, huh?" Alex asked Bowie, for confirmation of his strange story. "Maybe we can get her to join our band."
"Alex, stop encouraging him!" Dana snapped, driving through the ship-city's back alleys.
"Really, Dana. Whether dream, android or alien, she's definitely had an effect on him. I happen to think she's real, not a figment of his imagination."
"Dana, stop the tank! I just saw her!"
"Are you certain it's her, Bowie?"
"I'm positive - she's one of a kind! I'd know her any-" Suddenly, it was apparent she wasn't, as an identical girl walked up to her. "What? It can't be! I'm seeing double!"
"Everybody here is either twins or triplets," Louie observed. "They must be clones."
"But, what were the androids for?" Noel asked.
"I think I know," Alex replied, pointing at the three soldiers in sealed armor, racing toward them.
"Don't make a move!" one droned. "We've got you covered!"
"See; there's that bad movie dialogue I told you about," Bowie noted.
"They must have learned English from our broadcasts;" Alex theorized, waiting for Dana to give the order to deal with the guards. "Most likely, from the late, late show. Do we shoot it out with them?"
"No," Dana replied. "If we do, we'll end up injuring a lot of civilians. We'll just have to make a run for it. GO!"
They took off at Dana's mark, only to have the Terminators open fire on them, through the crowd.
"Dana, they're shooting at us!" Bowie called out from where he was watching their rear from Dana's back seat. "They don't seem to care how many of the clones get killed!"
Alex took a quick look over his shoulders, and saw Bowie was right. At least a half-dozen civilians had been hit by shots meant for the hovertankers, yet it didn't phase the alien guards. "Let's get out of here before we get anyone else killed."
They raced down the next corridor they found, only to find they were back at what appeared to be the first junction, that they'd designated as their rendezvous point. Sean's squad was already there, bored to tears from the looks of things. Dana and Bowie began relating Alpha Team's discoveries, only to overload Sean very quickly as they described everything simultaneously. Alex was about to interrupt, when he noticed something caught in Bowie's armor, in the helmet seal ring.
"Excuse me, Bowie, but could you hold still for a second?"
"What for?" Bowie inquired, but didn't think twice about complying.
"There;" Alex said, grabbing the object with tweezers from his specimen kit he'd brought along. "I'll give this back to you when I'm done with it."
"What is 'it'?"
"A little souvenir from your girlfriend." Alex held up the long green hair so all could see, before putting it into a specimen bag and sealing it in the kit.
"Here comes Dante, Lieutenant," Louie called out, distracting them from the discovery of the hair.
"Sorry we're late, Lieutenant. Road disappeared on us, then we were attacked by the goon squad. Then, as suddenly as it started, they left us alone. We tried to find Road at that poi-"
Without warning, the floor underneath them disappeared, and the squadron fell into darkness.
Chapter Three:
"One thing we never found out: were all the apparent thefts of Star Wars plot devices on the initial penetration just coincidence, or did the Masters get a copy of the movie during the 'Andrews Incident', and were depraved enough to subject us to it?"
- Alex Tyler, 2037 symposium on Tyrolean culture under the Masters.
"Is everybody okay?" Dana called out into the darkness. One by one, everyone answered, although how everyone survived the fall was anybody's guess.
"How did we make such a soft landing?" Noel asked from her cockpit. "We seemed to fall a long time before we hit this... this..."
"Garbage, Noel?" Cranston finished, fishing himself out of the refuse. "I've pulled enough KP to recognize that smell anywhere."
"Garbage?" Alex was getting a little nervous, considering what they'd already faced. "I've got a really bad feeling about this..."
"Cut that out, Ham!" Kuri, one of Alex's old classmates punned, referring to Alex's academy nickname, coming from his namesake in the 'V' TV series, as well as his penchant for quoting his favorite movies. "You might give them ideas - uh-oh..." Grinding noises came from overhead.
"You've done it now, Alex;" Xavez moaned. "Evidently, they've seen Star Wars too!"
Dana turned on her tank's running lights. "Everyone still in their tanks - hit your lights! Let's see if we can find a way out."
Alex and Noel turned on their lights, but the walls were shown to be seamless.
"It's even worse than we thought," Dana commented, then yelled at the ceiling. "Don't you know you schmucks were supposed to leave us a maintenance hatch?" She then transformed her tank into its howitzer mode. "Stand back, everybody. I'm gonna blast us out of here."
"Lieutenant, don't!" Louie called out. "The walls are made out of the same stuff as the blast doors. Remember, that didn't work in the movie, either."
"Then come up with a better idea." She aimed her ion gun at the far wall, at a slight down angle.
"Shit!" Louie became one with the garbage, and seeing this, the others followed suit.
"Hit the deck!" Alex yelled, ducking inside his own cockpit, as did Noel.
As expected, due to the magnetic seal on the walls, the blast of polarized ions bounced several times, finally impacting the garbage underneath Dana's tank.
"Oh, God, she blew herself up!" Sean guessed, looking at the hole where she had been.
"I told her..."
From the depths of the hole, Dana made it clear that the reports of her demise were greatly exaggerated. "Hey, guys! I'm down here!"
Alex and Noel moved their tanks to illuminate the hole, where Dana and several others were now sitting in a large, possibly ceremonial, chamber 15 meters below. "Get yourselves and your tanks down here before you're squashed!"
Ten minutes later, after an attempt by some sort of security system to kill Dana resulted instead in the destruction of the equipment that had been jamming their radio, the squadron was headed back to the exit. Getting out would prove much more difficult than their entrance, as a gauntlet of Bioroids had gathered to block their way. Finally, the hole they'd helped make hove into view.
"Let's get out of here!"
"Right behind you, Lieutenant," Angie replied snappily, from her left wing position.
"What's that on the floor?" Dana asked, then was horrified to recognize it as the bodies of two of her team. "It's Simon and Jordan!"
"It's too late for them, Dana;" Alex yelled back, acting on his thermal scanner that the bodies were cooling too fast to be only wounded. "I wonder what happened to Tensen; I hope he made it out."
"Dana, look out!" Angie called out, uncharacteristically calling his commander by her first name. The reason for his warning was a green Bioroid, jumping into her path.
In response, Dana shifted to Battloid mode, working into a run - but not drawing a weapon.
"Dana, what are you doing? You can't be taking him on unarmed!"
"Shut up, Bowie; I hate back seat drivers!"
The Bioroid tried to jump out of the way, but Dana was quicker, doing a move that was half grab, half tackle, snatching it out of the air and carrying it back into the sunlight. Whether it was as a prisoner or as a hostage, the rest of the squadron could only guess, but the other Bioroids let them go after Dana captured her prize.
From The Collected Journals of Alex Tyler:
"None of us could sleep well that night, as we were too keyed up by what had happened during the day. I had kept the hair I'd found on Bowie, instead of turning it over to the jerks in research. I knew that they'd already worked on dead Bioroid pilots, so one hair from a civilian XT wasn't going to cause a furor ... or would it?
"By morning, the only thing I had determined about the hair was that it wasn't Noel's, who's hair was a slightly different shade of green than Bowie's 'mystery girl.' However, there were more similarities than differences, so I decided I'd grab a few musty old reports from the labs when we went to see the Bioroid Dana had bagged on the way out of the ship. It took almost a week, but we finally got the chance.
"It seemed like we were stepping into a giant version of a med school dissection theater when we walked into Beckett's lab, as guests of General Emerson. Louie and Becket fit together well, pointing out different things about the Bioroid, until Louie sort of took over for a while.
