Robotech II: The Sentinels

Rebirth

Chapter 3

Eye In the Sky

"What profit a man if he keeps his soul but the world is lost?" -Placard in Wolfe Pack Barracks Lounge on Praxis, circa 2024.

The Invid genius Tesla was chained to a desk under hot lights, on a platform almost three feet above the ground. His interrogators sat behind a massive table which contained a smorgasbord of seafood. General Hunter and Colonels Wolfe and Sterling had filled their plates and were drinking Praxian fruit wine from goblets whose rims were encrusted with salt. Jack had a smaller plate with just a few of the crustacean legs and a bottled water; it was his responsibility to take notes, and he didn't want a drunken stupor or food coma to interfere with that.

"So, do you like your new accommodations? I know the gravity is a little low compared to what you're used to, but there's nothing wrong with a little spring in your step," Hunter said.

"They are much the same, a small windowless cell," Tesla said, his larynx rattling in a way which Jack realized indicated irritation, if not anger.

"If you had a window, you might try to escape," Sterling said.

"I don't think you'd get very far," Wolfe said. "The Invid aren't very popular on Praxis right now."

Tesla shuddered. It was the seafood, of course. The bright lights were just for show, they didn't affect Tesla's unclosing eyes at all: the data they'd gotten on Optera from the Master's databanks on Tirol indicated that the luminosity of their daylight was almost twice that of Earth's. However they had quickly discovered that Invid had an aversion to salt. Just the smell of the briney seafood was enough to make Tesla queasy.

"You've got to try some of this," Hunter said, loading a grayish blob onto Sterling's plate. "I think it's a kind of octopus."

"That might not be such a good idea, chief. Remember when I tried the takoyaki at Minmei's restaurant and blew chunks?" Sterling said.

"I thought Minmei was Chinese," Wolfe said. "Why would they be serving takoyaki at their restaurant?"

"Half-chinese," Hunter corrected. "Her mother was Japanese. So they had a hybrid menu."

"Are all of the women you date half-Japanese?" Wolfe said.

Hunter thought about it for a moment. "Yeah, I guess they are. I never noticed that before."

"Are you going to ask me some questions?" Tesla seethed.

"Don't lose your temper, we're sharing a meal, it's a way of bonding," Wolfe said, he picked up the grey blob on Sterling's plate and held it towards Tesla. Even though Tesla was more than five feet away he recoiled, then proceeded to vomit onto the floor.

"Yuck!" Sterling said.

"We're not cleaning that up," Wolfe said.

"Do you think he can handle a mop and bucket with that four-fingered hand?" Hunter said.

"I'm counting five fingers," Sterling said.

Hunter took a look. "Wow, sure as shit. I'm really observant, I guess it's a good thing I'm not a pilot anymore. Lieutenant Baker, what questions do we have for this distinguished gentlebeing?"

Baker browsed through the notepad function of his tablet. "Uh, first up, why doesn't the Regees use Inorganics?"

"Ahh yes, that's a good one," Wolfe said.

"Well?" Hunter said.

"If I tell you, will you take me back to my cell?" Tesla said, his cobra-like head stooped.

"That seems fair," Hunter said.

"I reserve the right for followup questions," Wolfe said.

"Agreed," Hunter said.

"The Regees says that there are two fundamental forces in the universe: Lyatow and Shadaw. Places and people that are strong in Lyatow allow life to grow and heal, whereas people and places heavy in Shadaw are prone to destruction," Tesla said.

"That's all very interesting," Wolfe said. "But what does that have to do with the Inorganics."

"The Inorganics are built using a technology that is powered by Shadaw. As such wherever they used, conflict is sure to break out," Tesla said.

"Of course conflict is going to break out, they're weapons!" Wolfe said.

"The Regees only wants the Invid to inhabit planets that engender Lyatow; Praxis was favored by her, so she wouldn't allow the Inorganics to be used here," Tesla said.

"Where did the Regent get the Inorganics from?" Hunter asked.

"I'm sorry, I don't understand your question," Tesla said.

"I think you do. The Inorganics were able to rip through the Tiresian defenses, even though the Invid mecha were easily defeated. Exedore and his team have examined the Inorganics left behind on Tirol and have confirmed that they are not Invid, Tiresian or Zentraedi technology," Hunter said.

"They are controlled by the Invid Brain, of course they are Invid technology," Tesla said; Jack could swear he heard wounded pride in his voice.

"Oh, I have no doubt they were manufactured by the Invid, and even modified to incorporate that control mechanism; but the kythic transceiver is much cruder and almost organic, it was obviously grafted on to an existing design. I just want to know where the design came from," Hunter said.

Tesla seethed in a large puddle of what Jack assumed was sweat–hoped was sweat–but said nothing.

A couple of hours later Jack sat at a large conference table in Bela's palace; it was the daily briefing on the Praxian campaign with all the major stakeholders. As per usual none of the other Sentinel races had bothered to show up; most of them weren't even on-planet anymore, returning to the fleet that orbited Praxis.

Admiral Hayes was reading through the notes that Jack had taken during the interrogation, after a moment she looked up.

"If what he told us about Lyatow is true, then it might be possible to negotiate with the Regees," Hayes said.

"I don't think we can take any of that seriously," Wolfe said. "Lyatow and Shadaw? They sound just like Light and Shadow, he was obviously screwing with us."

