Genesis

CHAPTER NINE

The moment came in a way no one had forseen even an hour before; SDF-1, all running lights flashing, prepared to launch for the first time.

"Gravity control systems through bulkhead forty-eight are green light," Sammie relayed to engineering. "Please confirm, over."

From all over the ship the reports came in; the messages went to every corner of it. It was no longer a question of waiting for a perfect checklist; the dimensional fortress was going-now.

"Priority one transmission from HQ, Captain Gloval," Vanessa announced. "Armor One has completed recovery procedures and is departing now to join Armor Ten at Rendezvous Point Charlie."

Gloval grunted acknowledgment and added, "Thank you, Vanessa. Claudia, check the reflex furnace and see if we've recovered full power yet."

Claudia studied her equipment, listened to a brief intercom message, and said, "Ready condition on furnace power, sir."

Once more, Gloval wondered about those enormous, enigmatic, and unprecedentedly powerful engines. "Reflex power" was a term Lang used; even his closest assistants scratched their heads when Lang scribbled equations and tried to explain why he called it that and what he thought was going on inside the power plant.

Not that it mattered; all Gloval wanted was for his ship to function, to be battleworthy, for however long it took. A few days-perhaps.

Or a day. Just give me one day!

"Very good. Antigravity: full-thrust."

"Aye aye, sir," Kim sang out. "Full thrust." The mountainous bulk of the SDF-1 trembled and was somehow alive under them. The bridge gang went through individual countdowns and checklists, their voices and those from the intercom overlapping.

Then Claudia's rang out clear as an angel's through the ship, and over Macross Island. "Ten… niner… eight…"

A hundred thousand thoughts and fears and prayers hovered over the island, almost a tangible force in themselves.

… two… one…"

"Full power," Gloval ordered. "Activate the antigravity control system."

The entire city vibrated slightly, as the hundreds of thousands of tons of SDF-1 rose from the ship's Gibraltarlike keel blocks; their unique absorption system adjusted to the sudden unburdening.

The ship rose smoothly, casting its stupendous shadow across the island. "The gyroscope is level, sir," Lisa reported tersely.

Gloval eased back in his chair, hoping it was a good omen. "Well done."

He'd barely said it when a tremor ran through the great ship. Below, he could see the upper-hull/flight deck actually quake.

SDF-1 lurched, then listed hard to port, throwing people from their feet. There was a lot of yelling; the intercom was bedlam.

"What in blazes is going on?" Gloval thundered, grasping the arms of his chair to keep from being thrown across the compartment. "Trim the pitch attitude immediately!"

"It must be the gyroscope," Claudia said, struggling to stay at her station.

"No, look!" Lisa was pointing out at the upper-hull/flight deck.

Bulges had appeared, like volcanic domes being thrust up against the hardest armor ever developed; the tearing of metal sounded through the SDF-1 like the death throes of dinosaurs.

The convexities of armor broke open like overripe fruit, yielding complex cylinders of advanced-design systemry. The cylinders, each the size of a railroad tank car, rose majestically into the air, trailing power leads and torn support frameworks.

"The gravity pods are breaking away!"

Gloval rushed up behind Lisa to see for himself. "What is it? Oh, no! They're tearing away from the ship instead of lifting it!"

Everywhere it was the same; the physics of the disaster was inflexible. Dozens of gravity pods tore lose, continuing their ascent as they'd been charged to do, breaking their way through any structure in their path (or, to put it another way, conventional gravity was dragging the SDF-1 down around them).

"This can't be happening!" Gloval breathed, not so much distraught by the probable outcome the disaster would mean for himself and his command as by the utter catastrophe it meant for Earth.

"The ship is losing altitude, Captain!" Lisa cried.

Gloval groaned. "Please! Tell me I'm dreaming this!"

"Pardon, sir?" Lisa said.

He hadn't realized he'd spoken aloud. "It's a nightmare."

SDF-1 fell faster, its few operating thrusters unequal to the task of easing it down. All through the ship, people knew that calamity had occurred and waited with varying attitudes to find out what their fate would be.