"Dana about lost it when Colonel Green said that, due to Louie and Beckett's findings, shooting the cockpit area would be S.O.P. for fighting Bioroids, She had a point; we had seen the humanity of the 'aliens' first-hand, when they were killed by the indiscriminate fire of the armored 'Terminators' aboard the ship. During the argument, I slipped away and found what I needed; theoretical work by Lang and Exedore that I knew of, but had never seen before, (thanks to Zand sealing access to them by anyone not part of his clique). I plugged in my palmtop to the console, ran Louie's block-breaker program, and sent the files back to my computer in the barracks by cellular modem. I rejoined the others as Emerson and Dana left for the command center, slipped the palmtop to Louie then ran to catch up with Dana. I didn't want to miss the fireworks.
"Byron was an incompetent ass as an instructor in peacetime, and was even more so in war. I let him and Leonard continue, until Dana interrupted...
("[ ]" quotes from transcript of briefing)
Dana: ["... I believe we're dealing with a race of living beings - not a soulless army of machines!"]
Green: ["My observations are completely documented. What proof do you have to back up this absurd position?"]
"Dana started to say something stupid, before I stood up and pushed her back into her seat. I started my monologue...
Alex: ["Respectfully, sirs, the Lieutenant is right! I managed to get a hair sample from one of the civilians on the ship, and in structure and genetics it is closer to humans than Zentraedi. Besides, what use would a civilian populace be if they were androids? If you won't accept eyewitness testimony, then you're all the biggest group of fools since the UEDC, and if you're not going to listen to reason, there's no use for Lieutenant Sterling or me to stay here. Goodbye!"]
I grabbed Dana by the arm, pulled her to her feet, and half-dragged her out behind me. After we left, I found that Emerson had took up where I left off with the UEDC parallel, and came to the conclusion that the comparison was accurate, at least in the comparison of people like Green to the politicos and armchair warriors that totally misread the Zentraedi."
Dana and Alex caught up with the rest of the 15th not long after Louie, who had spent most of the afternoon in the lab. They told the others about the meeting, then Louie told them about the apparent control device found in the pilot and that it supported a remote control hypothesis.
"That's impossible, Louie. The human body is too sophisticated to be controlled in combat that way. The pilot may have some of his targeting decisions made that way, and it might be a way of jacking in some sort of battlefield awareness and tactical knowledge. But, there's no way for that many Bioroids to be controlled your way at the same time. Louie, use your head! These are protoculture mecha; without a sentient being at direct control of the mecha, it would be slower than an RDF MAC II . The problems is you're a mechanic, not a doctor, Bonehead." Half the squad stifled giggles, catching the twisted version of the sixty year old Star Trek cliche. "I know the evidence you have points my way as easily as yours."
"You might have something, but or the majority it wouldn't make any difference. Outside their Bioroids the few pilots that lived didn't live long, and were vegetables outside the Bioroid."
"Then it's up to us to put them out of that un-life." Angie said. "Even the enemy shouldn't be done that way; it's inhuman."
"But, remember guys; the civilian and leader types aren't zombies. We need to treat them as we'd treat a purely terrestrial enemy."
Dana started to put in her two cents worth, when the air raid warnings went off. Soon, it became apparent that the Bioroids were on a specimen-gathering mission, engaging in little combat while capturing civilians. The squadron members then had to make a choice: try not to shoot the Bioroids with live prisoners, or to shoot them anyway, to prevent the human from falling into Tyrolean hands. Most chose the former, even before Dana made it an order. Strangely, unlike previous missions, the Bioroids made an active effort to recover their wounded mecha, instead of self-destructing them.
After the attack was over, Alex, Dana, Angie, Sean and Louie got together privately in Dana's office to discuss this latest turn of events, out of earshot of the rank-and-file.
Dana began the meeting with the question "Okay, guys; you saw what happened out there... Got any ideas as to why?"
"Lieutenant, maybe they're starting to run low on equipment," Louie suggested.
"Louie, then why only recover the Bioroids with living pilots? There were quite a few that we'd decapped that were undamaged otherwise." Alex paused, then continued. "What if it's not equipment, but manpower that they're running short on?"
Angie got a far-off look, then brought up something they really didn't want to consider. "Lieutenants, we know the Masters were able to program the Zentraedi. What if they have, or are looking for, a way to reprogram humans for their use?"
Everyone went silent, until Alex took the thought a step further. "Then, the prisoners aren't hostages or lab specimens, but potential recruits, and we might end up having to kill them or be killed."
"Then, we'll have to be even more careful, and pray we're wrong." Dana sighed, and stood up. "Not a word of this to anyone. Alex and I will bring it up to General Emerson, as soon as we can get a meeting with him again. Considering our exit of the staff meeting, we may not be that welcome. Okay, then; let's call it a night."
Chapter Four:
"The Zentraedi were more than an army; they were also the experimental test group for the Masters' eugenics program. It was an extremely ambitious project, and was left incomplete by the destruction of the Main Fleet in 2011. However, the Masters put what they had learned to use in 2030, in anticipation of a victory that never came." - Alex Tyler, in Kinship
10 February 2030
Alex settled back in his "study chair", as he liked to call the overstuffed recliner he had inherited from Hikaru, paging through tonight's batch of the research files he'd lifted from the SPOOK computer in Beckett's lab. The files were even more detailed than he imagined, going into areas that, publicly, were supposed to be great unsolved mysteries about the relationship between the Zentraedi and their creators. It had taken him a month to read into them this far.
The information was taken from a computer found in the original captain's quarters aboard the SDF-1 - as in, the TYROLEAN captain - in 2003. The computer appeared to be not only a science research station, but also capable of operating the ship on its own, so it was removed from the ship for safety reasons. It was taken to a research facility in Japan, where it survived Dolza's attack by virtue of the facility being located far underground.
The files in tonight's batch were spotty, with many phrases guessed at, even with Exedore's help. But what was translated gave insight into the Tyrolean mind set under the Masters. The first generation of Zentraedi were unique beings; several hundred persons assembled genetically from the ground up. Exedore and Breetai were the only two survivors of that generation, after the battle with Dolza. Ironically, Exedore, Dolza and Breetai were the three oldest of them all, and had been the only surviving Zentraedi in either fleet to have walked the SDF-1's corridors under its original commander.
But, those original Zentraedi were only the first part of the Masters' plan. The next involved massive screening of the population, isolating that part that had the right combination of good genetic structure and exceptional mental and/or physical attributes. Only the highest tiers of their society were exempted, as they were to be made immortal through protoculture treatments. Those belonging to neither group were sterilized, and given jobs of no importance, to serve in till their deaths. This left 50,000 viable Tyroleans, and cell samples were taken from each, undifferentiated, multiplied, and reformed into sex cells. Then, over the next decade, a base clone template was created from each possible male/female pairing. These were the original 625 million Zentraedi that the fleets' billions were cloned from.
As the initial wars of conquest began, specific lines of clones began to distinguish themselves in combat. One percent showed excellence beyond all expectations, and their lines were further modified for greater size and strength, to go with their intelligence and cunning. The new clones from these lines were rationed accordingly, and put in positions to work their way up to command status, becoming the captains of the ships and fleets of the new Zentraedi armada. They were kept common enough for each ship to have a handful in various stages of training for command, but rare enough to where they would be unable to turn their forces back against their masters.
The rest of the Zentraedi eventually stratified into two categories; the competent and the cannon fodder. The former had opportunity to rise in the ranks, to join the elite on personal merit. The latter were doomed for an expected short life in a Regult. At the time of Zor's death, those whose profiles were below the cut-off level were effectively banned from being reproduced, with any new personnel expected to be made from the 'middle class' of Zentraedi. Seventy percent of the males and ninety percent of the females, failed to make the cut. By the time Dolza reached Earth, these Zentraedi had gone from being 75% of the fleet to only 40%, and most of those were male, after several costly battles involving females.