"Maybe our words for those concepts came down from contact with the Protoculture in the past?" Hunter said. "They may have visited Earth."

"But English is barely a thousand years old, and those words were derived from earlier languages where they sounded quite different," Hayes said. "I suppose it could just be a coincidence. This is all just academic at the moment, though. Have all of you prepared your list for potential targets of our attrition campaign?"

The other participants started looking through their notes. Jack steeled himself; he'd faced down Enforcers and Inorganics, but none of them scared him the way this wall of brass did. But he had to do it for the sake of the mission.

"If I might make a suggestion," Jack said.

Jack registered surprise and confusion in the Admiral's brown eyes.

"Umm, of course, Lieutenant Baker," she said.

General Hunter gave him a bemused look. Jack punched a few keys on the computer console that was built into the table, and the locations appeared on the map which had been occupying the monitor.

"There are two cities on the north side of this continent which are very far inland, Flicoran and Clidhama. They both have Invid bases on their outskirts, and they're so far from the sea that resupply will be difficult. Any aerial resupply would have to go through Eallgrenee airspace. If we chipped away at them long enough, we could get an ad hoc liberation, even if the citizens themselves never revolt," Jack said.

Out of the corner of his eye Jack saw that Bela was giving him a suspicious look, but he didn't make eye contact.

"That's better than my suggestion," Wolfe said, closing his leatherbound notebook.

"It definitely seems to have merit," Hunter said, the reluctance obvious in his voice. "The proximity is a great selling point, especially if we're going to make use of artillery instead of simple bombing raids."

"Bela, what are your thoughts?" Hayes said.

Bela finally looked away from Jack. "As long as the military bases are on the outskirts of the city, I agree, they would be excellent targets."

"Okay then, good work Lieutenant Baker," Hayes said.

As they were filing out an hour later, Baker blocked General Hunter from the door, in his hands were five clipboards stacked on top of one another.

"Just a few things for you to sign, General," Jack said. "These first two are authorizations for Praxians that want to join the REF, Bela has already vouched for them. Thanks, and then we've got the flight plan for tonight's recon missions, if you just sign there, there, there, initial, and sign on the last page, thank you. Then authorization for shift rotations on Bela's honor guard, thank you. And finally a requisition request, right there, thank you very much."

Jack tried his hardest not to smile. Hunter hadn't even looked at the flight plan except to see where to sign it. He'd pulled it off.

"Wait just a second," Hunter said as Jack was about to leave.

Dammit, Jack thought to himself.

"Let me see that last one," Hunter said, his hand out.

Trying his best to look confused, Jack handed him the inventory requisition form. The one he had added to the pile as a decoy.

"Tirolian Brandy? And to you directly, no less. I'd have thought you would've put General Headquarters or something else innocuous on this," Hunter said. "So tell me why you're requesting such a rare thing from storage?"

"Ummm, it's Lieutenant Penn's favorite, you see, and well…" Jack said.

"Candy is dandy but liquor is quicker, eh?" Hunter said as he shook his head. "Let me give you a dime's worth of free advice; if you want to get into Karen's bunk, you're going to have to try a lot harder than that. You're going to have to be honest with her and tell her how you feel."

"That, uh, sounds unusual coming from you, sir," Jack said.

Hunter glared at him. "And what exactly does that mean?"

"It's just I've heard stories," Jack said, immediately regretting it. Even when he was sneaking around, he still couldn't manage to keep his mouth shut.

Hunter continued to glare at him, but suddenly smiled. "I suppose that's true; I guess I'm just trying to get you to learn from my mistakes. But, you know what, I wouldn't have listened to me either, and I still would have made the same mistakes," he handed the clipboard back to Jack.

General Hunter shook his head again and walked through the door. Jack stared at the pile of clipboards in his hands as he listened to the blood rush in his ears; slowly his racing heart slowed down to normal. After he walked out into the hallway it began racing again as a six-foot-three Amazon glowered over him.

"Bela, can I help you with something?" Jack asked.

"I'd like to talk about your suggestion of targets. It's very interesting how they're the two cities nearest to the Whaashi," Bela said.

"Yeah, haha, what an interesting coincidence," Jack said.

Before you could say Jack Splat, Bela had Jack in a headlock.

"What are you planning, my dear girl… er, boy," Bela said in a sweet tone which belied her having a squirming REF lieutenant's head in her armpit.

"All right, all right!" Jack shouted. "I just thought that if we winnowed down the Invid in those cities that the people in them would overthrow them, and then they could send forces to free the Whaashi!"

Bela let him go, Jack glared at her as he rubbed his neck.

"That isn't going to work, Jack, no Praxian is going to take that risk," Bela said.

Oh really, Jack thought. He knew one Praxian who was.

"Do you know any of the political or military leaders in those cities? Could you talk to them?" Jack said.

"I know my people, Jack," Bela said. "I appreciate your tenacity, but you just need to forget this."

"I'm not going to give up on this, Bela," Jack said.

"Are you saying you're going to break your promise?" Bela said, cracking her knuckles.

"No, I'm not going to talk to my superiors, but I think you should," Jack said.

"You can't understand, Jack," Bela said. "The freedom of this planet is second to the future of our race."

"The Sentinels aren't going to keep banging their heads against the wall. The REF is the only faction that still believes we should be here. All the others think we should move on to Garuda," Jack said.

