ROBOTECH/RIFTS CROSSOVER
 
By Chris Meadows (writing as "Jared Thorne")
 
 
 
Introduction: Overview
 
     ROBOTECH and RIFTS are two Role-Playing systems created by
Palladium Books.  ROBOTECH, adapted from the cartoon epic of the
same name, concerns a mysterious alien fortress that crash-lands
on earth.  This fortress is rebuilt by the planet's inhabitants.
A race of giant humanoids called the Zentraedi come to earth to
reclaim it, but the humans defeat them and they change sides.
They go to try to negotiate a peace treaty with the aliens'
masters, the Robotech Masters. Meanwhile, the Robotech Masters
send a fleet of ships to earth to reclaim the power source hidden
within the fortress, for they will lose their great power and
virtual immortality without it. The humans defeat the aliens at
great cost.  In the end, the power source is ruptured, releasing
the seeds of the Invid Flower of Life. This attracts the Invid, a
race of insectlike aliens, to earth. They enslave it, and by the
time the expeditionary force sent to find the Robotech Masters
returns, it is almost too late. However, they defeat the Invid,
and Earth is free once more.  In the series of novels, that's how
it stays.  But in the RPG, the Invid return after a few months.
There also happens to be a Robotech Masters ship, hidden away on
earth, and a rogue Russian militia group that has cooperated with
them, forming the basis for more RPG supplements.
     The power source, Protoculture, allowed some amazing feats.
Giant robots were created, and their control systems hooked
directly into the human brain, allowing the pilot to move the
robot around like it was his own body.  Spacefold engines were
used for warp speed drive.  The Veritech vehicles were
created--airplanes, tanks, and even motorcycles that transformed
into power armor units.
     RIFTS concerns another earth, where a nuclear war has
unlocked the gates of magic.  "Ley lines" of magical energy span
the earth, and interdimensional gates (rifts) open haphazardly,
allowing all sorts of creatures to enter earth. There are several
major nation-states in this time hundreds of years after the war.
The major one, the Coalition, encourages illiteracy in its
attempts to keep control of the people, and the practice of magic
is banned.  Here, too, are giant robots, albeit nuclear powered.
And Here There Be Dragons.
 
     This continuing story is slanted more toward those who have
seen/read ROBOTECH and/or RIFTS than those who haven't. That is
not to say that those of you who have not should not read this.
I'm just explaining that if I omit some details, it is because I
am something of an expert in the subject and tend to assume that
most people know as much as I do.
 
NOTE: Two characters in this story (so far) are real: Joe Moore,
currently a Freshman at Parkview High School, Springfield, MO;
and Chris Meadows (myself), currently a Freshman at Southwest
Missouri State University, also Springfield, MO.  Also, none of
the dimensions explicitly mentioned in this story is supposed to
be the "real" one--the one WE live in.  For example, neither Joe
nor I know martial arts or are working for--but I don't want to
spoil that part of the story.  Suffice it to say that we're just
two ordinary students, in "real life."
 
 
 
Chapter 1: Enter the Storm
 
 
     Streams of plasma and cannon fire crackled back and forth
between the two opposing forces.  On one side was the
newly-returned Robotech Expeditionary force, come back to earth
for the purpose of exacting vengeance upon the Invid who had
taken Earth.  On the other were the Invid themselves, returning
fire from their outpost Hive.
     The attacking force was perhaps the last of the organized
platoons remaining from the assault on Reflex Point.  Its mecha,
Protoculture-powered fighting vehicles, consisted of ten armored
Alpha fighters, six Beta, four Gladiators, four Excalibers, 1
Spartan, and 2 Raidar X, all of the smaller REF type.  There were
also dozens of Cyclone troops, who were currently deployed on the
outskirts of the battle to serve as early warning in case Invid
reinforcements showed up.
     But the prize vehicle of the division was the MTA-Titan
transport vehicle, which was large enough to carry mecha within
itself.
     The hive forces were light, as this was merely an outpost,
in what once had been south Florida.  The REF force's commander,
Lt. Col. Avery Bowaz, felt that the best place to strike would be
at an outpost, where the defenses were thinnest.  Also, this hive
overlooked the finest crop of Invid Flowers, the source of the
Protoculture energy, for hundreds of miles.
 
     The Cyclone scout deployed on the southern tip of the
peninsula, about twenty miles away, saw it first.  He raised his
multi-optics binoculars to his face and gasped. Approaching from
the south was a gigantic column of water--or so he thought.
There was something that didn't look right about it...He switched
over to ultraviolet mode on the binocs.  And he saw that the
entire thing was glowing blue.  And it went straight up into the
sky seemingly without end.
     The trooper remembered something he'd read about a
mysterious area of the ocean just south of Florida, where ships
and planes had been disappearing for centuries.  Then it clicked.
"Omigodomigodomigod," he said.  "I'm outta here!"  He kicked in
the turbos on the Cyclone and burned rubber for the GMU.
 
     From the cockpit of the mighty vehicle, currently positioned
ten miles south of the hive, Lt. Col. Bowaz surveyed the battle
through computer reports and gunsight camera transmissions.  "It
seems to be going well, wouldn't you say?" he asked his XO,
Captain Steele.
     "It appears that we're winning."  Steele, about 28, observed
hesitantly.  He was always reluctant to make observations or
assertions until he was sure of the outcome.  "I had reservations
about sending such a small force up against a hive, even one this
small.  But it appears to be coming out all right."
     Just then, with much squealing of rubber, the scout rode up
into the mecha bay of the MTA-Titan.
     "What's that?" Bowaz asked.
     "I don't know, sir," Steele said.  "I'll find out."  He got
on the intercom to the trooper.  "We need to see you on the
bridge," he said.  He shut off the 'com.  "He says he's on his
way."
     Five minutes later, the Cyclone pilot made his appearance on
the bridge of the GMU (Ground Mobile Unit)/Titan.  "Sir, we gotta
get out of here," he panted. "There's some sort of wierd storm
coming this way!  Up off the Bermuda Triangle!"
     Bowaz turned to the young man to reassure him.  "Don't
worry, son," he said in his most fatherly voice (Though he was
only 44, his graying hair made him seem to be much older, a fact
he never belied, for it made him more acceptable as a father
figure to these young men).  "The GMU'll weather the storm.  Not
even a hurricane could hurt us."
     "Sir, I haven't told you what was strange about it yet," the
Cyc scout said.  He panted for a few seconds, then went on.
"That storm was real heavy in the ultraviolet, sir.  And it
didn't seem to have an end."
     "Oh, that's nothing to worry about," Bowaz said. "Storms on
earth ALWAYS give off ultraviolet."  He gave Steele a look that
said, "You'll back me up if you know what's good for you."
     "Yeah, yeah," Steele said.  "They always do."
     Bowaz reassured the young man some more and sent him down to
the dispensary for some coffee.  As soon as he was gone, Lt. Col
Bowaz said, "Well, Rem, what do you think?" Rem was Bowaz's
private name for Steele, based on an old 20th century detective
show he'd seen on the vid.
     "I think I'd better start calling in the fighters.  If there
really is a storm approaching, we need as many mecha as possible
under shelter."
     "Right, make it so.  I'm going to my quarters."  As Bowaz
left, Steele sent out the recall signal.  Then he moved down to
the science station and punched for a comprehensive scan of the
storm.  It was just a hunch, but hunches had a nasty way of
coming true.
 
 
 
Chapter 2: Transition
 
 
     As the mecha forces regrouped to weather the storm, Captain
Steele was examining the scan results worriedly. This storm was
giving off readings like he'd never seen. Steele was no science
officer, but he knew how a storm was supposed to scan.  And this
one was breaking all the rules.
     Radar didn't pick it up.  In fact, it picked up nothing at
all in that area or even behind it.  It was as if all the radio
waves were simply vanishing upon impact with the storm.  Laser
probes, same thing.  And some strange radiation was being emitted
from the center of the phenomenon.
     Steele hit the intercom button.  "Get me Lieutenant Martin
Jackson," he ordered the computer.  In about thirty seconds, it
beeped and Jackson came on-line.  "Sir?"
     "Lieutenant, get up here please.  I have some figures I need
interpreted by a scientific mind."
     "On my way."
 
     Five minutes later, the Lieutenant was on the bridge. He was
a young man of about 19, just out of Officers' Candidate School
on the SDF-3 before the journey to earth. He had a light
complexion, and a shock of unruly blonde, almost white, hair.
And he was a Field Scientist.
     By now the storm was clearly visible from the GMU. Several
mecha pilots were commenting on it, and some were even in favor
of leaving.  But none would violate his orders; they had been
trained too well for that.
     Jackson looked at the printouts, then looked up in
consternation.  "This thing, whatever it is, shouldn't exist."
     "Take another look.  It DOES exist, and it's bearing down on
us at approximately 23.2 knots, bearing 177x. It'll be on us in
less than half an hour."
 
     The storm relentlessly approached.  As it got closer, Steele
began to consider the possibility of evacuation.  The MTA-Titan
would easily make better than 24 mph, so they could keep ahead of
the thing.  The problem with that was that they would be easily
visible to the Invid.
     Man does not face the unknown easily, Steele reflected to
himself as the storm came ever-closer.  He fought down the urge
to hop in a plane or on a Cyclone and not stop until he reached
Canada.  Jackson, meanwhile, was ecstatic. "I'm going to be
famous!  They'll call it Jackson's Phenomena, or Jackson's
Storm."
     "Or Jackson's Bane," Steele suggested.  "Or Jackson's Doom,
or Jackson's Death, or..."
     Lieutenant Jackson ignored him, looking instead out the
window at the storm.  It now resembled a giant wall of blue,
glowing clouds.  Everybody could tell that it wasn't a normal
storm, but they all stood fast.
     "Look at that," Jackson pointed out.  "There's no wind or
anything.  The trees and grasses aren't stirring."  He ran to the
elevator.  "I'm suiting up in my Cyclone and going out there with
a scan dihilator."
     But he didn't get the chance.  As he hit the elevator
button, with a whoosh as loud as a hundred airliners passing
overhead the storm was upon them!
 
     An electric blue mist pervaded everywhere.  Time seemed to
slow down, and everything had a double-image.  This is just like
spacefolding, Steele thought.  He turned and hit some buttons on
the console.  No good.  All computer systems were locked.
     Steele could no longer see the ground, sky, or surrounding
landscape.  Oddly enough, he COULD see the Veritech and Destroid
mecha that were standing guard around the GMU.
     Time passed timelessly.  Had he been asked, later, how much
time the transition had taken, he could not have said whether it
was a minute, an hour, or a year.  All he knew was that one
instant all was blue, and the next they were in normal space
again.
     The first thing Captain Steele noticed was that the GMU was
sinking fast into the water.  "Help me here!" he yelled at
Jackson who was standing frozen in front of the elevator. "I have
to engage the propulsion systems!"  He jumped into the pilot's
seat and punched buttons.
     The GMU's built-in thrusters sputtered and came to life,
preventing the Titan from sinking into the sea. Lieutenant
Jackson helped with some of the controls, but wasn't really much
help.
     Lt. Col. Bowaz emerged from the elevator.  "What happened?
It can't have rained THAT much."
     "Sir, it didn't rain," Captain Steele said.
     "Eh?  What do you mean?"
     Lieutenant Jackson looked up from the sensor station. "Sir,
we passed through what seems to be a naturally-induced spacefold
field.  We are now somewhere...else."
     Steele gazed out the window.  They were floating in the
middle of some vast ocean.  The Alpha and Beta fighters were in
Guardian mode, hovering ten feet above the surface.  Of the
Destroids, there was no sign.
 
 
 
Chapter 3: Dinosaurs
 
 
     Fortunately, radio contact was soon reestablished with the
Destroid mecha.  They had sunk to the bottom of the sea, about
two to three hundred feet under, and would walk to shore and
rejoin the GMU and its Alpha escorts there.
     "Wherever that is," Lieutenant Jackson said gloomily.
     Captain Steele had moved over to one of the nav consoles.
"Radar indicates land about 40 miles to the north."
     Lt. Colonel Bowaz listened to the tale of the spacewarp.
"You mean, we're now on some other planet?" he said, as the full
import of the phenomenon hit him.
     "No, sir, we're not," Jackson said.  "At least, I don't
think we are."
     "Explain," Bowaz said.
     "This planet's gravity, magnetic field, atmospheric
composition, almost EVERYTHING, match up to Earth's norms to
within a thousand decimal places," the science lieutenant
explained.  "There's some unexplained electromagnetic and seismic
activity, but that's minor compared to these results.  And at
nightfall, I'll be able to get an astral fix by the stars.  But I
don't think it'll be necessary. Sir, we ARE on earth.  But
it's...different somehow."
     "Get the rest of the bridge crew up here," Bowaz said.
"Something tells me we'd better be at full defensive capacity for
the next few days."
 
     "Sir, we've got something on radar," the tech said.
"Something BIG."
     Bowaz was at the console instantly.  "What?  Where?"
     "There, sir."  The console operator pointed at the blip.
"Signature similar to certain Invid carnosaurs."  The tech was
referring to the Invid's genetic experiments which had produced
dinosaurs and similar life forms from the planet's past.
     "What's the range?"
     "22 miles."
     "Have an Alpha fighter check it out."
     "On it already, sir."
 
     The creature turned out to be a brontosaur-type beast,
placidly grazing in one of the shallower areas of the sea. Bowaz
gazed at the relay pictures thoughtfully.  "Could we be in the
interior of some sort of gigantic Genesis Pit?" he wondered.
"The Invid used them to create mutated life forms.  I've never
heard of one this big, though."
 
     When at last they reached land, the sun was beginning to go
down.  Colonel Bowaz posted perimeter guards, and even
participated in the first watch himself, in his Saber Cyclone
motorcycle/power armor.
     As the stars began to come out, Captain Steele noticed an
eerie blue glow on the horizon to the northeast.  He instructed
the GMU's main computer to analyze the light for possible
sources.  The computer cogitated for five minutes, then spewed
forth the answer: UNABLE TO OBTAIN QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS.
POSSIBLE SOURCES INCLUDE PERYTONIAN "MAGIC" (5% PROBABILITY), ARC
LAMPS (3% PROBABILITY), PROTOCULTURE PLANT (2% PROBABILITY), OR
UNKNOWN (90% PROBABILITY).
     Steele was so involved in this work that he didn't notice
the stars themselves.  It was Lt. Jackson who said, "Hey, look!
Those stars are Earth's!"
     And it was true.  Out of the stars that weren't blotted out
by the glow, Steele could make out the Big Dipper, Orion, and
several other familiar constellations.  Jackson operated the
navigation computer.  "According to the star shots, we're in
about the middle of Florida.  Apparently the southern half of the
state is gone."  That was the second sign that all was not as it
seemed.
     "But what is that blue glow?" Steele wondered.
 
     At about midnight, the Destroids made their way ashore,
dripping water and slime from their submersion.  It was good that
they did, for an hour later the dinosaurs came.
 
     The tech who was working the radar noticed them first. "Sir,
we have thirty-plus blips on radar to the north, heading this
way," he said to the officer of the watch. "Speed, twenty-five
mph.  ETA, 5 minutes."
     "How did they get this close without being detected?" the
officer asked.
     "There's too much ground clutter to get a decent reading,"
the tech said, shoving the Mechanoids comic book under the
console with his foot.
     The officer hit the alert button on the communication
console.  Within one minute, 30 Cyclone riders, plus all ten
Alpha fighters, four of the six Betas, and all of the Destroids,
the non-transformable fighting machines, were up and ready for
combat.  In another minute, the other two Betas were fully
powered.
     Minutes later, thirty Tyrannosaurus Rex dinos thundered into
the area.
 
     These meat-eating mosters were big brutes.  Each was around
forty to fifty feet tall--twice as tall as an Alpha. Fighting was
tooth and claw.  Captain Steele in his Saber Cyclone managed to
decapitate three of them with the electro-force field CADS (Close
Assault and Defense System) blades, and destroyed two more with
mini-missiles from the breast compartments of the Cyclone.
     When the battle was over, two Cyclones had been damaged, but
nobody had been seriously hurt.  There was dinosaur meat lying
all around the camp, and some of the more enterprising soldiers
sliced off some of the less dirty portions and roasted them.
     "What other surprises do we have in store for us?" Colonel
Bowaz wondered.
 
 
 
Chapter 4: Encounter
 
 
     The next day, the force moved out of its previous
encampment, heading north.  Colonel Bowaz decided to keep to the
east side of the peninsula and then explore the interior of the
continent.
     As a precaution, Cyclone scouts were sent ahead, and the
battlegroup's two Recon Alpha fighters flew point. "Remember,
keep an eye out for danger," Bowaz needlessly admonished.  "We
don't know who or what is out here."
     They got their first inkling that trouble might lie ahead at
about ten a.m.  Corporal Felix Weidmann was riding through the
marshy ground about twenty miles ahead of the GMU.  He was
closely monitoring his short-range radar, for he didn't intend to
get caught by any dinosaurs if he could help it.
     Suddenly he noticed a blip coming from the north at about
120 mph.  It registered as being approximately human sized, at an
altitude of 150 feet.  He reported over the radio to the GMU:
"I've spotted a bogey.  Going aerial to investigate."  Weidmann
triggered the transformation, and the motorcycle reconfigured and
attached itself to his body armor, becoming a mobile power armor
suit.  The rifle-like cannon that had been mounted by the front
wheel was now in his right hand; and the rocket tubes that had
been on the hubs were now on his forearms.  Corporal Weidmann
jumped and engaged the boosters on the Cyclone's rear.  With a
whoosh, he shot up to a hundred and fifty feet and hovered there.
     The bogey was now in sight.  Felix gasped at the look of the
thing.  He could tell that it had to be some sort of flying power
armor, but what kind?  It was totally black except for a red
crest on the back of its head, and it had wings and air intakes
at the shoulders.  There were five spikes on each knee and elbow,
arranged in an "X" pattern, and there were aerial stabilizers on
each thigh to match the wings.  For weapons, it carried some sort
of long-barrelled rifle with an ammo-belt feeder leading back
around the right hip, and there was some sort of mini-missile
device built into the left forearm.
     But what struck Corporal Weidmann the most about the armor
was the shape of the helmet--a stylized, evil-looking skull.
     Weidmann described the thing quickly.  "It sure doesn't look
friendly," he said.
     "Try an all-frequencies broadcast," Lt. Col. Bowaz
suggested.  "It has to have a radio built-in.  Above all, don't
make any moves that could be interpreted as hostile."
     "I'm afraid it's too late for that," Weidmann responded as
the strange armor suit began to raise its rifle.  "He's already
making one."  Weidmann calmly dodged as the opposing gun fired,
and activated his targeting sensor.  It rose out of the right
shoulder and positioned itself in front of his eye, feeding him
precise data on the target.  The enemy (for thus had Weidmann
decided that it was) fired again, again missing the Cyclone
armor.
     Weidmann got a lock.  "Chew on THIS, pal," he muttered,
releasing all twelve of the Cyclone's armor-piercing
minimissiles.  The armor suit tried to dodge, but failed
miserably.  It exploded in a ball of flame!  Debris and chunks of
roasted flesh embedded themselves in the marsh below.
     Corporal Weidmann dropped to the ground to look at the
pieces.  As he neared the blast site, his Cyclone's built-in
dosimeter warned him that radiation levels were maxing out.
"Sheesh, these guys use nuclear power?  That's dangerous." But he
wasn't worried--even the body armor he wore beneath the Cyclone
power armor was impervious to radiation levels over twice as high
as this.
     One of the things Felix noticed was that the gun the armor
suit had carried, as well as the canister that the belt-feeder
was attached to, was lying on a mud bank, relatively intact.  He
went over to it and picked it up, sliding his EP-40 60mm pulse
cannon into the storage bracket on his left forearm plate.
     The gun was actually in great shape, considering it had
fallen 150 feet.  "I wonder if it'll still fire..." Corporal
Weidmann pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. Then he
noticed the severed power cord leading out of the rifle.  "Must
be a lead-in to the nuclear power plant of the armor," he
surmised.  "I'd better take it back to the GMU and have our
armorer take a look at it."
 