As for the middle class qualifiers, different augmentation routes were taken for the different sexes. Males were given lesser versions of the command alterations. Females, whose intuition and agility proved to be measurably higher than the males, were given further intelligence and agility boosts, and trained primarily as fighter and armor pilots. However, the expense of the female's craft limited their creation, to where only 10% of the fleet was female by the time of its destruction.
As for the cell donors, the more successful Zentraedi lines born of a person's genetics, the higher status the person gained in the society - at least up to the point where Zor's records stopped. Alex couldn't believe some of the things mentioned in the notes, especially concerning the SDF-1's Tyrolean commander. These records all clearly showed that the Masters even cloned their own people, and that Zor was one of them, albeit a renegade trying to fight their despotism. Yet, when a fleet shows up, with one of its most visible officers named Zor, looking almost identical to the Zor in the records, the Southern Cross Command seemed to go out of its way to try NOT to connect the newest enemy to the Robotech Masters initially.
A curious appendage to one of the files stood out - a message, dismissed by the high command as a space-going Malcontent hoax. It was received almost five years after the SDF-3 launch, but was supposed to be one sent shortly after its arrival, claiming the Masters were not on Tyrol anymore.
The next file stood out even more. Titled "The Role of 'Three' in Protoculture Studies," it mentioned how three genetically related Zentraedi tended to perform better in certain tests than three non-related ones with marked higher scores individually. It stated that evidence indicated that the Masters had discovered this, and had been planning to introduce triplet clones in their own society. HOW LONG HAD RESEARCH KNOWN? Alex seethed inside. And how much more were they still hiding? A final note in the thesis indicated that the scientist class were not to be tri-cloned, but to be made virtually immortal by anti-aging treatments made from protoculture.
Then, he started going into hard data using the computer in the private lab he and Louie had set up in Sean's old room. The first section was the database of tested Zentraedi cross-referenced with each other to try to determine parentage, then cross-referenced again with the fleet genetics data to narrow down the fields. The end result was a table of male and female donors, represented by four digit numbers in hexadecimal; females with the first digit 0 through 7, males with 8 through F. As more and more Zentraedi were tested, looking for family, the more accurate the data became. For instance, Miriya Sterling was a 1269/BF29. Noel's mother wasn't listed, so he checked the registry for others in her series. A Lyssa Marinoni was found, who died in the Brasilia Massacre, and was believed for three years to have been Tinya, until Tinya was found in the assault on the Scavengers base camp, dead in the arms of Daniel McCloud, her former lover. He called up Lyssa's data, and about fell out of his chair when it came up: 1269/BDAF.
Dana and Noel had always been best friends, growing up together, learning together, playing together. They considered each other as cousins, if not sisters. Now, the evidence was in; they really were cousins, sharing the same genetic grandmother.
"Ho - ly Cow!"
"Huh? You go Hindu on me or something?" Noel asked from where she had walked in, unseen, causing Alex to complete the fall to the floor by startling him again.
"Don't sneak up on me like that!"
"Sorry about that. What did you find?"
"This is big, and it concerns you and Dana. Get her in here! And I think you both need to be sitting down to hear this."
"Hear what?" Dana asked, walking into the ersatz lab. "I thought you were going to study that hair from Bowie's alien 'girlfriend'?"
"I'm working on it, Dana; but I'm going through all the other data first, and I came across something interesting. According the Zentraedi genetic records, your mother and Noel's were half-sisters. In other words, you really are cousins, and your mothers never knew."
"Cousins, huh? I knew we were close, but that puts on a whole spin on things."
"This information is great; I wonder how come my classmates and I didn't have access to it? The fact that this stuff even existed was hidden from us."
"I don't know why, either. But, get rid of it when you're through. The last thing we need is to have you get caught with it. Comprende, senor?"
"Si." the girls left the room, leaving Alex alone with the tangle of computer and science equipment. He started to warm up the sequencer, but found out that he was getting red lights on some of the sensors, and would have to acquire replacements somehow. So, he shifted his attention to an encoded document from the SDF-1 captain's quarters - one that had never been decoded by Lang. All the punctuation was there, but the letters themselves were jumbled.
Alex looked for patterns, but could not see any, at first. Then, it struck him. The file was located in a databank full of genetic records. What if one of the genetic codes was the key? The Tyrolean alphabet was unlike the Zentraedi one, for security reasons, but there was a one-for-one correspondence between the symbols, with the numbers actually shared. Strangely, the encoded document had both alphabets's characters.
Both alphabets had 27 characters; with the digits, that was a total of 64 characters. This seemed too much of a coincidence, as DNA has four possible pairings of its codes, and three pairings per twist. Unlike Terran science, which recorded the pairings in groups of three, Tyrolean science treated each trio of pairs as one unit, with 64 possible combinations. Alex quickly typed a program that would work as a simple addition or subtraction code, taking the first line of the encoded file, then either adding or subtracting each genetic code from the corresponding character in the message. Complicating matters was, if this was the key, determining the proper order of the positions of the two alphabets and the digits in the key. To be safe, he used all six possible orientations, and their reverses. The down side of this was that 24 possible translations would result per key tried, or millions of combinations in all; none of which might be valid.
He then added a filter that reset the Tyrolean letters to Zentraedi ones to the process, to enable better translation. Finally, each line would have their words ran through a spell checker set up with the entire Zentraedi dictionary, as well as any Tyrolean words that could be extracted from the other documents, including the name Zor. All the ones that passed would be put into a file with their key. Three more files would hold all the ones with one, two or three failed words, in case the dictionary was not thorough enough. He started the programs and went to bed.
He was awakened by his alarm clock, seven hours later. He showered, shaved and dressed, before stepping through the former closets that now formed the connector between his room and the lab. The computer was sitting idle, having finished the comparisons during the night. He opened up the file for no failures, expecting to find nothing, or nothing but garbage; the comparisons had been set for spelling, not grammar. Four lines had passed the test, so he fed them through the translation program, to be converted and restructured into English grammar patterns, if patterns existed in the original. The first line was garbage; the second was likewise. The fourth differed from the second by only one word, which would have made no difference in the translation, so he didn't even bother testing it. The third line, however, translated perfectly -
"To those to whom I send this ship, I send my story - Zor."
Alex looked to where the decoding method was recorded, to start the decoding of the entire message. He typed the code and method, then stopped before he hit "Enter", realizing he KNEW which code it was. The code was for cell donor 1269 - Dana and Noel's genetic grandmother. He shook off a severe case of the willies, and started the program.
Alex spent the rest of the day reading the combination autobiography and ship's log, leaving the work of locating the parts for the DNA scanner to Louie, and getting all his meals brought to his room by a perplexed Noel.
The story began with a recap of the events preceding the launch of the SDF-1. Zor had returned to Tyrol from deep space, after he had been brainwashed and sent there to rape the world of a race he had befriended; the race that had given him the secrets of Protoculture. The Masters then announced their plans, confirming the little info the other records had provided. Zor and a number of others were given treatments that would make them effectively immortal, as long as they continued the treatments. Ironically, many of those who were given the treatments were Zor's allies in opposing the Masters' plan, being survivors of the purge that had occurred during Zor's absence from the home world, including his lover. Only Zor escaped when their plot was exposed, his lover dying in his arms.
The Masters attempted to brainwash him again, but he managed to fake the effects of it. They then had him design a ship, which was to be used to further cement their power. That ship was the SDF-1. He followed the letter of his orders in the design, but only to sow instead the seeds of foment and rebellion among the subject races, whom he plotted with privately against their common foe. He went from world to world, seeding them with the source of Protoculture, but not the means to use it.
The log also detailed his attempts to reconstruct his dead lover. The Masters would not give him the cell samples he needed, though, instead incorporating her into the Zentraedi project. After a failed attempt to reconstruct her genome from scratch, he tried to recreate her electronically, using the android he'd created for the ship's AI to use as a mobile unit, and the brain scan taken by the Masters in their investigation of the plot against them. That attempt failed as well.
