Джек Маккинни - Dark Powers / Sentinels

Book 14 of the Robotech Series

Copyright 1988 by Jack McKinney

All I have learned of the Shapings of the Protoculture tell me that it does not work randomly; that there is a grand design or scheme. I feel that we have been brought here, kept here, for some reason.

Yet, what purpose can there be in SDF-3's being stranded here onTirolfor perhaps as long as five years? And during that time will the Robotech Masters be pursuing their search for Earth?

Since tempers are short, I do not mention the Shaping; I'm a little too long in the tooth, I fear, for hand-to-hand confrontations with homesick, frightened, and frustrated REF fighters.

Dr. Emil Lang, personal journal of the SDF-3 mission

On capturedTirol, after a fierce battle, the Humans and their Zentraedi allies-the Robotech Expeditionary Force-licked their wounds, then decided it was time to mark the occasion of their triumph. It was, as nearly as they could calculate, New Year's Eve.

But far out near the edge ofTirol's system, a newcomer appeared-a massive spacegoing battleship, closing in on the war-torn, planet-sized moon.

Our first victory celebration, young Susan Graham exulted. What a wonderful party! She was just shy of sixteen, and to her it was the most romantic evening in human history.

She was struggling to load a bulky cassette into her sound-vid recorder while scurrying around to get a better angle at Admirals Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes Hunter. They had just stood up, in full-dress uniforms, clasping white-gloved hands, apparently about to dance. There had been rumors that the relationship between the two senior officers of the Robotech Expeditionary Force was on shaky ground, but for the moment at least, they seemed altogether in love.

Sue let out a short romantic sigh and envied Lisa Hunter. Then her thoughts returned to the cassette which she was tapping with the heel of her hand. A lowly student-trainee, Sue had to make do with whatever equipment she could find at the G-5 public-information shop, or Psy-ops, Morale or wherever.

At last the cassette was in place, and she began to move toward her quarry.

In Tiresia, the moon's shattered capital city, the Royal Hall was aglow. The improvised lighting and decorations reemphasized the vast, almost endless size of the place.

The lush ballroom music remained slow-something from Strauss, Karen Penn thought; something even Jack Baker could handle. As she had expected, he asked her to waltz a second time.

And he wasn't too bad at it. The speed and reflexes that made him such a good Veritech pilot-almost as good as I am, she thought-made him a passable dancer. Still, she maintained her aloof air, gliding flawlessly, making him seem clumsy by comparison; otherwise, that maddening brashness of his would surface again at any second.

They were about the same height,five tenor so, he redheaded and freckled and frenetic, she honey-blond and smooth-skinned and model-gorgeous-and long since tired of panting male attention.

Jack had turned eighteen two months ago; Karen would celebrate her majority in three more weeks.

They had been like oil and water, cats and dogs, Unseducible Object and Irrepressible Force, ever since they had met. But they had also been battle comrades, and now they swayed as the music swelled, and somehow their friendly antagonism was put aside, at least for the moment.

The deepspace dreadnought was a bewildering, almost slapdash length of components: different technologies, different philosophies of design, even different stages of scientific awareness, showed in the contrasts among its various modules. From it, scores of disparate weapons bristled and many kinds of sensors probed.

WithTirolbefore it, the motley battlewagon went on combat alert.

On the outer rim of the ballroom, members of General Edwards's Ghost Squadron and Colonel Wolff's Wolff Pack traded hostile looks, but refrained from any overt clashes; Admiral Lisa Hunter's warnings, and her promises of retribution, had been very specific on that point.

Edwards was there, a haughty, splendidly military figure, his sardonic handsomeness marred by the half cowl that covered the right half of his head.

Per Lisa's confidential order, Vince Grant and his Ground Mobile Unit people were keeping an eye on the rivals, ready to break up any scuffles. So far things seemed to be peaceful-nothing more than a bit of glowering and boasting.

Hanging in orbit over the war-torn ruin ofTirol, Super-dimensional Fortress Three registered the rapid approach of the unidentified battleship.

SDF-3 had been tardy in detecting the newcomer; the Earth warship's systems had been damaged in the ferocious engagement that had destroyed her spacefold apparatus, and some systems were still functioning far short of peak efficiency.

But she had spotted the possible adversary now. According to procedure, SDF-3 went to battle stations, and communications personnel rushed to open downlinks with the contingent onTirol's surface.

Perhaps the strangest pair at the celebration was Janice Em, the lovely and enigmatic singer, and Rem, assistant to the Tiresian scientist Cabell.

Janice was Dr. Lang's creation, an android, an artificial person, though she was unaware of it.

Lang shook his head and reminded himself that the Shapings of the Protoculture were not to be defied. He was really quite happy that the two were drawn together.

He turned to Cabell, the ancient lone survivor of the scientists ofTirol.

What were once the gorgeous cityscape of Tiresia and magnificent gardens surrounding the Royal Hall, were now only blasted wasteland.

Above was a jade-green crescent of Fantoma, the massive planet thatTirolcircled. Its alien beauty hid the ugliness that Lynn-Minmei knew to be there in the light of Valivarre, the system's primary.

The green Fantoma-light cast a spell with magic all its own. How could the scene of so much death and suffering be so unspeakably beautiful?

She shivered a bit, and Colonel Jonathan Wolff slipped his arm around her. Minmei could feel from the way he had moved closer that he wanted to kiss her; she wasn't sure whether she felt the same or not.

He was the debonair, tigerishly brave, good-looking Alpha Wolf of the Wolff Pack-and had rescued her from certain death, melodramatic as it might sound to others. Still, there was a danger in love; she had learned that not once but several times now.

Wolff could see what was running through Minmei's thoughts. He feasted his eyes on her, hungered for her. The Big, Bad Wolff, indeed-an expression he had never liked.

Only this time, the Big Bad was bewitched, and helpless. She was the blue-eyed, black-haired gamine whose voice and guileless charm had been the key to Human victory in the Robotech War. She was the child-woman who, unknowingly, had tormented him with fantasies he could not exorcise by day, and with erotic fever-dreams by night.

She hadn't moved from the circle of his arm; she looked at him, eyes as wide as those of a startled doe. Wolff leaned closer, lips parting.

I love her so much, Rick thought, as he and Lisa went to join the dancing. His wife's waist was supple under his gloved hand; her eyes danced with fondness. He felt himself breaking into a languorous smile, and she beamed at him.

I can't live without her, he knew. All these problems between us-we'll find some way to deal with them. Because otherwise life's not worth living.

The music had just begun when it stopped again, raggedly, as Dr. Lang quieted people from the mike stand. The ship's orchestra's conductor stood to one side, looking peeved but apprehensive.

Everyone there had already served in war. Something inside them anticipated the words.