Dandelions: Chapter 2 of 9
Mid-March, 2045
Two weeks ago, they had been a thriving band of resistance fighters. Now they were merely refugees.
There were only ten of them left now: after the destruction of the Quincy base, two had become deathly ill from pneumonia after an unexpected plunge into a creek and had to be left in a village to recuperate, others had to stop at towns on the way because of illness, and still others had deserted in the middle of the night, going back to wherever their homes were. Neither Ulm nor Dennis Zinnert made an effort to stop them, but they did leave them only the early-line Cyclones to take. The rest were closely guarded by either Ulm, Zinnert, Wilson, or O'Shea. The other mecha had been gleaned from the REF Icarus Mission that Second Lieutenant Dennis Zinnert, a Jupiter survivor, had met with, and were extremely difficult to find.
Travel had proceeded at a crawl. They had decided to go eastward for no good reason other than it was the direction they had started travel in; one of those days, they harbored a hope that they could find another spot in which to restart the Elms. The hope was growing thinner by the day; the attack had cracked morale and was part of the reason why they were now only ten.
The tenth they had picked up on the way. She was a slim girl with ivory skin, blazing red hair and amber eyes. She also had a dazzling ability with weaponry, which she said she'd gotten from a survivor of the Jupiter Group. It had saved their lives when they had been ambushed by a trio of Attack Scouts. Suddenly, she'd been there, accounting for two with Annie Oakley-like precision and leaving the third for Fred to pick off. After the obligatory blood screening, they had let her in. It was not as though there was much left for her to betray if she'd been a spy. Besides, Gwendolyn Rutherford was one more gun in a contingent that desperately needed them.
Many of the rest were too ill to fight well. Amanda Pierson was amongst them.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Even more than thirty years after the fact, dust thrown up in the Rain of Death still floated in the Earth's atmosphere, rebolstered by both Invid invasions and to a lesser degree by the Robotech Masters. All this contributed to a climate still frigid within days of the technical beginning of spring, due to a cold snap. Snow had just fallen a couple of days before and the ice had resolidified after an early thaw.
Out on a river, a figure knelt, fixing a line through a hole just chipped through the three-inch-thick ice. Finally, it was completed to satisfaction, and he rocked back on a stool. His breath came out in a pale cloud as he surveyed his surroundings.
"Ecch," Kevin O'Shea muttered. "Cold as me mother's heart, it is." He could barely see out of his hood, thanks to the fur lining it. What little of his face emerged was pinched with cold. He rubbed his nose for a second, making certain it was all there.
He felt a vibration on the ice. "Watch it. You'll scare the fish, you--oh, Matthew!" The formerly guarded pale blue eyes lit up as he turned his head and saw the stocky figure of Lieutenant Ulm, similarly bundled against the cold.
"Hey there. How're you doing?"
"Pretty good, all things considering. Stupid hole took me almost half an hour to chip out. Hope you were right about this being a good perch stream."
"Positive." The lieutenant's bearded face parted in a chuckle. "Didn't you learn anything from the fishing trip back in '39?" Ulm chided. O'Shea snorted.
"Me? I slept. Most boring two weeks of my life. And that's saying something, mon freur." Ulm snorted and pushed at the younger man. Kevin shoved back and then leaned against his leg, letting out a deep sigh.
He opened his eyes again. squinting against the glare of the ice. "How's she doing?"
Ulm's voice dropped. "Fairly well, considering. Miranda shoves more antibiotics down her throat every two hours. Poor girl's so weak she can't walk more than ten yards. I doubt it'll become pneumonia, though."
"I hope not," Kevin said bitterly. "I'm damn near the only sound one left. We wouldn't put up a fight for a retarded Scout." Behind him, Kevin could hear Ulm snuffle. The Elms leader had had a cold for the past week. Kevin had been kept up nights hearing his incessant sneezing.
Matthew's voice was thoughtful. "You like Mandy, don't you?"
Kevin grunted something affirmative.
"Don't like her too much," Ulm warned.
Kevin barked laughter, which bounced off the ice in bitter echoes. His eyes were fixed on the line and the hole in the ice. "Oh, come on! Are you that jealous? It's not like I... Look, if we don't find a decent place to stay in a couple of days, it's going to be a completely moot point." He chafed his half-frozen face. "Like it or not, that attack crippled us."
Matthew crouched down by him. "I know. Saw exactly the same thing in a larger scale with the Southern Cross Army. Idiot Leonard didn't leave enough to defend Earth with after all was said and done."
"Any hope for us? Can we find a town that'll suffer us or some old ruin to shelter us, Matt? I'm really wondering."
Ulm inhaled, then started to sneeze again, while his companion rolled his eyes up to the brutal cerulean heavens. When Ulm had gotten it under control, he continued, "Sure, I hope. It's kept me alive through four invasions and the holocaust. When you despair, you die. Enough said."
"You're so optimistic sometimes it's disgusting."
Ulm grinned.
Kevin's eyes went back to the hole, then popped open as he saw a sharp, telltale jerk. In the next moment his nimble hands were on the line and tugging away, while Matthew occupied himself with reeling it in. In a minute, they produced a fat, sluggish fish that flopped freezing water onto Kevin's pale, exultant face.
"Peerrrrrcchh!" he yodeled.
"Told you so," Ulm drawled.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Have some more, sweetie." Miranda said coaxingly.
"I hate that stuff," Amanda managed to wheeze, then barked a deep, liquid cough, trying to clear her lungs. "Tastes like hell." She slumped further into the bag, shivering despite the presence of the heater a scant two feet away. She had an impression one of the tortures of hell was either catching bronchitis in the first place or the medication used to fight it. Her throat felt like a cheese grater had been taken to it.
Miranda's incessant solicitude came close too.
"Well, you've got to take it so you don't get any secondary infections. Pneumonia is nothing to play with, Amanda."
Amanda shuddered but grudgingly took the syrup she proffered, making a horrific face as she swallowed. She looked up at Miranda, her viridian eyes bright with misery and her freckles standing out sharply against the chalkiness of her skin even in the dimness of the tent. Unthinkingly, she reached up and fingered the stitched wound on her left cheek. Unlike the rest of her, it and the smaller cuts were doing nicely and healing with a minimum of fuss, although Matthew's diagnosis had been that she would carry a scar for the rest of her life.
"Now what?"
"Here's some pills for the congestion." Mandy groaned.
"D'you think we'll try and make some more miles tomorrow?" she asked, shuddering. The last time had been two days ago, when the illness was setting in, and was not among her fondest memories. Miranda's full lips narrowed in thought, then she shrugged.
"Probably. I don't know. We can't stay in one spot too long, or so Matt tells us. Might attract unwelcome attention among the locals, or to the locals, if you know what I mean. Still a lot of Invid symps out there."
"Why are we still going east?" Mandy tugged up the bag, ignoring the proffered pills. "If we keep this up, we'll end up in Reflex Point."