The log ended, with Zor making what he knew would be his last entry...
"Those I wronged come over closer. I am sure that they will catch us, before the day is done, though I have managed to conceal this fact from even Dolza. The encoding of this message is the means to succeed, where I failed. If you defeat the Zentraedi, as my visions seem to indicate you will, please use her children to recreate her. I would ask the same of me, but I know that will be impossible. I was never part of the project, and never will be. Instead, the will treat me as their tool, in numerous clonings, until I can be cloned no more. I am left to wonder how many deaths I will feel after this one, before the eternal peace finally does come."
Alex reclined back, to collect his thoughts. The strangest thing about the entire log, save Zor's and the Zentraedi, were replaced by pronouns, as if to protect those he might have contacted. He did it too well; even his lover's name, and that of the ship's computer, were deleted, though the information in the log indicated the computer's persona was female. And, what of this strange recurrence of the fiancée's genetics? Alex felt extremely uncomfortable with the idea that it was all a coincidence, but didn't like the alternative any better. A quote from a famous scientist came to mind. "God not only plays dice with the universe, he sometimes throws the dice to where they cannot be seen." Alex was beginning to think someone had loaded the dice.
Chapter Five:
"Well, even the brightest star won't shine forever..."
- The Alan Parsons Project, "Prime Time"
14-15 April, 2030
From the diary of Noel Freeman:
"I've got to put this down on paper... The last two days have been too much to leave out, and I've got to sort this all out anyway, so maybe I can do it here.
"I knew George Sullivan fairly well; Bowie, Alex and I had performed with him every Tuesday night that we weren't doing something military. George would play piano for us on the pieces where Bowie played guitar. While he was a competent pianist (Bowie's better, but he can't play both instruments at the same time), George's own act was a nightmare to endure, as he often covered Minmei tunes - BADLY. But, yesterday, we discovered a side of him, that we never expected. A side which would cost him his life, helping us.
"He was always asking Alex about how our missions had gone, sometimes asking more than even Dana's superiors did in her debriefings. We figured he was a hobbyist; one of those armchair generals with their own crackpot ideas on how the enemy thought. Plus, he showed the signs of grieving for someone, and a lot of the hobbyists got started down that road while looking for revenge, or meaning in the death of someone they loved. So, we were surprised when George and Dana seemed to show interest in each other. Alex and I left after the show, and we expected Dana and Bowie to follow right behind - but only Bowie showed up. Dana had gone back to see George.
"She finally showed up, right as we were getting worried about her. The squad had been ordered to go bother the Masters while they recovered their downed ship, which has been sitting outside town for the last four months. I say bother, because even Uncle Rolf knew there was no way to STOP the recovery, short of divine intervention. Even with footage from orbit of the rehearsals of the recovery operation, taken from cameras hid in old Zentraedi wreckage in space, no one in the High Command had any ideas on how to prevent the recovery. Anyway, Dana came in with a crazy story about having an informant in the GMP. Some of us immediately thought of Nova, but we quickly threw that out, as Lt. Satori is too uptight about useful information to risk a prison term to help a bunch of lowlifes like us. Besides, Dana hinted that the informant was from the part of the GMP focused on independently studying alien behavior and technology, as an alternative from being dependent on Robotech Research and their biased data.
"Early the next morning, as the Masters began their descent, Dana disappeared. The only one who had any idea where she was heading was Bowie, who said she'd asked where George lived. This blew all our minds; surely she wasn't going to abandon us and her career for a cheap rendezvous with a third-rate lounge singer? She left a note, telling Alex to take the squadron in, but to wait for her to arrive with backup.
"When we reached the fallen ship, the air was thick with Bioroids. We knocked so many of them out of the air that we lost track, but our weapons were useless against the ship itself. Meanwhile, we could now see the other fortress, descending to retrieve the fallen one. Suddenly, Dana appeared, with George in the back seat of her tank. None of us could figure out why she had brought a civilian into the battle, though it soon became apparent that George was working with a computer terminal; one, on closer look, had the markings of the GMP Scientific Intelligence Branch. George was an intelligence analyst, who had been moonlighting as a lounge singer - and we had never suspected a thing.
"Then, to our horror, Dana was forced into executing a maneuver that sent George flying from the mecha; instead of securing himself, he'd strapped down the computer. A Bioroid made a perfect catch, only to be shot by Sean, who had no idea that the Bioroid had a prisoner. The crippled Bioroid then clipped Marie Crystal's Logan, as she too had been on an attack run on it. Marie was knocked into a violent spin, and was going to crash; probably fatally. Sean reacted quickly, possibly out of guilt, switched to Battloid, and made a leaping catch to stop the crash from happening, though both mecha and Marie will have some serious down time before seeing service again. The Bioroid tried to limp away, but the reactor in its hovercraft went critical, incinerating both it and George, who was probably already dead from the multiple impacts.
"I then saw Angie take a bad hit, and he was thrown clear of his mangled hovertank, somehow. I started over to cover him, when the Bioroid leader, Zor, saw him too. I started to shoot at the Bioroid, that I recognized from the repaired damage that Dana had inflicted in previous fights. Only, I never got the chance, as the descending fortress (?) shot him down, his telepathic scream echoing in our heads. Angie and I were confused; we had just seen the enemy ship shoot down its own champion. If it was by accident, I'd hate to be in the gunner's shoes.
"Dana then attacked the two ships, single-handedly, although we knew it to be hopeless. It wasn't until after we got back to barracks that she explained that George was the GMP contact, and she was trying a theory that George's superiors had rejected, from lack of evidence. Either he had been wrong, or Dana mistimed the shot without George there to help her. We did our best to comfort her about the what had happened, as it had been George's decision to secure the computer instead of himself. But, we made little headway, and she'll have to come to terms with it herself, on her own terms.
"Alex had escorted Marie to the hospital, as she'd suffered several broken ribs and other impact damage in the catch. Before they left, he noticed that George's computer was still logged on with its cell-modem, and George's death had not yet been reported. As a result, he told us to leave the computer alone, so that we could use it when he got back. When he returned, he, Louie and Jen (John's girlfriend), used it to access the GMP's records on our unit, to make sure no one was poised to try to use us the way George did. Jen is another matter entirely. She's GMP herself, and has been ordered to stay away from John, and our unit. She had become personally involved with us, contrary to regs. As she isn't about to break up with him, orders or no orders, we'll have a friend inside the GMP - as long as the two don't get caught meeting each other.
"Our little counter-intelligence group broke up at 11:30, and soon Alex and I were left alone in his room. He swept me off my feet, and carried me to his bed. We made love, and fell asleep in each others' arms. We made love again this morning, and he asked me to marry him. I said yes, but not until the war was over. Please, let this war end soon, so I don't risk losing him!"
Chapter Six:
"I believe we were put here for a reason..."
- Karen Freeman, in message sent to Noel with Carpenter
16 April, 2030
When Noel wandered into the ready room that morning, Dana and Sean were having an interesting debate on responsibility vs. romance. Sean was pointing his thumb over his shoulder at Bowie, saying that the corporal had been spacey ever since he 'met' that girl aboard the Masters' ship. Noel was about to interrupt, when Alex grabbed her around the waist, from behind.
"What are you up to, cutie?" Alex asked playfully, spinning her around and kissing her.
"I was going to tell Dana about your proposal." Noel punctuated the line with a kiss of her own.
"Let it slide for a while; I want to hear what Dana has to say on the subject at hand."
Sean had left the room by this point, and Dana turned her attention to Bowie. The conversation turned more intense, then Dante jumped in, striking a nerve with his xenophobic remarks about the situation. Dana about put her foot in her mouth, almost saying "her" heart, instead of "his" (Bowie's).