With alarms hooting and wailing, the ship crashed back onto its keel blocks. Under the velocity of even a cushioned fall, the titanic weight made the monolithic blocks crack, give way, and collapse or drive themselves down into the Earth.

But the impact-absorption systems built into them saved the ship from greater damage and spared lives, before the blocks were overloaded and defeated. SDF-1 settled down with its hull against the rubble and soil and hardtop, but the ship's back hadn't been broken or its hull breached.

The bridge wasn't so different from any other section: outcries and screams and incoherent yelling. In moments, the noise died away and military discipline reasserted itself. SDF-1 rested at a 15-degree list to port.

"Is anyone hurt?" Gloval's voice cut through the confusion. Everyone else chimed in that they were uninjured, then shut up; the captain's voice must be heard, uninterrupted, at a time like this; and though the bridge gang was untried in space, they knew their duty and they knew their orders.

Gloval strode back toward his seat. "I want a full damage report. Give me a computer readout on every system onboard!" The SDF-1 was a fish in a barrel for the time being; he had only minutes in which to act.

"Yessir!" the five voices responded as one, giving the words a choral sound.

Gloval looked infinitely tired. "They'll never let me forget this."

"You shouldn't blame yourself for this, sir," Lisa said softly.

Gloval lowered himself into his chair, shaking his head to contradict Lisa.

"I am the captain," he said simply.

In the street outside the White Dragon, a very peculiar salvage operation was in progress.

The Battloid had been rigged with cables attached to two seafood delivery trucks. The civilian populace had always been sympathetic to the military's mission, and by now news broadcasts had made it apparent to most people that a new and awful war had begun and that, like it or not, everyone was a part of that war for the time being. So the truckers and other bystanders were doing their best to get the Battloid righted.

The big box jobs gunned their engines, tires spinning and squealing, laying down large black patches of rubber and raising reeking clouds of smoke. The trucks backfired, and their engines labored.

Slowly, the armored mechamorph came away from its resting place, toward a vertical position. Rick, sweating over his controls, sat with hands hovering over them, hesitant to court further misfortune by interfering.

The Battloid was standing again-for the moment. It reached the vertical and slowly began to tilt the other way. Volunteer helpers and onlookers let out a wide assortment of exclamations and yowls and scurried for safety; the drivers leapt from the cabs of their trucks and hotfooted it.

Minmei and Jason hugged each other and shouted, "Oh, no!" at the same instant.

Rick grabbed for the controls desperately. At the very least, he had to try to keep this insane metal berserker from doing more damage to the restaurant.

The Battloid lurched, trying to find its balance. Rick tried his best but couldn't seem to do anything right. Again, it was as if the machine was waiting for him to do something more than merely manipulate controls.

The Battloid took a lurching step, and its legs became entangled in the cables; it twirled clumsily and fell backward toward the opposite side of the street, its back crashing against an empty building that had taken heavy damage from the enemy barrage.

It sank down, crunching the building, until it came to rest with its backside halfway to the street, heels dug into the pavement. When Rick was sure the machine was stable for the time being. He wiped his brow again. "Oh, why me? How come these things don't happen to other people?"

The triumphant Veritech squadron flew in tight formation, making its way back to the Prometheus and the dimensional fortress.

Roy was in the lead spot, of course. "This is Skull Leader, Veritech squadron, to SDF-1. Am returning to base. We have met the enemy and pretty much cleaned their clocks. They've withdrawn from Earth's atmosphere."

Lisa's face was on the display screen. "Commendable work, Commander Fokker, I'll-"

She was abruptly moved out of the way by Claudia, who said "Let me talk to him! Roy, how many of them did you shoot down?"

"Only ten this time," he said nonchalantly. But the dogfight would be a legend by that night, the hardest rat-racing he'd ever seen. Every millisecond was going to be analyzed and refought a hundred times among the flying officers.

"You're slipping, Roy," Claudia told him, but her tone wasn't critical at all.