"Where Reflex Point was. There's not much left there now. Few hives but that's it, Mandy. Whoever's or whatever's running this occupation is up in those orbiting hives. Besides, If there's anything that was following us, it might get thrown off if we go in the direction least expected. Trust what Matt and Dennis is doing." When there was a lapse in Amanda's concentration, the other woman shoved a pill between her lips. Outraged, Amanda swallowed it. Grudgingly, she took the second pill the older resistance fighter offered and a drink of water to wash it down.
"Besides, Dennis tells me that out that way is a Protected Zone from the SCA days. Entire area was hit during Dolza's Rain of Death."
"We're going there?" As a child of the post-Rain period, Mandy had had it drummed into her from infancy never to go in certain areas because of the lingering radiation of the countless blasts of the wars and of the Rain. She was appalled. "What's wonderful about dying from cancer?"
Miranda snorted. "Dennis' guess is that the background radioactivity has died down by now. It's been thirty years, mind you, and the radiation had a short half-life. It should be safe." She grunted as a followup note. "Besides, I never trusted anything the SCA said after finding out the entire bit about the Macross mounds being radioactive was a bureaucratic mixup. Maybe all this time..." She trailed off.
Mandy went into some more experimental, futile hacking. After coughing, she noted, "D'you mean there might be a place to start again?" She blinked woozily.
"Out there? Maybe. I hope so. Plus weaponry, goods left behind, who knows? We've got little to lose at this point."
A scratch came from the tent flap. Kevin poked his hooded head in, letting in a gust that forced Mandy to wrap the bag around her more tightly. He eased inside, sealing the entrance behind himself.
"Just caught dinner. Malcolm's cooking it right now."
"What is it?" Miranda asked.
"Fish. Few perches, plus a rabbit our new friend Gwen got."
Fish. Fresh fish, warm, salty, hot fish... Mandy shuddered in horror as her raw throat lived through the idea.
"How're you doing?" Kevin asked, taking his hood down to run fingers through his unwashed hair with a grimace.
"Fish. My throat will curse you." Amanda made a face at him. He looked contrite.
"I've got some anaesthetic for it," Miranda supplied helpfully. Mandy gave her a dirty look.
"Any more medicine and I'm going to bleed it." Mandy shrugged however.
"Malcolm's cooking. I can bully him into making it bland for you." Miranda's brother, younger by three years, was the de facto chef of the Elms and liked it that way. Unlike many millitary cooks, he could actually make good food, a point of great pride to him.
Mandy shuddered. She privately thought that even water would have gone down like sandpaper.
"You have to eat. Keep up your strength." Kevin nodded in confirmation.
"Yeah. Matt swears by fresh fish. Of course, this is a man who thinks Nirvana is a hundred pound test line." He snickered privately.
Mandy subsided into her pillow, blinking in exhaustion. She coughed again, too tired to do else except accept the medicine Miranda gave her with a little nod. Miranda then slithered out the tent entrance, on her personal agenda to browbeat her brother.
"I wish people would quit drafting in all this cold," she chattered, muttering querulously.
"Sorry about that," Kevin sighed, rubbing his hands against the heater. "You've got the best heater, like it or not. Then again, you're one of the sickest." After getting the feeling back to extremities to his satisfaction, the Elms scout sat by her, feeling her brow. "Ye gods, you're hotter than six-alarm chili."
"Knew it was going to be a doozy when I almost fell off the Cyc a couple days ago. What'd you expect?" Kevin chuckled.
"Yeah. I got to ride it and carry you. I miss my Forager," he added a bit wistfully. Kevin's favorite mecha had been a casualty of the Invid attack back at Quincy. He had been forced in the heat of the moment to take the only Ferret instead. While a more heavily armed mecha, as well as a much faster one, he still had not properly adjusted to it. The Forager was one of the most easily maintainable pieces of Terran Robotechnology around. Kevin, as a self-described mechanical moron, had liked that more than arms or speed.
Amanda sighed, not entirely in weariness. Even after more than three months, the sour taste of thwartedness was still there. The comforting, casual touch heightened it as well as soothed her aching, fevered head.
Lieutenant, you're such a lucky scum...
"When I get better...D'you think I could get a little more practice in? I still think that Scout was a fluke. Plus, I'm not certain if I'm comfortable with the idea of shifting modes on the Cyc yet. And you said that being able to do it on a cinch and navigate it was important."
"It is. It's vital. This isn't the place or time to do it though. And you're not up to it. But I don't," he paused, "think the Scout was a fluke. I knew what I was doing, to be conceited here."
Mandy sighed again. "I'm gonna get you sick if you stick around."
"Naaaaah. Positive you won't. Legendary O'Shea constitution. Great-Aunt Fiona lived to eighty. Through the Rain too. Nice knack."
"Sherry's hacking her lungs out and she said she hadn't gotten sick since she was eight."
"Them's the breaks. But what the hell? I can stay here until Malcolm's done with dinner. Shouldn't be more than twenty minutes, and I can take yours back to you. Want to hear how my day was? I know how yours went." He rolled his eyes theatrically.
Mandy gave a wheezing giggle, then let him segue into his story, tired and relieved.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Hold the salt on Mandy's," Miranda suggested.
Malcolm Jones Altman grunted abstractedly, his eyes fixed on the hissing skillet over the small campfire. In it was some rabbit meat and a fillet that had two hours ago comprised part of the perch Kevin had caught.
"Like we have any seasonings left," he grumbled after a minute, flipping the fish. "But yeah, your highness." He grinned and dodged his elder sister's swat. Proceeding to ignore her, he stared into the fire, blunt fingers scraping the kinky stubble he had finally let grow on his chin. Malcolm often suffered from razor bumps, one of the great curses of the male of African descent, and without a decent razor he did not feel the frigid air tormenting his face was worth the trouble of being clean-shaven. After a second, he considered, carefully opened a sealed plastic container, and sprinkled some of his dwindling supply of dried parsley on the browning fillet. He lifted his face and studied the three people across the fire, some ten feet away.
Matthew and Dennis were in conference with the newest member of the depleted Elms, sitting on two felled logs, their breath steaming into the air. They were deep in conversation.
"...As we see it, there's growing indications that the Invid seem to be doing a concerted crackdown on both the organized resistance and on settled towns and enslaving the civilian population for work. We told you about what happened to the Quincy base, and about the refugee we got some months ago. Her arrival was the first unsettling indication, and the attack was just icing on the cake. With what you say happened to Cairo, and Paducah...." Matthew's voice trailed off into a silence that said more eloquently of the carnage envisioned than any mere noise could.
The slender, strong hands, muffled by heavy wool gloves, wrung a moment. Their owner looked over both at Matt and then at Dennis. The second-in-command of the Elms was silent, his brown eyes moving from Lieutenant to woman and then took them both in.
"I did say that," Gwen Rutherford confirmed in a lazy Kentucky drawl. "The bugs came for 'em one day, and the Enforcers started roundin' up the populace. Naturally, the resistance came to rescue them, and they were pounded into roadkill." Her formerly unaffected voice paused. "At least, this time they didn't kill the kids like your girl said happened to hers."
Dennis paused. "So they captured both towns?"
"Most of them, yeah, honey. The resistance did mess em' up enough that some of both managed to escape. But those Terminators--," by which she meant the Invid Sentinel, a near constant bodyguard to the Enforcer, "did for 'em right enough before the linebackers moved in."