"It's that Zor character again, isn't it?"
"Yeah. She can't get him out of her head."
"How do you know for sure? Has she talked about it to you?"
"No, but I can tell. For one thing, she gets fidgety whenever you mention his name; another thing is that she was writing his name in her ketchup with a french fry last week."
"Oh."
"Alex, I've been wondering something. I know you're through with the extraction procedures on that hair. You've been done for a week. When are you and Louie going to run the DNA through the sequencer?"
"We had to borrow a PCR machine to replicate the DNA to an amount we can test. The results should be ready tonight."
"Can I see the test results first, when you're done?"
"I don't see why not-" Alex was interrupted by a scramble alert, concerning a ship from the Pioneer mission. "The SDF-3? Let's move!"
"Right behind you!"
As it turned out, all the ATAC troops got to do was recover people from escape pods. The ship wasn't even the SDF-3; just a smaller cruiser SDF built by the RDF in 2013 originally to accompany the SDF-2, that had been the command ship of the small fleet that folded from the colonies a week after the SDF-3 to rendezvous at Tyrol. The last pod down contained the command crew, who had barely made it out after sending their ship on a plunge into one of the Masters' fortresses, blowing up both ships. The officers were met by Alex, Noel, Dana and Sean. The new arrivals were somewhat bruised, but relatively intact, considering their escape pod didn't launch until after the ships collided. Dana and Noel were the first to approach, hopeful for word of their parents.
"Lieutenant Freeman, what are you doing here?" Major Carpenter asked.
"Huh?" Noel replied. "I'm flattered, sir, but I'm only a PFC."
"Excuse me? Karen, I was talking to her." Carpenter pointed to Dana. "How did the Sentinels beat us back?"
"Sentinels?" Dana asked. "Major, I think the shock of the battle must be confusing you, causing you to mistake me for someone else. I'm Lieutenant Dana Sterling, commander of the Fifteenth ATAC, Southern Cross. Marie Freeman is my father's cousin."
"Dana Sterling? That can't be, unless... What year is this, Lieutenant?"
"2030, sir; April 16th, to be exact. Why do you ask?"
"Because we left Tyrol in 2023, or what we thought was 2023. Either we took seven years to get here, or we had cumulative time loss both directions. Out engines were upgraded before our launch, so the dilation might have resulted from a mis-calibration then."
Everyone was quiet, as they climbed into the back of the truck, where Bowie was waiting with dry blankets and hot coffee for them. As the truck began to move, the conversation resumed.
"Major, Do you have any news of my parents?" Dana asked.
"Not really. The last I heard of them, was that they and the Sentinels, a group of aliens formerly ruled by the Robotech Masters, had liberated the planet Garuda from the Invid."
"Invid? Where have I heard that name before?"
"Maybe, from your mother. The Zentraedi were mostly created to fight the Invid, and other hostile races, and to force the Sentinels' worlds into submission. With the Zentraedi all but wiped out, and the Masters here, the Invid had seized all of the Tyrolean Empire. When we arrived at the Masters' home world, we ended up having to free it from the Invid. During that fight, we met the leaders of the Sentinel races. After it was done, the Hunters led a group of volunteers to help the Sentinels liberate their worlds. Both the Sterlings and the Freemans were part of that group."
"Are my parents still alive?" Noel asked. "Shannon and Kayra Freeman. What about Bowie's parents, the Grants?"
"So, you're Noel Freeman. The last I heard, each of your parents were alive, but that may have been as long ago as seven years, all things considered." Carpenter reached into his pants pocket, and pulled out what seemed to be a gaudy, oversized locket. "A few months before our launch, Lieutenant Karen Ellison gave me this, to give to you. It may sound silly, but I've felt compelled to carry it on me ever since. I thought if I treated its delivery as unfinished business, I'd make it back at least this far."
"How's that?" Dana asked.
"It's an old military superstition, Lieutenant, but I first heard of it on an old science fiction TV show, from the Global War era."
"Like Sheridan's socks?" Alex asked, recognizing the episode from his parents' collection.
"Babylon 5; that was it. Then, I'd think you'd understand me, Lieutenant if I told you that the REF is fighting a race out there, that has some of the worst aspects of the Shadows and the Dilgar."
"Ouch! But, back to the locket. Major, you said that Noel's old babysitter gave it to you?"
"Yes, she did. It surprised me when I saw Noel; the resemblance between her and Noel is uncanny."
"We have reason to believe that Karen is more than what she seems," Alex replied. "We know now that Shannon and Kayra are in fact Noel's biological parents, and that Karen showed up within months of Noel's birth. The theory I'm currently working on is that Karen's origins might lie in the fold accident that the Freemans had, which occurred prior to Noel's birth. The few mentions of it I found, indicate that there was some sort of temporal element to the fold."
"Meaning?"
"I'm not sure; there's still too many possibilities."
Noel looked at Alex; she could see the possibilities herself, actually. Was Karen an alternate future version of herself? A sister from a future that will never be? Why couldn't they be truthful to her about all this, years ago? It would have answered so many questions...
"Major, can I have the locket now?" Noel asked, definitely not liking the direction the conversation was taking, and choosing to divert it. "What is it?"
"Sorry about that, Private; it is technically your property." He handed it to her. "It's a hologram locket; a keepsake item invented around the time of the SDF-3 launch, but too expensive to produce commercially. Each REF single member or married couple were given one, to leave a message for their families, or to take a message with them. If I recall, Dana's parents used their prototype locket to record her as a child to take with them, which itself was filmed for the instructional video that came with the distributed version. You open it by pressing the button on the bottom."
"Thank you."
Carpenter turned his attention back to the two ASC officers on board the truck; Alex and Dana. "Lieutenants, how long will it take for us to get to Monument? I need to report to Leonard and Emerson about the REF's status when I left."
"If you consent to a check-up on the way there, you can skip the hospital," Alex suggested. "I'm a doctor, and the examination would delay your entry for examination until after the meeting. You'll still have to go in to be checked for internal injuries."
"Good; and if we do that?"
"Then we can have you at the command building in about a half-hour, as opposed to a hour or so," Dana answered.
"That will do, I guess."
"Major," Bowie interrupted. "Will our families be returning any time soon?"
"I've sorry, private; but when I left, not only were we involved in an interstellar war against superior numbers, but the REF itself was on the verge of a civil war. Dr. Lang and Colonel Riley were in charge of the opposing factions, fighting over the REF position in aiding the Sentinel Races, while the Hunters and your families were all fighting alongside the Sentinels, light-years from the SDF-3, against the Invid. To make matters worse, the SDF-3's own fold system was destroyed by a bomb set by a saboteur before the launch, keeping it out of the fight with the Invid, or from returning here. No, it will be a long time before your families return, if ever."
"Thank you for being so honest about it, sir."
"Your parents, and Dana's, are friends of mine; Noel's family as well, if not as close. They would want me to be honest with you. After all, you are all adults."
Noel finally got up the courage to open the locket, holding it in her palm. A pair of images, six inches tall, sprang up from the emitters; Karen and Marie. The ATACs in the back of the truck went silent, gathering around her to see and hear this message from across the stars.
"Greetings, little sisters;" the image of Karen spoke. "We send this message to you from Praxis, a former holding of the Robotech Masters. By the time you get this message, we and our parents will either be victorious or dead." The image of the two faded, into one of Karen only, as the viewers pondered the opening lines. Only Alex really noticed the reference to "our" parents, and even then wasn't for sure he'd heard it right. Karen then continued, the new hologram wearing different clothes than in the original shot.
"Noel, my sister; regardless of the outcome of the events here, I sense that our part of the play is left to you, on Earth. I believe that we were put here for a reason; and that reason is to right the wrongs of fate. Noel, remember what I told you on the Hunters' wedding day; protect Dana and Bowie with all your power. Now is the time. The Sleeper will awaken."