"Well, don't worry, Claudia; I'll make it up." Something tells me I'm going to get plenty of opportunities! "Do you have any word on the VT one-zero-two?"

Lisa crowded back onto the screen. "That section-eight case! He landed in Macross City in a Battloid, and he's doing more damage than the invaders."

Roy laughed. "Thanks, Lisa."

"Who is he? He's not registered as a fighter pilot."

"Don't worry; I know him."

"Well, he sure needs help." Lisa scowled.

"I'd better go check on him." Roy switched to the tic net. "This is Skull Leader to group. You guys head on back to Prometheus. I've got some business to take care of in town. Captain Kramer, you take 'em home."

"Will do, boss."

Roy peeled off from the formation and, increasing his wings' sweep for higher speed, plummeted for Macross City. "I should've known better than to leave him alone," he muttered.

Even in a city that had known a peppering of energy bolts and alien rockets, it wasn't too hard to spot the mess made by an out-of-control Battloid. "Aha! That you, Rick, old son?"

The war machine was resting against a building. "Hi, Roy! It's me!"

"Had a busy day down there, huh?"

Rick sighed. "You might say that, Big Brother."

People in the streets spotted the approaching aircraft. The skull insignia was well known; but things had a way of being unexpectedly dangerous today, and nobody was up for taking any more chances.

Everybody sprinted for cover again. Roy switched his ship to Guardian mode for the descent-the mechanoid/eagle configuration that allowed more control in the tight quarters of a city street. It settled in on the bright blue flare of its foot thrusters, chain-gun cradled in its right arm.

In another moment Roy's ship had mechamorphosed to Battloid. Its shoulder structure gave it a look of immense brute power, like a football player. Rick felt like rubbing his eyes. "I must be dreaming this; I don't believe it!"

Jason, crouched with Minmei behind a fallen cornice, yelped, "That airplane became a robot too!"

"Amazing!" Minmei murmured. It was all so strange and almost magical-it made her wonder what the young pilot's name was.

"A few small repairs and you can take that Battloid back into action," Roy said blithely.

"What're you talking about?" Rick yelled over the net. "I don't even know what this thing is, and if you think I'm qualified to operate it, just take a good look around the neighborhood!"

But he watched his screen in utter fascination as Roy's war machine shifted its weapon from its right arm, drew out a long, thick band as sturdy as a heavy-cargo sling, and settled the weapon over its left shoulder, all as casually as an infantryman going to sling-arms.

Rick gaped. No control system in the world could do that. Maybe a battery of computers, if the sequence was worked out precisely in advance. But what Roy had done had more of an on-the-spot look to it.

It brought to mind what Roy had told Rick about the Robotech flight helmet-the thinking cap: "You don't just pilot a Robotech ship; you live it."

"If you can fly a jet, you can operate a Battloid," Roy began. "I'll tell you what to do. Gross movements are initiated by manuals-the legs are guided by your foot pedals, for instance."

"Which foot pedals, Roy? I've got about fifty controls in here!"

"Fifty-seven, if you want to get technical. But that's not the important part. Just button up and listen; I'll explain while I'm making repairs."

The skull-insignia Battloid extruded metal tentacles, tool-servos, waldos, and a host of other advanced repair apparatus. In moments the one Robotech war machine was repairing the other. Welding sparks jumped, and damaged components were replaced.

"The secret's that helmet," Roy said. "You generate general movements or sequences with your controls, but the Robotechnology takes its real guidance straight from your thoughts. You've got to think your ship through the things you want it to do."

Rick couldn't help being skeptical in spite of everything he'd seen. "Now you're gonna tell me these junk heaps are alive?"

"Close enough for me," Roy said noncommittally, "although you're going to have to make up your own mind about that. We still don't understand the power source-the same power source that runs SDF-1 but we know that, somehow, it's not just a-a blind physical process. It's involved with life forces somehow; with awareness-with mind, if I'm not getting too fancy for you."

"I think you're bucking for a medical discharge, mental category."

Roy chuckled. "See for yourself. Just pay attention and I'll tell you how it's done."