Dandelions: Chapter 8 of 9
Dennis' neck was screaming bloody murder, but he completely ignored the fact as he stared in naked shock behind him. Out of many things, this was something he had not expected.
It took a second for his eyes to adjust.
"You," he hissed.
"Me."
Ignoring the daggers Zinnert was glaring at him, the CVR-armored man in the copilot's seat took his feet off the back of the pilot's seat and took his helmet from his lap. He looked at it for a second, then placed it over his head, visor up. The untanned pallor of his face seemed to gleam in the faint light of the console.
Dennis glared as he began to massage his abused neck. "O'Shea, what in the hell are you doing back there?"
Kevin looked frank. "Waiting for you."
"You--" Zinnert could not find a good phrase to finish the word with and fumbled.
"It's early December, Dennis. You aren't going to catch flies this time of year." The tone, while light, was completely belied by the unnerving stare of the pale blue eyes. "Like I said, waiting for you."
Dennis at last found something. "O'Shea, you're not authorized to fly an Alpha."
"I know. That's why I was waiting for you."
"Why'd you think I'd be here?" Dennis challenged, feeling completely out of his depth and belying his presence in the Veritech.
"Simple deduction, Dennis. Knowing you, I figured that after what I said to you earlier, you'd either be so eaten up by remorse you'd eventually do something stupid to make amends, or you were so whipped out of compassion you weren't worth following. And seeing as this is the single most powerful mecha in our arsenal..." Kevin punctuated it with a half-seen shrug.
"Of all the manipulative--" Dennis sputtered.
"Believe me, I wasn't orginally flaying you for that express purpose. But at the time," Kevin's eyes were hard, "I meant what I said." He might have smiled in the darkness. "So I figured it might be a smart idea to get out here and wait for you."
"How'd you get in?"
"Hey, I'm a spy. I'm supposed to be good at this sort of thing. Besides, there's quite a few entrances around here, and considering it's common knowledge Matt and you are the only ones with the capability to fly Variable Fighters in this dump--" Kevin shrugged again and leaned foward, cracking his knuckles and stretching.
Dennis sighed, feeling foolish. "O'Shea--chivalry is all well and good but--"
"You're in the Alpha too." Kevin pointed out. Dennis winced.
"Kevin, two-fifths of the Elms charter is in this cockpit. One of us shouldn't be risking himself like this. You're the single most experienced scout in this group, and if you get killed--which is damn likely, considering the situation--a lot of know-how gets buried with you."
Kevin sighed. "Pretty good, Dennis, but are you really suggesting we ought to go out and get somebody else for this little suicide mission at one in the morning? Matt has the biggest heart I know of, but you know he'll stop you. Besides--speaking of experience, don't you have a few years in the Sentinels War under your belt? That should amount to something."
Zinnert grunted noncommittally. After a second, Kevin made a wondering sound. "Damn. You don't think it's worth all that much. You really don't. M'god." Dennis winced again depite himself, hoping Kevin could not see in the darkness.
Jesus, how does he know?
"Anyway, Dennis--" Kevin let out a shaky sigh, "there really are a couple good reasons I suggest you dragging me along with you. Other than the fact Amanda means something to me." He sucked in another breath, loud in the dead cold silence in the Alpha cockpit.
"You know those energy fences around protoculture farms? Invid use a variant of 'em to hold prisoners in hives too, human prisoners. Touching them is pain itself, not to mention taking them down is more than a matter of flinging a few GR missiles at them. It might kill the prisoner if you tried, too."
"And there's no way of unlocking it, I take it."
Kev swallowed and took in a shaky breath. "Bright move, Dennis. Right. Unless you suddenly get psychically gifted. And it also helps to have somebody to guard your ass meanwhile too."
Dennis grunted. "If we don't actually get killed trying to storm the hive alone first."
Kevin licked his lips and drew in a breath. "Actually, I know of ways to get us in that way too, Dennis."
Dennis looked over. "What?"
"I said, I've got ways of getting us in. Or at least, close enough that we can hit the place."
Dennis' brow furrowed. "Are you crazy? If they took her to the sort of hive I have in mind, O'Shea, they're going to have linebacker and clam patrols around it thick as leaves. We couldn't dream of getting close enough without alerting them."
Kevin stared at the lieutenant, the sheef fixedness of his gaze, and something contained therein, causing something to go cold in the pit of Zinnert's gut.
Kevin O'Shea said, softly: "Not if I know they're coming. Which I will."
Dennis looked blank, and said, "What? Oh, yeah, the recon equipment in the back ought to help in locating patrols. Nice job for the Icarus." A rememberance hit him then. "But do you know how to use it? I don't think you've managed to see it yet. In fact, have you ever used this stuff? I thought you came in as a civilian."
"Did."
"Well, if you don't know how to use the equipment, how do you say you'll know when patrols'll be coming around? The only way outside hardware to detect Invid, as far as I know is another...another--"
Dennis couldn't think of how to complete the thought; his mental footing lost.
In a timeless instant, he was devoid of all thought, the sweat breaking out on his forehead, vaguely aware his neck still throbbed. Mouth gaping, he stared blankly at the figure in the back.
For over six years, he had had a set conception of the people surrounding him, an image which he thought had been concrete and solid. Now, for the first time, he got the feeling it was an optical illusion, a picture of two facial silhouettes staring at each other.
"Jesus Christ. Jesus H. Christ."
What he had thought was the First Scout of the Elms had just become a vase.
"God, you're slow on the uptake, Dennis." he heard.
Yeah, Zinnert thought blankly. Yeah, I guess I am.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Aaaaghh!"
Amanda jerked back her hand, shaking in sheer hurt, trying to examine her hand. Where she expected char was only smooth, freckled skin.
She tried to reach her hand out again, but could not force it near the light bars again. Her will said yes, but her instincts would not, could not make her body cooperate.
She had no idea how long she had been at this, but the terrorized knowledge of her situation had made her try over and over in spite of the pain that seemed to increase with each time. Agony or no, it was better than sitting and being driven to near madness with the knowing.
She licked her lips, knowing that it had to had been several hours at the very least since she had had anything to drink. Her mouth felt like tissue paper. There was no water in the cell with her. She wondered if it would have been wise to drink it had there been, and knew probably not.
She probably would have anyway.
Shaking with the constant roar of adrenalin in her system, she folded to the ground, her hands supporting clammy forehead, and she could not help but remember.
What did I ever to do to be in this position? Why was I born to be here?
She supposed that in a perverse way, it was just as well Grace hadn't lived to be as old as Amanda herself. Knowing one to be the indirect cause of the death of one's mother through a postpartum infection would be cause enough for guilt. And Gracie had been such a happy little girl, with freckles as profuse as Amanda's but with their father's light ginger-red hair...
That led to the imprint of a pair of hauntingly human blue eyes on her mind. Although, she supposed, not quite as much as being trapped in the position of choosing to kill one's own people or choosing to see the perversion of a sacred promise. She could hardly envy Kevin's position.
Like Antigone, she thought, having read the play a week earlier at Miranda's insistence.
And Gwen's bitter, envious countenance... what had Amanda ever done to earn that woman's hate?
She supposed that no matter, something probably would have happened. Gwendolyn's betrayal was only at a convenient juncture.