"Then perhaps we should," Bela said with downcast eyes.

"You can't mean that!" Jack said.

"Jack… I hope that you never have to face the choices that I have," Bela said, and then simply walked away.

Jack stood lost in thought for a long time.

"What the fuck am I supposed to do with this shit?" Karen asked, staring at the bottle of Tirolian brandy. She tried to read the label, but her Tiresian was worse than her Japanese.

"I dunno, but it's yours," Jack said. "Chug-a-lug."

"If you don't want it," Rem said, holding out his hand. "If you don't mind…"

Karen shoved it into his hand, he looked grateful.

"This bottle costs more than the house I grew up in," Rem said.

"Why did the fleet have it anyway?" Karen said.

"They figured they'd be meeting with political leaders as they worked to liberate the worlds of the Local Group; of course they didn't realize that there is little love for the Robotech Masters out here, much less for their libations," Janice said.

"Okay, Penn, you're set to fly over the Whaashi tonight. Janice has gotten the flight path loaded into your Alpha, and has also had the techs install a full sensor suite," Jack said.

"Killer," Karen said.

"They did have to remove the missile launchers to do it," Jack said apologetically.

"Miriya always said that a pilot should never rely on something that aims itself," Karen said.

"I also unintentionally did what you suggested," Jack said.

Karen raised one eyebrow, wondering what he could possibly mean by that.

"Bela confronted me in the hallway about my target selection. I threw her off the trail by suggesting that I was just trying to walk-in a liberation of the Whaashi. I suggested she talk to Hayes or Hunter about it, but she didn't seem too keen."

"Shit," Karen mumbled.

"Rem, do you have an update on the hand weapons?" Jack said.

"I should have something for you tomorrow. They're sitting in crates in the hangar, Janice just needs to find a quiet place where I can demonstrate them to you," Rem said.

"Awesome, I'm looking forward to it," Jack said.

Over a thousand light years away and fifteen years in the past, Karen Penn sat at her desk and stared out the window. There were rolling green hills as far as the sky could see, the utter blue sky took over where they ended.

Sitting near her were the best friends she'd ever have: Emily, Charlotte and Natalie. All of whom would perish on Doomsday.

Miss Thompson was in rare form today, almost screaming at little Jose Orlando for not being able to conjugate properly. Everyone in the room was on edge, trying their best not to be the next target of the teacher's wrath.

Karen decided she was going to do something about it. She ripped a small square of paper out of her notebook and scribbled a note. Keeping track of the teacher out of the corner of her eye, she passed the note to Charlotte when she knew Miss Thompson would see it.

The teacher stormed over to their desks and snapped the note out of Charlotte's trembling hand.

"Miss Penn, would you care to read this in front of the class?" Miss Thompson said with the sort of sweetness she associated with the smell of medical waste.

"Nah, I'm good," Karen said, her casualness belying how tense she felt; if she was forced to read the note her plan would be ruined.

"Fine, then allow me," Miss Thompson said, and stormed back to the front of the room.

Miss Thompson unfolded the note and began to read. "I'm not the pheasant plucker, I'm the pheasant plucker's son, and I'm only plucking pheasants 'til the pleasant fucker comes."

Everyone in the room started laughing, except Miss Thompson whose face was turning the purple of a blood blister, and Karen, who had a self-satisfied grin on her face.

Miss Thompson stormed over and grabbed Karen by the hood of her sweatshirt and dragged her out into the hallway.

Karen sat up and stared at the dark room around her. Out the window the purple sky was rimmed by a glowing horizon which indicated the sun had recently set. She looked at the digital readout on the wall next to her bed and saw that she was due to lift-off in about an hour.

Jack had given her shit about needing to take a nap before her patrol, but he was only a ground-pounder and didn't understand the quick reflexes that being a pilot required.

She wiped the tears from her eyes; the dream had reminded her of all the good friends and family who she'd never seen again because Dolza was afraid of emotions. How could so many people die for so stupid a reason? Was there any good reason to kill someone? (That's probably not the best thought for a soldier to have)

After a quick blast shower, Karen pulled on her flight suit and took her flashclapper to GHQ. Stars were beginning to appear as the dark purple sky was slowly fading to black. There were no familiar constellations, as they were on the other side of the galaxy and the galaxy's spiral bar and clouds of dust hid Earth and the constellations that were between her and the solar system of her birth; the ones that were past Sol were too faint to see.

The wind whipped through her hair and carried with it the scent of the far-off sea. Karen felt exhilarated beyond belief. But this would be nothing compared to how she felt when she was in the cockpit, for pilots had the ability to create their own wind, and ride it anywhere they wished to go, at speeds far beyond anything nature ever intended.

In the hangar's locker room she pulled on her torso harness, anti-G vest and survival vest and put on a helmet which matched the red of her flight suit and indicated her membership in the ranks of Miriya Sterling's Red Squadron.

Her Alpha fighter had the same shade of red trim on its fuselage. She climbed up the ladder and dropped into the cockpit. The ground crew quickly removed the ladder and sealed the canopy.

She plugged the power and data-lead into their ports on the chest of her suit. She heard a crackle of static as her communications rig was connected. She strapped her mask to her face and took a deep breath.

"Red-6 standing by, do you read me, over?" Karen said

"Hellllo Karen!" a sing-song voice replied. "Affirmative, I read you, over."