     "This is amazing.  Simply amazing," Sgt. Barry Irrout said,
examining the rifle inside the mecha garage facility of the GMU.
"In all my years as a Bio-Maintenance Engineer, I've never seen a
railgun this compact.  I can barely even recognize it."
     "Railgun?" Corporal Weidmann asked.  He, along with
Lieutenant Martin Jackson, Lieutenant Colonel Avery Bowaz, and
Captain Steele, was in the garage also, curious to see what he
had captured.  A team of three field scientists was currently
examining the rest of the wreckage, in the field.
     "Yeah, railgun," Jackson said.  "A kind of magnetic
acceleration device that fires metal slugs at hypersonic
velocities.  Kinetic energy released on impact is terrific."
     "They toyed with the concept in the early 1990's, I
understand, when the Global Civil War was in its opening stages,"
Captain Steele offered.  "As the costs of the war grew, they had
to scrap all their research projects to spend all the money they
could on the war effort.  When the SDF-1 arrived, they never got
around to much research.  Oh, the SDF and some experimental
M.A.C.-II destroids were fitted with railgun cannons, but I don't
think we ever came up with anything this small."
     "Correct.  And if this power pack I've jury-rigged works,
we're just about to see how powerful it really is," Irrout said,
raising the gun and pointing it out the open garage door.
     "Wait a minute," Weidmann said, taking the gun from his
hands.  "I'm the one wearing Cyclone power armor.  Why don't I
take the first shot?"
     He aimed the gun out at a nearby tree.  "Okay..."  The
targeting scope moved into position.  Weidmann fired.  The tree
was shredded.  "Wow!  That's as powerful as my EP-37." The
amazing power of this weapon left them all wondering what they
would encounter next.
 
 
 
Chapter 5: Magic
 
 
     As the convoy moved further and further north, the blue glow
Steele had noticed the night before became visible in the
daylight, finally presenting itself as a thousand-foot-high wall
spanning the horizon.  Alpha fighters sent ahead on recon
reported that the blue, glowing phenonena was about a half mile
wide and seemed to stretch from east to west across this part of
Florida.
     At last Steele commandeered a Recon Alpha and flew on up to
investigate the phenomenon himself.  He landed the Alpha by the
great blue glowing line, pulled off his flight helmet, and
climbed out.
     When he dropped to the ground, the first thing he noticed
was that there was another person here.  She was standing next to
the boundary of the line, looking up at the plane.
     Steele looked at her, did a double take, and then a triple
take.  This woman was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Her body was well-endowed physically, with flesh in all the right
places.  The leather breeches and jerkin she wore were designed
to accent this, with slits and tucks in strategic locations.
     Her light blonde, almost white, hair fell to below her
waist.  Her pale yet robust complexion and sparkling ice-blue
eyes were very compelling, and Steele had to physically wrench
his head away to keep from staring.
     The woman spoke.  "That is an amazing vehicle," she said in
a delicately accented voice.  "I have never seen anything like
it."
     "Well...ah...it's a VAF-6R Alpha Recon Fighter, ah..."
Steele was amazed at himself.  He had just met the most beautiful
woman he'd ever seen in his life, and he was babbling inanely
about his Veritech fighter.
     "I am Sherelynn," the woman said.
     "Uh, Captain Steele of the um...er...Robotech Expeditionary
Force."  He tried hard to look at her without gawking, and wasn't
sure whether or not he was succeeding.
     She apparently noted his distress, and smiled.  "Many men
find me attractive.  Most of them were not as chivalrous about it
as you."
     Steele tried to change the subject.  "What is...this?" he
asked, sweeping his hand at the blue glowing wall of light.
     "You don't know?" she asked.
     "Well, they, er, don't have them where I come from."
     She scrutinized him.  "Ah.  You must be a D-Bee, then."
     "A what?" Captain Steele asked, puzzled.
     She cocked her head.  "D-Bee.  It's the current human slang
word for 'Dimensional Being,' a person or animal from another
dimension."
     Steele filed that away for future inquisition, then got back
to the blue phenomenon.  "And this?"
     "A ley line."
     "Huh?"
     The woman looked at him as if he were an ignorant child.  "I
suppose I will have to tell you the story from the beginning."
     And so they sat down together, and Sherelynn told Steele
about this different world that the GMU and its inhabitants found
itself in.  Through the tale, he sat so entranced by her beauty
that he hardly paid much attention at all to the story she was
telling.
     When Sherelynn finished her tale, Steele asked, "Could you
come back with me to our mobile base of operations and tell what
you just told me to my commanding officer?"
     She shrugged.  "Very well.  If you don't mind if I sit in
your lap on the way back--that cockpit looks rather small."
     Steele didn't mind.
 
     Steele had radioed in ahead of time that he was bringing a
guest.  What he had neglected to say was how beautiful the guest
was.  As he helped Sherelynn down from the cockpit of the Alpha
fighter, Steele was conscious of all the stares they were
getting.  All the male soldiers nearby were staring jealously at
him, and all the female soldiers were staring enviously at
Sherelynn.
     When they got to the briefing room, all the major officers
of the division had assembled, to hear what Sherelynn had to say.
"I had no idea I would be addressing such a large audience,"
Sherelynn said.
     "It doesn't bother you, does it?" Steele asked, feeling like
a fool as soon as he said it.
     "No.  It just surprises me.  But it is better this way...I
only have to tell my tale once more."
     Steele ushered her to her seat at the head of the table,
then took the seat to her left.  Lt. Colonel Bowaz, as the
highest ranking officer, sat to her right.  Lt. Jackson sat
farther down the table, as did Corporal Weidmann.
     Sherelynn began her story.
 
     "First of all, you must understand that you are no longer on
your world, or even in your dimension.  This world probably had
much the same history as yours, judging by the fact that you are
all human.  The same history, up to a point.
     "It all began several hundred years ago, by human
estimation.  Nobody knows exactly when.  A war was touched off,
using great weapons of mass destruction.
     "What the people did not know was that this war occured at a
time of a crucial conjunction of planets.  Thus, as all the
billions of people died, their psychic energy was channeled into
the countless ley lines that spanned the planet, causing them to
flare up.  With this magical awakening, many more people died; it
was a loop that fed back on itself.
     "When it was over, Earth had magic.  That blue disturbance
to the north is a ley line; magicians can draw magic from them.
But something came with the ley lines; something not usually
good. The Rifts."  She paused for dramatic emphasis.  "The Rifts
are dimensional portals, through which beings from other
universes may pass, and often do.  Some are human, like
yourselves...others are monstrous."  She shuddered.
     "Much of the continent of North America is now controlled by
the Coalition States, a tyrannical empire built on fear and
illiteracy.  You had best stay away from them, for they have
powerful forces, and this vehicle would represent an immense
prize to them."
     Corporal Weidmann spoke up.  "Would these forces wear black,
skeletal-looking power armor, and carry railgun rifles?"
     "Yes, they do," Sherelynn replied.  "Have you encountered
any?"
     "We destroyed one of them," Lt. Col Bowaz replied.
     "Then you may be in trouble," Sherelynn said.  "They have
far, far larger war machines, including robots and tanks."
     "With our mecha, I'm not worried," Weidmann said.
     "Hold on a minute, young lady," Bowaz said.  For some
reason, Sherelynn smiled when he said the words, "Young lady."
"You're telling us that we're actually in another dimension,
another universe than ours?"
     "Quite possibly another time, as well," Sherelynn said.
     "Then that means that I'm the acting commander of the REF,
as there is nobody in this universe who outranks me," Bowaz said
thoughtfully.  "This requires some thinking."
 
     The meeting was adjourned soon after that.  Steele showed
Sherelynn around the GMU, then offered to find her a room in
which to stay the night.  She declined.
     "Thank you, no.  I prefer to sleep in the wilderness," she
said.  "I must return to the woods soon, in fact, and I must go
alone.  But I will be back another time..."
     Steele tried to dissuade her, but when she looked at him,
all his arguments stuck in his throat.  She shouldered the
battered old backpack she carried and walked out of the camp.
 
 
 
Chapter 6: Glitter
 
 
     The next morning, as Col. Bowaz gave the order to move out,
the woman Sherelynn showed up again.  Steele was glad to see her.
     After excusing himself from the bridge, Steele showed her to
his private quarters.  As she removed her pack (moving in a way
that would have made a stone sit up and take notice), Captain
Steele noticed, seemingly for the first time, the large handgun
she wore at her waist.  "May I see that?" he asked.
     "Of course," she said, removing it from the holster and
handing it over by the barrel.  Steele nearly dropped it. "This
must weigh fifteen pounds!" he said.
     "Closer to thirteen, actually. But it's what I need." She
took hold of it and pointed out the features.  Steele peered
closely at it.  It was an angular weapon, with a small upper
barrel and a larger lower one.  There was a pump-action of some
sort on the lower barrel, and a curved clip feeding into the
back.  There was another clip slid into the pistol's handle.
"You see, it's a combination laser and grenade launcher."
     "It must have an immense kick to it," Steele said, handing
it back to her.
     "I can handle it," she said, and Steele didn't sense any
cockiness--it was as if she was merely stating a fact. He
wondered how it was possible that she could even carry it--she
didn't SEEM to have large muscles.
     "Where do you come from?" Steele asked, still trying not to
stare at her.  "What are you doing way out here in the middle of
nowhere?"
     Sherelynn shrugged.  "I was born in a land...very far away
from here.  I wander a great deal, and like to keep to myself.
This seemed like an ideal place, as there were no people within
miles and miles--only the dinosaurs, and they don't bother me."
Steele thought he got the impression that she was using "bother"
in the sense that meant "mess with" rather than in the sense that
meant "annoy," but dismissed it as ridiculous.
     "What do you do for a living?" he asked.  "I'm sorry for
asking so many questions, but I just want to know more about you.
You're a very...enchanting person."
     She chuckled, a tinkly laugh that sent shivers up and down
Steele's spine.  He was beginning to realize that he'd fallen,
and fallen hard for this girl.  "For a living? Actually, I don't
'work' exactly--not as you hu--people would define it.  I do hunt
occasionally, however."
     BEEP-BEEP!  BEEP-BEEP!  BEEP-BEEP!  The wrist-comm Steele
was wearing started going off.  "Yes?" Steele asked, irritated by
the distraction.
     "Sir, you're wanted at the cockpit," the tinny voice
proclaimed.  "There's something ahead of us you need to see."
     Steele thought a minute.  "I'll get to the mecha bay; it's
closer and my Cyclone's there."
     He started to leave the room when there was a horrifically
loud "WHOM!!!" and the whole room trembled. "Uh-oh," Sherelynn
said, drawing the gun.  "Wait a minute; I'm coming too."
     They ran down the corridors to the garage-like enclosure.
Steele asked into his wrist-comm, "What WAS that?!"
     "Sir, it was some kind of an, uh, warning shot, sir," the
bridge crewman said.
     "From what?!  That sounded like a sonic boom!"
     "Ah, sir, as near as the computer can figure out, it WAS."
     Steele entered the mecha bay and hurriedly suited up in his
Cyclone armor.  "Open the bay door and extend the ramp," he said.
     "But sir, that would breach integrity of the hull!  If that
thing creates another sonic boom, we'd all be deafened!" the
officer-on-watch said.
     "I don't care, just do it."  The soldier shrugged and pulled
the lever.  As the giant hatches slid open and the ramp slid out,
Steele converted to Cyclone Armor and tramped out.  Sherelynn,
with her pistol, was right behind him.
     "Perhaps you should stay inside..." he began.
     "Trust me, I can take care of myself," she said so
confidently that he began to believe she meant it.
     Steele stepped up, and got his first good look at the thing.
He gasped in astonishment.
     It was about a thousand feet away, and was being surrounded
by Cyclones.  It looked like some kind of robot. It stood about
eleven feet tall and seemed to be constructed almost entirely of
some chrome-type metal that reflected light almost perfectly.
There was a huge gun pod mounted on its right shoulder, and a
huge smoking hole in the ground about five hundred feet in front
of it.
     "That's Glitter Boy power armor," Sherelynn whispered to
Captain Steele.  "Created by the pre-Rifts U.S.A. for their
armored divisions.  Almost indestructible."
     "Is there a person inside that?" Steele asked.
     Sherelynn looked at him as if he were an idiot.  "Of course.
I said they're power armor."
     Steele shrugged.  "Just wanted to be sure."
     "I don't want any trouble," came a male voice out of a
loudspeaker somewhere on the Glitter Boy, "but I can probably
take out the lot of you if I have to.  So who wants to be first?"
     Steele turned to Sherelynn.  "Can he?"
     "He could probably destroy that armor you're in with one
blast of his gun."
     "I don't doubt it."  Steele activated his radio.
"Attention, all Cyclone Riders.  Stand down and back off.  I
repeat, stand down and back off."
     Though they appeared somewhat puzzled, the Cyclone Riders
did as ordered, lowering their weapons and backing off.  Steele
walked down the ramp and activated his own loudspeaker.  "I'm
sorry about that," he said.  "My men can get a little overzealous
when they perceive a possible threat to the GMU."
     The Glitter Boy shoved his gun down and back, so it rested,
muzzle pointing down, behind his shoulder.  "No harm done."  The
armor seemed to be peering at Steele's Cyclone. "Hmmm.  I've
never seen power armor of that type before."
     "That's rather mutual, I'm afraid," Steele said.  "We just
got in from another dimension ourselves."
     "Hmmm."  The Glitter Boy considered.  "That would explain
your strange armor and vehicles.  But I wouldn't go around
advertising that, if I were you.  It might make people
suspicious, if not overtly hostile."
     "I'll keep that in mind," Steele said.  Intuiting that the
Glitter Boy wasn't hostile, he thumbed the switch to change his
Sabre back to a motorcycle.  As he lifted the handlebars into
place and sat back down, the person in the Glitter Boy gasped,
seemingly unaware that he was still broadcasting.  "Wow!"
     "The miracles of Robotechnology," Steele muttered.
     "Robo-what?"
 
     Five minutes later, the GMU moved out again, with the
Glitter Boy aboard.  At first he had been suspicious, but the
chance to get a look at the transforming mecha had convinced him.
     The Glitter Boy pilot was a man of about twenty-five.  He
was about 5'11", with brown hair, glasses, and the beginnings of
a mustache.  He introduced himself as Joe Moore.
     Moore wore a customized flight suit that was tan, with dark
highlights.  In a shoulder holster he carried an energy pistol,
and slung on his back was an unusual rifle.  In a storage space
inside his armor, Steele had noticed, was a large duffel bag
which appeared to have some other weapons in it.
 
     Later on, in a small conference room, Sgt. Barry Irrout, Lt.
Martin Jackson, and Captain Steele met to debrief Moore, to
question him about this new world they suddenly found themselves
in.  Sherelynn was also present.  Col. Bowaz was absent from the
proceedings.
     "I understand your consternation," Joe Moore said.  "I was a
wee bit confused myself when I first arrived, and the adjustment
was pretty difficult, but I managed to survive."
     "You're a D-Bee yourself?" Steele asked.
     Moore winced.  "Please don't use that term; it has taken on
the qualities of an epithet from the Coalition's use of it.  But
yes, I came originally from another dimension.
     "I arrived about ten years ago.  I had just just graduated
from high school; it was 1995 a.d.  Don't ask me how it happened;
I have no idea myself.  All I know is that one morning I found
myself in this world, running for my life from an insane wizard.
I did eventually manage to escape, but that's a long story, and
perhaps would bear retelling at some other time.
     "For now, suffice it to say that in the end I found someone
who could help me, and I have managed to make my way quite nicely
in this world."
     "That's an interesting suit of power armor you have," Sgt.
Irrout, the Bio-Maintenance Engineer, said.
     "I should say so!" Lt. Jackson said.  He was holding a
clipboard computer in one hand and some kind of scientific
instrument in the other.  "I took a molecular density reading,
and the armor on that thing is amazingly strong!"
     "Oh?"  Steele took a look at the clipcomp.  "Amazing.
Nearly four times as resistant as Cyclone armor."
     "Apparently they made a good many advances in the field of
armor in this world," Steele guessed.
     "That's not all they made advances in," Joe said.
"Cybernetics, bionics, robotics--the Ancients, as they're called,
were amazingly advanced for their time...at least as compared to
my world."
     "Do you suppose that there's any chance of our making peace
with the Coalition?" Steele asked.
     Sherelynn, who had been sitting next to Steele listening,
recoiled as if struck.  "I can't believe what you're saying!" she
said in horrified tones.  "The Coalition is as brutal as the
ancient Nazi party!  They enforce a hunt-down-and-kill policy on
most D-Bees, and definitely distrust them all!  You should never
even consider such a thing!"
     Steele held up his hands.  "Relax, relax.  I was only asking
because Colonel Bowaz would want to know all our options.  I
would never support peace with them."  But privately, Steele was
wondering if Bowaz would feel the same way.
 
 
 
Chapter 7: Regis
 
 
     At the same time, thirty or forty miles away from the GMU's
present site, the Invid hive that the REF had originally been
attacking sat atop what had, in the other dimension, been a
ridge.  Now it was on a narrow peninsula, barely fifty feet above
the waterline.  It had made the transition also, unbeknownst to
the REF.
     Inside the hive was chaos.  The Invid, much more sensitive
to dimensional disturbances than humans, had been hit with the
equivalent of a psychic nuclear bomb.  More than half had
perished in the initial shock waves of the transition.  Half of
those that remained were in a comatose state, and would probably
stay in that condition for quite some time.  The Hive Brain was
also in a state of shock.
     Now those Invid that were left had finished gathering the
bodies of the dead together for disposal in a pyre. Their leader,
a humanoid Invid Prince named Bort, was in the brain chamber
concentrating desperately, or as close to desperately as was
possible for one who had never experienced emotion before.  He
had almost made contact once already; now, strengthened by the
passage of time, he was ready to try again.
     Bort typified the humanoid Invid type--tall, almost
handsome, with dark, shoulder-length hair.  He wore an expression
of arrogance, or would have had he not been so busy
concentrating.  All the Invid within the immediate area, even the
relatively primitive Scout drones, could feel the intensity of
Bort's mental signal.
     Then an answering signal shot through Bort's awareness like
a lightning bolt.  He stiffened, stood, and threw out his arms.
In his mind, a reverberating voice said, "CONTACT HAS BEEN MADE!"
 