From that, she went into a bleak reminscence and walk through her memory, her family life, their gardening projects and pea hybridizations, through the Elms, the Invid, humanity, Kevin, and the distinctions thereof. An indistinct time later, she raised her head again, thinking that perhaps she had forgotten the agony of the first few times enough to try again. It was hardly worse than the agony eating her up inside, and the constant war to forget what most likely awaited her once the Invid decided to return their intentions to her.
She began to rise again, but her ruminations had taken longer than she had thought. Her legs and the old injury in her ankle were half-fallen asleep, and did not fully cooperate. Stumbling, she tripped and fell face foward onto the light grating.
Her scream of indescribable pain sawed through the hive tunnel for what seemed miles. Clawing and wailing, she rolled away from the light and toward the back of her cell, tears pouring out of her eyes. In the back of her mind, she definitely knew she was not going near that grating ever, ever again.
Oblivious to the outside, Amanda did not notice the scuffling from the other side of the passageway and the half-vocalized, irritated complaints emitting from the depths of the shadows within. It was only when Amanda had finished touching every square inch of her face to see it was still there that her viridian eyes popped open, rimmed with moisture. She began to breathe harder, imagining horrors that Invid hives might contain.
She did not expect, of all things, a decidedly feminine voice from the other side, speaking in perfect English. It seemed irritated.
"Will you be quiet and cease that demented ape-screaming? Some are trying to sleep in this accursed place."
Amanda rolled to her knees, breathing hard. "Who--who is it? Who's out there?"
"Someone who's trying to ignore her sentence with blessed oblivion, fool. I take it you haven't learned yet."
A weak, sullen light suddenly sprouted from an unknown source, vaguely illuminating the area. Amanda immediately wished it had not; Invid decor was not helping her already fragile state of mind.
She could see the lineaments of her enclosure; more a niche barred over than anything, with those hellish light-bars a few inches further in than the corporeal ones double-sealing the area. Outside, the corridor stretched away and curved out of sight, about twelve feet wide at the most.
On the other side was a series of ceramic bars identical to Amanda's own, but with no light bars inside for some unknown reason. Other than that, the cell seemed identical to Amanda's own. It was dark beyond the bars.
As Amanda looked on, her heart thumping, something moved in the shadows and then into the light.
The opposing cell's occupant leaned on her bars, looking at Amanda with disgust. Amanda in her own turn looked at her, trying to understand what was going on with her battered sense of things.
Through three sets of bars and the dodgy light, she could make out a figure about three or four inches taller than herself, and slender enough to make Amanda, whose own Germanic physique was a testament to a lifetime of lean eating and heavy exercise, seem clumsy and gross. It looked to be clad in a tight-fitting, strangely-designed bodysuit of varigated white, red and pink, which made its occupant look like a large candy cane. The curves it outlined were undeniably female.
The hair, which seemed to be a candy-apple red with heavy white streaks, went past the shoulders and framed a face that had a kind of sophisticated elfin prettiness to it. It furthered the peppermint impression. But the eyes--Amanda saw them at last, and took in a breath--there was nothing whatsoever sweet about the eyes.
The eyes glaring at her were a sulfurous lemon yellow. The thoughts they reflected were not human.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Gah."
"Yes?"
"Uh."
"Yes?"
"Gnnh."
"My, your conversation's gifted."
"Ah..."
"Told you, there aren't any flies in December."
Silence.
"HOW LONG?" Zinnert screamed.
The fine features in the back distorted in a scowl and the blue eyes looked up toward the ceiling. "Oh God."
"How long have you...you...been posing as O'Shea?!"
The back seat erupted. "Posing--posing as WHAT???" Zinnert suddenly felt his neck yanked yet again as he was pulled back by the collar, and he was staring face-to-goggle-eyed-face with a quite outraged Kevin. "Dennis, let me get this through your tiny little primate mind.
"I didn't bloody well wake up one fine morning deciding how nice it would be to have green blood. Nor did I cosh some other guy that looked like me and take his place and stow him in the Mississippi. The same man you chartered with is the same guy who's talking to you now. It's been the same person for all this time.
"Dennis, I'm Invid. It's not something I'm terribly proud of, but it's the truth at last."
"You mean..."
"Yep."
"God." Zinnert felt like passing out seemed like a good option. I've gone and chartered with an Invid, no wonder the blood screening didn't apply to him...
"Granted, this wasn't the best time to let you know. Hell, it isn't the best time for me to tell you it. But trust me, I think the Pod People bit's for the birds."
A couple minutes passed before Zinnert managed to organize the disaster area of his mind into semi-order. "But you and Matt..."
"A coverup. Frankly we stank at it, neither of us being inclined that way."
"But..."
"It's amazing," Kevin declared to the universe at large, "how the human race will delude itself into an unlikely possibility rather than accept an unpleasant truth."
"All right, all right, I get the point."
"Well, that's a relief."
"So when you--were allegedly attacked by the Scout--"
"Wasn't a Scout, Dennis. Was a Kraken. The green stuff splattered on me was from me."
Dennis did a rapid calculation, then said: "You mean Pierson knew??"
A terse nod. "That's how she found out. Which makes it even more important that we find a way to get her out of there. Dennis, I'm a traitor, and traitors are anathema to the collective. The Invid will leave no stone unturned to take me out of the picture, and they'll take the Elms out while they're at it. If they manage to...force her..."
Dennis nodded. Already, he was gaining a grip over his composure thanks to his training and mostly out of necessity. They had very little time left before Matt discovered their absence.
The sudden discovery would have to wait for later for him to understand. If O'Shea--or whatever the hell whatever he was called--had worked these many years with him, a betrayal was exceedingly unlikely.
He shoved the helmet down. "So--what hive to the northeast do you think they took her to?"
oooooooooooooooooooo
"You..."
Amanda licked her lips, sweat dribbling down her forehead, and began out of gummy lips. "You're Invid, aren't you?"
A sniff and a head inclination from the opposing cell. "Very observant you are, Human." The cold yellow eyes glared at Amanda.
Amanda considered her.
There were subtleties to this being's behavior, movements and carriage that were ticking off alarm systems to the human even after a couple minutes of encounter. Amanda was not consciously aware of the vast language of nonverbal cues human beings used to communicate with each other, but she did not need to be to let the lack of them from the other prisoner confuse her. Similarly, although the English used by the Invid was technically flawless, there was a stiltedness, a sense of maladjustment to her use of the tongue that let the other feel how alien speaking it was to the Invid female's thought processes.
She realized in an instant that there was a world of difference between Kevin and this--this--creature, for all they shared the same racial background.
It made cold sweat spring up along her spine.
Nonetheless, she was as imprisoned as Mandy herself. Interesting. She decided to find out in order to ignore her situation.
"Name's Amanda Pierson, human resistance fighter. We have a custom of introducing ourselves here. Can I ask you who you are?"
The Invid blinked, surprised. "My name is Siaga, daughter of the Invid race. I am--or rather, will shortly have been--will have been--curse your tenses--Solugi and princess of the lower rank." A twisted grimace that might be a smile marred her lips. "Perhaps I should have kept my mind quieter, although knowing HIM, it probably would not have made any difference."
"Him? What?"
A widening of that ill-fitting ironic grin. "Ah, I shouldn't--but I suppose it makes no difference, not to a human and in this place." The grin faded. "I had a few conflicts of interest, and thus I am here." With an elegant, long-boned hand, the woman indicated her confines with a flip of her fingers through the cross-hatch of her bars.
Distantly, Amanda wondered how the Invid humanoids went about manicures.