Karen felt herself smile. "So you're my com officer tonight, 'eh? Um, over."

"That seemed safest," Janice said over the com. "Your flight plan is loaded. Let me know if there are any questions, over."

Karen brought it up on her flight computer, but she'd read the hardcopy that Jack had given her that morning. The Whaashi was about 500 miles from GHQ, which should only take 25 minutes to reach at 10000 feet; however as a surveillance mission she had a ceiling of 3000 feet and much slower speeds; basically a snail's crawl when she was within 20 miles of the target.

"And by the way, Jack wanted me to remind you… don't get shot down. The whole plan will be blown if we have to send out a recovery crew, over," Janice said.

"Thank Lieutenant Baker for his advice with the usual one-finger salute the next time you see him, over," Karen said.

Janice's musical laughter came in reply.

Three members of the groundcrew signaled her way out of the hangar with their glowing orange batons and got her onto the runway. The one in front gave her the thumbs up and ran out of the way. The main engine had already been started, but the purr turned to a roar as she opened up the throttle; she was pushed back into her seat as she shot down the runway, very soon the currents of air her engines created lifted her off the ground and she rose precipitously until the giant metal eagle found its home at 3000 feet.

It should have been quite a view, but all she could see were the lights of the city below her, and the stars above. She was going to be on instruments this flight.

Fifteen minutes passed; the cockpit was relatively silent, the hiss of her oxygen supply, the constant beeping of the tracking computer, and every five minutes a check-in from ground control.

Karen looked at her progress on the flight computer and let out a sigh.

"Bored, over?" Janice said over the com.

"Kinda, over," Karen said.

"As General Hunter is fond of saying: being a fighter pilot means experiencing hours of boredom punctacted by moments of extreme terror, over," Janice said.

Karen nodded to herself. She then spent a few moments staring out into the darkness surrounding her. She could almost believe she was in space, except now there weren't even any stars due to the sky being overcast. She felt incredibly lonely.

"Janice… Could you sing to me?" Karen said, feeling embarrassed at showing herself to be so vulnerable.

There were a few moments of silence; Karen imagined Janice looking around and worrying about anyone hearing her sing. Then Karen felt really stupid for asking.

"Sorry, I had to find the backing track and patch it in," Janice said.

The music started; Karen repressed a groan: techno. She missed the sound of Minmei's old music; but apparently she hadn't felt like singing her own music since that bad breakup she'd had right before Khyron's suicide mission destroyed Macross City.

"I slip on my red shoes and head out on this Sunday afternoon," Janice sang. "All I can hear is the clack-clack of my shoes as I walk on the cobblestone promenade. And I feel for the cracks in the path on my Sunday walk."

Karen relaxed, almost feeling like she was melting into the hard seat of her fighter. She saw from her cardio monitor that her heart rate had dropped by 20 points.

"I'm looking for a present I can give you. There has been juicy gossip lately, I've been wanting that kind of popularity. Finally I find a shop in an obscure place. Nope, it can't be found, nothing. And I went to all this trouble on my day off."

Janice had such a beautiful voice, Karen thought. Even though she had no desire to be a singer, she thought how happy she'd be if she had a voice like Janice's… or her mother's.

Janice continued to sing, as Karen temporarily allowed herself to forget where she was, immersed in the drowsy illusion of taking a walk on a Sunday afternoon; someplace on Earth, before the Zentraedi had bombarded it.

She hadn't thought of her mother in a long time, perhaps not since boarding the SDF-3. She had been a concert violinist with the Boston Symphony, and had been world renowned. There were many nights when she'd rocked Karen in her arms and sang her to sleep.

Karen shook her head, as if to shake the drowsiness out of it like water from her hair. She had a mission to perform, people were depending on her.

Janice finished singing and the music stopped. Karen let a few moments pass in silence.

"Thank you," Karen said.

"Anytime," Janice said with a chortle. "It looks like you're almost there, over,"

Karen tabbed over to the GPS screen. (The Invid had shot down every satellite they'd try to launch, so they eventually broke up the Sentinels fleet itself and had them assume stationary points around the globe of Praxis to provide the reference points necessary for the GPS system to work. Praxis had more stratospheric clouds than Karbara or Earth, which made the sidereal tracking system they used in space undependable.)

Karen pulled down the throttle and allowed the planet's gravity and air resistance to slow her down; she was now going a mere 150 miles per hour. She'd be over the target in a little over two minutes. She tabbed over to the camera screen and put it in infrared mode; even though everything would fly by so fast that she wouldn't be able to see it.

She shot over the base without them noticing. As she continued north she replayed the video and froze on a shot of the base; they would have overlay the daytime images on this later, but there was one giant reddish-white blob with four reddish blobs at the compass points. There were too many smaller red blobs to the west of the giant blob to count. The giant blob was the reactor, the slightly smaller ones were the Enforcers. The multitude of pinpricks were Invid.

She cut the starboard engine for just long enough to make a 180-degree change to her yaw, and she was now heading south.

She changed the sensor package to RADAR and within moments she was once again over the site. Suddenly all the indicators on her dashboard were blazing red. Karen instinctively rolled her fighter and managed to just avoid a stream of annihilation discs.

"Motherfuckier!" she shouted, and pulled back on the flight stick until her pitch was 60 degrees relative to the ground, she pushed the throttle with her left-hand; not only was she screaming away from the Whaashi like a bat-out-of-hell, but she was zipping into the upper atmosphere like a heaven-bound angel.