     A column of ruddy light shot through the center of the
chamber.  A shadow appeared inside this pillar of fire.  It was
the psychic manifestation of the Regis, the mother of the Invid
race!  All the active Invid in the chamber were affected by her
mental presence, and the mere psychic energy given off was enough
to rouse some of the comatose Invid from their state and instill
a spark of consciousness into the stunned Hive Brain.  Though her
image was weak, all the Invid performed the alien equivalent of
genuflection; for the Regis was much more than just the mother of
the Invid, she was in a sense their creator, their god, the
literal essence of their species.  In short, the Regis WAS the
Invid.  She spoke, and her voice reverberated throughout the
entire hive.
     "Be at peace, my children, for I am with you," she reassured
them.  "I have seen your predicament, and know your location
amidst the myriad currents of space and time. Be assured, I have
not forgotten you.
     "However, I am not yet strong enough to bring you back, or
even to penetrate the fabric of time and space that separates us.
I must have much more Protoculture before I am able to do more
than maintain contact between us."
     From her own location a vast distance away in another
dimension, the Regis surveyed her childrens' predicament. She
could see only dimly the world in which the hive now found
itself; yet it seemed to her to have possibilities. Perhaps, if
it could be seeded with the Flower of Life, it might prove easier
to harvest than the Earth of this dimension that was still rife
with resistance to Invid domination.
     In moments, her decision was made.  Though she could not yet
physically penetrate the reaches of space and time that separated
her from her children, she could still supervise the hive's
functions.  She would direct the brain to increase the rate of
reactivation of the Invid in suspended animation to its utmost
maximum.  If this planet could be seeded, it might well prove to
be the salvation the Invid had hoped to find in Earth.  If not,
the loss was limited to just one Hive.
     But of course the Regis did not tell the stranded Invid all
of her plan.  She directed them, instead, to begin the
reanimation of the sleeping Invid.  "You must revive them now, to
commence the seeding of this planet with the Flower of Life! My
children, you MUST NOT FAIL in this.  This effort could prove to
be our salvation."
     Bort nodded.  "Your will shall be done, Regis."  And with
those words, a plan was set in motion that could prove to be the
downfall of this alternate earth.
 
 
 
Chapter 8: Transport
 
 
     After the meeting was over, Steele took Moore down to the
mecha bay for a first-hand look at the Cyclones.  Barry Irrout
explained how, due to the special power source, they were able to
evince such remarkable versatility.  Joe looked it over, examined
the Cyclone closely, and remarked, "This is new.  This is VERY
new," several times.
     The technicians scoping out the Glitter Boy armor (with
Joe's express consent and supervision) were saying much the same
thing, though in different (and usually highly technical) terms.
     Sgt. Irrout was particularly interested in the massive
cannon mounted to the GB's right shoulder.  Moore let him take a
couple of the weapon's access panels off, and he was amazed at
what he saw.  "This is another railgun type weapon, and it's the
most powerful one I've seen yet.  Amazing!  But the sonic boom it
creates must be immense!"
     Joe nodded.  "Yeah.  You'll notice, the armor itself is
specially insulated against the shock waves."
 
     Getting bored with all the techno-talk, Steele and Sherelynn
wandered up to the GMU's control room.  Bowaz was in the pilot's
seat, not actually doing much as the GMU was currently set on
auto-pilot.  Steele really doubted that Bowaz COULD do much in
the area of piloting the big vehicle anyway; he just sat there
for show.
     Steele and Sherelynn took seats next to each other at one of
the minor stations near the back of the bridge.  There were many
vacant stations, because of the deaths that had occured among the
bridge crew, as well as among everyone else, back on the earth of
their own dimension, against the Invid.  For a moment, Steele
wondered about that hive they'd been attacking.  Had they, too,
made the transition?  It might be worth checking out...then
Steele took one look at Sherelynn and forgot all his conjectures.
     She was so beautiful, all of the women Steele had ever been
with, or even seen, paled by comparison.  Her body was too
perfect for words, her smile brightened up the entire room, and
her eyes gazed alluringly back at him, hinting at something that
Steele found very, very inviting...
     Then their private moment was interrupted by a loudly
blaring klaxon alarm.  Bowaz, who had fallen asleep, now nearly
fell out of the chair.  "Shut off that infernal racket!" he
yelled to the radar operator, who was nearly frightened out of
her wits.
     "Yessir," she said, pressing the switch.  The alarm shut
off, but the entire bridge had been stirred into activity.
     Steele ran up to the front, with Sherelynn right behind him.
"What is it?" he demanded.
     "Large object, closing fast," she reported.  "Speed is Mach
One, range is 40 miles.  It's about as large as a small passenger
jet, sir."
     "Can you get a visual image?" Sherelynn asked.
     "I'll try," the young woman said.  She fiddled with the
controls for a few seconds.  "There."  The image came up on the
screen.  Sherelynn gasped.  The thing resembled a railway car
with a giant skull on the front and cannon turrets mounted to top
and bottom.  There was also some type of hover platform attached
there.
     "It's a Coalition transport!" Sherelynn said.  "You must
destroy it!"
     "Wait just one minute, young lady," Bowaz said.  "You say we
should shoot that thing?  But it hasn't shown any signs of
hostility yet, and..."
     "Believe me, it will, it will!" Sherelynn pleaded.  "You
must destroy it and not give it a chance to shoot first!"
     BEEEEEEEEEP!  The warning tone jerked their eyes back to the
radar screen just in time to see four smaller blips separate from
the large blip that represented the Coalition Transport.  "Radar
reports multiple missile launch," the female radar operator
reported calmly.  Steele swore and dashed over to the weapons
station.  With one hand, he keyed the small particle beam turret
mounted on top of the cockpit to lock in on the missiles and
knock them out of the air.  With the other, he pulled down on a
lever surrounded entirely in red.
     Atop the GMU, monstrous panels began to slide open, and
other components moved into place to stabilize.  The vibrations
could be felt throughout the entire Ground Mobile Unit as the
gigantic laser cannon built for taking out starships elevated and
locked into place.  "Eat LIGHT, you--" he muttered as his finger
stabbed the firing switch.
     The laser fired a mighty blast, and the Coalition transport
exploded.  "Enemy completely neutralized," the radar tech
reported.
 
     Sherelynn and Steele were in a small conference room, all
thoughts of romance forgotten.  They'd excused themselves from
the bridge, leaving Lt. Col. Bowaz to his command duties.  "We
destroyed the transport," the woman muttered.  "But the question
still remains, what was it doing there?"
     "It was after us, wasn't it?" Steele asked.  "Or else, it
was out on patrol."
     Sherelynn shook her head.  "No, that's not it.  They don't
patrol that heavily down here, and I hardly believe that killing
one SAMAS soldier would bring that."
     "Then what?" Steele asked.  "Another dimensional invasion?"
     "It might be..."  Sherelynn shook her head.  "No, it isn't.
I sense something about ten miles east of here."
     "You what?" Steele asked.
     "I can't explain how," Sherelynn said.  "My kind--I mean, I,
have psychic abilities, among which is clairvoyance.  It seldom
fails me."
     "Hmmm.  Do you think we should check it out?"
     "Anything that disturbs the Coalition so that it sends a
transport might be worth checking into," Sherelynn said.
     "Very well, I'll get a squad on it right away."  As he left
the room, he wondered momentarily why he was suddenly so quick to
implement her suggestions.
 
 
 
Chapter 9: Rescue
 
 
     Captain Steele ordered a squad of fifteen Cyclone scouts to
take a look around the area to the east, then walked out on a
small catwalk on the starboard side of the GMU, which was still
making its way north.  Sherelynn was already standing there, lost
in reflection.  "I sent some Cyclone troopers to check it out,"
Steele said, moving closer to her.
     She nodded, then checked the chronometer on her wrist.
"Captain Steele, I must go now.  I have to get back to the
forest."
     "But why?  I just sent out some troopers to check that area
for you.  Don't you want to hear what they have to say?"
     "I suspect I already know what it will be," Sherelynn
replied.  "Do not fear for me.  I am expert in the forest--it's
where I really belong.  I will return tomorrow."  With that, she
vaulted over the railing.
     "No, wait!" Steele yelled, but it was too late.  He watched
with astonishment as Sherelynn landed, 40 feet below, with the
grace of a cat.  She turned, waved, and dashed into the
jungle/forest about two hundred feet away.
     Steele sighed, bemused.  He decided to take a Recon Alpha
out over the forest, since there was really no reason for him to
remain here anyway and he was interested in what might be lurking
over there.  Though he didn't admit it, even to himself, he also
hoped he might be able to catch a covert glimpse of Sherelynn out
there.
     Over the forest, Steele engaged the scanning systems built
into his bird.  "Now let's just see what we get," he muttered.
     It wasn't long before the radar monitors began pinging.
"What's this?  I'm reading a concentration of metallic objects
registering just behind that ridge."  He radioed back to the GMU,
then increased his altitude some, to get above the cloud layer.
The clouds would provide visual cover for him, and he could use
the down-looking IR scanners to get a picture of what was going
on.  He switched to the V/STOL (Vertical/Short Take-Off and
Landing) thrusters in the Alpha's underside so he could get a
good image.
     The way the computer analyzed the images and spat them out
on the HDD (head-down display, as opposed to the head-up display
used for targeting), there was a massive force of infantry and
robots attacking a small fortification built into the side of a
hill.  Tentative ID registered as Coalition SAMAS power armor
(the exact characteristics had not yet been programmed into the
ident computers), plus some of the larger units that could be,
from Sherelynn and Moore's descriptions, Coalition UAR-1 Urban
Enforcer robots and Coalition Spider Skull Walkers.  The Urban
Enforcer's main recognable feature was the gigantic rail cannon
built into its right shoulder; the Spider Skull was almost
exactly what its name suggested--a great big skull on six
metallic legs, with railguns and other weaponry built in.
     Many of the smaller units were not registering the body heat
that footsoldiers, even armor-clad ones, would normally be giving
off.  They had to be some sort of robot.  Moore had mentioned
something about Coalition autonomous robots, though he hadn't
gone into specifics.
     All the forces were firing their weapons at the fortified
hill, and Steele could tell that it wouldn't be long until the
hill fell.  Most of the automated cannons had been destroyed now,
and the only other sign of resistance was laser rifle fire from
slits in the side of the hill.  "The hell with this," Steele
muttered.  "I can't just stand by and let the Coalition destroy
this place."  He shoved the throttle forward, switched the
thrusters to rear-vector, and instructed the computer to go for
target lock.
     The Alpha swooped in, surprising a lot of troops.  The tone
sounded in the cabin to indicate target lock, and Steele let four
of his missiles go, then four more.  Two surprised Enforcers blew
sky-high.  He easily dodged fire from a Spider Skull as he
rocketed past the clearing, then came back around and took out
two more enemy robots.
     "Okay, time to lay my card on the table."  Steele reached
forward with his right hand and pulled back on the mode-changing
lever.  In seconds, the Alpha fighter had become an Alpha
Battloid, GU-XX 35mm tri-barrel gun pod in hand.  "Eat THIS,
Coalition jerk-offs."  With cannon fire, he took out five of the
smaller robots, then dived to the right to avoid a missile fired
from an Urban Enforcer.
     "Oh, do you want to play rough?  All you had to do was ask!"
Steele fired eight more of his missiles, and more enemy robots
were destroyed.
     From across the clearing, Steele heard more gunfire.  It was
the Cyclone unit he'd dispatched earler, coming to his aid.
However, against several hundred Coalition robots, the outcome
would be chancy, at best.  Steele riddled a few more robots with
his cannon, dodged flak from two Urban Enforcers, then called for
reinforcements.  "Captain Steele calling Ground Mobile Unit.
Captain Steele calling Ground Mobile Unit.  Have encountered
hostiles; need immediate reinforcements. Repeat, have encountered
hostiles; need immediate reinforcements. Coordinates--"  Steele
dodged another missile attack and countered with a few missiles
of his own.  "Coordinates Tango Lima Delta 47.  Urgent, repeat
urgent.  Steele out."
     Within minutes, the main force of Alpha and Beta fighters
had arrived.  As they used more missiles to put down the hostile
force, Steele was free to slip around behind the fortified hill
in his Alpha Battloid, to try to find a way in.
     In all, the hill was about two hundred feet tall.  There was
a large metal door at the base, about thirty feet tall.  Steele
knew that the Alpha would fit through, easily.  He just had to
find a way in.
     As he was pondering the question, one of his subordinates
radioed to him, "Sir, the enemy is breaking through.  We can't
hold them much longer."
     "Roger.  I'll be fast."  There was no time for subtlety
here.  Hoping no civilians were behind the armor plate doors,
Steele executed a jump-kick with the thirty-foot Battloid that
caved them in.  He stepped in, broadcasting over his
loudspeakers, "I come in peace!  Don't shoot!  I'm here to
evacuate everybody before the Coalition breaks through and
destroys you!"
     "Up here!" someone yelled.  Steele looked around.  He seemed
to be in some kind of gigantic repair bay, with robot parts
scattered all around.  Steele looked up, and saw two humans
standing on a metal catwalk about level with the Battloid's head.
Steele extended the Alpha's hand, and they climbed on.  "Are you
the only ones here?" Steele asked.  They nodded.
     "Who are you?" one asked.
     "That'll have to wait until later.  Right now, we've got to
get you out of here."  Steele switched to Guardian mode and
skated out the door.  "Okay, I'm clear," he said over the radio.
"Give 'em one last blast and let's get out of here."
     Soon the Alphas had withdrawn at supersonic speeds.  It had
been agreed that they'd break in different directions and circle
around to get back to the GMU, so they couldn't be tracked there.
Steele was the only one who flew directly back.  He wanted to get
the two people he'd rescued safely aboard, for debriefing.
     But it seemed that incidents were the order of the day, for
the instant he left the clearing, two fast-moving blips showed up
on the scope.  They were some sort of sky cycles, like in an old
sci-fi vid Steele had seen once.  And they were firing missiles.
     Steele was limited by the presence of the two men in his
Alpha's hand--he couldn't perform high-G dodging maneuvers lest
he inadvertantly injure them.  He loosed some missiles of his
own, but the two bikes blasted them out of the air.  It was
beginning to look pretty serious for Steele, when suddenly help
arrived--from an unexpected quarter.
     One minute the air was clear; the next it was there.  A
great bluish-white dragon was gliding through the air, barely
fifty feet away.  It angled its gigantic head toward the two sky
bikes and let out a blast of frost from its mouth.  The engines
of the bikes froze (and so did the pilots), and they dropped
toward the forest below.
     Steele said over the loudspeakers, "I don't know who, or
even what you are, but thank you."
     The dragon nodded, as if in acknowledgement, and banked
away.  Steele gazed after it in awe, for it was truly a beautiful
creature, aesthetically.  It looked like the ones he'd seen in
old fantasy vids, only it had a more majestic air to it.  Steele
wondered why he had the feeling he'd seen it before.  "Probably
because of those movies," he muttered, heading for the GMU.
     He made it without further incident.  Upon landing, he
jumped out of the cockpit to meet in person the two people whose
lives he'd saved.
     One of these people was a young man, in his early twenties.
He had dark hair and eyes and a rebellious expression on his
face.  He wore a home-made leather vest and pants, a woolen
sweater, and combat boots; a canvas utility belt with multiple
compartments, holster included, was at his waist; and he carried
a small leather duffle and a canvas knapsack that obviously
contained tools.
     The other was an older man, in his fifties and balding..  He
wore a slightly dirty labcoat, glasses, and a pocket protector,
and the bulge under his left shoulder seemed to indicate a
holster of some sort.
     The younger one had one of his hands on the side of the
Alpha and wore a slightly zoned-out expression.  "Man!" he said.
"This is quite some machine.  Reconfiguring modular construction,
telepathic control system, and a power source that I can't quite
get a line on."
     Steele gawked, for he had just described the Alpha without
having even been inside of it.  Of course, it could just be lucky
guesses...
     "Jack has a strange psychic ability that lets him
communicate with machines and intuit their inner workings," the
older man explained.  "I find it very strange, myself, but the
workings of the human mind, especially in these times of magic,
may well exceed the expected."  Then he realized that they hadn't
introduced themselves.  "I'm Thornton Smitty, doctor of robotics,
and this is my assistant, Jack."  He held out his hand to Steele,
who took it.
     "I'm Captain Steele, Robotech Expeditionary Force."  His
introduction seemed to be lost on the man, who was gazing
wistfully off to the east.
     Jack disengaged himself from the machine and turned to
Smitty.  He pointed to his wristwatch and said softly, "Thornton,
it's time."
     The scientist nodded and turned away.  "Do what you must."
     Jack turned to Steele.  "Captain, are all your men out of
the viscinity of the hill?"
     "Yes," Steele replied.
     "Good."  The young man flipped up the face of the
wristwatch, which proved to be a false front, and pushed a red
button beneath it.  There was a gigantic explosion from the east,
and as Steele turned and looked, he could see a mushroom cloud
rising.  Jack pulled off the watch and threw it away.  "It's
useless now," he explained.
     "What did you just do?" Steele demanded.
     "I activated the self-destruct I'd rigged on our base," the
young man said.  "What's it to you?"
     "We had been working on new theories of robotics," Smitty
explained sadly.  "We couldn't let that advanced technology fall
into Coalition hands."  He was clearly broken up about it.
     "Don't let it bother you, Dr. Smitty," Steele said.  "I have
a feeling that the robotics you're ABOUT to see will make the
robotics you'd been working on look like children's toys."  He
led them up to the now-halted GMU, and they went inside.
 