Dennis sighed, rubbed at his eyes, then looked back up. He was one of those sorts whose appearance was average to the point of invisibility, but those blue-shadowed, creased brown eyes had looked on the landscapes of half-a-dozen worlds. Matthew had never even left Earth.
"Wish I could say that was done out of mercy, Gwen, but I have a bad suspicion the children were taken as ransom and a blackmail to keep the parents obedient. That's just what the Invid Regent did on Karbarra to the native people there."
Gwen's pale, oval face with its large, almost exotically slanted amber eyes twitched. "Yeah, I figured that was it, although I didn't need no big horned bears to remind me." Zinnert ignored the dig. "I dropped some pretty important information to the surviving resistance on how to get 'em out of the farms and hives, though." A slow, slightly self-satisfied smile crossed her face. "Wouldn't ya know, it worked for Cairo at least. Still figuring out how they'd get Paducah without hurting the kids before I left."
Matthew's eyebrows rose. "Oh? How do you know?" His lips narrowed.
"Needn't give me dirty looks, leader-man. I'm not a symp any more than you are. I was prisoner on a protoculture farm and then in a hive near the end of the last war. Got me up close and personal to the ugly suckers." A shadow crossed her face. "Still remember too much."
Matthew reached out and patted her hand. "Experimentation?"
"Yeah. Sort of. They took blood and skin samples, but nothin' else. I know I'm among the lucky." Matthew looked mollified, although a trace of suspicion lingered on Dennis' face.
"Well, at least we know enough to expect some nasty things in the near future." He sighed. "We're not exactly in the shape to do anything at the moment, but we need to keep low."
"Continue east?" Ulm asked.
Zinnert nodded. "And go a bit north. We need to avoid open roads like the plague, and keep everything on fusion. Using snares instead of the Gallants to snag game is preferable. The one thing that seems to stay the same no matter the scenario is that you can stand in the open stock-still, with no Protoculture radiation, and they'll go right over you. Unless..." His mouth thinned, keeping in mind that there were those among the Invid now that no longer relied on protoculture to track and kill...
"Bad," he murmured. Having served in the Sentinels campaign, he had some basis of comparison. "Any way we can get the word out?"
Matthew thought. "There's ways. I've got contacts, so I can help spread the word. But you're right," his voice softened, "there's something very dark at work here."
Gerald stomped back into camp, and Malcolm's attention was diverted, just in time to see Frederick's retreating back head out to take over sentry duty. Masochistically enough, the man's medium-blond head was bare in the freezing temperatures, even though Malcolm could hear him snuffle a bit with what he presumed was the cold being passed around the remaining Elms.
He really didn't know much about Fred or his past. He held a silence and aloofness about matters, which precluded conversation and which Malcolm nervously considered a prime characteristic of mass murderers of the last century. The main thing Malcolm remembered was that every time the Invid were mentioned, Fred's gray eyes would glaze over into a quiet hate that trickled coldness down Malcolm's spine.
I wonder what makes him like that. Then again, maybe I don't want to know...
Gerald began to stomp over to the fire, all three hundred pounds of him making themselves felt while he slapped feeling back into his hands and cheeks. He jerked to a halt when he saw Kevin slither out of Amanda's tent and make his way over to the fire, as Malcolm was dishing out the now-cooked fish. Quite deliberately, Gerald turned his back toward the other man; Kevin did not notice except for a slight shrug of green-clad shoulders. He knew full well the big man had only cordial dislike for him at the best of times and had so for five years.
"Here it is, unsalted." Malcolm passed the plate into O'Shea's waiting hands. Kevin gave him a thankful smile, prompting a return grin from Malcolm. As opposed to Gerald's sulleness or Fred's quiet fury, Malcolm liked the man, his sexuality nonwithstanding. He appreciated anyone who managed to keep a light mood in the misery of this filthy war.
"Thanks a lot, Malcolm. It's almost a pity to give it to her now--she's gone and fallen asleep, she's so tired. Poor thing." Kevin sighed, letting out a blast of steam.
"Either that, or let it get cold. She needs the nutrition." Malcolm spoke it with a little affection. He'd come to see Amanda as a bit of a pet in the months since she had arrived. She had certainly made a great deal of progress in the arts of war. He suspected Kevin had something to do with the fact that Malcolm could now trust her in training with an H-90 without inadverdently blowing off her foot. And that Scout... Malcolm shrugged. Amazing what a little puppy love can do, he thought, remembering certain events of his youth and smiling while remembering the same attitude Mandy sometimes had toward Kevin.
Damn, this place is a soap opera... He rolled his eyes as the thought and laid on the next fillet as Kevin went back into Amanda's tent with her food.
oooooooooooooooooooo
She lay asleep on the floor, swaddled up to the neck, the heater going full blast and not making much of a dent in the chill of the interior. Kevin stood and looked down at her thoughtfully, the fish steaming in the frigid air. She turned and sighed, a bit wheezily.
Kevin knew he was going to hate himself for waking her up; she needed the sleep just as much as she needed the food, and she'd been miserable the past couple days from her bronchial infection and unable to rest. This was the first sign it was getting a bit better. Since there was talk of another move east tomorrow, she needed her energy.
Kevin studied her features, noting that even the healing slashes across her face and the ravages of privation, grief, and illness hadn't taken away the heart-shaped farmgirl prettiness of the face in its straight mane of blond hair and the slightly tilted eyes. Sleeping, she looked her age again.
Sighing, he squatted and moved a hand to wake her, but hesitated as her eyelids fluttered and she stirred a little.
"Gracie?" she murmured. "Here..." The weak light illuminated a little moisture coming from under her lashes.
The food forgotten, he swallowed and leaned back, staring into space and choked by a heavy sick emotion he knew the name of but did not want to admit..
oooooooooooooooooooo
Bow down before the one you serve
you're going to get what you deserve
--Nine Inch Nails, "Head Like a Hole"
ORYO'I!
The recipient winced at the telepathic bellow.
It seemed her lord was going into another of his fits. After shaking her head in a futile effort to clear it, she reached out and answered, her mind carefully neutral.
Yes? You called?
What do you think I was doing, you little fool? I want you in the Hive command center immediately.
"I hear and follow, Lord Shkud." she said out loud in High Opteran. She quickly clamped down on any emotions. He was able to feel any of the Hive to a far greater extent than she, and Mother help her if he knew how she felt. Shkud was notoriously bad-tempered, and tended to relish his subordinates' discomfiture.
Shoulders twitching, Oryo'i turned and began to walk inward toward the Orbital Hive's core, her long white hair stirring in the air convection.
This was the first time since she had returned from planetside that he had deigned to contact her. The intervening time had been, had the Invid understood the concept, a hell of ignorance. A cold sensation was crawling up her vitals.
She was unarmored, not expecting any human attacks on the hive, and her paneled flightsuit with its identifying colors of dark gray, carmine, and orange nearly blended into the dimly-lit, dull red organic tunnel of the hive. Above it, her pale hair seemed to glow in comparison, her skin almost as fair as it and tightly covering a face ferally thin and delicate in appearance. After all, Oryo'i was one of the Queen-Mother's prize children, evolved into something entirely unlike lower Invid.