"Yes? I suppose I could know about that sort of thing. Your people bombing my world and all. That's conflict."
An inhuman hiss of disgust. "You know nothing of it, human."
"I know I'm probably going to--to..." she could not finish the last word. "And probably h-hurt a lot b-before."
The Invid Siaga blinked. Then, a dry, ratchety sound scratched out of her throat. It was a second before Amanda realized that it was her idea of contemptous laughter.
Anger and fear was building rapidly toward an outburst from Amanda when the cawing resolved into words. "Ah, spirit of light, you ignorant ape! At least you will have the mercy of dying!"
The laughter dissolved into chokes, and the candy-colored figure released the bars, doubling over in pain.
Shocked, the human realized she was trying to weep.
She could only watch and wait as the shudders of the crouched Siaga ceased after several minutes.
Still breathing raggedly, the Invid muttered bleakly, "At least you will die. I..." The light green eyes were wide around the irises, and the yellow did not need to ask for the question unspoken when they raised.
"I will still live. Or at least something that was once I. And I wish I would die." The dry rasp sussurrated through the passageway. "I am sentenced to devolution to iigaari for aiding and abetting of your kind."
"You--what?"
Spitting noises. Finally, the alien regained enough of her sense to answer. She was understandably unwilling, but what she whispered did not seem to take the human's presence into account.
"They put us down... claimed we were no more than poor prototypes of their glorious selves. We who had once been Our Mother's greatest creations, before them. He most of all, and I had to be vassal to him. He would--no matter. He would raise my hopes... I would to anything, just for the hope of favor, for the signs of encouragement he would give me.
"And when I had broken myself trying, and expected a reward--he wouldn't! And call me a fool for believing, enjoying my pain all the while. And if I tried to reason, or be unwilling to go through with his game..." The figure shuddered, and she would say no more. "And then, after a time, he would start again. And fool that I am, I believed him, over and over."
"Who's 'he'?"
Siaga would not tell her. Instead, the lifeless whisper came on, seemingly unaware of Amanda's listening in.
"I decided if he and they would make my existence thus, I would return some on them. And so I started to observe the humans. And not report on them. I did not tell him of them. My own kin. And then I started leaving opredti canisters where the humans would find them. And when they attacked, renewed by them, his rage grew beyond bounds.
"And I smiled. Oh, how much pleasure I got out of it. Was it what he felt when doing it to me? The satisfaction I got spiting him--"
"Who's he?"
The alien finally heard her. Hopelessly, she stared at her.
"They. The lords. The leaders. Our...masters. I should have known...one day, he would have seen too far into me..."
Devolution. Something roiled in the human's gut. It had been a favorite punishment of the Invid Regent, from Kevin's and Dennis's reports. What the alien had said would happen to her was tantamout in the Invid to rape.
In some ways, it was worse. At least sexual invasion allowed for the chance of healing, but this was a willful destruction of all that she was, with no hope of ever recovering it.
And most terribly, she would live on with only the torturing memories of what she had been. Amanda would die. Most likely in agony, but her genetic code and her soul were at least involiate.
And this talk of "masters..."
She narrowed her lips.
"Siaga?" she asked. The blank eyes stared at her. "If I get the chance--I'll make sure you'll never have to endure that. Even if I have to--kill you. I promise."
A weak light of comprehension and stillborn hope glimmered in the sulfur-colored orbs, and the Solugi inclined her head.
"I give you my greatest thanks for that offer, Amanda Pierson. But you will not get that chance." She lifted her head. In the sudden silence, Amanda's blood turned to stone as she heard the dull thuds of treads coming toward their prison cells.
"It seems that they are coming for you." Siaga said softly.
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Amanda's just one woman," Dennis said, flipping the final switches. "It's likely they took her to the nearest hive of any note in that direction. That leaves us with a choice of two."
"Got a coin?" Dennis scowled at the back.
"I though you of all people would know where."
There was a raspberry from the back seat. "After six years, with them doing the sort of things they have? Not at all damn likely, Dennis." Kevin made humming noises as he thought. "The major hive or the biggish one a bit closer. The Lafayette hive--we may just as well slit our throats trying to get into that. Too heavily guarded. The nearer one is probably our best bet. Like you said," there was a slight, significant hesitation, "Mandy's only--an average fighter."
"Not if they get her to reveal your involvement as you said." There was an intake of breath from Kevin. "Probably a good idea to get her if we can before they break her that far."
"God, you're a callous bastard."
"I'm stating the facts. YOU said them first." Zinnert said flatly.
"Amanda wouldn't do that. She...wouldn't break. Not that quickly." Kevin said in a tone near pleading.
"Guess again," Dennis stated more gently. "The Invid on Garuda weren't above exposing prisoners to the atmosphere. And you know what happened to Pierson's and Henderson's community. And for us Humans," he sighed, the statement hitting closer home than he desired, "pain...is a powerful motivator."
Kevin said nothing for a moment, and made a noise of understanding.
There was something in the broken quality of the sound that started Zinnert's mind ticking.
Kevin spoke again. "The nearer one. Let's go out and get killed, Dennis."
Dennis chuckled. "Wonder what last words I should say."
"'It's a hundred and fifty miles to the hive, we got a full tank of protoculture, half a payload of missiles, it's dark, and we're wearing CVR?'"
Dennis gave the Invid a dirty look. "You were watching that movie again, weren't you?"
"Proud to say on my free time. Hit it."
oooooooooooooooooooo
The guard outside the hangar was a blameless sort. It could be said that his efforts to keep warm in the deepening chill of the early morning, at a time when his body temperature was at its lowest, did not leave his mind on his duties. He could hardly be accused for ignoring the very slight scuffling inside (as Kevin had stalked past his point), nor the later entrance of a known accredited officer. He was too busy shivering in misery, his heavy winter uniform and several layers of clothing nonwithstanding.
But despite that, the sudden rumble attracted his attention.
He was about to run inside and into the wide area from which the sound growled, but then the rumbling built into a sudden roar of discharged jets.
As he stared in blank wonder, there was a flare of light, and the roar suddenly unmuffled, as almost daintily, the VAF-8R Alpha seemed to float from within the gaping hole of the dome and into the frigid night skies.
For a second, as he gaped, mouth opened to the wind, the Shadow Veritech hovered above the hole in gerwalk, blue-white jets searing from the foot thrusters, like some Daliesque version of a wyvern.
The legs folded back, rotating, in the space of two seconds resolving into rear thrusters.
Then the roar boomed, and the Alpha turned into lightning. It was seen for an instant, then it streaked with incredible speed toward the horizon, curling clockwize toward the north and east as it did so.
The guard stood there stupidly, then cursed robustly, a legacy of his time as an SCA grunt. Within a second, he had flicked a switch and barked his call, receiving a muddled reply from the other end.
"Get the Lieutenant. He's going to want to hear about this."
Then he stood, looking at where the Alpha had gone, occasionally shifting as the first flakes of thin snow came down.
oooooooooooooooooooo
The thud of Invid treads was unmistakable. After a couple of minutes Amanda knew they were coming toward their area, all her fond hopes to the contrary.
Her mouth tissue-dry, she rasped, "How do you know?"
Siaga sighed. "I'm probably going to be given more time to think about my fate, while I still have the capability to. You, Human, likely have information they want now."
Amanda nodded, and rose to her feet, flinching away from the energy bars. She met Siaga's eyes. "I wish there was something I could say."