 
 
Chapter 10: Fracas in the Library
 
 
     Dr. Smitty was amazed when he got into the mecha bay.  "What
is this?" he asked.  "I have never seen a repair and storage
facility of this caliber outside of the Coalition.  And these
vehicles--I've never seen the like."
     "That's because they're not from this dimension," Jack said
sullenly.  "They're D-Bees."
     "What?!  You're sure?" Smitty turned to him.
     "Positive.  I read the mem banks on that fighter plane."  He
nodded at Steele.  "Quite a machine."
     "Uh, thanks."  Steele wasn't quite sure what to think of
this Jack person.  Had he really been able to tap into the
Alpha's flight computer, just by touching the plane's skin?
Steele didn't believe it, but there didn't seem to be any more
logical solution.
     As they passed by one of the GMU's REF Gladiators, in for
servicing Thornton stopped and asked, "May I?"  He pointed at one
of the open access panels, and it was obvious he wanted a closer
look.  Steele sighed.  "Well, it's against regulations..."
     Sgt. Barry Irrout showed up.  "What's against regulations?"
     "Dr. Smitty here, a robot scientist, wanted to have a look
at the Destroid."
     Irrout shrugged.  "I don't see any harm in it, as long as
he's supervised."
     "Hey, what about me?" Jack asked.
     "Oh, you can hang around too," Steele decided.  "We won't
need to debrief you until later."  He left the room, covertly
assigning one of his Cyclone troopers to keep an eye on the two
newcomers.
     That evening, in the small cubicle that passed for an
Officer's Lounge, Steele sipped some coffee while reviewing on a
small portable terminal the statistics of the days's battle.
According to the computer tally, the fighter forces had been able
to take out fifty to seventy percent of the Coalition forces, and
the nuclear explosion had almost certainly demolished the rest.
The average number of kills per fighter was 19.7.  Average per
Cyclone was 8.2.  The REF forces had suffered minimal casualties,
with the loss of one Cyclone and moderate damage taken to one
Alpha.  "Not too bad," Steele thought.  He turned off the
computer and flipped down the screen.
     But his thoughts returned to the dragon, an ice dragon he'd
decided.   He had never seen such a thing before, and was still
having difficulty believing it to be real.  "I wonder if we'll
meet again," he muttered.
     His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of energy blasts.
Grabbing his Gallant pistol, Steele ran toward the sound--then
stopped.  He didn't want to run right into the combat.  He didn't
even have CVR armor on.
     Steele decided to take the back way--through a series of
bulkhead tunnels designed to provide access to the mobile wheel
units and escape hatches.  He opened a bulkhead door that said
"FOR EMERGENCY USE ONLY" and made his way into the dimly lit
metal tunnel.  The clanging sound of boots on metal echoed down
the tunnel as Steele dashed down a short stairway.
     The gunfire had settled down, though every once in a while
there was a loud KA-CHOOM sound as some heavy energy weapon
discharged.  In seconds, Steele was at a hatch that he placed
about right behind the gunman with the loud weapon.  He carefully
turned the wheel set into the door, hoping that it wouldn't
squeak and give him away.  By some miracle, it turned silently.
Steele slowly pushed open the door and looked out into the GMU's
small but comprehensive CD/comp library.
     The gunner was Jack.  He was kneeling behind a metal console
bank that offered some protection and firing the heavy energy
pistol that he'd carried in his belt over the heads of some
CVR-clad guards.  "You just stay back there," he was yelling.
Steele observed with some trepidation how much damage the pistol
was causing.  The ceiling bulkheads were made of 6-inch-thick
polymer armor, but there was already a medium-sized hole there.
     Steele went online with his Gallant and put a shot into the
floor to Jack's left.  "You just put the gun down right now."
Jack did as he was instructed.  "Now stand up really slowly."
     Steele picked up the gun and stuck it into his belt, making
sure that the safety was set and the muzzle was not pointing
straight down.  "Now I want to know just what's going on here,"
he demanded of the guards.
     "We found him in here, sir," one of them said, "and told him
to halt.  He ignored us, and I fired a warning shot.  Then he
pulled his gun and started shooting at us."
     Steele looked around.  "I wasn't aware that the library was
a restricted area."
     "But sir, the bulkhead door was locked and sealed, because
the librarian was off duty," the other guard said.  "There's no
way he could have gotten in here without breaking in, and we were
going to question him."
     Steele looked at Jack, who stared back sullenly.  "What were
you doing in here?"
     "I wanted to get some information on the history of the
dimension you come from.  I figured the library was the best
place to start.  Then, next thing I know, these goons are firing
at me."
     "But how did you get in if the door was locked?" Steele
demanded.
     Jack shrugged.  "Wasn't locked for me."
     Steele sighed and looked around at the damage.  There were
burn marks on the walls of the library, one console had been
perforated by gunfire, and there was that hole in the ceiling.
"Way to go, guys," he addressed the guards.  "You handled a
'minor break-in' and only managed to destroy one console, the
ceiling, and the walls.  Maybe you'll get to the floor next time,
eh?"  He noted the names on their armor.  "I'll deal with you
later.  Dismissed!"  The guards stumbled over themselves in their
eagerness to get out of there.
     Steele turned to Jack.  "And as for you, you're on probation
for the next few days, mister.  If I hear about any more
incidents like this, you're in the brig."
     "What about my gun?" Jack asked.
     "I'm keeping it, for now," Steele replied, walking out of
the library.
 
 
 
Chapter 11: Invid
 
 
     Fifty or sixty miles away from the GMU convoy, a small
division of Invid mecha was sweeping the countryside.  This
division consisted of four Invid Armored Scout ships and one
Shock Trooper.
     These Invid were following Bort's directive--to secure for
the Invid one of the mysterious blue walls of energy that
infested this new land.  Though the Invid Regis had not made any
comments regarding these disturbances, Bort thought it worthwhile
to investigate.
     DISTURBANCE SIGHTED, the trooper thought back to the Hive.
AWAITING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS.
     Guidance came in the form of a message from Bort.  "Secure
the area.  Destroy any humans or other threats."  As there were
no humans in the area, the deed was done in a very short time.
     Next, a troop of Enforcers, the Invids' version of power
armor, arrived.  With them came one of the Hive's other
humanoids, a scientist named Zyjinn.  Zyjinn walked into the
glowing area, despite protests from the Enforcer troop.
     Zyjinn suddenly felt raw power flowing through his body.
"This is amazing," he thought.  "It's as though the Regis herself
were here.  I feel as strong as the Regis!"  Then, shocked at
such sacreligious thoughts, he hurriedly ran back out of the
line.
     "These walls of light, these--these LINES, are beyond my
comprehension," Zyjinn reported to Bort.  "They seem to be
composed of latent psychic energy."
     "Of what use could they be?" Bort, at his throne in the
Hive, wondered.  "Why would the humans have put them there?"
     "I am of the opinion that they are a natural phenomenon,"
Zyjinn said.  "I cannot think why this earth would have them and
the one we came from would not, however."
     "Would they interfere with the growth of the Flower of
Life?" Bort queried.
     "I believe that they would," Zyjinn replied.  "I cannot be
positive; however, our experiments with the Flower of Life on
Garuda and Peryton would seem to indicate that psychic energy
present in this magnitude interferes with the Flower's life
cycle."
     "I will defer to your opinion in this matter," Bort decided.
"We will begin setting up test farms in locations distant enough
for you to consider safe immediately.  Please return to the Hive
for consultation."
     Zyjinn did, though he cast a wistful eye on the ley line.
Never before had he felt such raw power.  Then he got his--were
they EMOTIONS?! (Unthinkable!) under control, and marched off
with the Enforcers.  His first duty was, after all, to the Hive.
 
     In the mean time, two days passed for the GMU.  It rolled
further and further north, passing by villages and single
habitations.  In most of these, the people huddled, scared, in
their huts until the GMU had rumbled past.  In one, people fired
energy weapons at the GMU (not doing it any significant damage).
     Thornton Smitty and Jack proved to be an asset to the GMU;
for Smitty knew a great deal about the current state-of-the-art
in robotics (Sgt. Irrout spent a great deal of time with him,
pumping him for information on current designs), and Jack was an
expert mechanic, both robotic and otherwise.  Even Irrout was
astonished.  "That man has a genuine affinity for machines," he
confided to Steele.  "I have seen him repair machines simply by
whacking them once or twice with a wrench, and reprogram balky
computers with little more than a touch.  I tell you, if he isn't
psychic, I don't know what he IS."  Jack worked in the mecha bay
a great deal, "to keep in touch with the machines."  Of course,
Colonel Bowaz initially balked at this, saying, "He could be an
enemy agent, a spy, for all we know!  And you're letting him work
around our Robotech mecha?!"
     Only when Steele promised to keep a close eye on Jack did
Bowaz relent.  "Remember that library incident.  If something
else like that happens, he goes into the brig!"
     Steele hadn't mentioned his doubts that Jack could even be
KEPT in the brig.  He seemed to gain access to computers,
regardless of access codes or other restrictions, merely by
touch.  And with computer-actuated code locks on the brig cells,
there was probably nothing that could be done.
     Sherelynn hadn't returned in those two days.  Steele was
getting worried.  He kept seeing that luscious body dead in a
ravine with a knife sticking out of it, or in the bloody jaws of
some wild animal.  Finally, Steele took his Cyclone and rode out
looking for her.
     However, it was not Sherelynn that he eventually found. He
had pulled into a clearing to rest when three familiar-looking
shadows passed overhead.  Steele looked up--and gasped.  Invid
Shock Troopers.  But what were they doing here?!  It didn't
matter; if Steele could get off a few lucky shots they'd be dead.
He fired his thrusters and leaped up into the air.
     The Invid detected the Protoculture expenditure and turned
as one.  Steele fired a blast from his EP-37 pulse cannon that
took the first Shock Trooper through the middle of its sensor
eye.  It fell, leaking green fluid.
     The other two Troopers, however, both got off shots, which
Steele dodged by the skin of his teeth.  Another blast from the
cannon, and a second Shock Trooper fell.
     But the third one was more savvy than the other two.  It
dodged all of Steele's shots, then returned fire with one of its
own.  BOOM!  Steele's Cyclone tumbled out of the air, and his
left side felt like it was on fire.
     The Saber Cyclone crashed through the trees to land in a
small stream on the ground.  Steele staggered to his feet and
forced himself to look down at where he'd been hit.  Sure enough,
blood was seeping through a hole in his armor.
     Steele staggered.  The pain and blood loss was making him
weak.  Above him he saw the Shock Trooper's shadow through the
trees.  It was searching for him, and almost had a fix.
     "Well, fix this!" Steele gasped weakly, locking onto the
Trooper with his shoulder targeting system.  He triggered all
twelve of the concealed mini-missiles in his chest.  The Invid
was completely destroyed.
     Steele staggered to the edge of the stream, and climbed out.
He tried to engage his boosters, but he was too weak to stabilize
properly and crashed to a landing in the trees.  He got up and
stumbled a few more steps, then collapsed on the ground.  He
passed out, as his blood seeped out to turn the sandy soil red.
 
 
 
Chapter 12: Full-Scale Attack
 
 
     Corporal Felix Weidmann and Glitter Boy Joe Moore had become
good friends.  Joe often accompanied Felix on the perimeter
patrols after dark, and would sometimes let Felix try piloting
the Glitter Boy (in exchange for the same privileges with Felix's
Cyclone).
     Now they were both sitting in the cafeteria, discussing
robotics, alternate dimensions, and life in general over bowls of
the GMU's singularly unappetizing vegetable beef soup.  Moore had
just eaten some of it, then threw down his spoon.  "Eugh!  This
reminds me of what we had at Parkview!" he said in disgust.
     Weidmann was looking down the table at Jack, who had just
gotten something from the cafeteria's autodispenser.  Moore
followed his gaze.  "Yeah, he is a strange one," he said,
divining Weidmann's thinking.
     "What I'd like to know is how he got the vender to give him
pizza when it wasn't even on the menu!" Weidmann muttered.
     "Huh?  Hmmm."  Moore leaned back in his chair, thinking.
"From what I've seen of him, I'd have to say that he's an
Operator."
     Weidmann turned to Moore.  "Huh?  What's that?"
     "A person who knows 'the secrets of the old ones,' at least
where it comes to machinery.  Very secretive, and it's been said
that some of them have psychic powers that enable them to
mentally interact with machines.  'Telemechanics,' they call it,
but as to what it really is, your guess is as good as mine."
     "Well, he must know SOME secrets.  I didn't even know that
thing MADE pizza."  Weidmann picked up his tray and stood up.
"What do you say we go and pay our man Jack a visit?"
     "I have no problem with that," Moore replied, following
suit.  They walked down the table and took the empty seats to
either side of Jack.
     "Hello," Felix said.  "We saw you down here and decided to
pay you a visit.
     "Leave me alone," Jack muttered, concentrating on his food.
     "I understand your name is Jack," Joe said.  "Jack what?"
     "Just Jack," the Operator replied.  "As in 'of all trades.'"
     Felix nodded.  "Is Dr. Smitty a good friend of yours?"
     "We've known each other on and off for several years.  Look,
why this interrogation?  I've already been 'debriefed' by your
brass.  Can't you just leave me alone, let me eat in peace?"
     "Okay, okay."  Joe and Felix moved back up to their original
positions.
     "So what do you think?" Felix Weidmann asked Joe Moore.
     "I think it might be best if we kept an eye on him for the
next few days."  Felix agreed.
 
     The next day, as the GMU rolled on up the state, Lt. Col.
Bowaz called a halt.  There was an obstacle ahead, a gigantic
chasm that had probably been caused by an earth movement in the
wake of the coming of the Rifts.  "Funny, I read in an old
fantasy book somewhere about there being a great chasm across
Florida," Weidmann muttered.  "By Piers Xanthony, or something."
     Bowaz had called the halt because the only way across would
be to activate the GMU's hover thrusters and fly over--but he
didn't know how.  He needed to dig up the manuals that he'd never
bothered to go over before, and try to teach himself how to run
the thing.  "We could be here for DAYS," Field Scientist Martin
Jackson confided to Joe Moore.  "If only Captain Steele was
here--he's the only one who's really expert at thrust maneuvers."
Steele had been missing for several days.  Search parties had
failed to find any traces of him.
     None of the REF troops was aware of it yet, but an Invid
Scout was in the chasm, watching them.  And it was relaying what
it saw back to the Hive.
     The Regis, who had managed to make psychic contact once
more, viewed the transmission of the human mecha with great
interest.  "Eliminate these Robotech Rebels!" her voice
reverberated throughout the Hive.  "Eliminate them!"
 
     A detachment of Invid Royal Command Battloids and Pincer
Command Units was to destroy the REF detachment.  It flew north
until it reached the chasm, then flew along inside it, for cover.
The first sign the REF had of the impending attack was when it
emerged from the great crack, cannons warming up.  Fortunately,
the REF had not been lax about its perimeter patrols.  Enough
Destroids and Veritechs were available to knock back the first
wave and give the rest of the troopers time to get to their
mecha.  Klaxon alarms sounded throughout the ship.
     In the repair bay, mechanics rushed to ready the remaining
mecha for combat duty.  Felix Weidmann was pulling on his armor
as Joe Moore ran up to say, "What is it?!"
     "Invid attack," Weidmann explained.   "I have to go repel
it."
     "I'm coming too."  Moore ran to his Glitter Boy, opened it,
and climbed inside.  After a brief systems check, he closed the
front and slammed it into gear.  "I'm going to show those Invid
what it means to mess with a Glitter Boy!"  He ran down the
steps, bringing his gun up to fire.
     "Not near the GMU!" Weidmann yelled over the tac frequency.
     "Right!" Moore said, dropping his gun back and going hand to
hand instead.  He leaped up and punched through the sensor eye of
an unwary Pincer; it fell, leaking green fluid.  Then he ran
TOWARD the chasm.
     "What are you DOING?!" Weidmann asked, firing his Scorpions
before even converting to power armor.
     "Trust me.  I know what I'm doing."  With a mighty, jet-
assisted leap, Moore hurdled the chasm, touching down on the
other side, well away from the GMU.  He brought up the railgun.
"Now let's ROCK AND ROLL!!!"
     BLAM!  BLAM!  BLAM!  Invid fell left and right.  Colonel
Bowaz recognized the effectiveness of the Glitter Boy's weapon
and the vunerability of Moore to close in attacks while firing it
and said, "I want Cyclone Squad C over there with Moore right
now to provide cover for him.  We can't afford to let the enemy
take that gun out!"
 
     In all the fracas, Dr. Smitty's assistant, Jack, had been
all but forgotten about.  As everybody was running about to get
to their battle stations, Jack stood in the middle of a corridor,
confused.  "What's going on here?!"  But no one had time to
answer him.  They were all running this way and that, pulling on
battle armor, and checking weapons.  Jack was painfully aware of
his own empty holster.
     "Well, if no one will TELL me what's happening, I'll just
have to find out for myself."  He found a door access panel
through which he could link to the main computer, then put his
hand on the keypad and concentrated.  Jack didn't know exactly
HOW he did it; he just knew that he could.  Within seconds, he
was receiving the images in his mind's eye: insect-like fighting
machines that could only be Invid!
     Jack ran to the mecha bay, trying to find a way in which he
could help or otherwise participate.  When he got there, his eyes
lit upon a Battler Cyclone someone had left unattended, and the
weapons and Protoculture rack standing nearby.  "Jack, my
friend," he thought to himself, "this could be your lucky day!"
 
     "Beta 4, you have an Invid on your tail!"
     "I know, but I can't shake him!"
     "Don't worry, I'm on my way.  Targeting...locked.  Missiles
running...he's history."
     Conversations like this were heard all over the tac net as
the battle progressed.  "Lead them to me," Joe Moore yelled.
"They're no match for my glitter gun."  The Cyclones around him
weren't all that puny either.
     When the battle was over, the only casualties were three
Cyclones; two had been destroyed by enemy fire and one had
disappeared from the mecha bay.  Jack was gone, too.  It wasn't
hard to find a connection.
     "I should have guessed that he would be tempted by this new
technology," Thornton Smitty sighed.  "As a robotics scientist, I
confess I'm rather tempted myself.  He's always been a bit
impulsive."
     "We can't afford to weaken ourselves by sending men after
him," Bowaz declared.  "We'll just have to continue without him.
IF I can figure out how to get us across that blasted chasm."
     It was Lt. Martin Jackson who finally figured out how to
activate the thrusters.  Under his inexpert guidance, the giant
battle wagon took to the air and made its way (barely) across the
chasm.  Then it had to go back again, to ferry across more of the
Destroids, who couldn't jump or fly across by themselves.  And
again.  By the end of the day, Lt. Jackson was a nervous wreck,
and Lt. Col. Bowaz assured him that he would be promoted very
soon.
     And the GMU rolled on.
 
 
 
Chapter 13: They Try Again
 
 
     Bort sat on his throne in the Brain Chamber of the Invid
Hive, reviewing the battle as seen through the eyes of the Pincer
Command Units.  As he watched the images that the brain projected
on the wall, he grew more and more angry.  "They defeated us
easily!" he raged.  Then, to the brain: "Dispatch an attack force
three times the size.  We must destroy them, lest they stand in
the way of our seeding efforts."
     "Further en masse attacks are not advised," the brain
responded.
     "What?!" Bort all but screamed.  "How DARE you countermand
my orders?!?"
     "Strategic analysis of human resources indicates that attack
forces of up to ten times the size would, in all probability,
easily be defeated.  Further, we cannot afford to lose more mecha
in fruitless efforts; all Invid mecha are needed for the
Seeding."
     Bort was enraged, but not so enraged that he could not see
the merit of the brain's words.  He could also sense that the
Brain had a better attack plan.  "What is your idea, Hive brain?"
Bort asked.
     "The strategy is this:  During covert observation by Enforcer
units, it has been observed that the humans have grown lax in
their defense of entry ports to their vehicle.  If it were
possible to get a squadron of Enforcer armor units inside it--"
     "I see!" Bort interrupted, eyes gleaming.  "They may be
eliminated in the end, but they will surely do enough damage in
the meantime that our next attack will be victorious!"  Bort was
unaware that the Regis had had similar thoughts about the
transplanted Hive.  "Make it so, Hive mind, make it so."
 
     In the night, sixty or more miles away from the Hive,
metallic legs moved into position.  A troop of twenty Enforcers,
the Invids' answer to motorized power armor, waited in the
forest, a hundred yards away from the GMU's night campsite.  They
watched and waited, as they had been doing for several days since
the first report of active Protoculture mecha.  But now the order
came down: invade the Ground Mobile Unit, kill the humans, and
blast everything in sight.  The leader Enforcer took these orders
with something akin to human glee.
     The plan was simple: go in through the open mecha bay,
spread out through the corridors, and gun down any humans and
electronic equipment in sight.  A last check on the laser rifles,
and then they were running across the open field.  The Cyclone
guard on duty saw them, and started to raise his gun, but three
of the Enforcers fired in unison to take him out.  That was when
the battle really began.
     The Enforcers moved up the ramp, cannons blazing.  The
repair bay was almost deserted at this time of night, and the
Invid met only light resistance here.  The three Gallant-firing
mechanics held out for as long as they could, then escaped
through one of the emergency bulkhead hatches.
     The Invid moved through the corridors of the GMU, arm plasma
cannons and concealed laser blasters firing at anything that
moved.
 