The indicators blared again, she rolled again, this time counter-clockwise, and the stream of annihilation discs passed close enough to (she would later discover) singe the paint on her fighter.

According to her RADAR screen there were three Invid after her; she suspected they were the guards from the Whaashi. She didn't know if it was her second pass that had caused them to give chase, or possibly the RADAR in the sensor package which was a thousand times stronger than her flight RADAR.

The REF was unclear on the flight capabilities of the Enforcers, with Colonel Grant suggesting that they were mostly ground craft, with a range somewhere between that of a Hovertank and a Logan. Karen was afraid that she'd have to tell him just how mistaken he was.

As she got farther south one of the blips disappeared, but the other two kept in pursuit. Karen gritted her teeth; she'd have to fight them, and without missiles she'd have to use the Alpha's main gun, and that was fixed in place in Fighter mode. It was a weapon that was designed for use in Battoloid mode, where it could be pointed in literally every direction.

The trouble was that if she switched to Battoloid mode, she'd fall like a stone to the ground 5000 feet below, assuming that the Invid didn't fry her before then. The Battoloid had repulsorlifts which allowed it to float at almost 500 feet, but they needed solid matter to push against.

GERWALK, er, Guardian mode on the other hand kept the airfoils in place, but swapped out the jet engine for the repulsors, which would essentially make the fighter a glider instead of a plane.

Fortunately for Karen, she had spent two weeks in the giant craters of Kitty Hawk and had learned to coast on the wind with the best of them. She turned back towards the enemy with a yaw-adjustment and roll, cut the engines and pulled the mode selector into the middle position.

The thruster swung out to form her legs and the roar of the engine was replaced with the hum and metallic din of the fuselage split apart and folded into the shape of two arms, and her gun was now in the hand of the right arm. The wings tilted upwards and her cockpit sloped forwards 45-degrees. Gravity tugged her downwards, but the air around her wings kept her aloft.

It was pitch dark and the clouds kept her from seeing her assailants, but the camera on the gun-pod was multispectrum, she switched it over to infrared and the Enforcers glowed brightly in the night.

She locked the gun on the one that was closer and opened fire, but it either dodged in time or the wind had buffeted her enough to overcome the gun's auto-tracking. The altimeter showed that, gliding aside, she was losing altitude. This also meant that she was getting closer to her quarry; which increased the danger for both of them.

Her display began flashing red again, the Enforcer to the east had unleashed another barrage of plasma at her. She adjusted the aileron on her left wing so that she roughly glided out of the way of a visit to the grim reaper.

The Enforcer nearer to her responded, and she once again used the wing-flips to roll on the wind and avoid the caged-lightning they were unleashing upon her.

She was less than a mile away from the nearest Enforcer now, and she could now see it in visible light with image enhancement mode, and it was tilting forward, bringing its upper-turrets to bear on her. She moved the aiming reticle onto him and opened fire. This time she strafed his abdomen; he had been turning his armored back to her, but she managed to hit the crucial components in the front; he spun out of control and plummeted towards the ground. The explosion made the sky as bright as day.

Karen stared at the other Enforcer for a full two seconds. The Regees' Invid were strange in that they didn't always fight to the death. When a battalion was being soundly defeated it wasn't unheard of them to retreat. Karen was hoping that this Enforcer would turn tail and run, it would make her night. Sadly, it wasn't to be.

The Enforcer got larger and larger in her HUD, and she suddenly realized that it was not simply because she was falling towards it; it was rising to meet her. As she stared at the monstrosity of metal and carbon-fiber she couldn't help but think that it was sneering at her.

She unleashed a torrent of plasma at it, but it rolled out of the way; a much more limbre, powered roll than she was currently capable of.

She made an uncontrolled roll away from the Enforcer so her wings were perpendicular to him, giving him a smaller profile to hit; luckily she was able to use the gun camera to aim, since the wings now blocked her view.

Another barrage, another powered roll out of the way. He responded in kind, and Karen was pleased to see that the stream of annihilation discs missed her by twenty feet; their targeting systems were apparently not as advanced. Though knowing the organic nature of Invid technology it's possible that they didn't possess anywhere near the computational ability of even the old Earth fighter jets like the F-19 or even its grand-daddy the F-16 which her grandfather had flown during one of the many conflicts before Unification.

The wind had rolled her so that her broadside was now wide open to the Enforcer's turrets. Karen considered rolling back, but how long would it be before the wind exposed her again? If only she had some sort of power to throw into her glide.

She blinked several times in realization. Of course!

"The enemy's gate is down!" she shouted.

"Repeat, Red-6, I didn't read that, over" Janice said.

She was too far from the ground to get any meaningful traction from the repulsorlifts, but the repulsorlifts worked on all forms of matter, even the water vapor in the clouds, or the gas molecules in the air.

She tilted the legs of her fighter forward and increased the repulsorlift to full power, what little thrust she gave was enough to tilt the pitch of her fighter so that the soles of its feet were aimed towards the Enforcer. She stuck the nozzle of her rifle between the feet and prepared to fire.

The Enforcer fired first, and almost the entirety of her left wing was blown off.

"Son of a bitch!" Karen shouted. She had forgotten one very important thing: Ender Wiggin was able to use this trick because he didn't have wings; the Alpha did; or had.