As she made her swift way into the interior, not wishing her lord's irate thoughts to break into her mind again, Oryo'i passed.several of the Malarosm, armored and unarmored, and their attendant Gamir, going about the business of maintaining the hive. All genuflected as she went, which she acknowledged with a nod. Internally, all she felt was a hollow feeling as they did so. It was not her orders they followed, not any more.
She and her brethren had been the pinnacle of evolution.
Then came Shkud and the others...
Just as the contact with Shkud's mind was beginning to grow even more irate, she entered into the command room. Oryo'i breathed a quiet sigh of relief. She knew she been very lucky when Shkud had decided not to devolve her for the debacle of half a lunar orbit ago, and she did not want to provoke him further. After getting a glimpse of the tall figure and the way it paced around in the room, she was glad she had arrived when she had.
Shkud whirled on her even before she was entirely inside. It was fairly dim inside the center, so at first all Oryo'i could see of the hivelord was a vague impression of a lean, predatory silhouette, the Kulagi-type dermasuit patterned in black, dark red and neon green, his face framed by past shoulder-length hair the color of bloody flame.
"What took you so long?" he snapped.
Oryo'i, choking down a very un-Invid response, knelt and lowered her orange eyes submissively. "Forgive me. I had to walk, and came as quickly as I could."
"Well," he sniffed. He stared down at the top of her bowed head in distaste. "I am still not--pleased--at the stupidity you took upon." His eyes, a perfect match to the green portions of his rainment, narrowed. "And without my approval.
"You are quite lucky, little Solugi. Some of my brethren apparently think slightly better of your worthless reputation than I do. Personally, I very much wished at the time to order you to the Genesis Pits." The subordinate Invid could not quite hide a shudder, which the commander took in with a thin smile of enjoyment. "However, some decided to think otherwise. And one must follow the dictates of the Hive." It was his way of saying he had given in without actually admitting it, as Oryo'i knew and tried to keep from the forefront of her mind. Struggling, she tried to explain.
"But they should not have been notified! I have no idea how..."
"I know. Most interesting. Which is why I have decided to relocate you on the planet, in one of the local hives under my command. Perhaps you can indulge your curiosity on the subject there."
What he meant was that he was demoting her. Back into the fighting, back most likely into an agonizing, messy death by some human mecha. Unlike most of the Kulagi overlords and many of her fellow Solugi, Oryo'i was willing to admit humans were very much capable of damage, and that she could be on the receiving end of it.
The evolution of the Invid by the Queen-Mother into the dominant life form of the planet they were occupying had had unexpected effects on their mental processes; triggering reactions, perceptions and feelings previously unknown and often terrifying to those experiencing them. It had shattered the Invid unity, turning what had used to be the One into the Many. One of those new feelings was currently making itself known to Oryo'i.
She didn't want to die.
It was all very well for the unevolved to give themselves up for the survival of the hive, but Oryo'i had found since her transmutation into this alien body that there was an Oryo'i whose continued existence she valued. But that was not the Invid way. One did as one was told, no second-guessing or questions asked, for the Hive was all.
All this passed through her mind in a microsecond, as she rose to her feet and looked foward unblinkingly, intentionally not seeing Shkud's gaze on her face.
"You may get your Gamun refueled before you leave and get the hive coordinates logged into your mecha. I wish you restationed by the next time that area enters the sun. Do not fail me or the Invid again, or you will certainly have the Genesis Pit in your future."
"Do I at least get a guard of Torab to the surface?" she dared.
"I think not. Getting to the surface by yourself will be an educational experience for you, Solugi. Perhaps the next time you will not be so quick to defy my orders."
And if she got killed on the way down, he'd have his hands washed of her. Unblinkingly, she genuflected, pivoted, and made her way past the crowd of monitoring Malar, hardly noticing the second figure behind Shkud as she did so. Perhaps an observer might have noticed just before she entered the shadows of the outside a slight shudder that might have been fear.
Shkud turned back to his companion. "Well, then, now that I have that slight distasteful business taken care of, what were you telling me about the Flower shipments, sister?"
There was a slight contralto "hmm," of consideration from the slim figure in the brown, burgundy and aqua scheme. Shagged, shoulder-length pale green hair luffed foward as she inclined her head, her eyes the unnerving brightness of brushed aluminum.
"In actuality, brother, there has been a marked increase since we altered our policy these past few lunar cycles as regarding the planet. The humans seem to respond quite--well to a show of force." She paused. "I believe, to digress, that your treatment of your subordinate was a bit--extreme."
"She defied orders!" Shkud snarled. "Would you value one who not only executed an operation on a minor human resistance base without your permission, but also managed to get her entire unit destroyed by some puny mecha piloted by punier monkeys, Lady Asaav? I said once and I said again that that type of behavior can not be tolerated among our ranks. You know full well that many of the Solugi are not obedient. We cannot encourage subversion."
Asaav gave him a hard stare. "Unlike those you speak of, Oryo'i has always been loyal to the cause, and unlike many of those loyal to the cause, she has a marked gift for taking initiative. Personally, I believe that the action that you find foolish, while not normal, shows an admirable talent for improvisation on her part. Furthermore, her plan seemed to be sound. Events simply did not humor it."
"Destroyed by a tiny resistance base is not humoring by events? How new!" Shkud said sarcastically. Asaav's lips narrowed for a second, before she continued.
"She did destroy the base, brother. The humans would be adrift without one. And do you not remember, it was a 'tiny' resistance force that convinced Our Mother that this would not be the world to gain our enlightenment on? I think that teeth can be found in the strangest places."
"Think what you like then. I wish to hear no more of it." Shkud turned away.
I take it, Shkud, you do not like to hear of things you cannot have control over, or admit there are such things? Asaav thought, behind her mental shields.
Quietly, her mind went out and momentarily touched one of the Malar overseeing Oryo'i's departure for Earth. She ascertained that while the Solugi had not yet left, she was in the full swing of preparations. Asaav decided to add her own features to it.
See that she gets two Torab to go with her, she ordered, then broke the connection before Shkud noticed, her silver eyes bright with satisfaction.
There, what will you think of that, Shkud?
oooooooooooooooooooo
Three days later
"Oof," Mandy grunted, as Sherry's Forager came down after a lurch into the air thanks to an inconvenient log. She was beginning to feel quite ill. She had started to regret choosing to ride pillon with the other woman about two minutes after the beginning of the day's trek: Shiroikiku might have more Invid kills than anyone save Gerald, Matthew, and Dennis, but she most certainly did not know the meaning of taking the path of least resistance when riding on a Cyclone.
Mandy's tailbone slammed hard on the seat. She winced in pain.
Well, maybe the good thing is that it'll shake the garbage out of my windpipe, she thought. She coughed deeply, to no success. The worst of the illness seemed to be behind her, thanks to the antibiotics and decongestants. The mucus it had produced remained behind to clog the breathing and to get nauseatingly coughed up, causing a quaint phenomenon that Sherry, a fellow sufferer, ever-so-tactfully called "harvesting lung potatoes." The rest also didn't trust her on her own Cyclone yet, after the near-disaster of five days ago. Her Forager, along with the rest of the unpiloted Cyclones, was being towed in a carrier by the Elms' only Samson, driven by Gerald.