     On the bridge, Lt. Col. Bowaz was startled out of his sleep
and out of his seat again by the klaxon alarms.  "Turn those damn
things off!" he yelled.  "What's going on here!"  Then he heard
the blaster fire in the corridors and knew that it was serious,
whatever it was.
     Just then, the three mechanics burst onto the bridge,
smoking Gallants still in hand.  "Sir, we've been invaded by
Invid!" one of them blurted out.  "About twenty of them!
Enforcer units!  They're moving through the GMU shooting at
everything!"
     Bowaz wasted not a moment.  "Get all our Cyclones on it,
immediately!"
     "Sir, many of them are cut off!" one of the control techs
yelled.  "According to sensors, the Invid have managed to
collapse central corridors 1, 4, and 7 at several main junctions.
It'll take at least twenty minutes to clear all of the debris
away."
     "Then get moving on it, this instant!" Bowaz yelled.
"Meanwhile, have our CVR-armored troopers move through the
emergency tunnels to try to surround the Invid.  We have to do
everything we can to stop them before they reach the control room
and engine room!"
 
     It just happened that Corporal Felix Weidmann and Glitter
Boy Joe Moore were in the same area of the GMU as the Invid.
They were in Felix's quarters at the time, playing each other a
quick game of Veritech Simulator.  Felix was winning, because
he'd had more experience at the game.
     Then the explosions were heard.  Felix and Joe jumped up
immediately, the game forgotten.  "What is it?!" Joe asked.
     "I don't know," Felix said, grabbing a Badger submachinegun
from the wall above his bed and slapping in the clip of
high-explosive armor-piercers.  "But I intend to find out.  Come
on!"
     Joe picked up the rifle that he'd brought with him from his
Glitter Boy armor, which he'd told Felix was a Juicer JA-11
three-in-one rifle, and followed.  "Hey, wait for me!"
     When Joe caught up to Felix Weidmann, he said, "What is it?!
What's going on?"
     "The Invid have gotten into the GMU," Weidmann replied.
"Looks like it's up to us to take them out."
 
 
 
Chapter 14: Different People, Different Battles
 
 
     Corporal Felix Weidmann moved stealthily up the corridor,
Badger submachine gun in hand.  He was following the twenty Invid
Enforcers who had somehow made their way into the ship, watching
for an opportunity to eliminate some of them through skillful
manipulation of his weapon.
     Behind him came Joe Moore, whose Glitter Boy power armor
packed the most powerful robot-mounted weapon any of the REF
troops had ever seen.  He wasn't in it now, though he wished he
was.  He carried the special JA-11 German rifle commonly used by
Juicers.
     As they rounded a bend in the corridor, Moore took up a
firing stance and drew a bead on the rear-most Enforcer's head.
He flicked the fire selector over to the ion blaster and pulled
the trigger.  The Enforcer's head exploded.
     Weidmann swore--he had planned to find a better vantage
point before blasting.  In the middle of the corridor, he was
woefully open to return Invid fire.  But all this took only half
a second.  In the time after that half second, Weidmann had taken
out the head of another of the Enforcers with the explosive
Badger bullets, then dropped to the floor as several laser
volleys whistled over his head.
     Moore was firing bursts from the ion pulse rifle part of the
JA-11 to cover his friend.  Felix managed to crawl into a
corridor branching off from the main one, there to stand up and
fire around the corner.  They had eliminated one more Enforcer
between them before the Invid apparently recognized the futility
of this battle and retreated up the corridor in the direction
they'd been heading.
     "What now?" Moore asked.
     "We'll try to get ahead of them," Weidmann decided.  "We'll
take the emergency bulkhead tunnels and hatches.  Come on."
     "Shouldn't we try to get to the Cyclones?" Moore asked.  "I
mean, we don't stand a chance against them in a direct firefight
without armor."
     "Hmmm."  Weidmann thought for a few seconds.  "That is a
good idea.  All right; the mecha bay is back that way.  Hurry."
 
     It took about five minutes to reach the bay.  Weidmann
wasted no time in getting on the CVR armor; Moore did the same.
Fortunately, the Invid hadn't bothered to shoot at the Cyclone
mecha--apparently they hadn't recognized them.  They'd been more
concerned with shooting up the electronic consoles, most of which
could easily be replaced from spare stock.
     Joe Moore pressed the concealed switch to open the front
panels of the Glitter Boy armor.  With a pneumatic hiss, the GB
unsealed.  "What are you doing?" Felix asked.
     "Suiting up, of course," Joe replied, climbing in and
sticking his head up into the Glitter Boy helmet to check the
instruments.
     "Are you kidding?!  You can't use that gun in here, and that
Glitter Boy armor wouldn't fit through the corridors."
     "Oh, you're right."  Joe stopped, crestfallen.  "But what
WILL I use?"
     Felix gestured to a nearby Cyclone.  "That, of course."
     "Ah!" Joe rubbed his hands together.  "Cool!"
     "This is the first time you'll actually be taking it into
combat, so be careful," Felix said through his CVR helmet which
was now secured in place.  "You're armed with a full load of
missiles and the EP-40 30mm pulse beam gun.  Just point and
shoot; that's all there is to it.  I've checked you out on
everything else."
     Joe nodded, latching the armor into place on his arms and
legs.  He straddled the Cyclone.  "Let's go slam those Invid," he
muttered.
     Felix Weidmann raced the motor, popped a wheelie, and raced
off down the corridor.  Joe Moore followed.  As they raced
through the passageway, Felix yelled back to Joe, "I never
thought I would get the chance to do this!"
 
     Lt. Martin Jackson was not a happy camper.  In fact, he
wasn't any kind of a camper at all, and he definitely wasn't
happy.
     Jackson had been in one of the GMU's small science
laboratories, about eight by ten feet in length and width, when
several Enforcers had stomped by.  Now, about a minute later, he
stuck his head out the door and followed the progress of the
aliens up the corridor.  They seemed to be splitting up, with
about three going down each offward-branching corridor.  Lt.
Jackson pulled his Gallant H-90.  "Let's go hunting," he said to
it, mainly because it sounded like something Clint Eastwood would
say in this situation (though he would never admit it, Jackson
was a fan of the old shoot-'em-up movies and wished he could be
more like their heroes--a desire accentuated by his exclusion, as
a scientist, from combat missions) and partly because that was
what he was about to do.
     But first he pulled out a small electronic device, a kind of
compu-clipboard in miniature, and turned it on.  He pressed some
buttons, and a corridor map of that particular level of the GMU
appeared on the clear glass.  "Let me see...the weapon storage
room is here, and I'm here, and the Invid went, uh, up these
corridors.  That means...I'm cut off from all weapons except
this Gallant."  He tapped the sidearm slung at his waist.  "Hmmm.
Enforcers can be cracked with Gallant fire, but it's tricky."
Lt. Jackson reached over to a computer terminal and entered a
few commands.  "Yep, definitely cut off.  But..."  He looked
around at the well-stocked chemical lab.  "Yes, that would
definitely do the trick..."
     Jackson crossed to the storage shelves.  His finger went
down the line of sealed bottles and flasks, searching out the
lables which told what chemical or gas was in each specimen jar.
He selected several decanters, made sure they were sealed
tightly, and dropped them into his pockets and belt pouches.  A
minute later, he started up the corridor, on the Invids' trail.
     It wasn't long before Lt. Jackson caught up to them.  He
first saw them as he rounded a corner in the corridor.  Quickly
he dropped back behind the corner and flattened himself against
the wall.  "Okay, Jackson," he muttered to himself.  "Don't lose
it now..."  Deactivated Gallant pistol in his right hand, with
his left he reached down to his belt and carefully retrieved a
small chemical container.  This was the easy part.
     "Now let's see if I've still got it..." Jackson muttered.
He had been the battallion bowling champ for three years running,
back in a different division of the REF.  He now used that skill,
stepping out from behind the corner and rolling the small jar
along the floor.  He jumped back and held his breath as the small
bottle rolled smoothly along the floor, ending up with a clink
against the foot of one of the Enforcers.  The Invid in question
was facing the opposite way and did not appear to notice.
     "Now comes the difficult part."  Jackson psyched himself up
for the most risky stage of this operation.  "Heck," he muttered,
"it's now or never."  He switched on the Gallant and jumped out,
firing as he went.  His first two shots went wild, but the third
hit the bottle.  The Enforcer next to it never knew what
happened--the exploding bottle took him out.  The Field Scientist
ducked back around the corner and turned off the Gallant, lest
the Invid spot him by its radiation.
     "One down, and two to go," he muttered.  "Now let's just see
what else I picked up..."
 
 
 
Chapter 15: Different Battles, Part II
 
 
     Glitter Boy Joe Moore and Cyclone Rider Corporal Felix
Weidmann roared down the corridor on their Cyclones, regardless
of the danger of collision in such a confined area.  All
personnel had already received news of the Invid attack and were
arming themselves to take out the enemy--but by the time they got
to their weapons it could be too late.
     Felix skidded his Cyclone to a halt, forcing Joe to do the
same.  "According to radio reports I've been getting, there's a
bunch of 'em around the next corner.  Let's switch to Cyclone
Armor and go in blasting."
     "Right."  Joe concentrated and found the mental pattern
necessary to activate the Cyclone's telepathic control system
while simultaneously pressing the reconfiguration switch on the
right handgrip.  The motorcycle changed, coupling to places on
the CVR armor to reinforce it and provide to its wearer the
benefit of servo-powered strength and maneuverability.  As the
booster rockets built into the back locked into place, Joe raised
the EP-40 and said, "Okay, I'm ready."
     Felix, who had changed simultaneously, checked the sights on
his rifle and said, "Engage your targeting sensor and let's go.
There are five of them, by my estimation.  Easy pickings."
     "I understand.  Targeting array up, sensors locked."  Joe
ran around the corner and brought up the gun.  As it came up, its
own laser targeting system fed data into the targeting device in
front of Joe Moore's right eye.  The crosshairs slid into place
and Joe let loose a blast that took the Invid's head off.
     "Wow!  This is just like my helmet scope in the Glitter
Boy!" Joe said, firing on and destroying another.  The remaining
Invid were now alert to the threat, and took refuge behind some
pieces of heavy machinery.
     "Time for a bit of precision," Corporal Weidmann decided,
raising his left arm and firing a Scorpion plasma mini-missile
from the launch tube.  Though it tried to dodge, the third Invid
bit the dust in a ball of flame.
     Joe had his gun up and was lining up on the next Invid, when
he was knocked off his feet by Felix Weidmann.  "Hey, was that
really nec--" Joe began angrily, turning his head.  At that
instant, a laser blast separated Felix's right arm from his body.
The blast would have hit Joe, if Felix hadn't knocked him out of
the way.
     As Felix collapsed, Joe caught him and gently lowered him to
the ground.  Then he turned to the Enforcer that had sneaked
around behind them to deliver the laser blast and said, "You're
dead.  You're very dead."  All twelve of the mini-missiles in his
Cyclone's chest compartments flew out and destroyed the offending
Invid.
     "Now it's your turn."  Joe turned to the last remaining
Enforcer, and fired his EP-40.  It deflected the blast with its
circular buckler-type shield and returned fire with the
bazooka-like cannon mounted on its right arm.  Joe rolled out of
the way and blasted again.  It dodged again, and laid down a
barrage of fire that very nearly finished him.
     Joe fired again, not taking time to aim, to distract the
Invid as he moved in closer.  He threw himself against the wall
to avoid more cannon fire, then was too close for the Invid to
use its cannon on him.  Now they were within the realm of
hand-to-hand combat, a field that Joe was, to say the least, not
inexpert in.
     The Invid didn't seem to know what to do.  Joe took
advantage of its momentary hesitation to throw a left to the
chest area, followed by a right uppercut to the front of the
elongated head.  The Enforcer reeled back, then recovered itself.
It ejected the cannon, which fell to the floor, but retained the
shield.  As Joe threw another punch, it parried with it.
     Even as he struggled with the Enforcer, Joe Moore was amazed
by the power of the compact power armor he was in.  "This thing's
easily as powerful as my Glitter Boy," he thought.  "Much more
maneuverable, too," he mentally added as he ducked out of the way
of the Invid's first clumsy attempt to punch him.  "Hmm,
evidently this one's not too well trained in hand-to-hand
combat."
     But it was learning fact.  The Enforcer got several good
jabs in that staggered Joe and fetched him back against the
opposite wall.  As the Invid reached for its cannon to finish him
off, Joe got to his feet and ran at full speed toward the Invid.
Too late, the alien looked up as Joe's shoulder hit its chest,
sending it flying back against the wall.  Joe kicked its gun
away.  "You won't be needing this," he decided.
     The Invid got back up, and charged him.  Was he starting to
get it angry now?  Joe moved to the side, and delivered a
side-kick to its back as it passed him.  The Enforcer fell to the
ground.  Joe waited for it to get up, then spun and brought his
foot up in a spin-kick reminiscent of Bruce Lee (though a bit
clumsier) that knocked the Enforcer on its back again.
     "Time to end it," Joe decided, looking nervously at the
ceiling.  He hoped it was high enough.  Well, it had better be.
     As the Enforcer got sluggishly to its feet, Joe jumped, his
right foot coming up as he did, hitting the Invid just under its
chin and going up, up, up, and through.  The Invid Enforcer's
head left its body, and went flying through the air like a
football, tumbling end over end, until it hit the wall.  Green
liquid spouted both from the severed head and from the neck of
the Enforcer body.
     Joe landed on his feet, shook his head as if to clear it,
and looked at the body of the Invid for a few seconds.  Then he
remembered his friend, Felix Weidmann.  What was he going to do?
 
     Lt. Martin Jackson peered cautiously around the corner.
The armory was just about ten yards up the corridor, but between
him and the armory entrance were two Invid Enforcers.  The wise
thing to do would have been to call it off, and Lt. Jackson was
tempted, but he refused to give in.  "Would Chuck Norris, or
Clint Eastwood give in?!  Never!  And neither will I," he told
himself.  "I just have to think of the right way to do it."
     And then Jackson had it.  He pulled two containers from
opposite sides of his belt and set them on the floor.  Next, he
removed an empty bottle from his belt, and opened it.  He poured
the contents of the two jars into the bottle and hurriedly sealed
the lid.
     "Now..." he muttered.  "It's party time."  Chuckling under
his breath at the corny line he'd just used, Lt. Jackson stepped
out into the main corridor and threw the container at the Invid.
As hoped, it shattered on the floor, and within seconds, a thick,
black cloud of smoke billowed out.  Jackson slipped on the
infra-red goggles he often carried with him and ran for it.  The
Invid could hear his footsteps, but couldn't see him.  But he
could see THEM as plain as day.  He passed within four feet of
one, and splashed it with the contents of one of his bottles as
he went by.  The Enforcer emitted a wierd, uncanny, inhuman
scream as the molecular acid ate through its armor and into the
creature inside.
     Laser blasts echoed through the hallway, and one or two hit
close to Jackson, but he wasn't worried; the remaining alien was
firing blindly through the smoke--the chances of it hitting
anything were very slim.
     Just twenty feet more; ten feet...Martin was sweating and
breathing hard.  If he could just make it to the door...Then he
was in!  Praying that the Enforcer hadn't pinpointed just WHICH
door he'd gone into, Jackson looked around to see just what he
had available to him.
     This weapons storage facility was actually an MP
mini-stockade.  There were a couple of small cells for detaining
prisoners, a desk for the security officer-of-the-watch (which
had been unoccupied for a long time because of the understaffing
of the GMU), and a few weapons lockers.  It was to these lockers
that Jackson turned now.
     "Initiate emergency command protocol omega," he instructed
the computer.  "Access code is 'Hunter 1'; request voice
recognition as Lt. Martin Jackson, Science Division."
     The computer beeped and cheeped incoherently, then replied,
"Cannot comply with your request.  Linkages to main computer are
non-functional."
     Jackson made an incoherent noise, then pulled his Gallant
and blasted the main locking mechanism.  As all the locker doors
flew open, Jackson looked inside.  "Hmmmmm.  Promising.  Very
promising."
 
     Outside, the smoke had finally cleared.  The solitary Invid
Enforcer was contacting the Hive for further instructions.  They
came.
     "Find and eliminate the commanding officers!" the Regis'
voice came through weakly.  "They will be in the control bridge,
at the front of this vehicle.  Eliminate them!  Eliminate them!"
     Then a VR-038-LT Cyclone stepped out of the armory door.
"The only thing that's gonna be eliminated around here is YOU,"
Lt. Jackon Jackson said, firing the Cyc's RL-6 Heavy Rocket
Cannon.  The Enforcer dodged and returned fire, but was destroyed
by Jackson's second mini-missile.
     "Now to head to the bridge," Jackson decided.  "If any
Invid made it there, we'll be in big trouble."
 
 
 
Chapter 16: Counting the Costs/Finding the Doc
 
 
     Through the diligent efforts of the REF troopers Bowaz had
sent through the emergency bulkheads, the rest of the Invid
Enforcers had been totally destroyed.  However, they had
inflicted major damage to the GMU's interior.  The biomaintenance
engineers shook their heads at some of the damage, which would at
best take months to repair completely.
     Meanwhile, in the medical bay, Joe Moore stood nervously by
the side of the bed in which Corporal Weidmann was lying.  The
doctors standing by the bed shook their heads at the readings
coming from their EKGs and other monitoring equipment.  "I don't
think he'll live more than a few hours, at best," one said.  "The
system shock is too pervasive."
     Lt. Col. Bowaz stood by Moore's side, arm consolingly on his
shoulder.  "He was a good man."
     "More than that," Joe said.  "He's a hero.  If only there
were some way..."  He was silent for a moment, then his face lit
up.  "Hey, wait a minute.  Maybe there IS!  Colonel Bowaz, I know
someone who can save this man's life.  All I need are two things:
rapid transport to pick the guy and his equipment up, and
payment.  His services don't come without a fee, y'know."
     "What kind of payment?" Bowaz asked.  "I'm not sure we
have--"
     "You have more than you think.  Look, a lot of what you have
here could be sold as 'pre-rifts artifacts' on the black market.
That makes it worth a lot.  CDs, videotapes, all sorts of things
like that.  But we have to hurry.  By my estimation, the guy's
about a thousand miles or so away from here, in a minor Coalition
city in the state of Chi-Town.  If I could have the services of
one of your Beta fighters...?"
     Bowaz nodded.  "Of course.  I'll put two of my best men on
it right away.  I'll just tell Captain Steele--"  Then he stopped, as
he remembered that Steele wasn't there anymore.  "Blast it, I
wish I knew where Steele was."
     Joe Moore nodded.  Captain Steele had vanished a week or so
previously, without a trace.  Some had suggested that he'd gone
AWOL, but Joe didn't believe it.  "I wonder where he is right
now, myself."
 