Karen spun like a pinwheel; she quickly raised the visor of her helmet to make it a little less uncomfortable if she blew chunks. She didn't know how the hell she was going to get out of this one.

Out of the corner of the eye she saw her altimeter; 900 feet. She allowed herself a half-smile. She might get out of this alive after all.

She moved the mode selector down to the final position, her fighter transformed into batttoloid mode. The feeling of free-fall was terrifying, but preferable to the uncontrolled spin. The air crackled around her as the Enforcer continued to fire on her.

Suddenly, and quite abruptly the fall ceased, Karen was wrenched out of her chair, and was pulled back down by her harness. She was now floating, if not safely, 500 feet above the jungle a hundred miles south of the Whaashi.

The Enforcer was flying towards her; Karen gritted her teeth. The game had changed, and the Enforcer was now at a serious disadvantage.

The Enforcer slowed down and dodged as Karen sent barrage after barrage at it. Turrets, armor plating and even limbs were blown off as Karen raged at the Invid craft.

Eventually the crab-like mecha had taken as much damage as it could and crashed into the foliage, where it exploded a moment later.

Karen let out a long sigh.

"Lieutenant Penn reporting in, two Invid Enforcers destroyed. Severe damage to one wing of my fighter, over." Karen said.

"Is it still pilotable, over?" Janice replied.

"Yes, in battoloid mode, over," Karen said, and then groaned. The Battoloid hover mode was faster than its walking mode, but it was only capable of about the same speed as a flashclapper. It would take her almost 3 hours to get to Eallgrenee.

With a sigh she opened up the aft thrusters and began the long journey home.

"Ow!"

"Sorry, pain is a necessary part of the diagnosis process," Janice said as she moved her lithe hands around the bruises on Karen's shoulders and arms.

"Your bedside manner could use some work," Karen said.

"You're the doctor, why don't you check yourself out?" Janice said.

"I often do," Karen said with a wry smile.

"You're so vain," Janice sang. "I bet you think this song is about you."

Karen groaned. "It's too early in the morning for Carly Simon."

"I think you're going to be fine, just some bruising from the harness," Janice said.

"Thanks," Karen said as she pulled her shirt back on. "Are you going to be able to keep the repair of my fighter off the books?"

"Jack and Rem should be finishing up as we speak," Janice said.

Karen groaned again.

"They are both excellent mechanics, I assure you," Janice said. "And I've already faked the parts manifest."

"What about the paint job? The wing has to have red trim; Captain Parino is going to notice if it doesn't," Karen said.

"They know, don't worry about it," Janice said.

They left the storeroom in the hangar which had been serving as the headquarters of the Praxian Liberation Front (this night it was serving as an ad hoc medbay) and made their way to the office complex.

They passed a familiar alpha fighter; Karen stopped and couldn't help but admire the work that Rem and Jack had done; and so quickly, too.

"The trim is a little uneven," Karen noted with a sniff.

"Always the stickler, eh, Karen?" said a jovial voice from behind them.

Karen turned to see Jack, he was clad in mechanic coveralls and had a metal case in his right hand.

"But I guess that's what makes you so good at your job," Jack said, holding up the case. "This is a full set of printouts of your recon photos, I also included overlays of the opticals from the daytime missions, and a thumb drive with the 3D model I had the computer render, though I know you like to do that in your head."

Karen took the case from him.

"How long will your analysis take?" Jack said.

"For Christ's sake, I need some sleep!" Karen said.

"Granted. How long?" Jack said.

Karen stared at him for a moment. Though his voice still had that jovial, careless quality to it, there was something different about Jack. HIs stance, the steely look in his eyes. He was taking this very seriously.

"I'll have it done by our afternoon meeting," Karen said.

"Great!" Jack said. "Have a good rest, you've earned it!"

She watched him go, wondering how he managed to look dignified in stained coveralls. But still, he did. Who knew that Jack Baker had the makings of a leader?

Volsmanch, or Triloan brandy as the Earthers referred to it, was a blue alcoholic beverage which was roughly 110 proof and had an earthy, smooth taste to it. It was extremely expensive to produce, and Rem would never have tasted it if Desu, a member of the triumvirate that ruled Tirol, hadn't gifted a bottle of it to Cabell for his efforts in understanding Biotechnology.

Cabell and Rem had drunk a shot glass each of the brandy once a year on Zor's Day, and it had always left Rem wanting.

He had always considered himself a man who could control his urges, but once Rem had gotten home he had downed half the bottle and passed out on his couch.

When he reported to the base the next morning, he had a hangover, though he admitted it was the smoothest hangover he'd ever had with no gastrointestinal abnormalities whatsoever.

He made his way to the storage room that Karen referred to as Headquarters, but which Jack referred to as The Clubhouse (much to Karen's annoyance). The usual crates that they had stacked to use as a table have been moved to the sides of the room and replaced with one of the table-like Veritech simulators from the base's Game Center. (Jack said that this type of set-up, where the screen was set into the table facing upwards where both players could easily see it, was known as a "cocktail arcade cabinet". Rem supposed it was called this because it provided the players with a place to put their drink.)

Jack was tinkering with something within the base of the table while Janice worked on a laptop connected to it by a patchwork cable consisting of many different wires held together with electrical tape.