"There is not." The condemned Invid was blunt as she too rose to her feet, regaining the tatters of her dignity.
The noise turned down into their corridor, coming into their sphere. Abruptly in the gloom, the jailers marched toward them.
There was two of the eight-foot-high gray-colored Enforcers, seemingly the only old mecha class retained in Invid service, marching side-by side. Neither was armed; an unarmed human was in no condition to fight back.
Between them the light limmed another figure, seemingly human.
Amanda stared on, her mind washed crystalline by the hours of fear. In a limpid emotionlessness, she considered.
Like Siaga, this Invid was of the humanoid breed and female. There the simlarities ended.
She was about the same height as Siaga, but even more leanly graceful. While identical in design to Siaga's own, this one's uniform was shadowy gray and flaming red-orange, with accents of red. Above it, the long moonlight-colored hair and pallid, delicately severe beauty of the face seemed to hover in the darkness. The eyes, a close match to the orange scheme of her uniform, observed the observer with a clinical attitude.
Something about the colors sent off alarm bells in Amanda's head, but she was too busy at the time to take note.
"Ah, Oryo'i!" Siaga drawled in English. "I see you're here collecting. Tell me, how does our lord treat you these days? Same graciousness that I remember? Hope the benefits are worth the tasks."
The second Solugi jerked her shoulders. "Siaga, shut up." For some reason, both were allowing Amanda to listen in.
An explosive noise of dismissal came from Siaga's lips. "What have I to lose, by this point, Oryo'i?"
"Your life, Condemned." Oryo'i snapped.
"Ah, but I'm trying for that." However she had learned the feat, the hawking noise and the well-aimed glob of spittle plopping near Oryo'i's feet underlined Siaga's challenge impressively.
The other humanoid made an obviously forced decision to ignore the Invid prisoner, and turned to the human. Amanda had barely enough time to wipe her face clean of expression; since the second Siaga had spoken the other's name, her mind had been a litany of ohshitoshitohshitohshitohshit...
Abruptly, the light grid vanished, leaving blinded afterimages in her eyes. She got a fragmentary vision of the Invid woman pressing a sequence on an area next to her cell. The ceramic bars retracted into the floor and into the walls. As soon as they were gone, the Enforcers moved forward, blunt claws reaching for Amanda's arms.
She stepped forward. "I can walk myself," she said.
Oryo'i's eyes narrowed to fire-colored slits.
After a second, the surprisingly melodious mezzo-soprano mused, "I don't know, human. Your kin seem elusive enough. Enforcers..." The suits moved forward again, but Amanda stepped back.
"I'll come, but I'm not going to get dragged there." It was a pathetic plea, but Amanda wanted that much of her dignity left. The Enforcers hesitated again, and Amanda took the opening to walk docilely forward, to Oryo'i's bemusement. "I'm weaponless. You saw to that, didn't you?"
This actually flustered the Invid, to Siaga's snicker. "And how would you know, human?"
"Your color scheme's that of the Battloid that captured me. I'm not as stupid as you think I am."
Oryo'i stared at her for a second longer. "Ah yes. In that case, since you so plead..." she gestured the other two guards over to stand by the human's sides, then walked behind them. "I will alllow you this. Do not attempt to escape; there is nowhere within this hive for you to hide, and I have a pistol at your back." The Enforcers began to move in unison down the corridor, and Amanda had to startle to keep up. Underneath the thud of her field boots and that of the Enforcers' treads she could hear the light pat of the Invid's soles behind her.
Siaga called out, "Give my regards to Shkud, Oryo'i!" Another spit followed on the words, then silence as the holding cells were left behind.
"Fool," Oryo'i muttered. Unlike Siaga, Terran English seemed to come more smoothly to her. "If she was to sabotage our occupation, she could have at least kept well out of his mindsight. Messy."
"If I may ask," Amanda said in a cool voice, "who is this Shkud person she was talking about?"
There was a sudden silence from her captor. Then:
"You will find out soon enough. You're being taken to him."
oooooooooooooooooooo
Gwen looked terrible.
Having a teammate captured was cause enough, but the reddened, puffy eyes and the expression anguished even in her restless slumber denoted something more than that. Ulm had a fairly good idea by this point of its cause. He reached over and roughly shook her awake. Trembling and crying, she shuddered to awareness, amber eyes wild, before identifying the silhouette of the stocky, CVR-armored figure above her. The reddened eyes widened even further.
"Gwen?"
She nodded.
"I have something for you to do with me."
Her eyes were all white around the iris now. He'd have felt sorry for her except for his suspicions.
She nodded again and stood up, fully clad. Instead of leading her off, Matthew leaned against the door, studying her as she began to shift in her stance.
"You know," he said softly, "It's a bit interesting how Pierson got captured earlier. Do you think you could tell me again what happened there? I'm going to need to know."
Gwendolyn licked her lips, eyes flicking at his feet. "I was trying to help her. I was runnin' full speed back to where she and the Invid mech were tangling, hopin' to get a few missiles off at the thing, but it swooped down and grabbed 'er. She...she didn't even have time to transmode."
Matt studied the chalky countenance, just long enough for her to start to shift in nervousness.
"Funny, because earlier you told me that you'd turned down a side street before you heard the Battloid coming and had turned back. How long had she been trying to outrun it with no help?"
Gwen's eyes widened and her already alabaster countenance paled further.
"And another thing, Gwendolyn. When we went to investigate the abduction site, we found her Forager lying in the middle of the road, locked in mid-transmode. She may not have had time to complete it, but she'd certainly started it. I'd thought your powers of observation were among the best of the group."
The look on Gwen's face was indescribable.
Ulm's voice remained quiet.
"I know you didn't like Pierson. That's perfectly fine. But she was a fellow Elm regardless. Whatever the true circumstances were, the fact remains that you're obviously lying about your role in all this."
Gwen gulped.
"A soldier doesn't let her personal feelings get in the way of her aiding her allies. You did. Being controlled by your jealousy not only endangered Pierson, but the lives of everyone in this oufit."
The woman was trembling now, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
"It's obvious you had second thoughts. Remorse is well and good, Rutherford, but you've helped damage our ability to hide forever. There will be more Invid now, and Amanda will be only the first.
"That's only the beginning of the mess. I take it your private vendetta with her had a good deal to do with O'Shea. Well, for your information, he and Lieutenant Zinnert have just hijacked our only Alpha and taken off in the direction of Lafayette. It's a good thing both of them are as good at their jobs as they are, or they wouldn't have a snowball's chance in Hell. They might, however, have a snowball's chance on a hot day. If you ever want to ensure that both of them see the day after tomorrow alive, it might behoove you to follow me."
"Why?" she managed at last.
"Because we're going to make up for your error by going after them."
oooooooooooooooooooo
There seemed to be miles of passages, with no obvious changes to them save a gradual widening to something large enough to admit the Elms' Veritech. Amanda held herself carefully, knowing that any sudden movement would be grounds for constraint or killing. Not once did she lose her awareness of the cold orange eyes at her back.
Who am I fooling? she asked herself. It'll get bad enough pretty shortly.
Only a couple times did they pass other of the Invid running the site; they paid no attention, which was in its way more unnerving than if the human had been the source of stares. It was not the act of humans to do so. But the Enforcers and their attendant Sentinels were not. Amanda fought down the low but incoming tide of panic, knowing that eventually she would lose against it.