     Fifteen minutes later, a Legios unit (linked Alpha and Beta
fighters) was streaking through the skies at Mach 8.  The pilots
had grumbled about how foolish it was.  "Radar is sure to pick us
up," the Alpha pilot had said as they were strapping in.
     "It doesn't matter," Moore had replied, pulling on his CVR-3
helmet.  "We're faster than anything they've got.  Trust me on
this one."
     "Target area coming up," the Beta pilot said.  "Prepare for
drop, mister.  We'll be back by in two hours."
     "Right," Moore replied, stepping onto the release hatch in
the Beta's bomb bay.  He had a Battler Cyclone on, armed with the
four Scorp missile tubes and nothing else.  He wanted it to be as
inobtrusive as possible when in motorcycle mode.  He was carrying
other equipment, however.  This included a Gallant pistol and
grenades of various types.
     "Three...two...one..." the voice came over the radio.
"...DROP!"  The floor went away from under Joe, and he tumbled
toward the ground.  He barely managed to engage the thrusters in
time to slow his fall.  He didn't manage to stop it completely,
however, and the falling power armor cut a wide swath through the
conifer trees on the hillside on which he landed.
     A minute or so later, Joe Moore picked himself up off the
ground and checked for broken bones.  "Nope; just a few bruises,"
he decided.  "Now to find out where I am."  He jumped and ignited
the Cyclone's thrusters to fly up above the tallest tree.  "Ah, I
see.  There's the road, down in that valley.  Oh, and there's
Kirksville."
     Kirksville sat like a black blot on the horizon.  It had
originally been merely the ruins of an old town, mostly overgrown
by forest, but the Coalition had moved in, cleaned out the
forest, and shipped some of Chi-Town's overburgeoning population
in.
     The town was mostly slums, with a large area of the sub-slum
Burbs around the outside.  Coalition patrols were light
here--there wasn't really that much to guard--so it should be no
problem to slip in through over the rear walls.  Joe had done it
before, without any kind of armor.  With the thrusters on this
Cyclone, it would be a cinch.
     The only problem now, Moore decided, lay in getting Dr.
Peltzer to come with him.  "He will," Joe resolved.  "He will, if
he wants to live."  He had used that expression for a long time,
but only now did it possess any shade of its literal meaning.
 
     Joe felt extremely fortunate that the city was surrounded by
forest.  That made it all that easier for him to slip around to
the back side of the city.  Now came the hard part.
     There were two guards stationed back here: Coalition Grunts
in Coalition standard armor, carrying laser rifles.  Joe
considered his options as he watched them from the cover of the
forest.  He could probably defeat them easily--but he didn't want
a commotion that would probably alert the other guards and cause
a citywide sweep for intruders.
     Then Joe had an idea.  He crept back into the forest about a
hundred yards, to a small clearing.  Here he removed one of his
smoke grenades from the rucksack he was carrying them in, and set
it on the ground.
     Next, Moore boosted up to the bottom branch of one of the
pine trees, and tore it loose from the trunk with his Cyclone's
strength.  He laid it on the ground, so it would look as if it
had fallen off the tree by itself.
     Joe checked his watch.  The countdown timer read 1:37:23.
"Hurry, Joe, hurry..." he thought to himself.  He dug an
indentation in the ground with his fingers and placed the grenade
in it.  He smeared some of the mud all over the shiny cylinder,
and arranged the branch over the grenade.  Then he pulled the pin
and dropped it on the ground by the smoke bomb.
     The job complete, Joe Moore ran back to his vantage point
near the city wall as the smoke started to rise.  As he'd
expected, the two guards ran into the forest at the first signs
of smoke.  A forest fire was a serious thing, and had to be
handled with dispatch.
     As soon as the guards were out of sight, Moore vaulted the
12-foot city wall in his Cyclone armor, and set down on the other
side.  Here was one of the poorest areas of town--the back
alleys.  Crumbling old buildings that had been here since the
city's last life provided homes for some of the town's worst-off
denizens.  Fortunately, no one was around.
     Moore reconvered the Cyclone to motorcycle mode and pulled
out the three storage containers from the rucksack.  He placed
them by the Cyclone, then stripped off his armor (battle armor
being illegal in the city).  When disassembled, the armor and his
Gallant went into one of the storage containers, the grenades in
another, and all three were magnetically clamped on top of the
Cyclone.
     As he was about to rev the engine and head off, he heard the
guards return.  "A false alarm," one was saying, apparently into
a radio mike.  "Tree limb broke off, knocked the pin out of an
old smoke grenade someone'd left lying around.  [Pause]  Yeah, we
know.  G2A1 out."
     "Why do WE get all the false alarms?" the other asked.
Moore smiled and wheeled his motorcycle a hundred feet or so down
the alley before climbing on and starting it up.  Now to find Dr.
Peltzer!
 
     Fifteen minutes later, Joe Moore pulled up in front of the
door to a ramshackle old house that appeared to have been
bombed--hardly anything was left standing.  He gave the code
knock, and the door opened.  Joe looked around nervously, then
wheeled the Cyclone into the door and down the staircase that had
been built here.
     The stairway led down about thirty feet to a series of rooms
that had been dug out of the ground.  The first was analogous to
a waiting room--there were a desk and a few chairs.  The desk was
occupied.  The chairs weren't.
     "Hello, Mabel," Joe said to the woman behind the desk.
"Beautiful as ever, I see."
     Mabel, who was about forty-five and no longer really
beautiful, blushed at the flattery all the same, and said, "Oh,
go on in.  I know Doctor Peltzer will be glad to see you."
     "Not half as glad as I'll be to see him."  He walked to the
door, then half-turned and said, "Oh, watch my bike, okay?"  Then
he walked on to the next room.
     This was Doc Peltzer's office, with another desk, and a
couple of chairs.  There was a rusty old cabinet against one wall
that held all of Peltzer's examining tools, and a frame on the
wall with a piece of paper in it that said, "Put Medical Diploma
Here" (Doc Peltzer had a sense of humor).
     Though without diploma, Peltzer was far from being a quack.
The reason he had no degree was that there was no one to give one
to him.  Peltzer was as educated as or more educated than many
20th century doctors.  He had just gotten his learning
underground (figuratively) and now practiced it underground
(figuratively and literally).
     Now Peltzer, who was behind his desk, stood as Joe Moore
approached and said, "Joe!  How are you?"  Peltzer was
short--about 5' 7"--with hair halfway between brown and blond and
a mustache to match.
     Joe got right to the point.  "I'm okay, but a friend of mine
isn't.  Get your gear together, and I'll take you to him."
     Peltzer nodded, and went into action.  He pulled off the lab
coat he was wearing to reveal a jumpsuit beneath it.  "Describe
the problem."
     "Right arm blown off by laser fire.  In shock, fading fast."
     Peltzer again nodded, and went into the next room, his
surgery, where he selected a bionic arm and some tools with which
to install it.  As he packed other medical miscellany, Joe asked,
"Still got Old Faithful?"
     "Yep.  That old Jeep hasn't failed me yet."  Peltzer threw
some more stuff into a duffel bag, then said, "Where do I need to
go?"
     "Once you get out of town, make for this point."  Joe
indicated it on a map of the surrounding area hanging on one
wall.  "I'll meet you there.  In..."  He looked at his watch.
"...one hour and about ten minutes, we'll be picked up."
     "Can you get out of town?" Peltzer asked.
     "Don't worry about me," Moore replied.  "I have an edge like
you wouldn't believe."
 
     A thousand miles away, Major Sebastian Mortifax of the
Coalition's air wing examined reports that had just reached his
desk, of an object detected making Mach 8, identified on radar as
some kind of an airplane.  Mortifax had stopped the report from
going any higher, telling his subordinates that it had to be "a
glitch in the radar or something" and calling in a Technical
Officer to run a complete check on the radar.
     Of course, Mortifax knew what it REALLY was, what it HAD TO
be--someone had developed a new, super-fast jet.  Mortifax had to
have it.  And, as he swore to himself, he would, he would...
 
 
 
Chapter 17: Steele Survived!
 
 
     Captain Steele was unconscious for a very long time.  When
he awoke, it was by levels.  He began to feel his body, then
conscious thought returned, and one by one his senses began to
respond.  Then Steele opened his eyes to find he was lying barely
twenty feet away from a dragon.
     It was a magnificent creature, perhaps seventy or eighty
feet long, and pure snowy white.  It appeared to be asleep.
Steele was nervous, until he recognized the dragon as being the
same one that had come to his aid during the rescue of the two
scientists.  Then he relaxed, and drifted back into
unconsciousness.
     When he awoke again, the dragon was gone, and Sherelynn was
there, running a moistened cloth across his forehead.  "Welcome
back to the land of the living," Sherelynn greeted him.
     Steele groaned slightly and lifted himself to his shoulders
with his elbows.  "Where am I?"  He looked around.  "And how did
I get here?"  They appeared to be in a forest clearing, about a
hundred feet or so in diameter.  It was late afternoon.
     Steele was wearing the pants of his REF uniform, but no
shirt.  About twenty feet away were his Cyclone cycle and CVR
armor.
     "I have my ways," Sherelynn said coyly.
     "The dragon?"  Steele dimly remembered being borne through
the air; but after that, nothing.
     He thought Sherelynn's expression changed for an instant,
but he might have imagined it.  "Oh, the dragon?  She's an old
friend of mine."
     "What an amazing creature," Steele murmured, lying back down
again.  Sherelynn smiled, and Steele smiled back at her smile.
She had a smile that made one dizzy--or was that just his overall
weakness from the wound?
 
     It was several days before Steele could get up and walk
around.  Sherelynn told him that he'd lost a great deal of blood
before she'd found him.  "It's extremely fortunate for you that I
am skilled in the psychic arts of healing," she told him.
     And she was more than willing to demonstrate these arts.
"It involves the laying on of hands," she said, kneeling by where
he was lying and putting her hands on his chest where the wound
had been (all traces were almost completely gone by now).  "Now I
concentrate, and..."  Steele immediately felt new strength flow
into his body.
     "That's amazing!" he said.  Then, with his newfound
strength, he pulled her arms out from under her and dropped her
to the ground beside him.  They lay there, on their sides,
looking at each other, then grabbed each others' arms, pulled
closer together, and let nature take its course.
 
     Early one morning, several "healing sessions" later, Steele
was finally on his feet.  This morning, Steele was checking over
the Cyclone for damage.  Fortunately, the hit he'd taken hadn't
been too critical for the machine.  However, his CVR armor had a
hole the size of his fist blown out of it.  "Whoa," he muttered
as he examined it.  "I was lucky, indeed!"
     As Steele reloaded the chest missile launchers from one of
the storage containers on the Cyclone, he thought about
Sherelynn.  She was off in the woods somewhere.  As he'd been
getting better and better, she'd been making her trips more and
more frequently, and staying away much greater lengths of time.
     Steele decided to get his armor on and do a bit of looking
around in the Cyclone.  As he snapped the last transformation
locking unit into place on his chest, he heard a scream.  Racing
to his Cyclone, Steele wasted no time.  He shifted modes and took
off, heading for the source of the scream.
     It was Sherelynn--three people in SAMAS power armor had her
pinned against a rock cliff and were holding their railguns on
her.  "Don't make a move, dragon lady," one of them muttered.
"We'll fill you so full of holes that sponges will be envious."
     Steele touched down behind them.  "I wouldn't advise that,"
he said loudly.
     Two of the SAMAS troops turned to look--and that was their
mistake.  Sherelynn grabbed the railgun of the third and yanked
it out of his hands.  It went off, but it apparently missed, for
Sherelynn was still there.
     The other two opened fire immediately, but there was nothing
for their railgun pellets to hit--Steele wasn't there any more.
>From atop the rock cliff, Captain Steele said, "Here I am!"  As
they fired their mini-missiles at him, he leaped again, this time
coming down right in front of them.  "And here you DIE!"  On the
last work, he rammed the Saber Cyclone's blades through the chest
of the first SAMAS armor.  The other Sam took to the air, hoping
to outrun Steele.
     "Bad move, pal," Steele said, opening the mini-missile racks
and firing all twelve mini-missiles at the escaping SAMAS.  They
struck dead-on, and blasted it to smithereens.
     Meanwhile, Sherelynn seemed to be having a relatively easy
time with her SAMAS.  She was executing karate moves against
it--and they were WORKING.  The Sam staggered back from her
onslaught of deadly blows.  It fired its mini-missiles at her,
and at the point-blank range at which it was from her, it
automatically struck--but Sherelynn was unphased, and almost
undamaged!  "That did it," Sherelynn said.  "Now you've made me
MAD!"  She spun around, bringing her foot up as she did, and
executed a perfect spin-kick to the power armor's skull-like
head.  The Sam's head snapped back, and there was an audible
CRACK as the pilot's neck broke.  The SAMAS collapsed to the
ground.
     Steele changed the Cyclone back into a motorcycle and
stepped off.  He ran over to Sherelynn, who was leaning back
against the rock face, bleeding from a couple of wounds in her
chest.  "What are you?" he asked.  "I saw you take that railgun
blast and those missiles.  You should be lying in little pieces
on the ground right now, but you're hardly hurt."  Even as he
watched, her wounds closed up slightly.
     Then Steele thought of something.  "That man--he called you
'dragon lady.'  Does that mean...?"  He looked at her again.
Funny, she DID bear a certain resemblance to the white dragon,
now that he considered it.  The paleness of her complexion and
hair, the shape of her body, even the way she moved contested to
the similarity.
     Sherelynn nodded and sighed.  "Yes, I am the Ice Dragon."
She hung her head.  "I didn't want to tell you, because I was
afraid that you would--would feel differently about me."
     Steele searched his feelings.  At first, he was astonished.
He had made love to a dragon?!  But then he knew that it didn't
matter, recalling the examples of Max and Miriya Sterling, Bowie
Grant and Musica, Scott Bernard and Marlene, and Lancer and Sera.
Love could surpass ANY obstacle, and Steele knew he loved this
dragon.  "Sherelynn, I don't care what you are.  I feel no
differently about you than I did before.  If anything, I
like you even more, now that I know the truth.  I don't have
to keep wondering any more."
     Sherelynn looked up, and said, "You really mean that?"  Her
wounds completely closed up, and she stood from off the rock and
embraced Steele.
     "I do," Steele reaffirmed.
     They kissed passionately and long, then went off to let
nature take its course once again.
 
 
 
Chapter 18: Zyjinn's Awakening
 
 
     The Invid Enforcer squad sent into the GMU had been
destroyed.  Bort sat on his throne and fumed, for all of the
Invid Brain's estimates of great damage to the machine's
interior.  "It still functions, does it not?!" he raged at the
machine.  "Find me a way to remedy THAT, why don't you?"
     "Patience," the Brain soothed.  "The Seeding goes well.
Already our Troopers have secured for us all land within a radius
of thirty of the humans' miles, and the first fields of the
Flower of Life have been planted and seem to be growing quite
well.  Soon we will have enough power to wipe the entire human
presence from this planet."
     Bort shook his head, a human gesture that apparently had
come with the human body.  "How?  How can we do that?"  He swept
his arm in the general direction of the chambers where hundreds
of Invid lay in suspended animation, waiting for the telepathic
signal that would rouse them to activity.  "We have a finite
supply of Invid.  Our Regis, for all her power, cannot reach us
without a large supply of Protoculture to draw upon.  Once those
eggs are gone, we have no more.  And we are spreading ourselves
too thin as it is."
     "We will not be caught defenseless," the Brain insisted.
"Even as I communicate with you, I am at the same time overseeing
the quickening, the revivification, of dozens of your Invid
brethren.  By the time this planet has completed another rotation
about its axis, we shall be up to full strength."
     "Yes," Bort said.  "But what of our future?  How will we
survive without our Regis?"
     "I believe that Zyjinn is considering that possibility even
as we speak."
 
     Thirty miles from the Hive, Zyjinn stood within a ley line.
His Command Battloid stood, cockpit open, a hundred yards from
the ley line's edge--he had left it behind because he needed to
be outside of it to feel this incredible power as it truly needed
to be felt.
     A group of ten Enforcers and two Pincer Command Units was
nearby, awaiting his call.  They did not come within a hundred
feet of the ley line--it instilled in them a feeling vaguely akin
to human nervousness.  It was an irrational feeling, but when was
any living creature ever completely rational?
     Zyjinn stood, virtually naked to the ley line, letting the
power flow around him, feeling its pulse as it permeated all the
tissues of his body.  As he experienced this, FELT it, he
considered what he had learned from inhabitants of the villages
that the Invid had enslaved.  These disturbances, called "ley
lines," were a source of power for psychics and magicians.  The
psychic energy of billions of deaths had fugued into a horrific,
hellish reaction that had awakened these lines.
     Now, those who understood the power could use it.  And that
was what Zyjinn now sought.  Somewhere, deep in his humanoid
mind, the lust for power seethed uneasily.  It had been there for
a long, long time, sublimated beneath the stronger racial loyalty
to the Regis and his race.  But now, the Regis' influence was
absent, or at least far removed.  Zyjinn now understood his TRUE
destiny--to become the utmost power on the face of the planet.
And once he knew how to control the power that surged through
this ley line phenomenon, he could use it to destroy Bort then
the Regis, and take control of the Invid race.  And from there,
he would rise to new heights, as eventual ruler of the cosmos!
     To assist him in this conquest, Zyjinn had recruited an
experienced magic-user.  This man called himself Tal, and claimed
to be a Shifter, one whose skill lay in manipulating the eddies
of space and time to open gates between dimensions.  His age
appeared to be about forty human years, and he had dark hair and
steel-grey eyes.  Tal stood beside him now, basking in the energy
of the line.  "Isn't it wonderful?!" Tal crowed.  "Only those
truly skilled in magic or psionics can feel as we do now."
     "Show me the ways of this power, Shifter," Zyjinn commanded.
"It is only this that has saved you from death at the hands of my
Enforcers.  I would know all that you can teach me, for my
further experimentation."
     Tal nodded, and laughed inwardly at this creature.  He
recognized the true reason Zyjinn wished to know of magic.  He
was not so imperceptive as to recognize the craving for power
when he encountered it.  Perhaps one reason for this recognition
was that a similar craving resided within his own heart.  "I will
teach you all that you need to know."
 
     In a distant dimension, the Invid Regis felt a distant
tremor in the group consciousness of her race.  It soon passed,
and the Regis forgot it rapidly, with all the other pressing
matters on her mind.  But the sense of impending doom remained
with her for some time, and it was not easily put aside.
 