The image wavered, then faded.
"That was definitely strange," Sean noted.
"Tell me about it," Alex replied nonchalantly, as the others nodded in agreement - except Noel.
Noel was still staring at the locket, oblivious to her surroundings, if not to reality in general.
Chapter Seven:
"Everything you know is wrong."
- 20th century cliche
"Noel?" Dana tried to shake her cousin back to coherence, but without any luck. "Alex, what's wrong with her?"
"I don't know. Angie!" Alex yelled at the cab of the truck. "There's an emergency! Get us to the hospital, STAT!"
Angie called back as the truck sped up. "What's wrong?"
"Noel was looking at a holographic message a friend sent back to her from the SDF-3, and she had a seizure of some sort."
"So, it would be okay if the ride was a bit bumpy, if it got us some more speed?"
"Yes; do what it takes."
"Then hang on!" Angie took the truck, the ASC equivalent to the classic army Deuce, cross-country when he reached another truck, passing them by driving through the scrub along the muddy path they'd made driving after the escape pods.
Dana turned to Alex, holding the locket. "Alex, when we get to the hospital, I want to take a close look at that message."
"What if it affects you the same way as Noel?
"That's a chance I'm willing to take."
"I don't get it..." Dana was watching the recording for the fifth time since they'd arrived at the hospital, and still was baffled. The base hospital had been full from Carpenter's men, and they had been diverted to the civilian hospital where Alex did his internship. "They look exactly like us, and refer to us as their 'little sisters'. It doesn't make any sense."
"Could they actually be your sisters, somehow?"
"That's impossible; aside from the age difference, I would have known if I had any sisters."
"Maybe, Dana, but I have this nagging feeling that there is something to this. What is the earliest you ever remember seeing either Karen Ellison or Marie Sterling Freeman?"
""I'm not sure. I couldn't have been more than five years old at the time. I know that Aunt Marie and Uncle Scott were married around Christmas 2017, so they must have been around before then."
The lounge door opened, and a nurse came in. "Dr. Tyler?"
"Yes?"
"Private Freeman has left the apparent catatonia she was in when you brought her in, but now she appears to be extremely disoriented, if not schizophrenic."
"Disoriented?"
"It's like she's not completely aware of her surroundings, like a schizophrenic, yet at the same time, she seems to be caught in a conflict with another person. The closest thing I ever saw in the mental heath wing was when a MPD patient had two personalties fighting for control. Other than that, I can't really explain it, and neither can the psychologist on duty."
"Can I see her?"
"You'll have to ask Dr. Carlson if you want to stay for a while, but I can let you in for a few minutes. The other lieutenant will have to wait here."
Alex started to point out that Dana was Noel's next of kin, but Dana stopped him.
"It's all right, Alex; go in and see her. Tell her that I'm thinking of her."
"I will, Dana. However, when we get back to barracks, I want to put you through some exercises to try to jog your childhood memories."
"Noel, can you hear me?"
"Alex, is... is that you?" Noel asked, faintly, barely more than a whisper. "Help me..."
"What's wrong? Can you tell me?"
"Karen... unnhh... The memories... are overwhelming me..." Suddenly, her voice changed, shifting slightly in tone and maturity. "Where - where am I?"
"Noel, what memories?"
"I'm ... not Noel. Noel is on... Earth," she gasped, her breathing quickening.
"This IS Earth. Who are you?"
"Not Noel... Karen... something's wrong... was only supposed to send ... keys to her powers - a few important memories; not... not my personality as well. Where am I? When is this?"
"Karen... how?"
"Can't explain... answer me, please! I'm trying to keep us sane; repair the damage I caused..."
"Us?"
"Noel and myself... please, answer me!" Noel's body spasmed from a mini-seizure.
"You're in Monument City General Hospital; it's 16 April."
"What... what year?"
"2030."
"Oh...oh God... What went wrong? Who are you?"
"Alex; Alex Tyler. I'm Noel's fiancé."
"Fiancé? ... Noel's all grown up, now. Thank you, Alex. I'll try my best to fix things in here... I... I didn't mean..." Noel's body shuddered, then she lapsed back into unconsciousness.
"Lieutenant?" Alex turned to find the doctor on duty. The doctor continued. "It might be best for you to leave, and get some rest. Do you know this 'Karen' persona?"
"It's more than a persona, I think. The thing that sent her into this state was a holographic message from this Karen, sent from the SDF-3 mission with one of the ship's officers. The message ended with a quote from an old science fiction story. It may have been the trigger phrase for some kind of post-hypnotic suggestion."
"After almost ten years? That's highly unlikely, but it could explain parts of her condition. Even her EEG is showing signs of two overlapping set of brain activity. The neurologist on duty is baffled."
"The call desk has my number. Keep me informed of any changes."
"I will, Alex. I know how hard it is to stay objective when someone you love is ill. That's why you're not the doctor of record."
"I understand. Keep General Emerson informed as well; she's one of the 'RDF brats' left under his guardianship. He'll want to know."
"Understood. Take your commander back to base, and both of you get some rest. There's a war on, remember?"
Chapter Eight:
"Now I know what Epimetheus felt when his wife opened that damned box."
- Alex Tyler, Journal entry, 17 April 2030
"Alex, how is she?" Dana asked, as Alex entered the ready room. She had left without him, not knowing how long he'd take.
"Not too good, Dana. I've been thinking about her condition. Somehow, she's actually been POSSESSED by an aspect of Karen."
"Possessed? Like in demonic possession? You've got to be kidding!"
"I wish I was. Something happened when she saw that hologram; something I can't explain in rational, scientific terms. Somehow, part of Karen's consciousness traveled back with the locket, and embedded itself in Noel's mind. Dana, have you ever been hypnotized?"
"Not to my knowledge. Why?"
"I'd like to try hypnosis on you, to see what you can remember about Karen, Marie and Noel."
"Come to think of it, didn't you ask me to do this back in December?"
"Yeah, but Noel was so accepting of what we found out, after thinking it through, that we didn't think it was necessary to bother you with."
"Well, it is now."
"Then, let's do it in the lab, with the doors locked, so those clowns over there can't eavesdrop."
"Good; the last thing I want is for them to hear anything personal."
They went down the hall to the lab, watching the others (who had been peripherally listening to the conversation, for news of Noel) like a hawk. As soon as the door closed, they could hear thumping against the door, as the rest of the squad jockeyed for position.
"Animals."
"But we wouldn't want them any other way," Alex replied, pulling a pendulum out of a drawer.
"True..."
"Okay... Dana, concentrate on the pendulum, while taking steady, even breaths. Relax; clear your mind of all other thoughts." Dana turned out to be very easy to hypnotize, as she was almost in the trance state before Alex could tell her. "When I count to three, you will answer my questions as best you can... One... Two... Three... Dana?"
"Yes?"
"I want you go back to 2017, to the day you first saw Karen Ellison."
"Yes, Alex." Dana's speech seemed to waver, becoming more child-like.
"Where are you?"
"I'm in a room, on a spaceship... I'm scared..."
"Why are you scared, Dana?"
"A man tried to hurt Noel..."
"How was he trying to hurt her?"
"He was undressing her, then..."
"What happened then?"
"Noel was fighting him, and he blew up..."
"Huh? Dana, what happened to him, again?"
"He...he blew up; it was icky..."
"Did someone shoot him?"
"No; Noel just looked at him, and he blew up."
Alex was stunned. It took him almost a minute to ask Dana to continue.
"What happened to you and Noel after the man blew up?"
"Noel grabbed me, and then we fell into another room."
"Fell?"
"We fell off the table, but didn't hit the floor. When I opened my eyes, we were somewhere else."