Eventually, they came to the end of the passage way, opening only on a vast shaft. Amanda hesitated when they neared it, earning a sharp prod in the back from the Invid.
"Go on," Oryo'i said.
Amanda hesitated, then saw a sort of invisibly supported platform hovering in the center of the shaft, near enough for her to step on. She did so at a further prompt, the platform supporting her and the three Invid with no change in its movement.
It began to rise, startling Amanda before she realized it was a kind of elevator. The acceleration was completely unnoticable until she realized they were rising very quickly indeed. They whizzed up...darkness, lost like a single cell in the bloodstream...flashes as entrances passed them, then eventually growing light as they neared the entrance of the upper floor.
They left the platform behind, the "floor" beneath them the same unnerving warm sponginess as the lower level. The omnipresent vegetable stink of the Invid hive was less here, as though those who lived here took more unfavorable notice of it. These facts the human impersonally noted and stored away, curiously detached from her situation.
Zazen's...being still, Kevin said in her head. Letting events flow, not letting them move you. Helped me to no end. She noted the information, and tried to maximize the feeling or lack of it, as they moved further into the depths of the hive, toward what Amanda presumed was the center point.
They rounded one last turn, and darkness loomed before them. It took Amanda's eyes a few seconds to adjust and realize it was not so much darkness as that the size of the chamber minimized the dim radiance of whatever it was that the Invid used for light sources. But by that point, they were already inside, and Amanda temporarily lost most of her visual capacity.
She stood there, vaguely aware she was trembling a bit and that the Enforcers had separated themselves from her sides somewhat. She did not know where the Invid Oryo'i was, but she was no longer at her back.
She jumped violently as she felt a hand--seemingly human--abruptly grasp her chin with a deceptive gentleness that promised enough power to shatter her jawbone if it so chose.
She could hear breathing, but she had had no idea when the other had walked up to her blinded self. Rapidly she blinked her eyes, begging them to adjust; she was only making out the sudden outline of a humanoid figure better than a head and a half taller than her.
"This is the human?" she heard a brittle voice in English in front of her in a male reigister.
"It is, my lord," Oryo'i's voice said a couple of feet off to her side. Amanda's eyes flickered over, catching an image of a kneeling figure. "I believe she has the information we seek."
The voice in front of her softened venomously. "Ah, but who said 'we,' Solugi?" Oryo'i did not answer. "But undeniably human. The thought processes are obviously primitive enough." A quick, unwilling spurt of anger leapt through Amanda's thoughts. There was a chuckle. "And apparently quite sensitive about it as well." The hand abruptly tightened its hold on her chin, and she gasped in pain from the grip now hard enough to bruise. The human feel was a front; the strength in it was not normal. The second Invid--for it had to be--was apparently of superior rank to her original captor, she thought, her mind racing. "I think it might serve to encourage her to part with her information."
How? I will not give it away. I can't, or the others are dead. Torture... She shivered with apprehension.
The voice dropped silibantly. "Do you know where you are, Human? I can make you wish you'd never had the thought in what mind you have to ever think of defiance." She could feel his breath on her face. Still queerly emotionless, she did not answer.
The lock on her face was released; she staggered back, only to be met with a stunning blow to her cheek, pain flaring through her. Blinking away the purple blotches, she lay on the floor, staring up at the towering figure of the Invid above her. The panic was beginning to leak back in; the pain had throuwn her out of her trance state. Whimpering, she tried to lift a hand to her blazing and bruising cheek, but a foot came down; deliberately, the weight came after it, causing her to squirm in more agony as the Invid's not inconsiderable mass came within a few pounds of pressure of breaking her wrist. Whimpering, she saw the figure's head bent down to study her in critical interest.
"What a pathetic specimen," the voice drawled. "Disgusting little vermin. I almost wish the Regis hadn't seen fit to deem this the proper form to copy us after." The foot came down harder; this time. Amanda could not restrain a squeal of pain. A satistfied noise murmured from his throat.
Behind the pain, the anger blazed. At that sound of obscene satisfaction, it momentarily became an inferno. Amanda did the first thing that came to her mind; with her free hand, she attempted to give a quick, strategic blow to his knee. It affected absolutely nothing; but then the pressure was gone. She rolled, and then gagged as a hand lifted her by the collar of her jumpsuit, to his eye level. By this point, she was beginning to make out facial features through the blue and purple blotches of choking.
The voice was a silken hiss. "Not wise, Human." Amanda, between the constriction on her windpipe, the smarting, cold burning of the growing bruise on her face, and the screaming pain in her left wrist, did not take time to take notice of it. Light shimmered across the silhouetted face as the features contorted in contempt.
"What's with this thing?" he snapped. "She has about as much reaction as a plant. I though her breed was rather more emotional than that."
"My lord," Oryo'i murmured, "Her...experiences...may have caused a mental disassociation from her surroundings . It appears to be a kind of survival reflex."
"Survival?" he asked in a lilting tone. "Stupid flesh. No wonder they go around rutting all the time--ah-hah!" The leg moved fluidly away from a kick, and Amanda choked. "I see some reaction now. A pity I have to leave it in a state to answer me."
Amanda's brain was buzzing with edges of blackness, but she found enough strength to haul her collar away from the constriction on her neck, allowing a gulp of vegetable-flavored hive air.
"In your dreams, Shkud," she whispered through her tormented windpipe.
There was an intake of breath. "It speaks! It even knows my name. How would this miracle go about?" A hum of consideration. "Ah yes, the traitor and your mouth, Oryo'i. A moot point, to be sure."
Shattering pain as the floor slammed into her, knocking out her wind, the obscene warmth like flesh. She wheezed through her liberated windpipe, a cocktail mix of anger, emerging hate, confusion, hurt, fear and panic roaring through her. She heard the creak and shift of his armor as he crouched down to study her with clinical, amused relish.
"But enough entertainment for now. Correct, Human? It is now time to ask you a few things. It might be wise to answer me."
For what? Like you're going to use fewer thumbscrews if I'm a good dog?
"Why? Will...you...give me my a personalized nametag...if I cooperate?" she snarled, beyond caring.
Oh, the anger. Blind purpose and battle-drive contained it in skirmishes, but what she'd felt in her mad fire on Oryo'i at the farm was a pale copy of... this... No way to execute it, no way to use it, trapped, so it built. She shuddered away as the long, human-seeming fingers and thumb pinned her neck to the floor underneath them, leaving only enough air to breathe. He seemed to like choking her.
But now that he was no longer either hurting her or cutting off her entire supply of air, she was able to flit her eyes around the dark, organic purgatory of her surroundings, to find her sight had adjusted to the dimness.
Above her, his face eclipsed the view of the ceiling for a second...something wrong about it...then she was hauled again to her feet by the collar.
He was indeed about a couple heads taller than she, making him shorter than Gerald but a good bit taller than anyone else in the Elms. He was also lithely built, quite slender, and clad in a uniform different in design from Oryo'i's or Siaga's--hadn't Kevin said something about different styles for the genders? Maybe ranks too? Background black, panels of orangish red, accents of bright poison green. Past shoulder-length, slightly shagged hair a red that did not look humanly natural. Something about the uniform, that made him look more important than his subordinate--he had to be a high-ranking enemy officer...
He put his face only a matter of inches away from hers, his skin the same ghostly pallor as the other Invid, or like Kevin's after a few weeks in the winter. She cringed away from him, but her aching face was caught again in that deceptive vise of a grip. She was forced to look him in his.