Rem started to feel jealous at seeing the two of them alone together, but those feelings were vanquished by Janice's smile at seeing him. She set the laptop on the crate next to her chair, jumped to her feet, and rushed across the room to kiss him. Once again he felt slightly embarrassed as she explored the inside of his mouth with her tongue.

"Geez, get a room you two," Jack said.

The door swung up and a tired-looking Karen entered.

"What's all this shit?" she said.

"Just wait, trust me, you'll be impressed," Jack said, as he continued his soldering.

"I bet you say that to all the girls," Karen said. "And I bet they're all equally unimpressed."

Rem wondered why Karen felt the need to disparage Jack's sexual prowess at every opportunity, and why Jack allowed it. He never even replied, or as Colonel Wolfe had once called it: "took the bait".

The door swished open once more and Gnea, clad in an REF tracksuit and headband, entered, her face glistening with sweat from her morning run.

"Okay… Private Em, if you could fire it up please," Jack said, laying down the soldering iron.

There was a click from a relay inside the base of the cocktail cabinet and a pale green glow slowly resolved itself into the shape of a cube above the tabletop. Within it appeared a flat rectangle, words appeared at the top of it: File, Edit, View, Home, Insert, Layout…

Jack picked up the computer interface device they the Earthers referred to as a "3D mouse". (Mice were apparently rodents on Earth who resided in fields and the walls of houses and were known to make female homemakers scream and leap unto tables in the entertainment productions of the previous century. This device did not resemble the rodent in any way: it was cylindrical with a flared base, and had neither whiskers or a tail; as such Rem was unable to understand how it had gotten such a name.) He clicked on View/Show In 3D, and the cube filled with an image of a stone temple. A small box floated next to it with the letters "Wireframe" floating inside it.

"Give me the combined view, please," Jack said.

Suddenly the walls and floor became transparent and they were able to see within, but the spaces were completely empty. Many blobs of different shapes, sizes and colors floated all over the interior, with four giant blobs appearing at the compass points outside. A massive chamber appeared underneath the temple that was larger than the structure itself.

The image began to rotate and zoom in as Jack worked the mouse. It centered on a bright red blob that had a cubicle shape with pipes leading into and out of it.

"This is the reactor, protocult…er, biomatter burning, I assume?" Jack said.

"Yes, this looks similar to some of the smaller ones used on Tirol. Those tubes that start to get yellow as they approach the reactor are the coolant intank, those red ones are the coolant outflow, and I assume that blob at the end of them is the sink component of the heat exchanger," Jack said.

Jack zoomed out and rotated the image, and brought into one of the corridors of the upper structure. Seemingly floating there were the heat signature of an invid drone. It had the smooth, almost human head of the soldier drones, not the hooded head with mandibles of the scientist class.

"Wow, that's great detail," Janice said.

"Cabell helped upgrade the sensor suites with Tirolian technology," Rem said with pride.

"There are about fifty of these guys inside the Whaashi. They're all on the upper floor of the structure. I'm assuming that the lower chamber is where the birthing actually takes place; so fortunately it will be untouched by the battle," Jack said. "That probably rules out any explosives, though, since we don't want the ceiling to collapse."

"I should think so," Gnea said. "I look forward to beheading every one of those slugs!"

"Karen, think fast!" Jack said as he threw her the mouse.

She scrambled to grab it. "Are you out of your god-damn mind?!"

"Could you please give us your strategic analysis?" Jack said.

Karen gave him a hate-filled look, but quickly regained her composure. "We'll need three teams of commandos. Two of them will have objectives inside, the other will take care of the Invid armor outside.

"Unfortunately, the inside-teams are going to have to go inside first. The first will be responsible for setting up the force field generator, and the second will take out the drones inside. This means, obviously, that they have to be inside before the force field generator is activated. Also we can't engage the Enforcers until after the force field is up; we'll endanger the temple otherwise."

"Sounds tricky," Jack said.

"It's not as hard as it sounds. The Enforcers don't patrol, they stay stationary. I took into consideration the field of view of the armor's cameras, and there are significant blind spots. The two teams could easily sneak in," Karen said.

"Wait a second, what about sound sensors?" Rem said.

"They are no better than the range of human hearing, commandos are trained to move quietly," Karen said. "However they will be able to detect any protoculture, so the commandos would have to be armed with conventional weapons or less."

"That also means they can't bring a generator along to power the force field. You'd need to hook it up to the reactor," Jack said.

"That shouldn't be a problem, the design looks very similar to that of Masters' technology. Suspiciously similar, in fact," Rem said.

"So the plan is to have Team One infiltrate the reactor area, hook up the force field and activate. Then Teams Two and Three take out the Invid?" Jack said.

"That's the plan," Karen said. 'But we do have one fairly severe problem."

"Which is?" Jack said.

"We don't have any commandos," Karen said.

"None?" Jack said, aghast.

"Not a one," Karen said.

"How is that possible?" Rem said. "You had an entire company of commandos."

"Yes, the SEALs of Ghost Squadron, but not a single member of that Squadron joined the Sentinels," Karen said.

"So how many do we need?" Jack said.

"Three units, there are usually 16 per unit, so 48," Karen said.

"Hmmm, it would take awhile to train for that," Jack said.

"No! We need seasoned commandos, people who have been doing this for years. Also, we can't keep this a secret if we're involving almost ten percent of the REF faction!" Karen said.

"What about the other races?" Jack asked.