"How do you know you're somewhere else?"
"There's a window in the room; I can see Earth in it. I hear Noel behind me; she's screaming."
"Why is she screaming?"
"She's... she's getting bigger."
"How much bigger?"
"She looks older than me now; almost as old as Scott..."
"Scott who? Her uncle?"
"Not that old...Dr. Lang's nephew... Scott Bernard..."
"How old is Scott?"
"He's big; almost ten."
"I see. What is Noel doing?"
"She's running away from me. I try to catch up to her, but she runs too fast. I'm alone."
"When does someone find you?"
"Later that day... Karen finds me; she's holding Noel in her arms."
"What does Noel look like?"
"She looks like herself, silly."
"I mean, how big is she?"
"She's back the way she was when the bad men grabbed us."
"Hmm..." Alex was calm on the exterior, but his mind and his insides were doing a fair imitation of the Gordian Knot. "How long do you and Noel stay with Karen?"
"A long time. Mommy said we were gone a month, when she picked us up from Unca Dar's ship."
"When did you first meet your Aunt Marie?"
"A few days after Karen brought noel back, she looked really sad. She poked me with a big needle, and left me and Noel again, in bed. The next morning, she came back with Marie. From then on, Marie took care of me."
"I see." HOLY SHIT... Alex thought. "How did you get to Uncle Dar's ship?"
"Karen got us dressed in our old clothes, then held us. The room was filled with light, and then we were in the elevator of the ship. The door opened, and Karen pushed us out the door. We didn't see Karen or Marie again for another month, and they told us not to tell."
"Okay, Dana. That's enough for now. I'm going to count to three, and when you wake up, you will remember everything we've talked about; understand?"
"Yes."
"One... Two... Three... You are awake."
Dana sat up from her slouched position as if someone had electrified the chair. "Alex, what the hell was that?"
"The truth, apparently."
"I remember something, now. Uncle Scott and Aunt Jean hypnotized Noel and me back then, to try to find out information on the kidnappers."
"Actually, Dana; if what you remembered is right, Scott Freeman's not your uncle or cousin; he's your brother-in-law."
"Huh?"
"Remember that sample Karen took? Karen cloned you. Marie Freeman is your clone, closer in relation to you than if you had an identical twin."
"Why did she do it, and how?"
"As to how, that ship you were on was actually the Factory Satellite. Why she did it, is obvious. She was lonely, now that she was grown up."
"Grown up?"
"You see, you were her best friend, and she was left alone when she grew up, and you didn't. So, she made an adult clone of you."
"Who cloned me? I don't understand."
"Noel did; the REAL Noel. The Noel Freeman we know is a clone. Karen Ellison is the real Noel Freeman."
"Oh my God."
"And now the original Noel has sent a message back to her clone, and something has gone wrong."
"But, how did these changes take place in her? Why did she age the way she did?"
"I don't know. It may have something to do with the powers that Karen Noel exhibited. Teleportation, pyrokinesis; God only knows what else. Those powers must have put an incredible strain on her metabolism. She must have had to eat incredible amounts of food during that period of growth from a five-year-old size to a teenage body. I don't know where her powers came from, for sure, or even how they worked. But, it must be significant that the rapid growth came immediately after the heavy use of them."
"Does Noel have them?"
"I don't know; but I'm willing to bet on the answer being 'yes'. While the powers were the reason Noel was cloned originally, to cover Karen's aging, the message sent back seemed to be a perfect code for the activation of them. Think about it - 'The Sleeper must awaken.' Karen probably corrected the aging flaws, or put the powers to where Noel couldn't access them until after her body could handle them. The real questions are how much of Karen's abilities does Noel have, and where did Karen get the knowledge to operate the cloning chamber - among other things?"
"Noel's going to need us to help her come to terms with this."
"I know; this is even more complex than we could have ever imagined. Unfortunately, she's on her own right now, until her mind stabilizes."
Chapter Nine:
"Synchronistic Fate: the coming together, as if by design, of evidently unrelated phenomena or persons in order to form a clear pattern." - Tristan Jones
17 April, 2030
"Alex, wake up." Alex woke up, to find Dana standing over him.
"What is it, Dana? I've barely had any sleep at all."
"And I'm any different? Anyway, the hospital called; Noel came out of it this morning. They want to keep her for observation for another day, but with luck she'll be released tomorrow morning. By the way, her promotion finally came through; she'll be Corporal Freeman when she gets back. I was wondering if you wanted to ride in with me to the hospital; I was going to visit her while I was there, so you two can have some time together before I visit."
"I thought Marie was in the military hospital?"
"They transferred her to Monument General, to make room for Carpenter's worst cases."
"Makes sense. I can't believe that Sean's actually going after Crystal."
"They do say that opposites attract."
"I wonder how Marie would react to your statement."
"I don't know, except that it wouldn't be nice."
"Noel?" Alex asked from the half-open door. "You up for company?"
"Alex, come in. I'm glad you came in to see me; it's BORING here."
"If you think this is bad, how would you like to be Marie Crystal, bedridden and being romantically pursued by Sean Phillips?"
"Touche. I heard you and Dana did a little research last night."
"Dana mention that? Yeah, we did, but I'm not sure you're ready for what we found."
"Dana didn't tell me; I just know. Just like I already know that I'm a clone of Karen Freeman. I found that out while she helped me repair the accidental damage she did to my mind. It was her idea to tell me who and what I am, by way of the locket, but it wasn't her idea to send an actual part of herself in doing so. I was caught in a very literal personality crisis. It took everything we had, to salvage my sanity."
"What happened to Karen?"
"As far as I know, the real Karen is on the other side of the galaxy, alive and well. As for the part of her in my mind, she merged herself into me. I've retained most of her memories that she brought along, but she's no longer an independent entity. I also incorporated something she'd left behind in my mind, when she left."
"What was that?"
"A guardian spirit, of sorts; based on my parents. Due to her powers developing in the womb, she copied much of our parents' minds, not to mention a bit of her doctors'. That's how she knew to do everything she did, and how I was able to land the shuttle after the Liberty contact mission."
"Do you have Karen's powers as well?"
"No, not really. At least, she didn't tell me of any of them, other than the mental powers and low-level telekinesis. I think she wants me to get used to them, before opening up my access to the more intricate ones."
"Can you tell what I'm thinking?"
"Yes, and you should be ashamed of yourself."
"Cute, Noel."
:"You were the one picturing me nude in this hospital bed. And furthermore, you better get around to checking that hair you found on Bowie. Just because I'm in the hospital for a few days, doesn't mean you can start slacking off."
"Okay, I will."
"You better go; I sense the nurse is getting ready to run another test on me - I've got to fine tune the sensitivity, eventually, or this telepathy's going to get me into trouble. Do me a favor, though; go ahead and move my things into your room. We don't have to worry about my age anymore; as a clone, I fall under the age laws passed for Zentraedi."
"I guess you could look at it that way. Your wish is my command, milady. See you tomorrow."
"I can't wait."
Alex and Dana both overslept the next morning, but for different reasons. Dana's night had been haunted by images of Zor, the Red Bioroid pilot she had encountered on the battlefield more than once. Alex, however, was haunted by the changes he'd seen in Noel. Since her 'possession' by Karen, she seemed more assertive, self-confidant. How much of Noel was left after Karen's accidental intrusion, and how much of Karen remained? And, how would the others react when they found out that Noel could read their minds? It was almost sunrise when he finally fell asleep, and after noon when he finally got up. Luckily, the 15th had the day off, so both he and Dana got away with their unusual sleeping time.