 
 
Chapter 19: Escape from Kirksville
 
 
     The first inkling Joe Moore got that his exit from
Kirksville might not be too easy was the extra guards in the
streets.  They were mostly just Coalition grunts, cannon fodder,
in the CA-1 and 2 armor.  Joe paid them no heed, and they mostly
ignored him too.  However, they were toting some heavy armament;
mostly the C-27 Heavy Plasma Cannon and the C-14 Firebreather
laser rifle/grenade launcher combo.  Not that they'd be able to
do too much against the Cyclone armor, of course.
     Joe's first escape plan was to change to Cyclone armor and
go over the wall somewhere.  That plan changed as soon as he
noticed the perimeter patrols had been increased to include
Coalition AFC-023 Sky Cycles and SAMAS power armor.  The only way
out appeared to be to pose as a standard wanderer and go out
through the admissions station.  Of course, if the gate guards
remembered that they hadn't seen him coming in, and put two and
two together...
     Then the 'borgs began to show up.  They were mostly partial
conversion, which meant that they'd had only their arms and legs,
or their torsos, replaced with bionic parts (as opposed to their
entire bodies).  They were probably Coalition Military
Specialists, and carried Triax TX-500 borg railgun rifles.  This
interested Joe.  He pulled his Cyclone into an alley and decided
to stay for a while and see what was going on.  If it was
something that required all this firepower, it might be worth
checking out.  It didn't matter if he missed the rendezvous; he
could make his way back to the GMU on the Cyclone.
     Joe Moore didn't have long to wait.  Down the main street of
the town came a procession of motorcycles bearing more grunts,
with plasma cannon rifles slung on their backs.  Following the
'cycles came a pre-rifts convertible automobile, in like-new
condition.  The car was driven by another armored person, one of
the RPA (Robot/Power Armor) pilots by the shape of his helmet.
In the rear seat were two armored individuals whom Joe couldn't
help but recognize. Their faces were familiar to all Coalition
citizens and to many who did not live in the Coalition as well.
The man on the left, with a stern visage and streaks of gray in
his dark hair, was none other than Emporer Karl Prosek, leader of
the Coalition.  By his side, with lighter hair and a similar
face, was his son, Joseph Prosek the Second, Head of Propaganda
for the Coalition. They were making an appearance, apparently for
the purpose of shoring up morale in this town.
     Joe was close enough, in the shadows of the alley, to take
a shot at Prosek, and probably not miss.  The only thing that
stayed his hand was the fact that, if he did shoot Prosek, he
would never make it out of the town alive.  And Joe was way too
attached to his life to let it be separated from him.
     When the convoy had passed, Joe Moore backed further into
the alley, turned around, and headed out the other side.  There
were a few squatters he had to maneuver around, but they were no
threat to him.
     When he reached another open street and turned on it, Moore
thought he was safe and could now find a way to get out of the
town.  His chronometer was reading 0:42:39, and time was running
out.
     Then two armored Coalition grunts carrying the heavy plasma
cannons stepped into his way.  "Goin' somewhere?" one asked.
     "I was considering it, yes," Joe answered.
     "Don't get smart-ass with us, boy," the second one said.
"We eat jerk-offs like you for breakfast."
     "We were just admiring that there motorcycle of yours," the
first said.  "Looks brand-new.  You know, it could be one o'them
art-y-facts the boss is always lookin' for."
     "That being the case, I think we oughtta confiscate it," the
second one said.
     "Uh, guys, you don't want to do that," Joe Moore said.
     "Oh?" asked the first grunt, raising the plasma cannon.
"And why not?"
     "This is why."  Joe pressed the switch to fire the Scorpion
plasma missiles.  The two missiles from the left hub smashed into
the first grunt, blowing him to smithereens.
     "Hot damn!" the second one yelled, trying to bring his gun
up.  He wasn't fast enough--the second two plasma missiles took
care of him.
     Aware of all the noise he'd just made, Joe revved the
throttle and looked for a place to hide before more trouble found
him.  If he could get into one of the abandoned buildings, he
could put on his CVR armor, shift to Cyclone Armor mode, and get
the heck out of this town.
     But trouble found him first.  It was in the form of a SAMAS
that touched down in front of him, causing him to skid the bike
to a halt.  "Hey, you there!" the SAMAS pilot called out.  "What
were those explosions back there!?"
     Joe reacted quickly.  "Oh, thank goodness you're here!" he
called out.  "It was a Flying Titan power armor; it must have
glided in silently or something.  It iced two foot soldiers and
nearly got me too, but I ran."
     "It must be here to assassinate the Emporer," the SAMAS
pilot thought out loud.  "I'd better get over there!"  The SAMAS
armor flew off.  Joe breathed a sigh of relief, then found a
place to put on his armor.  Perimeter patrols or no perimeter
patrols, he was getting OUT of this town.
     Fortunately, he was close to the city wall now, and there
weren't many guards around this area.  Joe pulled out a few
grenades, and used his Cyclone's strength to throw them far out
into the forest.  As they went off, most of the perimeter guards
went out to see what they were, giving Joe the perfect chance to
jump over the wall and blend into the forest.
 
     The chronometer said 0:22:19 to go before pickup.  Night was
falling as Joe slowly moved up the forested hillside toward the
rendezvous site.  Halfway up, he stopped and looked back.  He saw
two AFC-050 Death's Head Transports rising into the air from
where they had landed near the town.  They hovered in the air, as
if they were waiting for something.
     Joe was horrified.  "If they're still there when those
planes come back to pick us up, there'll be one HUGE battle
royal."  He continued up toward the rendezvous site, hoping that
nothing would go wrong when they were so close to their
objective.
     Ten minutes later, Joe Moore reached the clearing.  Dr.
Peltzer was there already, in his old jeep.  "What took you so
long, Joe?"
     "I was held up by the arrival of Karl and Joseph Prosek."
He grimaced.  "They scare me.  They really do."
     Peltzer shrugged, used to Joe's manner of speaking.  "They
scare everybody.  That's one of the things they're good at.  How
long until we're picked up?  How will we be picked up, anyway?"
     "About fifteen minutes, and a plane is coming in.  There'll
be enough room for your equipment, but I'm afraid you'll have to
leave Ol' Faithful here."
     The doctor scowled.  "They had BETTER be paying me a great
deal.  C'mon, help me camouflage the jeep before they get here."
He looked out toward the two Death's Head Transports that were
hovering level with the rim of the valley, now visible only by
their running lights and the two spotlights in front.
     Joe followed his gaze.  "What are they DOING there?!" he
muttered.
     "Waiting for the Proseks to finish in town, probably,"
Peltzer said.  "Then one of them will go down and pick them up,
fancy convertible and all."
     Joe Moore nodded.  That sounded about right.  "But why
aren't they staying on the ground?"
     Peltzer tapped the radio mounted on the dash of his jeep.
"Could it be that they're watching for a certain Flying Titan
reported inside the city?"
     Moore shrugged.  "It's possible.  Come on, let's throw some
brush on that jeep of yours."  They set to the task, while the
two transports waited for any sign of enemy activity.
 
     Thousands of miles away, Major Sebastian Mortifax waited,
the sole occupant of a darkened comm room in the Chi-Town air
wing command complex.  He had ordered all stations along the
projected course of the Mach 8 aircraft to be alert for its
return, and now waited for reports to come in.  When the strange
aircraft showed up, Mortifax would know where and when.
Silently, Mortifax waited.
 
 
 
Chapter 20: Steele Returns
 
 
     Several days later, Steele, now fully recovered, and
Sherelynn the dragon flew toward the GMU together.  In the days
Steele had been convalescing, the mobile command complex had
travelled several hundred miles, throug parts of Georgia and
Alabama.  It was now in the middle of Alabama, nearing the
Mississippi border.  Steele and Sherelynn had quite a lot of
distance to cover.
     As they flew, he in his Cyclone and she in her natural
dragon form, they conversed.  Steele learned that Sherelynn was
107 human years old ("Hope you like older women."  "Older women,
no; but I have yet to decide about older dragons.") and could
only assume human form for a few hours each day.  "That is why I
made my excursions into the forest--to spend time in my natural
form so that I might spend all of my human time with you."
     "I see," Steele replied.  "And I assume you will continue to
do so?"
     Sherelynn's huge head bobbed up and down in a draconian nod.
"Yes.  The fewer of your people who know my secret, the happier I
shall be."
     "I see.  Well, you can count on me to keep that secret."
     Sherelynn nodded.  "I know."
     At the relatively slow speed of 50 mph (the fastest
Sherelynn could fly), it took them two and one-half days to cover
the area the GMU had covered in a week or more.  They avoided
civilization and areas of high magic concentration ("Evil things
often gather where strong magic lurks," Sherelynn explained), and
managed to make good time.  Along the way, Sherelynn told Steele
about many of the facts of life in the modern, post-Rifts world.
He learned more about the Coalition, and their strong anti-magic,
anti-D-bee stance.  He learned about Northern Gun, the
continent's primary weapons manufacturer.  Sherelynn managed to
give him an overview of the entire known world by the time they
reached the GMU site.
     "It's amazing, the depths human nature has sunk to even as
technology and magic have grown more sophisticated," Steele
observed as they were sitting by the campfire on the night before
they would reach the GMU.
     Sherelynn, in human form, shrugged.  "It's in your nature.
Ours, too, in fact--there are many evil dragons, though we don't
like to talk of them much."
     "And to think we thought we'd left all that behind with the
coming of Robotech...Oh, but this dimension didn't have an SDF,
did it?  Have I told you about T.R. Edwards?"
     Sherelynn nodded.  "I believe so.  Isn't he the one who
tried to take over your Robotech Expeditionary Force, with the
help of the Invid Regent?"
     "Yes.  Very nearly succeeded, too.  From your description,
it sounds like they would have gotten along quite well with your
Karl Prosek."
     Sherelynn giggled.  "The Hitler Club.  Include Hitler,
Stalin, Prosek, Edwards, Regent..."
     "Not to mention Dolza, the Robotech Masters, the Invid
Scientist Tesla, and many others throughout history, such as
Jengiz Q'an, Ho Chi Min, all the other great tyrants..." Steele
added.  They spent the rest of the night before they went to bed
making up lists of who all of the more important members might
be, then electing a government of this mythical organization.  In
the end, they decided that it would probably be based on the
totalitarian form of rule, and that it wouldn't last long--all
the members would kill each other off trying to get the top spot.
It was a rather frivolous activity, but it passed the time.
 
     The next day, they finally caught up with the GMU.  They had
landed about two miles behind it, then Sherelynn had shifted into
human form and Steele into Cyclone Cyclone mode, and in this way
did they arrive at the GMU.
     Everyone was glad to see them, especially Lt. Colonel Bowaz.
"We've had some problems," Bowaz said to Steele as soon as he
could get Steele alone.  "A squad of Invid Enforcers broke into
the GMU and did a great deal of damage before we were able to
destroy them.  One of our Cyclone Riders, a Jason Weidmann, lost
an arm and is in severe shock right now in the sick bay.  Joe
Moore has gone to pick up a medical practitioner whom he believes
can save Weidmann's life.  They should be back within two hours."
     Steele took all this in, then said, "Well, I suppose I'll
need a complete damage report.  Then I can begin prioritizing
subsystem repairs, and get an idea of what we need to do."
     "I knew you'd be needing those things, so I had duplicates
sent to your desk," Bowaz said.  Then he added, "It's good to
have you back.  I know I can count on you to see that things get
put back into shape."
     "I'll do my best."  Steele had originally been the sole
commanding officer of this GMU, until he had come to the aid of
his immediate superior, Lt. Col. Bowaz, whose command ship had
been almost totally destroyed.  Bowaz had set up his own command
on board the GMU, encompassing the GMU and the remnants of his
command ship's Destroid and Veritech detachment.  Steele had
been officially delegated to the rank of second in command.
However, the GMU was still Steele's pride and joy, and he knew
more about it than any other soldier on board except the
bio-maintenance engineers.
     As Steele sat at the desk in his office/barracks room,
Sherelynn entered the room from the corridor.  "I heard what
happened here," she said.  "I understand that you'll be quite
busy for the next several days, what with all the damage reports
and repair requests you'll have to handle."
     Steele hit the 'pause' key on his computer terminal,
currently displaying the first of what promised to be a long
series of damage reports.  "Just for a day or so.  This stuff
won't keep me for long."
     "That's good," Sherelynn said.  "Then we'll have time
for...other things," she added suggestively.
     Steele was about to reply when the intercom panel on his
desk sounded the "Emergency Alert" signal.  Steele slammed his
hand down on the button almost instantly.  "Steele here.  What is
it?!"
     "Sir, the Legios we sent out with Joe Moore is returning.
And we have reports of multiple radar contacts coming in fast
from behind it."
     "On my way."  He turned off the computer.  "This junk can
wait."  He dashed out of the room, Sherelynn right behind him.
 
 
 
Chapter 21: Pickup
 
 
     Dr. Peltzer stood by a large pile of equipment in the middle
of the clearing as Joe Moore hovered 20 feet in the air, keeping
a nervous eye on the activity taking place in the valley below
them.  The two Coalition Transports were still hovering there,
waiting for something.  And it was barely five minutes before the
projected time of the Legios ships' arrival for the pickup.
     Joe was worried.  "If the planes show up before those things
are gone, there'll be trouble, I just know it.  They're armed to
the teeth!" he muttered.
 
     Meanwhile, on the bridge of one of the Death's Head
Transports, one of the communications officers called to the
commanding officer, "Sir, I'm reading a bogey.  It's a bit
smaller than we are, and it's closing fast."
     "How fast?" the individual demanded, coming over to the
console."
     The young comm-tech checked his screen, then re-checked it.
"It says...Mach 8, sir."
     "Impossible.  Get me a diagnostic," the commander, a Captain
in the Coalition army, said.
     "All systems report normal operation, sir.  ETA twenty
seconds."
     One of the co-pilots picked up a radio-telephone handset.
"Get me Major Mortifax," he said.
 
     Inside the Alpha, radar had just begun to indicate the
presence of the Coalition ships.  Not hesitating, the pilot hit
the auto-override key to fire the Beta's medium-range missiles.
All six of the rockets zoomed away, heading toward the first of
the two Transports.  "Look alive," the Alpha pilot said over the
intercom to his Beta counterpart.  "There's going to be some
combat."
 
     A klaxon began sounding on the bridge.  "Sir, it's fired
missiles!"
     "Get us out of here!" the captain ordered.  But as the pilot
reached for the throttle, the missiles hit.  The transport was
severely shaken, and the captain hit his head on a bulkhead and
was knocked out.
     "Sir, we're going down!" a co-pilot yelled.  "Sir?  Sir!"
 
     In the Chi-Town command and control room, Major Mortifax was
eagerly monitoring the battle.  Input from the main cameras of
the two Transports was being shown on the forty-foot screen at
the front of the room.  As the picture from the first one wavered
and disappeared, and cameras on the second showed the first going
down, Mortifax paled.  "My god, that thing is ARMED!"  Then he
looked around and hoped no one had heard him use the word
"god"--the Coalition was officially atheist.
     For the first time, it had entered his mind that the
Coalition vessels might be unable to stand up to the mystery
plane.  The realization staggered him for only a few seconds,
however.  After that, he was on the radio barking out commands to
the air units in the southern part of the Coalition, and in the
wilderness areas, setting up a blockade line along the plane's
projected course to try and intercept it, or at least keep track
of it.  No way was he going to let this find slip through his
fingers!
 
     Joe Moore and Dr. Peltzer had just seen the missiles streak
across the sky and slam into one of the Death's Head Transports.
"What is it?" Peltzer asked, startled.
     "It's our ride!" Moore said.  "And it appears to have taken
out one of the Coalition Transports.  I hope it can do the same
for the other one."
 
     Inside the Alpha's cockpit, the pilot's hand hovered over a
red key.  "Prepare to engage emergency separation procedures on
my mark," he told the pilot of the Beta.  "You go pick 'em up,
and I'll distract that massive bandit up there."
     "Roger," the pilot replied.  "Standing by to activate
separation."
     As the pilot punched the key, the Beta's legs came down and
fired forward, to slow the planes to manageable speeds.  Then the
two ships separated, and the Alpha headed toward the remaining
Transport.
     On board this Transport, apparently somebody had started
thinking; the turret guns on the top and sides of the ship had
started firing.  The Alpha pilot skirted the laser and railgun
blasts with ease, barrel-rolling right through a web of laser
fire with the grace of a dancer.  As he passed overhead, he put
four missiles into the top turret, silencing the twin railguns
that had been banging away at him.  As more lasers opened up, the
Alpha dived almost to the ground, then performed an Immelman
turn, tricky with a standard jet but a piece of cake for a
Veritech Alpha Fighter.  "Now let's see how you stand up to a few
short-range missiles, dead-on," the pilot muttered.
 
     Meanwhile, the Beta had swooped in, almost unnoticed by the
Transport, to pick up Dr. Peltzer and Joe Moore.  As it landed,
Peltzer stood entranced, amazed by what he had just seen.
"Separating airplanes.  I never would have thought of that," he
muttered.
     "Come on, Doc," Joe said.  "We have to get your things
loaded if we want to get you out of here."
     "Oh, right, right, I'm coming."
 
     In the aerial command center back in Chi-Town, Major
Mortifax was experiencing much the same reaction as had Dr.
Peltzer.  "Separating airplanes," he said to the empty room.
"The rear one provides thrust, and the front one is more
maneuverable.  What an ingenious system.  I MUST have it."  He
made final checks on the preparations for the tracking net.
"I've got you now," Mortifax muttered, then noticed that the
screens carrying the pictures from the second Transport were
beginning to blank out.
 
     The Transport was history--it hadn't stood up to the massive
missile assault from the Alpha.  All fifty-plus missiles had hit
their mark, and all that was left of the Death's Head Armored
Transport was bits of fiery debris falling slowly to the earth.
     The Beta radioed that the pick-up was complete.  "Good.
Let's link up and get the hell out of here," the Alpha pilot
responded, firing his gun pod at one of the five Coalition Sky
Cycles which had just taken off to intercept him.
     "Roger.  Maneuvering into position."  The link-up was done
at Mach 1.7, much faster than the Sky Cycles could go.  Then
speed increased to Mach 8.
     "We'll be back at the GMU within ten minutes," the Alpha
pilot reassured Joe Moore over the intercom.
     From the communication station of the Beta, Moore replied,
"Good.  I have about HAD IT with these Coalition people."
 
     Mortifax watched with glee as the fighter streaked for home,
wherever home was.  As it left the radar perimeter of one station
or Transport, it entered the perimeter of another.  Radar was
tracking it inexorably toward somewhere in the southern region of
what had once been the United States.
     Ten minutes later, when it began slowing down, Mortifax
leaped to another station and checked the computer.  Strange...no
major installations of any kind were on file, except the robotics
complex of that rogue scientist which had been burned to the
ground several days ago.  Still, there had been reports of odd
aircraft in that battle...
     Major Mortifax hit the command switch for his throat
microphone.  "All forces from regional batalion LS-337, move in
on quarry.  Try to capture the plane intact, if possible.  That
is all.  Out."  He tapped into some of the cameras on the
vehicles he was sending in.  "Just let that fighter try to take
on an entire batallion," he muttered.  "We'll see who's going to
win this one."
 
 
 
Chapter 22: The Battle Begins
 
 
     When Steele and Sherelynn got to the bridge, Bowaz had
already arrived and was firmly in control of the situation.
"What are those objects on our radar?" he was asking one of
the technicians.
     "Sir, the signatures indicate some type of armored
vehicle, but we can't get a computer match-up.  Probably
Coalition, though, from the number of blips."
     "How many are there?" Steele asked.
     "At least forty large ones, and fifty or more of the
smaller ones, sir," the tech said.  "I think we may be in
trouble."
     "Nonsense.  We've beat 'em before and we'll beat 'em
again," Bowaz said.  "Get all of our forces in the field."
     "Yessir."  The technician slid over to the next station
and punched the intercom button.  As he started speaking
into it, Steele left the room.
     Sherelynn ran after him.  "Where are you going?" she
asked.
     "I'm suiting up.  If it's Coalition out there, our boys
will need all the help they can get."  He entered his
quarters and started pulling on his armor.  "You'd have
expected that the pilot would have known better than coming
straight back like that.  Guess he thought that no one could
follow him at Mach 8."
     "They shouldn't have BEEN able to follow an object at
that speed," Sherelynn said.  "That's beyond the
capabilities of anything in the Coalition's arsenal."
     "So they must have set up a tracking network," Steele
decided, locking the CVR-3's sleeves into place.  "If they had
enough radar vehicles, they could easily stretch a line from
Kirksville back to here."
     Sherelynn nodded.  "Probably correct."  She pulled her
NG-Super laser pistol/grenade launcher from its holster and
checked the load.  "I shall see you on the battlefield," she
said, moving toward the door.
     "Wait a minute!" Steele said, latching the wrap-around
chestpiece closed.  "You can't go out there!"
     "And why not?" Sherelynn asked.  "I am more impervious
to damage than one of your Cyclones."
     "Oh, that's right."  Seeing that he couldn't keep her
off the battlefield, Steele said, "Well, at least be
careful."
     Sherelynn leaned forward to kiss Steele on the lips. "I
will be.  YOU'RE the one who should be careful--you don't
have magical powers of regeneration."
     "I have you, and that's good enough," Steele said,
feeling momentarily like a character in a bad romance novel.
He pulled on his helmet, picked up his Gallant rifle, and
followed Sherelynn out the door.  They split up at the mecha
bay, Steele taking his Cyclone and Sherelynn simply running
down the ramp.  Steele watched her head into the nearby
forest so she could change into dragon form without beeing
seen, then roared off down the ramp and out.
 