Shkud chuckled, hearing a noise escape from her bruised lips.
His face was perfect.
No blemishes, scars, or other marks marred the smooth skin, not even the indication of beard stubble. The clean, perfectly proportioned features might have been mistaken for those of a Rennaisance angel's, if a little leaner and masculine, a little harder around the cheekbones. It was flawless and beautiful, even set in an unholy amusement.
But all this time, she was locked, frozen, like a rabbit, as she met his eyes in blind hypnosis.
There were no whites. The irises were a pure, glowing green, bisected in their centers by vertically slit pupils dilated in the dimness. They looked into hers with all the calm, uncaring intent of a viper's.
No angel's face, but perhaps Lucifer's.
Shkud, Kulagi, gave a laugh, dimly perceived through her din of fear.
"Who knows, human. I might even give you your own bowl as well." The elegant lips curved. "Shall we get on with our business, now?"
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Whoooooofff!!!" Dennis grunted, as the sudden kick of the thrusters pressed him into the back of his seat, the Shadow Alpha ripping the wind less than five hundred yards off the ground. At this low altitude, air drag prevented the mecha from going supersonic, but the acceleration gees were considerable nonetheless. Behind him, the lieutenant could hear a muffled grunt as his copilot fought the force as well. Outside, it was still inky black, the snow going by too fast to see but still opaquing vision.
They screamed foward, night and Shadow system concealing them and their mission.
"It ought to take about an hour or so for us to get to the target hive, straight shot. Probably longer, though. We may have to set down and walk part of the way to avoid patrols."
Kevin grunted an affirmative. "I second that. Hi-ho-ing directly in is going to get us killed. We're going to have to get strategic. How do you think we ought to take that?"
Dennis was at a loss. "Ahem...I don't think I thought that far ahead." Kevin gave a sacrificial sigh. "I think, right now, it's definitely an improvisational arrangement."
"Translation: We get to it when we get to it."
"Bingo."
Kevin's voice cheered up. "I can deal with that." Zinnert grumbled. "Wanna few apple chips?" There was munching noises from the back seat. "I still have some left."
"O'Shea," Zinnert snapped, before remembering, "I don't think you quite understand that eating in the cockpit is--"
"I doubt, Dennis, that you're going to get my puke down your neck if you suddenly accelerate. The Regis made enhancements in us that allowed for high-speed dogfights. Best genetic stuff Earth has to offer. Or Optera." There was an ironic snort. "Besides, I'm starving."
"How can you--"
"Eat at a time like this? Simple. Haven't eaten anything since breakfast." The scout's voice trailed off meaningfully. "But now that we're doing something--"
"I'd rather not."
"Suit yourself. But we've shared canteens. If my spit was going to poison you, it's a few years late."
"You're disgusting."
"And you're an anal-retentive--"
"I know," Zinnert said tiredly. "But we get to it when we get to it."
"Yeah."
"I project we're going to get within fifteen miles of the place in the hour. I'm going to set down then, or whenever you pick up the first hostiles. My idea is to get within range of the hive in Guardian, and then monitor the area. And then..."
"We--"
"Get to it when we get to it."
"I think I'm beginning to like you. For once, you're having the same approach to life as me."
Zinnert began to laugh, slightly hysterically, and leaned to check his instrumentation.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Many miles back, in a snowstorm fortunately not strong enough to be called a true blizzard, two trails sprayed the thin white stuff into the frigid air, beginning a rushed trek in the wake of the Alpha. Like the Alpha, there was no measurable protoculture radiation for the Invid to track, but unlike it, their small size prevented easy visual identification.
There was no need to worry about refueling the fusion reactors; there was more than enough water lying around in frozen confection for the taking. The cold was grim, but not the icy bitterness that would later come as winter tightened its grip on the ravaged land, and the two riders were well protected enough in their armor, clothing and jumpsuits. Instrumentation kept them from getting lost in the waste of the old American Heartland, and the darkness that hindered their sight also was their greatest ally against the aliens that had taken the world it shrouded.
Heedlessly, they rumbled north at dangerous speeds.
Underneath one helmet, a pair of hazel eyes narrowed, intent.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Amanda was shaking and she knew it.
She no longer cared about the fact, however. The hand rendering her head immobile was an entirely different matter.
"Where is your group located?"
She didn't answer. There was a light slap on her bruised cheek.
"Wrong answer, human. Where? To the north? The south? Elsewhere? I suppose I should add that currently we're near the remains of a human city called Lafayette. I understand the T'Sentrati, Mother blast their hides, wiped out a fair amount of the population. To the east?"
Amanda refused, but after repeating a few more directions, the Invid made a satisfied noise and ended. "Transparent creature."
Panic flared up, and Shkud laughed, the viper eyes narrowed in amusement.
"You are an entertaining little beast, aren't you? You might be worth something, after all."
Amanda kept her jaws locked so tightly that they were cramped. He was not torturing her, per se, not as much as she feared he would. He was striking her, but in a half-hearted manner. She wasn't speaking. Yet this being was still seeming to get information from her. How, she did not know. But something about those inhuman eyes in that human face was causing her guts to turn to water.
Siaga was nothing in comparison.
She was terrified.
"You might want to speak up. It could make things easier."
No.
The questioning continued, with the constant sense of Oryo'i standing in the shadows nearby, the enforcers guarding them both. All the while, the demon eyes bored into hers.
"...I suppose your companions are similar natives of this planet, unless there's yet another settlement of those accursed T'Sentrati around that I haven't yet taken care of, or their mongrel whelps. Ah! A little response there? Might you even know one? This is most interesting."
Something penetrated Amanda's dazement.
My god, he can't be--reading my mind? Reading something? Oh SHIT. Shit shit shit.... I'm sorry, Gerald. Horror blanked out his next question.
Damn you, Gwen, damn you and the horse you rode in on.
A blow brought her back to her senses. Blinking away the pain, she reeled as the Invid leader yanked her back upright. She could taste the heavy metallic salt of her own blood, and did not dare spit the taste away.
"I want you to answer, human. Any other allies around? One of those Terran Robotech filth from the Masters' world, or their Tiresian bootlickers? No? Maybe? Pity. It's a bit boring having to harvest Flowers for my Mother.
"What would be truly a wonder is if you'd actually known anything of certain ...traitors. Like that rutting bitch Sera or that idiot Ariel. To actually show inclination to mate with humans--disgusting!"
Anger came to the fore again, as she realized he had insulted two of the most revered names of the last war. They may have been Invid, but they were the reason why the Earth had temporarily gained some degree of peace. She kicked, and was hauled off the floor again, before being slammed back down.
"Angry, are you?" Growling, Amanda fought, but the next blow caused her to temporarily lose it. She came to consciousness again sniffing blood in her nose, woozy but still furious. The beautiful face with the green eyes regarded her in the same manner as she would have had a fly whose wings she was trying to pull off. Licking his lips, he reached for the zipper to her CVR jumpsuit. Before she could react, he had the suit partially open, exposing the coverall underneath. Horrified, she jerked away.
"So this disgusts you just as much as it does me?" Shkud mused. The eyes were narrowed, the pupils dilated. "You might want to talk, or I'll disgust you even more." There seemed to be not much disgust as he reached for the coverall zipper. Amanda whimpered, but refused to yield. He was breathing hard, a strange smile playing across his lips. "I wonder if it's true about this strange attractive force your kind seems to have for some Solugi..."