They both ended up in the ready room around sunset, eating their first real meal of the day. Bowie was playing his piano version of the song he had heard Musica play, and Dana went to talk to him, after finishing her dinner. Alex, on the other hand, talked to Louie about setting up the equipment to run the DNA test. Suddenly, the regular routine of the 15th was broken by Sean and Noel running into the room, out of breath. Noel had just gotten out of the hospital, after a string of last-minute tests, and Sean had given her a lift back as he returned from visiting Marie.
"Alex, Dana; come here!" Noel yelled first.
"You guys aren't going to believe this, but do I have a piece of news!" Sean added.
"Spit it out, Sean!" Dana ordered.
"I did some investigating, and found out who the GMP has stashed away on the ninth floor of the hospital. It's a captured Bioroid pilot - a RED Bioroid pilot."
"Did you see him?"
"No, he's under pretty tight security, but somehow Noel was able to find out that it's the same pilot you guys saw out in the Macross Sector."
"Zor? I've got to see him!"
"Heel, Dana; heel..." Alex teased.
"Yeah, Dana. Those Gimps might have some different ideas about that."
"I don't care about them. I've got some questions to ask, and that Bioroid pilot's the only one capable of answering them."
"Yeah, but you'll never get close enough to ask him," Louie chimed in.
"Wanna bet?" Alex snapped back, a devious look in his eyes.
"I don't like the sound of this, Lieutenant," Angie droned.
"I do, Angie. But, Alex, I have a few ideas of my own. Let's get to work on our plans of attack."
"Okay; but first, I need to start that analysis, and let it run while we're at work."
Chapter Ten:
"Without music, life would be a mistake." - Friedrich Nietzsche
18 April, 2030
Getting into the hospital would be easy; getting into Zor's room was a bit harder. The plan was to distract Nova by getting her off the ninth floor, while getting Marie out of her eighth floor room, which by some odd coincidence was directly underneath Zor's. Dan would then climb up the exterior of the building to Zor's room. Meanwhile, Alex and Noel had their own plans.
"Are you sure you can pull this off?"
"Easy as pie, Lover. We take the elevator up to the ninth floor, and just walk into his room. Thanks to one of the powers Karen showed me, the guards will think I'm Nova."
"How?"
"I'll be projecting telepathically that I'm Nova. To them, I'll look and sound like Nova; they won't be able to tell the difference."
"Interesting; but how will that get me by them?"
"Just be in your medical attire and hospital pass, instead of your uniform. After all, you are a xeno-medicine specialist - says so on your ID. All it will take is a word from 'Lieutenant Nova Satori' to give you clearance for the floor and the patient."
"Sounds great; let's hope it works. Tell Dana and her 'not ready for prime time players' to give me an additional ten minutes to change clothes."
"Can I help?"
"Noel, not now!"
"I'm just kidding..."
"No you weren't - I know you too well. Go tell Dana to wait for us, and to give us an additional ten minutes to set up the clearance change."
Alex and Noel just walked into the lobby of the hospital, like normal people. They did a pass-through of the elevator station, where Noel went into her Nova disguise. From there, they rounded the corner, entered the security station, and had Alex's clearance updated. They then returned to the elevators, taking up positions in the plastic plants to wait and watch for Nova's departure.
Meanwhile, Dana's team bluffed their way into the hospital's loading dock, and set up their gear. Five minutes later, Bowie placed a call to Nova, imitating the voice of his godfather's personal secretary, telling her that she was needed at the Ministry Building. When Nova stepped off the elevator, Alex and Noel slipped behind her, and into the elevator. Alex immediately opened the control box with his passkey, and punched in the code for medical override, which would prevent others from stopping or calling that particular elevator for the extent of the trip. The elevator had to be empty, except for the two of them.
At this time, Sean's team was wheeling Marie out of her room. Seconds later, Alex and "Nova" stepped out of the elevator, which (thanks to Alex's keying as he left it) dropped down one floor to the waiting romance party, to take to the roof patio. Angie took control of the elevator, Louie the escape van, and Bowie waited in the lobby in case Nova returned.
"Who are you?"
"Friends, Zor. My name is Noel, and this is Alex. We've come to talk to you. Do you remember anything about the Robotech Masters, or why they've come here?"
"No. Nova asked me that before. Repeatedly. Where did she go?"
"We had to send her off on a diversion. She wouldn't approve of you talking to us."
"Why?"
"For one thing, she's part of the military police, while we're just combat troops who've been fighting you for the last year," Alex quipped.
"Fighting you?"
About this time, Dana pulled herself through the window, disrupting the conversation.
"Don't move, Zor!" Dana announced, pulling out a dart pistol.
"Dana, what are you doing?" Noel asked, shocked by her cousin's action.
"What does it look like?" She pointed the gun at Zor, who turned toward her, and walked up to her. "Stay back! If you don't, I'll fire!"
Zor leaped instinctively, kicking the gun from Dana's hand. She then tried to punch him, but he knocked her to the floor and pinned her there. "Why are you trying to kill me? What have I done?"
"You're responsible for killing men under my command! Haven't they told you?" she gasped, motioning with her head toward Alex & Noel.
Zor seemed surprised by this, and let up a bit on her. Dana took advantage of this, flipping him over her head with her feet, but he landed on his feet. Dana regained her footing and attacked again, only to miss her overplayed attack and be taken down again. When she looked up, Zor had the pistol pointed at her. Dana was glad at this point that it was only a dart gun, not a slugthrower.
"You're the one; the Red Bioroid."
"What are you saying?"
"You're the one we saw in the mounds of Macross - the one who captured Bowie! And the one inside the fortress!"
"Nova told me the same thing. What does it mean - Bioroid?"
"Your memory only works when you're killing my men, is that it? I don't know why I'm even bothering with you, ALIEN!"
"Alien? I'm a human being!" As he spoke, Dana kicked him, slamming him into the wall.
"I was there when you crawled out of that Bioroid! Don't deny it!"
"I won't, then; but I wasn't responsible for what I was doing. You've got to believe me!"
"Who made you do it? Who are they?"
"Can't you see? I've lost my memory..."
Noel had seen enough. "Stop it, you two! Dana, What's gotten into you? You're letting your Zentraedi side loose!"
"Zentraedi..." Zor seemed to recognize the name.
"Uh, girls..." Alex interrupted, from his vantage point by the door. "Something's gone wrong. I hear Bowie and Angie outside. It's their diversionary skit."
"Oh, shit," Dana muttered. Everyone went quiet, and they heard Bowie whistling outside, their signal to scram. Noel returned to Alex's side.
"Zor, we've got to go. You can't remember anything at all?"
"No, it's hopeless... Wait - that music; what is that music?"
"One of my troopers learned it from an alien girl on the fortress."
"Yes, I remember... A girl named Musica."
"That's right!"
"I'm not even sure how I knew that."
"But this is great!" Dana exclaimed, inexplicably changing from a hostile attitude to a supporting one. "It's starting to look like your memory's returning!"
Suddenly, the door opened, and Nova stormed in. "I'll have your bars for this, Sterling!"
Due to their position, Nova didn't see Noel and Alex. Instinctively, Noel held Alex close, and everything blurred. When Alex's vision cleared, they was standing in his quarters.
"What happened?"
"I -I don't know. I was scared, so I grabbed on to you. I was wishing we weren't trapped like that."
"You teleported us."
"Teleported?"
"Sort of like folding, on a smaller scale. Karen could, from what I learned from Dana, but we weren't sure you could."
"I wonder if Dana got away?"
"Try to reach her with your powers."
"I'll try... She's all right; she grabbed her safety line, and slid down it to Marie's room. The others will be back in a half-hour."
Good. Now, let me check on that hair sample. I left the comparison running while we were gone." Alex looked at the answer the machine popped out, and went weak in the knees. "Oh - my - God."
"What is it?"
"Nothing important, Noel; nothing important at all..." Alex sat down, staring at the computer display of the ID match: Zentraedi genetics donor 1269.