Sherry found another boulder to flip off of, and Amanda swore. Any more of this and she would get her face torn open again. Time to ask Matthew if she could have her mecha back...
All of a sudden, Dennis, at the point position, slowed and halted. The rest followed suit, leaving Amanda to rub her smarting rear and to clear the lingering misery from her head.
She belatedly noticed there was a barrier in front of them, a dirt tumulus stretching out to either side and disappearing in the bare underbrush, some ten feet tall and topped by rusted electrical wire that had obviously been dead for years.
Dennis dismounted and scrambled up the earthen wall's sloping side. At the top, he seemed to search, eventually uncovering a fallen sign off to the side. It was almost illegible, but at long last he stood up and gave a nod.
"This is it."
They'd reached the Protected Zone barrier.
"You'd think it would be...better sealed," Amanda murmured.
Shiroikiku grunted. "Perimeter used to be patrolled by the SCA before the Invid. And the RDF before that. Didn't want anybody fucking around inside and getting radiation poisoning." She barked a cough.
"What about since?"
"Can't hurt to try and see. Looters can't have gotten everything. And there may still be buildings left standing."
Dennis came back down. "Checked the radiation levels. There's nothing unusual so far, but if it gets about a healthy level of millirem we're not going any further. Let's go."
He cut the wire, leaving an opening wide enough for the rest to scramble up the side of the wall, pushing their Cyclones, and then to slide over into the mess caused by the remelt of the snow. The cold spell had snapped, and this time it seemed spring might have a tenative toe in the door. There was some swearwords as the traction went thanks to the slippery slope and people ended up slithering on their rears, almost having their mecha fall on them on the way down. Dennis widened the opening for Gerald and his towed equipment, and the rest watched carefully as the massive, blocky Samson slowly grumbled down, the trailer's wheels partially braked so it and its load of eight Cylones and miscellaneous millitary weaponry and ammo would not slide on top of either man or mecha. Malcolm followed, his combat Cyclone towing a slightly lighter load of food and supplies. Then...
"That's it," Dennis noted.
There was still a rough track on this side, although it had been grown over in the intervening three decades since the Rain of Death. Fortunately, the late winter still left the area reasonably free of undergrowth To Amanda's eyes, the locale this side looked no different than what was on the other, thirty years having covered the scars of the hasty barricading efforts. In the distance, the track disappeared into the naked trees.
They remounted, muddy and grumbling, and continued on, going slowly on fusion. A few muttered complaints by Amanda had Shiroikiku grouch a response, but at least from that point on, the little Asian-descent controlled her driving habits.
They drove on for some two or three miles, in a deceptively bright if chill day, with no noticable changes. Even so, the knowledge of what they were entering gave Amanda sweaty palms. Ingrained habits were hard to break.
Then, the patchy woods began to give way to buildings.
"My God..." she murmured.
"It doesn't look like it's been touched at all," Sherry said distantly.
True, thirty years of neglect had caused pavement to crack and shatter, trees to sprout in the strangest places, and structures to sag, buckle and warp, but there was no sign of bombing or air strikes. There was also no sign of human presence. There was the infrequent chirp of sparrows, numerous squirrels and rabbits looking at them in animal interest, but other than that, the Cyclone motors hummed on in a deathly silence.
Amanda and Sherry stared around them, haunted looks on their faces. They were not the only ones. In back, Gerald crossed himself, Fred looked on in stony silence, Gwen's lips narrowed, and Kevin swallowed convulsively. The Altman siblings murmured quietly amongst themselves as Miranda rode next to Malcolm. Matthew's face was set grimly at the sight. Of them all, only Dennis seemed somewhat unaffected.
"Perhaps we ought to case the area," he began.
"Uh, if it's all right with you," Gwen said for once diffidently, "I'd rather stick together. No tellin'--you know." There was a murmured chorus of assent from the others.
Dennis shrugged. "East?" Matthew nodded. They continued onward.
The buildings began to grow taller, congregating around a street which still had a mangled sign marked "NE-- -T." on a corner. They passed and it began to taper off again, although the buildings still had the look of an urban area. They had to dodge potholes, shattered pavement, and once or twice, thriving, thirty year-old maples cracking the roadway. It continued on this way for a few miles. Suddenly, Dennis held up a hand.
"I'm detecting radiation. It's weak, though; just a notice." They went on.
Almost as one, a chorus of gasps, curses and exclamations rose as the sight suddenly hit them. Before them, they saw the reason why the city had been abandoned.
Half of it no longer existed.
The crater was a mile and a half of fused rock and glass that stretched into a round bowl before them. Rains had turned it into a lake that glittered with deceptive purity in the sunlight and cloudless sky, and undergrowth had managed to spring up around the margins. Only the lake's shape and the partially melted buildings around its perimeter indicated its true nature. From the age of the thing, it looked to be a direct result of one of the blasts of Dolza's attempt to wipe out life on the Earth.
While the rest of them looked numbly on, Dennis drove the remaining two hundred and fifty yards to the margin of the crater/lake, then crouched and measured both the ambient radiation and tested the water in the toximeter he had with him. It was a good five minutes before he made his way back.
"There's radiation, but Matthew and I were right; it's an isotope with a short half-life, and the radioactivity isn't likely to give us problems. Actually, the water has even less radiation than suspected; it's drinkable, but I'd strongly say we run it through a purifier first. And it wouldn't be a smart idea to stay here for extended periods." Matthew nodded in assent, then looked thoughtful, scraping a hand through a week's worth of stubble.
"Obviously, going on this way is out of the question. Do we go around, south, back, or north?"
Dennis shrugged. "No opinion. Wish we had an Alpha, though; we might have been able to get a look then. We don't and we can't, however."
Ulm made a face, his features wrinkling across fault lines of past stress. His hazel eyes were cautious. "At least, I think there's no nearby hives. We haven't seen any Invid activity for eight days now, so I doubt there's any out here. And there's no sign of the Flower of Life, either."
"Plus the bloody things stand out like zits," Gerald mumbled in response. Matthew startled, then grinned at the big man.
"Yeahhh... Let's put it to a vote."
The results were four north, one back, two around and three south. Ulm hemmed.
"About equal for north and south. Let's divide by who voted. I'll take north, Dennis south. Miranda, Gwen, Fred, you go with him. Kev, Mandy, Gerald, go with me. Malcolm, Sherry, you're going to have to find a place to stay with the garbage. When do we meet?"
"Let's say 1600 hours. It's 1100 now, and it ought to give us enough time to look around and then find a place to stay for the night. Check in every half-hour on the net, and holler if help is needed." Zinnert looked questioningly at Matthew, who nodded agreement.
oooooooooooooooooooo
After a quick meal, the Elms divided, leaving Sherry and Malcolm to their devices in a building away from the crater. Amanda managed to beg back her Forager, and gratefully remounted, falling in with the rest.