"My lord, this is not--" Oryo'i interrupted, alarm in her voice.
"Shut up!" he snapped. There was an indrawn breath of pain from the subordinate Invid. Amanda twisted, to no avail. "Hmm, I seem to recall an odd frissom--interesting word--from you when I mentioned Solugi just now..." The grasp was partially released. "But enough of that." A finger ran across his chin. "You've been quite productive, human. I might send you to an opredti farm after I'm done. It's the least I can do after you've been so obliging to me."
Henderson, raving mad and wasted, writhing on her bed...
"You seem not to like the idea. Ah, I remember. A few lunar cycles ago, I started programs in the tradition of the last occupation. A few of the first were over by the large river to the west. The humans proved to be quite productive--for a while. The Flower spores and the human physiology seem not to jibe well. Perhaps you met a few survivors in your exploits?"
Amanda's mind was blank, for a couple seconds.
Realization sank in.
Shkud's feline eyes widened, as he rose and looked on her.
Red blackened her vision, red like the pools of blood around the little corpses in the road, red like the flare of light behind her as she plunged into the underbrush... She did not move, but the bruised figure was shaking as though in palsy.
Somehow, the overwhelming tidal wave of knowledge did not sweep her away, slam her shrieking at his throat--too late for that. It built higher and higher, peaked, until she thought she must scream or go mad.
It solidified, hardened into something deadlier and icier than any killing weapon ever produced.
Her voice was distant, perfectly sane, and calm.
"I take it that was to scare me? You're wrong." The solidified ice of the emotion somehow cut the ropes of fear. "I was from one of those towns." In and out of a breath: "I'm going to kill you."
Shkud stared on, arms folded. He was impressed despite himself.
"I sincerely doubt you will get the opportunity. Oryo'i, return her to her cell. I have work to do."
Shkud thought, as the battered native was led off by a subdued Oryo'i; Most interesting. Will my suspicions be played out?
Give a few days, and if not, well, Humans were sources of numerous uses, not all of them requiring that they be alive...
oooooooooooooooooooo
"Not much more," Dennis noted. "I'm giving it a minute or so before I bring her down." They had cut the VAF to a fraction of the original speed; now the waves of snow they were carving through were discernible. He cut it more, but not so much as to stall the mecha.
"I judge maybe twenty miles away myself," Kevin noted from the back. His voice seemed strangely distant. "Your best bet is to work in as far as you can, Dennis."
"You crazy? Patrols--"
Kevin's voice was lucidly calm. "I'll know them coming. Trust me."
Dennis was blank, then remembered. "Oh," was all he said.
He kept forgetting that whatever was in the back seat was one of the very aliens whom he had dedicated most of his adult life to destroying.
Swallowing, he eased it further in.
Kevin noted, "The thing is that once on the ground, god knows what sort of things and terrain'll be in the way. While we're still in the air..." He broke off abruptly, into dead silence, before speaking again. "Dennis? Get it down. Now."
Biting his lip, the second CO slowed, activated the transformation sequence, flipping the thrusters down into the feet and legs of gerwalk, the inertial jerking of the ceased foward movement dragging human and Solugi hard enough against the harnesses to bruise under the CVR. In twenty seconds, Dennis, praying as hard as he ever had, had found a narrowly open area among the trees and eased the mecha down with a scrape and a crunch of branches against the tough metal alloy of the Alpha's hull. It steamed a large radius underneath its still-glowing engines.
"Kevin?" he asked softly. It was a second before the back responded, now even more distant sounding than ever.
"Patrol of ten Attack Scouts...traveling...in surveillance in our direction. ETA judged two minutes."
Dennis looked over to the back; Kevin's eyes were closed, concentrating on something unseen. He shook his head when Dennis tried to attract his attention. "I'm...trying to track them...dammit. Without them finding me..."
Dennis whirled back to his still active console, his eyes going wide when he saw the ten telltale blips inching on an arc, almost over their position. Never before had he been so grateful the Alpha was Shadow. The wedge of enemy bogies blipped, touched their location...blip...blip...blip...and passed over, unmoving on their current course. He did not dare breathe until the last was out of the five-mile mark.
"Didn't see us," Kevin noted from the back seat in a much more normal voice. "We're okay for the time being."
"Jesus."
"You think that's bad? Quincy ranks in the all-time hall of fame of Belated Detections for me. Imagine waking up from a peaceful sleep and realizing there's a few clams on top of you ready to pay a house call."
"You mean you..."
"Oh yeah. There was a rude awakening for you."
"Well, I suppose I owe you one then."
"Make it a malt whiskey." Dennis snorted.
"Nice to know you haven't changed." he commented, receiving a miffed noise from the back.
"Well I could always start slobbering and eating poison ivy to celebrate my new status as Slug-Boy if you want. Let's get a move on, Dennis. We've only got a window of maybe fifteen minutes before the next sweep passes over."
The thrusters came to life again. "Correct. Keep your mind peeled."
"Gotcha, your holiness."
"Uh, 'Slug-Boy'?"
Kevin snickered.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Back to the front
You will die
When I say
You will die
--Metallica, "Disposable Heroes"
She had started to shake again several dozen feet out of the chamber, the pain screaming down her swollen face. Mechanically, she zipped up her jumpsuit, not caring about the Invid guarding her. Her body was screaming for water. She licked her lips with a gummy tongue, coughing in dry barks, the taste of her blood foul in her mouth.
She did not notice the furrowing of the Solugi's pale brows. Oryo'i was still recovering from the mental lashing Shkud had given her when she'd protested. The look she turned on the human was speculative.
Halfway back, after Amanda stumbled unseeing and after they had traversed the lift shaft, the Enforcers halted her with claws on her shoulders, causing her to startle violently. She heard the pad of the humanoid Invid's feet go around her. There was a distant, dull clunk.
In a minute, one of her Enforcer guards handed her a black container of some ceramic material. Somethine sloshed as Mandy stared blankly at the proffered item.
"Take it," Oryo'i said. After a moment, Amanda complied, sniffing at the contents, and reaching in a tentative finger. Wetness touched her fingertips and she tasted it. Water. She did not think of its purity as she lifted it to her parched mouth.
She drank sparingly, watching to see that her guts did not rebel. It was room-temperature, but tasteless and clean, and went down like nectar. She emptied it, and the humanoid took it, replacing it back wherever it had been.
Then they moved again.
There was no response from the opposite cell when Oryo'i and the guards put her back in detention, the bars sliding and lighting back into place as they left. Perhaps Siaga was asleep, or she had already gone to meet her punishment, but the hallway was dark again.
Amanda sat down, and her mind blanked.
She did not know she had been whimpering like a kicked puppy until the silibant whisper from the other side brought her back to reality.
"I take it you saw him," Siaga noted. The energy bars' harsh light delineated her figure as she crouched near her own bars.
Amanda could not answer. Siaga waited for a second and continued. "You see now why I hate him so."
"He--he killed..."
"Burning Tzuptum," came the soft voice. "You are a survivor of his press moves?"
"THE SON-OF-A-BITCH KILLED MY SISTER!" Amanda shrieked.
Just as abruptly, before Siaga stopped trembling from that cry, the voice of the human was soft and shaking again.
"H-his eyes...I never knew Invid had those...those--eyes..."
No response from the condemned alien for a couple of minutes. Then:
"They did not. Not before the Queen-Mother created the Kulagi."