"Even if every one of them had these skills, and agreed to help us, and promised not to inform Admiral Hayes, that would only be a fifth of what we needed," Janice said.

"Okay, we'll have to find Praxian warriors that will help us," Jack said.

"I told you before," Gnea said. "This type of combat is forbidden to Praxians because it is dishonorable. You will find no warriors who fight this way, and none who will be willing to learn it."

Jack stared at the ghostly image of the Whaashi that floated before them for a long time.

"We need to take this to our superiors, it's the only way," Karen said.

"No. I made a promise-" Jack started.

"Which means nothing! Not telling them what we found is dereliction of duty!" Karen said.

"I will not put the future of the Praxian race in jeopardy just to avoid a court martial!" Jack shouted. Then, in a steady voice: "I'm not giving up on this, there has to be a way, and I'm going to find it!"

Rem noticed that Gnea was looking at Jack in a way that Janice often looked at him.

"Rem," Jack said. Rem turned his gaze back to the human. "I believe you have some weaponry you were going to show me?"

"Of course, it's down in the hangar whenever you're ready," Rem said.

Jack snapped off the 3D display. "Okay, I think we're done here."

Rem led Jack and Gnea down to a secluded area of the hangar which had been cordoned off with stacks of crates. (Janice was on duty and had to get back to the com center. Karen informed them, in colorful language, that she thought her time was better spent elsewhere.)

There was a table and some monitoring equipment set up, an ugly slab of blue metal leaned up against one of the crates. Rem hefted it up and placed it against the wall.

"So, you were asking me for a hand weapon that's capable of taking out an Invid Enforcer," Rem said.

"Yep. Any luck?" Jack said.

Rem dug around in one of the crates and came up with a hexagonal device.

"This is a scaled down version of the guns that our bioroids use. It's very good for taking out inorganics, as long as there's only a few of them. Give it a shot," Rem said, handing it to Jack.

"I remember these, we call them staple guns," Jack said.

Rem motioned towards the metal slab. "That's an armor plate from an Invid Enforcer. Perfect for target practice."

Jack opened fire, but the shot only managed to chip the paint. Jack gave Rem a sidelong look of disdain, what Janice referred to as "the side-eye".

Rem motioned for Jack to hand the gun back to him. He then took a bio-cell from the crate and screwed it into a jack on the back. He also popped out the emitter on the other side and replaced it with a nozzle-shaped emitter from the crate.

"Go ahead," Rem said.

Jack sighed, but gave it another shot. A huge packet of plasma shot out of the gun and burned a hole right through the armor plate. Jack stared at it, his mouth agape.

The three of them rushed over to the metal plate, the hole was burning and producing sparks. Gnea knelt down and looked through it. "There's a complete hole!"

Rem ducked down and looked through it, the blast had gone through the wall of the hangar and had burned a hole straight through a tree on the other end of the courtyard.

"I'd worry about the Whaashi," Jack said.

"The energy field will be up when you use it," Rem said.

"It still seems like overkill," Jack said. "And the biomatter will set off the Invid, though I suppose we can use that to draw them away from the Whaashi."

"That brings me to my next point, transportation," Rem said. "I found something when I was digging through the drawings, a prototype you might be interested in."

Rem took a crowbar to one of the crates, the side dropped away and revealed a three-wheeled motorcycle within. It had the same heads-up display that an Alpha had.

"This is something Lang and his crew had been working on. They wanted a mobile weapon specifically designed to fight the Invid. This doesn't run on biomatter, it uses the solid hydrogen pellets we use to boost the output of our bio-reactors. It's also equipped with missiles that can take out an Invid Enforcer," Rem said.

"What part of 'no mecha' didn't you understand?" Jack said.

"They're conventional explosives, with the yield specifically calculated for what's required to break through an enforcer's armor. Which actually isn't much since they were designed to deflect energy weapons and not sharpnel. Even if it could get through the shield it might bring down a wall, but it couldn't affect the foundation of the Whaashi," Rem said. "Also, this thing is armored, so it can stand up to enemy fire unlike the flashclapper."

"It would be like riding into battle on a mighty steed, like our heroes of legend," Gnea said.

"I think that means she likes it," Jack said. "How many of these do we have?"

"The prototype and one production unit. They seem to have abandoned the project and are already working on revisions to it."

Jack pointed to some lettering on the wheel. "What's this? MODAT?"

"Mobile Data Access Terminal 2 is the official name, though everyone else calls it a Cyclone. This mecha is actually a revised form of something the Robotech Research Center was working on back on your homeworld. I can't get access to those records, and there are even parts of the plans that I can't get access to." Rem said. "I suspect this mecha had some other purpose that I'm not aware of."

At her com-station Janice covered her microphone as she sneezed.

Sue Graham threw her bag onto her bed and did a full-body yawn. She pulled the memory card from her camera and plugged it into the computer terminal.

Jack Baker hadn't left the base at all, as far as Sue could tell, in the first five months the Sentinels spent on Praxis. Now he was coming and going all the time, at all hours, and he always had at least one of three people with him: a young Amazon called Gnea, who had been part of the crew of the Praxian ship that had left their world looking for help from the Robotech Masters (Bela had been the leader of that expedition). Rem the mysterious young man from Triol. Karen, young up-and-comer in Red Squadron.

Just what were Jack and his merry band up to?

Sue smiled; no matter what it took, she was going to find out.