It was still a bit jouncy due to the ravages of time on pavement, but far better than the open fields and woodland they'd traversed in the last three weeks. They made fairly good time down the streets, even with a stop every once in a while to scan the area for goods or potential habitation. It was disappointingly sparse. The surviving residents had obviously been rapidly evacuated by what remained of the UEG after the Rain, but they had made a thorough job of taking their belongings with them.
Kevin dropped back down by Amanda after an hour or so, when the buildings were beginning to get sparse. "How're you doing?" he said over the engine grumble.
"Pretty good, all things considering. Like I was still wondering about the use of living twenty-four hours ago." Kevin grinned.
"Yeah. I know the feeling. I remember my first hangover." Mandy chuckled.
"Thought you'd be up there with the Lieutenant." Kevin's smile dimmed a little, and he gestured with his chin at Gerald's broad back. "Oh."
He pulled his Ferret over another foot, dropping his voice as much as possible. "With him giving dirty looks at me? Fat chance." Mandy was a bit chastened to realize that although she knew full well of Gerald's attitude toward Kevin and his relationship with Matthew, she'd never thought Kevin might have had a similar antipathy toward Gerald.
Kevin's voice was thoughtful. "I just wish that he'd be a little more...accepting. I'm not asking any special treatment, you know." Amanda nodded. "Just because Matthew's my...friend...doesn't mean I'm getting favors."
"Always did think he was kind of grouchy."
"Can't help what he is, which is terminally grouchy." He paused, as the buildings began to drop away. They saw the other two turn left, and they followed suit. "I care about Matthew very much, and he does for me, which is kind of amazing. Actually, I think the entire Elms is his family." His voice grew soft. "It really hit him hard when Dalby, Blume and the others were killed and the rest left because they gave up. They--and we--are the only kids he has."
Mandy racked her brains, getting only mangled images of the hellish first days after they were forced to flee. "He didn't show it. He kept on leading, just like always."
"He puts on a good facade. I know."
"Does he have any brothers or sisters that he told you?"
Kevin thought about it. "One brother, who was a Jesuit priest, and a married sister. Both died when the Invid invaded the first time." He sighed. "Probably why he took such a liking to you. He knew what it was like." Mandy nodded, remembering her family.
And I alone am escaped to tell thee...
"Then there's Dennis," He snorted.
"Yup. Never met a man more dull in my life." Mandy muttered. He chuckled.
"Yup, his objection to me is the age differential. My objection to him is that apparently the last time he showed any emotion was when Malcolm mistook him for the furniture. Gad! But what really annoys me is--oops, watch it," as they nearly missed the others turning on what used to be an old highway, dividing the wrecks of what used to be department stores and restauraunts, "is his indifference to the planet."
Her brows furrowed, she turned on him. "What?"
Kevin made a sour face. "He was born on Earth, grew up on Mars, went from there to the REF, went over half the Fourth Quadrant playing Lone Ranger to the Sentinels races and their pets, so guess what happens? No connection to any world. The joker's more Tirolian than Terran. Earth," he said in disgust, "is just another job for him. And this is the world he came from." He spat over to the side of the road.
"But certainly his combat experience means something, Kevin."
"What experience? Matthew fought his ass off during the last war, and was in the SCA before that. He has just as much if not more combat experience than Zinnert, and he outranks him too. Zinnert also gives him a more cosmopolitan-than-thou attitude every so often. Makes me want to kick his teeth in. 'Course, I'm being loyal."
"Where were you stationed, then?"
"Cushy rear-line desk job, is how I'd put it."
She paused a few minutes, as the buildings began to drop away again to young woods and open countryside and they turned, and turned again.
"Uh, what does Matt's fighting on Earth have to do with anything?"
Kevin made a face and shrugged under his CVR armor. "To paraphrase Earth history, why did the colonists fight on in the American Revolution and win? Why did the Vietnamese manage to eject a force that was vastly more powerful than it? Why did the Afghanis manage to kick out the old Soviets?" He paused. "Two facts: All of 'em knew the territory and the enemy didn't, and all of 'em loved that land so much they were willing to die for it. Dennis is gonna get his ass killed if he doesn't understand the meaning of those two little facts in his heart." His voice grew from peeved to angry. "Hell, even I..." He broke off, looking alarmed.
"Huh? What were you saying?"
Instead of answering, he let out a long, drawn-out whistle.
She followed his gaze, and her eyes widened at the brick monolith they were pulling towards. She stared and kept on staring as the four pulled to a halt just outside it.
"What is it?" she whispered, as the engines went off.
"If Matt told me right," Kevin said, "it's an old shopping mall."
Mandy shoved back her visor, and stared further. "You mean...one of those big closed buildings with all those little shops they had way back when?"
Kevin nodded. Mandy puffed breath in awe.
Matthew motioned them over, and they dismounted and complied.
"Okay, folks. We may have something here. We'll have to case the area to make certain it hasn't been broken into, and then we'll see if we can get inside and see if there's anything we can salvage." Gerald raised a gauntleted hand.
"Probability of goods?" he asked.
Ulm thinned his lips. "When Dolza bombarded the planet, it was nighttime here, thus the 'Night of Fire' that we remember here. I ought to know; I was ten at the time. This means that every major business here had to be closed then, including this. From the looks of things, people were so hot to get out after the local blast they didn't stop to loot anything inconvenient. Furthermore, there still doesn't seem to be any marks of civilization or human presence since then, this place included. All of this, and the only conclusion I can draw is we may be looking at the single biggest cache of goods in the entire Midwest of this continent."
Gerald mumbled a slightly disbelieving profanity. Matthew shrugged.
"Can't hurt to look." He wandered over to the the entranceway in front of them, an absurdly small set of four glass swinging doors compared to the huge sunken brick awning they were under. He prodded at them experimentally.
Mandy wet her lips. "Matthew--Lieutenant--is this what you and Dennis were looking for?"
He looked up, a bit surprised. "Not exactly, hon, but I knew of a few towns in the protected area--or that used to be there before. This was the largest. And it wasn't just this building. We knew of other possible sources in the area. But this baby--" he patted the door he was examining--"was the consumer paradise of the twentieth century. Hey Kevin, got any picks on you? The damn thing's locked." He looked up at the other two. "You guys, take off and have a look around the other entranceways. See you in half an hour."
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Oh, my god," Miranda Altman whispered.
As the others began to file in and search the shell of what had once been a room, she fell to her knees, surrounded by books. Rotting, molding, roach-eaten books. She was in a morgue containing the corpses of centuries of human learning.
"Oh, man, the waste..."
It hadn't taken them long to find, a half-mile or so from the crater, the shells of university buildings and within them what they had once contained. Fortunately, they had not yet found any human remains yet, but the paper and silicon remains were almost as bad in Miranda's eyes. Once upon a time, in a more hopeful year, she had pursued a doctorate. And then the Robotech Masters came, with the Invid hot on their heels....
"What's the matter?" Gwen asked.
"Look at this. All ruined," Miranda told the redhead flatly.
"So were human lives. That's more important." Gwen said finally.
Miranda bit her lips, her brown face showing the strain. "Okay, but you can replace human lives, Gwen. But this--" She waved a helpless hand around the dark, mildew-reeking room. "You...you can't replace knowledge."