Blankly, Amanda asked. "The Kulagi? Isn't the name So--"
"For us. For me and that unseeing idiot Oryo'i. But for they..." The Invid trailed off. Finally, there was a sigh, and she spoke.
"I am already doomed, at any rate. And you--need distraction. Listen, Amanda Pierson, for what I am going to tell you goes back to the very reason my race has returned. For this alone, I would be sent to the Genesis Pits, but I have nothing left to lose."
As she spoke, some of the awkwardness in her words left.
"We chose of our own will to leave this place, years ago. The sole alternatives were to either destroy all life on this planet or to poison both our races with the Shadow that the accursed Robotech Masters seeded. This we all know. Our Mother chose to find another, uninhabited world, where we could harvest our Flowers in peace and avoid interfering in other species' lives.
"However, there was a problem with the world we chose. It was temperate, it had no intelligent species. But the Flowers were...slow...to catch on and grow. This is nothing unusual, but in this case we had millions of our people to feed on one world. Those of us in the scientist castes projected that with the slow growth rates of the Flower of Life, we would begin starving in a few of your months. We of the Solugi who have been transmuted are not as dependent on them, but the lower castes are a different story.
"We needed more, soon. But only two worlds in the known galaxy have had the Flowers grow on them readily. Our old homeworld Optera, now for all purposes sterile, and this world, your Earth."
"The Regis felt She had no choice. Desperation does interesting things. Until the new world had enough Flowers to feed the Invid, She decided that some of us were to return, to reseed the Earth with the spores, and to harvest enough Flowers and opredti--your protoculture--to keep us supplied. But she could not chance the possibiliity of having us driven off or rejected by you Humans. So we were armed and--measures taken--to ensure a steady shipment.
"Our Mother, though, could not be there--Her experiments in evolution and in finding the ideal form for our kind took up too much of Her time. And so..." Siaga's shadowed lip curled back. "The Kulagi."
"The Regis called together some of the most intelligent, cleverest, and strongest of we Solugi, and...changed them into what you saw. A further transmutation and refinement, into the Kulagi. They were designated as the ones to oversee this occupation. Thus, they have the eyes you saw, to designate their rank. And...more." She fell silent.
Amanda scrambled to understand the import. "You're meaning to tell me... they're the ones running things? Not your kind?"
A bitter bark of sardonic laughter. "Ah, Mother, how observant you are! If the Solugi were, do you think I would currently be awaiting my new existence as an iigai drone here?" Siaga got up and began to pace. Finally, she stopped, her sulfur-colored eyes squinting into the comfortless radiance of the energy bars.
"Once, we had been the crowning achievement of Invid evolution, Human. But no longer. Now, now we have to be crushed under the heels of the likes of him." Another accurate spit into the corridor. "Those trahls had power given to them--too much power. Now they deem themselves slightly below the Spirit of Light Itself and far above the rest of our race. I will not even go into the opinion they have of your kind. You have felt it.
"We were only supposed to feed our kind, at the outset, but now--I'm quite sure you realize that they've moved consideably beyond that. Having tasted the sweetness of the force given them, they wish more of it." Her voice grew bitter. "So much for the Shadow not touching us."
"What about--the Regis?" Amanda had stopped shaking; Siaga had, for an Invid, been remarkably good at her therapy.
A snort. "Our Mother is thousands of light years distant. The lower castes do not question policies, and none of we Solugi have been allowed to return since we came here. And I presume the Kulagi are quite selective on what they tell Her." Siaga slumped against her bars, lost in her own otherworldly reverie.
"Ah."
Her face was beginning to throb hurtfully. Reaction set in again, and she crouched, arms clamped around knees, shivering.
oooooooooooooooooooo
Morning limped into the murky soup of the overcast. The snow had let up except for sporadic flakes. Drifts of white lay here and there in the woods.
A foot destroyed one, as the metal crunched into the ground. It was followed by another, both supporting the weight of a Shadow Alpha. Currently it was in Guardian mode, crouched near the earth as it stalked foward a parcel of land at a time. It had been doing it for four hours now.
The woods gave to emptiness up ahead; the mecha seemed to further crouch, as though realizing what lay before it.
"There it is," Dennis whispered.
A couple miles of open space was in front of them. Beyond that lay the perimeter of tree-like "transmission towers" the Invid used in communications.
Beyond that lay the hive.
It was roughly shaped like a fat upside-down wineglass, the bulk of it in the "cup." Like with all Invid architecture, it would not have looked out of place on an ocean bottom, if it had been a couple of miles smaller.
Out of a hidden aperture in the structure, a flight of several Combat Troopers departed; by them Dennis was able to scale the size of the hive. He made a half-audible whistle. It might not have been the main Lafayette hive, but it was still large enough.
"When should we?" he asked.
There was a muddled reply, then Kevin fished himself out of whatever sea of alien communications he had been tapping. "Whenever, Dennis. Any time is going to suck, frankly. This is one of the stupidest moves I've ever head of."
"Well, it seemed to be the least idiotic of all the stupid alternatives."
Kevin said as thoughtfully as he could while distracted, "Well, yeah, trying to get in with only Cyclones is asking to get killed..."
"Only decent alternative we have, I think."
"Actually Max Sterling's dressing his Veritech in Zentraedi clothing has to take the cake..." the Invid mused.
"O'Shea..." It broke off in a strangled giggle. The two men proceeded to snicker helplessly.
After a bit, Kevin stopped with effort. "We can't piss around any more, Dennis. Now or never. It's getting too light."
"O'Shea--" Dennis started, then shrugged his armored shoulders. "Will getting my butt killed redeem myself?"
Kevin answered, "You're asking the wrong person. I'm in bad straits on the redemption thing. At least you know what you want to get redeemed to."
Dennis thought, then nodded, and began to flick switches and levers.
Kevin braced himself and, never one to reject native beliefs out of hand (especially Matthew's), muttered a Hail Mary.
Dennis bit his lip, as a low rumble began to shudder the craft.
"Here goes!" he shouted.
Slowly, the Alpha began to lift, as Zinnert began to execute the transmode
sequence.
The arms folded, retracted; the legs rotated and realigned themselves in the space of seconds.
In unison, the yell of challenge shook the air, as the last systems came to life.
The engines answered them, then roared.
oooooooooooooooooooo
A white line blazing deep
Soaring through the wasteland we
Soaring birds now hunt the brow
As I thirsty gripped with hunger now
Clear sighted pain ends to win
The battle of the me so wafer thin
The line between the devil's teeth
and that which cannot be repeat
--Peter Murphy,"The Line Between the Devil's Teeth"
Human and Invid were slammed back into their seats by the acceleration, as the thrusters belched into life, vomiting the Alpha foward like shot from a cannon. The force increased, until Zinnert had to crowd the darkness out of his vision. Behind him, he could hear a low grunt, as Kevin himself fought against the gees of acceleration.
Like an arrowhead, the Alpha screamed in hard and fast, skimming the ground, aiming at the heart of the hive.
oooooooooooooooooooo
-Intruder alert!- the Hive Brain cried telepathically. -Terran craft heading in to hive area at high speed, Iigai and Torabs, scramble to prevent penetration!-
A pale head shot up in shock, the orange eyes going wide as the information sunk in to Oryo'i. Then she cursed as much as she could in the limited linguistic field given her and was running for the mecha bay and her armor.