She still did not look like she totally understood. Yet another post-Rain kid, happy in her ignorance, Miranda thought bitterly. God damn the stupid fucking Robotech wars, God damn them. They've put us all the way back into the seventeenth century. And where was the God-damned REF when we needed them most? At least Miranda herself had managed to keep her curiousity alive, despite her upbringing.
Miranda picked up a fallen title, the type barely legible from water stains, and managed to make out a fragmented title: -he Orig-n of Spe--es. She was thankful. If it had been Shakespeare she probably would have started crying.
Malcolm had never had the kind of intellectual drive his elder sister had, although he was no slouch mentally. Miranda knew full well that he and Shiroikiku had probably managed to find...other diversions by now. They had been an item for the past several months. Somehow, it only made her angrier. When Dennis came up behind her, it was all she could do not to turn and snarl at the REF veteran.
"Yeah, what do you want?" Her voice still came out harshly, and his eyes widened. He had remarkable compusure, though.
"We're going to go further south. If we're going to use any of these places for habitation, we need to find a spot that's more stable and drier." Miranda premptority nodded and dropped the ruined text where she found it, squeaking to her feet in her armor.
She sucked in the fresh wind when they emerged. The mildew inside had begun to make her eyes run. Grabbing hold of her Cyclone's handlebars, she proposed, "Let's walk."
Dennis shrugged, and Miranda was seconded by Gwen, and surprisingly enough, even Fred nodded as well. They began to wheel their mecha down the cracked pavement, past a couple of building shells.
"Not a bad day," Miranda offered, despite her upset. Fred grunted something affirmative.
"Nope. It is getting a little warmer. I'd say forty-five Farenheit." He brushed his hair out of his eyes. "Kind of amazing, considering a few days ago what it was like."
"Hell, the Midwest weather was always a bit psychotic, and the wars didn't help none." Miranda responded, astonished she'd actually gotten an answer from the normally taciturn man. She ventured a question, one of very few she'd tried around his uncertain temper. "Fred, where did you come from? I know you told me, but..."
"New York. The city. Or at least what's left of it. Probably you wouldn't have remembered. I'm not very talky." His long face glimmered with something that might have been humor. "I know some insulting names your roomie gave me. Just because I'm shut makes her think I'm deaf."
"Which--Oh, Sherry. Huh," she grunted. "I'm not surprised."
A thin smile. "I don't like talking about it much. Some nasty things happened there. In fact, the reason I'm with the Elms has a lot to do with it."
"The Invid?"
The look that passed his features momentarily was frightening. "Oh, yes...
"First time around, when the bastards occupied, they were either stomping down the streets or trying to wipe us out. I guess you know about what some asshole in the enemy command tried to do to Manhattan." His hands wrung around the handlebars. "Believe me, hearing about it is a hell of a far cry from being in it...."
"Sorry, Fred." She was beginning to wish she hadn't opened up the conversation.
He glanced over at her, and calmed a bit. "I could have taken that. It was when they decided to come back the second time..." His voice trailed off.
They investigated a few more buildings as the afternoon progressed, with similarly depressing results. Miranda managed to salvage a couple of texts, which she stored in her Cyclone's carriers. About two o'clock, she found herself strolling next to Gwen, who was enjoying the unusually clement weather.
"Pretty nice day," Gwen thought out loud, combing back her radiant red hair. "Maybe it'll stay this way now. Definitely could've been worse." She gave a sidelong smile at Miranda, who was examining with disgust her own unravelling cornrows. Time to have Malcolm rebraid it... Noticing the younger woman's gaze on her, she looked up and gave a sheepish grin.
"How's life with this illustrious band of merry human persons thus far?" she drawled. The Kentuckian chuckled.
"Oh, pretty grand, 'cept for the nasty lil' bit about getting stuck in the thumb, and here I saved you puppies." Miranda hooted. "Survived all this nastiness, become the best little target fiend I can, and that's my reward?"
"Well, there is this bit about possible Simulagents that might infiltrate us. We had to check. The bit about Bernard's group never guessing the girl they picked up was Invid warned Matt. One of the first rules the Elm core group put in was that. Haven't had any yet."
Gwen furrowed her brows. "What if..."
Miranda hemmed. "I have no idea. Our gut instinct might be to wipe 'em, but that's not completely fair. We'd either eject them or put 'em under quarantine for a while, depending on how we voted and the evidence. I think killing them would be out of the question." She shrugged. "After all, from what I hear, quite a few humanoid Invid have given us most of the information on the Earth occupation that we have. And I know at least one group was actually headed by one. Sera, I think her name was."
"Huh, I think that's the one that defected near the end of the last war." Miranda nodded, suddenly remembering.
"Any rate, that was one of the other core rules we put in. I think my brother, Matt, Kevin and Gerald overruled Dennis to put that in."
"Ohh, Kevin now, that's a sweet babe!" Gwen growled huskily. Miranda gave her a sharp look.
"Hands off, girl. He's taken, and he's not your preference anyway."
Gwen gave her a coy look. "Might not hurt to try."
"You do and he might nail you to the wall."
Gwne waggled her eyebrows. "With the way he looks, he can nail me any dang time he wants."
The double entendre was not lost on her companion, who groaned. She was worse than Sherry, and she was screwing Miranda's sibling. ("Don't you two ever do something else?" she'd shouted in exasperation when finding them slouching around the passages of the old base, arms slung around each other and with punch-drunk expressions on their faces that hinted what they'd just been up to outside.
(With one hugely grinning voice, they'd said, "Nope." Miranda had courted the idea of slugging her baby brother then and there, but Sherry probably would have gotten her then.)
"Hmmph, well, he kind of likes that little blond twit anyway." Gwen muttered.
"Gwen darlin', Mandy is not a twit, I know from personal experience. Anyone who runs a marathon to escape an Enforcer doens't deserve the title."
Dennis glanced back at them with exasperation. "Will you two stop that and come up here? I think we've got a couple promising buildings."
"Sure," Miranda said. Privately she thought, What, one that isn't half-fallen in? Be a miracle. The entire world does a pretty good job of it, some days.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Found nothing," Gerald said, his bulk looking absurd above the Forager he'd borrowed. He dismounted and wandered over to where Mandy was sitting, watching Kevin and Matthew fiddle with a second door. One had already been picked and was propped open to reveal a dusty inner entrance containing several plastic seats, in which the two men were working.
"Yeah Gerald, Mandy said as much." He murmured a suggestion to his companion, who nodded. "We're almost done. Took longer than we thought, because this place may still have live alarm systems."
Gerald's brows hiked. "After almost thirty-three years?"
"Sure. Watch it," he warned Kevin. "A lot of major businesses had converted to fusion or perpetual-motion generators by then. I've got the feeling this is the latter, since it was the cheaper and cleaner source."
Kevin was sucking air through his teeth. "Just about--almost--got it." There was a snick, and the door squealed open as he pushed on it.
"You first," he told Ulm. The lieutenant rolled his eyes. The rest followed him tenatively into the darkness beyond. Kevin propped open the second door, then followed them in, switching on a halogen flashlight.
Amanda gawked.
"Wow..." Kevin whistled. "They sure didn't make 'em small."
The wing they were in could have easily had an Alpha or one of the smaller Destroids stand up inside. Besides a very fine layer of dust, the tile and benches looked as unaffected by time and just as they were the day the mall closed for the last time. Matthew had more than half expected the air to be stale, but it was moving and fresh. It was still very dark, outside the gently wavering circle of the lantern, and deathly quiet.
"The venilation's still working," he murmured. "Which means, maybe, that the lights..." he trailed off.
They moved on inside. Mandy was slightly boggled. The hallway alone was higher and wider than anything she'd experienced in her life, and the entrances that the lantern light hinted at meant even more space inside.
Futher on, five minutes later, they came to a center court. Here, the time passed was a little more apparent. It was dimly lit by a glass skylight, mostly obscured by grime. The fountains were clogged, leaving only a foul-looking residue at the bottom, verdigrised with ancient coins. Skeletons of dead trees filled earthen depressions in the center of the walkway.
"Must've been pretty when it was open." Mandy said.
"Oh, it was." Ulm assured. "They all were."
Gerald started. "Hey, look over there."
Ulm walked in the direction of his pointing finger. "Aha. Steps. Let's go
down."
Shrugging, the other man complied. "Aren't you going to explore the top floor first?"
"Ensign, it's not the top floor I'm interested in as much as the bottom ones. I'm looking for a spot where Protoculture radiations might be shielded, preferably as much by the ground as possible. That's why the old base was designed the way it was."
"Are you saying what I think you're saying, Lieutenant?" Kevin and Amanda, following them downward, looked at each other and shrugged.
"Yep."
"This place is wide out in the open, for Chrissakes!"
Ulm reached the floor. "Well, we'll have to see what Dennis' group brings back. Look at it this way, Gerald. We're not likely to find a better spot. Look at how far and how long we had to travel to find this."
Gerald sighed unhappily. Kevin cleared his throat. "Your pardon, but from experience the average Invid doesn't have the intelligence to look for obvious bases. If it doesn't move too conspicuously like a millitary outfit, and it doesn't radiate Protoculture, it doesn't matter. If we find an adequate way to shield the stores, we ought to be halfway safe."
Gerald's lantern-lit visage scowled at him. "What do you know about it, O'Shea?"
Kevin shrugged. "At least as much as you do. We've fought the same battles for five years now."
"We're running out of Protoculture, energy clips and ammo," Gerald pointed out. "Where're we supposed to get more? The fairies?"
"I'm going to tackle that problem next, Ensign. We've got to crawl before we can walk. I think there's a depository over in Terre Haute." Ulm looked down at his watch and swore. "It's almost 1500. Come on, we've got maybe a half-hour before rondezvous to check this place out."
oooooooooooooooooooo
An hour later found them back at their starting point, waiting with Sherry and Malcolm, watching the second group come in. Sherry and Malcolm seemed unusually content, but Mandy dismissed it with a roll of her eyes. She'd experienced Shiroikiku's semi-quiet sneaking out in the middle of the night countless times.
Privately she couldn't help but wonder how Sherry could ride her Cyclone in the spine-crunching, semi-suicidal way she had, and... She shied away from the thought.
Instead, she was regaleing Sherry with a involved tale of what they'd found north of town.
"You know what, there's even working lasercdisc players in there, and laser discs, and maybe there's electricity we can use. Let's not even get into those televisions we found in this one big store."
Sherry whistled, running her hand through the bleached strip she wore down the center of her hair. "Sounds nifty. My parents always were big into the old animes, dingbat pseudo-Nipponese they were. I'm good with wiring. Maayyybeee..."
Amanda's light green eyes lit up and she smiled, as the second team pulled up.
"Bonjour, o lost ones! What news do you bring to us?" Kevin gave a fiendish grin. Dennis shrugged, his mouth twitching upward, Miranda grinned almost as hugely as Kevin, Fred rolled his eyes, and Gwen smiled and batted hers.
"Uh-oh," Sherry muttered. "Trouble."
"Huh?"
"You blind? You notice she's been after him for the past week?"
Amanda was miffed. "How could I, what with coughing up glop and considering how much you and Malcolm--" Sherry hit her.
Amanda kept a closer look on the Southerner. Something about the way Gwen paid especially hard attention to her friend raised her hackles.
Yep, I'm jealous, she admitted.
"Good news. We found university ruins down south, complete with a few intact buildings. At least two of them are very large paper libraries, and one's underground and with power. With some work, we could make it into a perfectly good base." Dennis smiled and saluted. Matthew nodded back.
Miranda grinned, her teeth white against her face, and she swatted her bike carriers, which Mandy belatedly noticed were bulging with books. "And guess what I did?"
Amanda laughed. "I'm happy for you! You were ready to go bonkers after you lost your old library. You've hit the grand prize, hmm?"
"And how!"
The lieutenant's wry voice cut through the chatter. "Ahem... This is all well and good, but could we tell our side?"
He began talking about their findings, with periodic interruption by Gerald, Kevin, and Amanda to clarify points. A stunned silence began to spread, as the implications of the wealth uncovered began to sink in. Fred whistled, once.
Dennis broke in. "This is great, Lieutenant, and I'm very glad this was found, but have you considered the strategic factors yet?"
Ulm ran his hands through his untrimmed hair. "Yes, I have. There's nothing wrong with the center's location that a little care in entering and leaving can't cure. There's an underground parking garage that Protoculture and mecha can be stored in, there's running water from a tank and from the PM generator's byproducts, and there's an enormous amount of space for us to live in. We have to keep in mind future base growth."
"True. But still, considering how bad the crackdowns seem to be getting, according to the grapevine... We're not talking stupid Invid running the franchise anymore. And they've ways of finding out, even if there weren't humanoid pilots. On Spheris, they used the Cougars to sniff out potential resistance enclaves."
Kevin was beginning to look annoyed. Amanda was wondering if this was part of Dennis' behavior that bothered him. He did tend to go into his offworld exploits rather much.
"As I recall, those tended to be a few miles underground. It won't make a difference in the end if we end up at the mall or your library." Matthew pointed it out with a sigh.
"The Invid army here doesn't even have Cougars," Kevin said. He rubbed his
forehead, frustrated.
Matthew held up finger. "They've got other Inorganics--Ferrets, Krakens, God knows what. But the mall--has got a working security system, or one we can get going with a little work. That's why we spent a while trying to break in the nice way and not set it off or disable it."
"But do you consider it safe enough?" Dennis insisted.
"I don't know, ask them. They're the firepower. We're just the stupid leaders."
There was a brief silence, and then a babble of voices broke out. Dennis' contradictions were overwhelmed.
"Ah, democracy," Ulm murmured. "Not exactly millitary, but satisfying anyway."
Kevin looked over at Ulm with a grin.
"Got a sneaking suspicion what the results are going to be?"
"Oh, I don't know. Want to bet on it?"
"Hell no. I'm not that stupid. Sneaky move to pull on him."
"I'm not as stupid as I look. Take some pointers."
Kevin sniggered.