     Steele took up a position at the front of the defensive
formation of Destroids as the first of the Alpha fighters
roared into the sky.  "What's the E.T.A. of the Legios
carrying Joe Moore and the doctor?" Steele asked over the
radio.
     "E.T.A. three minutes, sir," the technician on the
bridge of the GMU replied.  "And those blips aren't far
behind."
     "As soon as it arrives, I want both mecha inside the
bay to be reloaded with missiles, and I want Joe Moore in
his Glitter Boy out here immediately.  Looks like we're
gonna need him."
     
     Two of the largest blips began to move in.  These were
Death's Head Armored Transports, carrying troops that would
be a part of the attack force.  They intended to set down to
debark their troops approximately five miles away from the
landing site of that airplane.
     "Okay, that's close enough," Steele decided.  "Gunners,
let 'em have it."
     The GMU fired first.  Its gigantic rapid-fire laser
cannon had elevated and locked onto the blips as Steele had
been pulling on his armor.  Now they were within the mighty
gun's eight-mile range, and they would pay for it.
     Next to open up were the Raidar X anti-aircraft
Destroids.  Light-years more advanced than their RDF
forebear, the Raidar X Mark X, these Raidar X Mark XIs
packed a monster punch.  Both of them were firing at their
maximum rates, the gunners holding their fingers on the
triggers until the guns were in danger of overheating.
     "Okay, that's enough, boys," Steele said, noting the
disappearance from radar of the two enemy aircraft.  "Now,
all long-range missile batteries open fire on the bandits at
coordinates 929.090.235, mark 1."
     Two gigantic panels slid open to either side of the
Ground Mobile Unit's rapid-fire laser cannon, each one
revealing twelve missiles, each of which packed enough of a
punch to decimate one of the Destroids that the GMU was
fighting alongside.  On the bridge, a loud tone signalled a
target lock.  The gunner thumbed the firing button, and the
long-range missiles left their launchers.
     On the ground, one of the Destroids stepped up to
the front. This was the GMU's Spartan, packing twenty
long-range missiles in each of two drum-shaped compartments
that served as its arms. Now the drums elevated, their
panels flipped open, and all forty missiles streaked out,
leaving a tangle of contrails in their wake.
     In the air, each of the GMU's five Beta fighters
launched the two long range missiles it carried to either
side of its cockpit.  Then, the medium-range missile racks
elevated into place, and a total of thirty medium-range
missiles were loosed to take out the closer enemies.
     As the distant explosions thundered forth, the
Alpha-Beta carrying Joe Moore and the doctor Moore had gone
to get zoomed in and set down, separated, and changed to two
individual battloids, which ran up the ramp into the GMU to
unload Moore and Peltzer and be reloaded with missiles.
 
     In the command center back in Chi-Town, Major Mortifax
surveyed the results of the attack with a mixture of shock
and rage.  The LS-337 batallion was being wiped out, before
any of its ships had even managed to approach within five
miles!  If any higher-ranking officers ever found out about
this debacle, he would be in hot water.  Probably boiling
water.
     Unless he had something to show for the loss.  "All
SAMAS and Sky Cycle units, move in!" he ordered. "Urban
Enforcers, Spider-Skull Walkers, Abolishers, Skelebots, and
infantry to the front!  Light Mechanized Reconnaisance Squad
LS-337-A3 is to slip around behind the enemy and transmit
substantive footage of whatever it is we're up against."  He
received acknowledgement from the officers in charge, then
settled back to wait for results.
 
 
 
Chapter 23: Pitched Battle
 
 
     As the Coalition robots advanced, they were met by the
GMU's small force of Destroids and Veritech Fighters in
Battloid mode.  Even though the Coalition robots outnumbered
the REF forces by at least 4 to 1, the experience of the REF
troops and the superiority of their mecha made it a better
than even battle on their side.
     Also at the front were most of the REF Cyclone
squadrons, more than equal to the Coalition SAMAS armor they
were up against.  And Joe Moore's Glitter Boy was there,
too, adding its weapon's awesome punch to the array of
forces on the REF's side.
     And there was an Ice Dragon there, too, moving among
the Coalition forces, blasting soldiers with its frost
breath, and occasionally disemboweling them with its huge
sharp claws. Many of the REF troopers didn't know what to
make of it, but since it seemed to be on their side they
didn't shoot at it.
     "Target all missiles on their command vehicle!"  Steele
indicated a Death's Head Armored Transport hovering just
behind the Coalition robots.  "If we can knock it out, we
should cause a state of disarray!"
     Three Alpha fighters jumped into the air, and all the
panels covering the missile compartments on their chests,
arms, and legs flipped open.  180 missiles in all streaked
for the Coalition craft.  Before its gunners could do more
than knock down two or three of the missiles, the Death's
Head Transport was completely annihilated.
     Meanwhile, the same thing was happening to the
Coalition ground forces.  Concentrated gun and missile fire
was narrowing the numbers of Urban Enforcers, Demolishers,
and Spider-Skull Walkers with only minor losses on the REF
side.  At last, with their command ship gone and their
numbers in disarray, the robots pulled back.
     But the mechanized light reconnaisance squad had some
success.  They were able to get in behind the GMU and get
some very interesting footage on disc, which they
burst-transmitted back to Chi-Town HQ.  Then they were
surrounded by a Cyclone squadron and forced to surrender.
 
     Back at the control room, Major Mortifax was nearly in
shock.  The planes had changed into robots!  And there were
more of them, plus some sort of giant ground vehicle, and
other robots and power armor, in a force large enough to
pose a threat to the Coalition!  Mortifax was beginning to
regret his decision not to report this to his superiors.  If
they found out...
     At that instant, the door slid open and a man in the
uniform of a Coalition general strode into the room with
regal bearing.  Mortifax gasped, jumped to his feet, and
saluted instantly.  The general didn't even bother to return
the salute.  As he got closer, and his face came out of the
shadow, Mortifax knew he was finished.  The gaunt, stern
face belong to General Ross Underhill, the commander of four
Mechanized Infantry divisions, including the one from which
the brigade that had just gotten nearly wiped out had come.
He was also Mortifax's direct superior.
     Underhill strode past Mortifax to glance at the main
screen, on which estimates of Coalition casualties were
coming up, and one of the secondary screens, where a
ten-second loop of a Legios unit splitting and reconfiguring
into two separate robots was was repeating.  Underhill
pivoted to face Mortifax.  "Major, you have a great deal of
explaining to do," he said coldly, one finger idly tapping
the neural mace hung on his belt.  "I will expect a full
report on my desk within the hour."
     "Y-yessir," Mortifax said.
     Underhill turned back to the console and typed some
instructions, no doubt to make copies of all footage
recorded by the electronics within the last few hours and
send them to his own command center.  He then strode
wordlessly from the room.
     Major Mortifax stumbled back to his quarters in a daze.
His 6-year-long career in the Coalition army had just gone
down the drain.  When Underhill reviewed the footage in
total, he would be sure to have Mortifax court-martialled as
a traitor.  He would either be publicly executed, or spend
the rest of his life in some dank cell deep in the heart of
Chi-Town.
     Mortifax knew what he had to do.  He went to his desk
and opened the drawer where he kept his nickel-plated Colt
.45, a gift from his father.  With trembling hands he picked
it up, and the clip that lay beside it.  He shoved the clip
into the handle, slid back the action, and laid it on the
desk.
     Major Mortifax picked up a fountain pen and scrawled a
brief note, laying the pen carefully beside the pad of
stationery when he was finished.  Then he picked up the
automatic, lifted it to his mouth, and kissed the muzzle
goodbye.
 
 
 
Chapter 24: Lt. Jackson's Odyssey
 
 
     Lt. Martin Jackson knew he was technically committing
mutiny, but he had to do it.  Col. Bowaz had told him that his
services were needed most to assist in the repair effort aboard
the GMU, but Jackson disagreed. He needed to be in the field
(after all, he was a FIELD scientist, wasn't he?), discovering
more about this crazy new world they had passed into and possibly
discovering a way home.
     Of course, Jackson didn't kid himself about that last.  If
there was a way home, it would probably only be accessible
through the "magic" that this world's occupants professed to
believe in.  Jackson wasn't too sure that HE could believe in
it, at least not without more data.  And that was one of the
things he hoped to discover.
     So, against orders, Lt. Martin Jackson had taken the
38-Lite he'd found in the security stockade, loaded its missile
gun, and gotten the heck out.  The storage boxes on the sides of
the Cyclone were loaded with extra missiles (the left box) and
scientific equipment (the right box).  He wore the CVR armor
necessary for Cyclone link-up, and carried his Gallant pistol in
its holster at his side.
     Jackson headed back toward the south, toward the approximate
location the Invid Hive had occupied during the REF attack on it
back on the earth of the other dimension. He had a theory that if
the hive was there, this was where it would be.
     Jackson travelled for several days without too much
incident.  He managed to find small towns where he could sleep
for the night, in return for fixing things that had broken
down--an electric generator here, a power armor servo system
there (though he'd barely managed to comprehend how the power
armor worked).  Sometimes, when there wasn't anything to fix,
he'd earn his room by showing off his Cyclone's unique
capabilities...and then assuring people that if anything attacked
that night, he'd help fight it off.
     The townspeople seemed to Jackson to be standard humans, of
the generic type he'd seen in the various little wasteland towns
on his own earth during the short time he'd been there; haunted
by the past, surviving in the present by living one day at a
time, and perhaps a little afraid of the future.  The only
difference was, some of these people had psychic or magic
abilities.
     Lt. Jackson had tried to learn about magic, but the only
thing he'd found out of value had come from talking to Joe Moore,
back on the GMU.  "Magic," Joe had said, "is difficult to
understand.  I know I'd never be able to DO it, even if I could
understand it.  It's not like the magic in the D&D games I used
to play back in high school.  I tried to put a curse on someone
when I first got here, like I did once back on earth.  It didn't
work here.  I don't think that magic truly exists any more back
in my homeworld."
     Joe had explained that the magic in this world was a direct
result of the nuclear holocaust set off by the international
tension toward the end of humanity's "golden age."  The huge
amounts of psychic energy that had been released by all the
deaths had sparked the creation of the ley lines, mystical lines
of force from which magicians could draw power and manipulate it
into doing their will.  "Psychic energy is just a different kind
of magic," Moore explained.  "I dunno how to explain it.  It just
comes from the inside, instead of the outside, though being in
the presence of ley lines helps some psychic abilities and
hinders others."
     Jackson had been on the road for seven days when he'd
encountered his first trouble.  He was staying in a small village
on the new coast of what had once been Georgia, in a thatched hut
that he'd rented from the local mayor/sheriff in exchange for
fixing a broken power cell in his energy rifle.  He was sitting
at a rude table, typing on the small field computer he'd brought
with him.  His CVR armor was lying on the floor next to him, and
the 38-Lite Cyclone was in its folded cube configuration right
beside it.
     He had just called up one of his analyses on the nature of
the ley lines and was examining it when a rumble caught his ear.
At first he thought it was just thunder, and paid it no mind, but
then he realized that it had been an explosion.  And then there
was another one, closer by.
     The mayor burst into the room, out of breath.  He was a
slightly portly man, wearing home-made clothing and a battered
Stetson hat.  "It is the Coalition!" he said.  "They're attacking
us!"
     Lt. Jackson folded the computer up and stowed it in the
Cyclone Storage container, then began pulling on his armor.
"Tell me more," he said.  He wasn't much of a fighter, but he'd
be damned if he'd let the Coalition destroy the very place where
he was staying!
     "They use this area to field-test their new weapons that
they develop over at Lone Star!" the mayor panted.  "They don't
care that people live here!  To them we're just another bombing
range."
     "Why don't you leave?" Jackson asked, settling his helmet
on his head and checking his Gallant pistol.
     "This is our home!" the man said.  "We cannot leave it!"
     "Well, you may have to."  Jackson pressed a button and the
cube unfolded into the Cyclone Cycle.  He fitted the RL-6 Heavy
Rocket Cannon into place on the right side of the Cyclone and
straddled the machine.  "From what I've heard, the Coalition
isn't the kind to take 'no' for an answer.  But I'll do what I
can."  Which isn't much, he silently added.
     "Oh, bless you!" the mayor said, as Jackson roared out
through the door.
     "Radar on," Jackson said.  As the display appeared on his
helmet HUD, he swore.  There were three aerial blips, coming from
the north at approximately 300 mph.  Jackson tried to get a
visual, but they were still about five miles away. "Hmmm.
Switching to power armor mode."  As the Cyclone wrapped itself
around his CVR armor and the RL-6 rode down to his right hand,
the field scientist grinned.  "Now let's see what they've got."
     As the mayor emerged from the hut, Martin asked him, "Are
there any other defenders around here?"
     "There's the old robot," the man said.  "We have a man
getting it ready even now.  It has no missiles, but its ion
cannons are powerful."
     "Good.  I think we're going to need it."  Martin picked up
the three storage boxes from the Cyclone and placed them behind a
nearby hut.  "I read three bogeys, coming in from zero-four
degrees, flying low; altitude approximately two hundred feet,
triangular formation. Range is three miles."
     "Ah copy ya, power armor," a new voice crackled.  "This is
robot one talkin' atcha, approx 100 yards due west of ya."
Jackson looked west and saw one of the older models of robots,
according to Dr. Thornton Smitty, the old robotic scientist
they'd rescued just after they arrived.  It had two turbofan air
intakes, with twin ion guns located in the center of its bulbous
torso.
     "Robot one, what is your status?" Martin asked.
     "Ready to kick some major--"
     "I mean, what's your WEAPONS status," Martin interrupted.
     "Oh, that.  Ion guns fully charged, no missiles."
     "Okay.  When they come in, you provide ground cover.  I'm
going to get up there and give them something to think about."
It SOUNDED like something John Wayne might have said...
     "Uh, roger that, power armor," the voice drawled.  "They're
within range now, I'm firing on the leader."  The twin ion guns
opened up on the now-visible air vehicles.
     They resembled some sort of fighter plane, Jackson decided.
They were jet-powered, with delta-shaped wings mounting some pods
underneath that probably contained ordnance, and some sort of
dual autocannons under the nose which they were now firing.  The
planes broke formation as the incoming fire from the robot barely
missed the first jet.
     "They've scattered," said the robot pilot.  "Ah'm trackin'
them now."
     "Stay on the first one," Jackson said.  "And keep moving."
Jackson moved his Cyclone armor out into the open space between
the huts.  A small targeting sensor deployed itself from his
right shoulder as he brought up his rocket-launching rifle.
     "Steady...steady..."  He was targeting on one of the three
planes, which were now making wide circles around the town, like
sharks getting ready for the kill.  The crosshairs locked in,
Jackson's gun elevated, and he fired!  The small rocket streaked
skyward, leaving a trail of smoke behind it.  There was a hum as
the cylinder in the back of the RL-6 rotated to bring another
rocket in line with the chamber.
     The pilot was taken by surprise.  He started to bank, but
too late; the missile caught him and blew a hole in his left
wing.  The plane went into an uncontrollable roll, and seconds
later there was another explosion, as it crashed.  The remaining
two planes increased their speed and loosed a volley of cannon
fire and ordnance into the center of the town, aiming for Lt.
Jackson.
     But they missed.  Martin's armor-enhanced legs sent him two
hundred feet into the air, avoiding the dozens of missiles that
were streaking toward him.  He returned fire with one of his own,
but this time the warplane saw it coming and banked away in time.
     The Cyclone's thrusters kept Jackson hanging there in
mid-air.  This time Jackson took his time, letting the
crosshairs home in on his enemy.  As the signal sounded in his
ears, another signal also sounded--the enemy had locked and fired
on HIM already!  Jackson ignored the incoming missile just long
enough to return fire with his own, then shut off his thrusters
and dropped like a rock, barely in time to avoid the oncoming
rocket.  The fighter jet also managed to dodge in time.
     "This guy's beginning to get on my nerves," Jackson said,
hoping it sounded sufficiently tough-guyish.  If truth be told,
Jackson was about ready to wet his pants!
     The robot was having little luck, either.  Normally the ion
guns would have finished the fight on their own far earlier, but
they hadn't been designed to be used against fast-moving fighter
jets, and so were having little effect.
     "Ah'd have better luck with a RIFLE than with this thang,"
the pilot fumed.
     "Focus on the one I've been shooting at," Jackson
suggested.  "He seems to be the leader.  If you can take him out,
the other might be much easier."
     "Ah'm on 'im."  The robot turned and brought its ion guns
once more into play.
     "We'll try to box him in," Jackson said, aiming and firing
twice more.  The pilot nimbly dodged both rockets, all the while
firing more from the wing-mounted pods.  "Will this guy NEVER run
out?" Jackson muttered, going for another lock.
     Then the pilot changed tactics.  He fired missiles not at
Jackson, but at the robot.  "Whoa!" the pilot yelled, throwing
the robot to the ground to avoid a close volley.  "Take this, you
bastard!"  The robot climbed to its feet and fired two missiles
from its shoulder missile pods!
     "I thought you didn't have missiles," Lt. Jackson said.
     "So did Ah," the robot pilot said.  The two missiles raced
skyward.  The one Jackson had been fighting banked in time, but
the other one didn't, and was shortly falling to the ground in
little pieces.
     "All RIGHT!!!  Got any more?"
     "Let me check the readouts...No, Lieutenant, no more.  Ah
guess Ah forgot about some left over from a while back..."
     "Well, keep your eyes on this one.  I have a feeling he has
a few tricks left up his sleeve."
     And indeed he did.  Two more missiles streaked from beneath
the wings of his aircraft, but these hit the ground to either
side of Jackson.  Then great black clouds of smoke billowed out
of the impact sites, and very shortly the entire area was under
cover.
     "Switch to infrared imaging," Martin Jackson ordered
confidently.  His small target tracker flashed and changed color,
and using it he could see where the enemy plane was.
     "YAAAAAAAAA-HOOOOOOOOO!!!  Let's get 'im!" the robot pilot
yelled exuberantly.
     "You got it...And remember, if it makes it tougher for us,
it'll also make it tougher for him."
     The cloud was now approximately a hundred feet high and a
thousand feet in diameter.  The pilot of the plane was beginning
to make low runs over the city, apparently doing close-scanning
to pick out Jackson's position.  As the plane came overhead of
Jackson's position, he let go his last two missiles at it, then
dropped the launcher and pulled out his Gallant pistol.  The
missiles hit its heavily-armored port-side engine pod, not doing
much damage but definitely letting the pilot know he was there.
     Jackson's warning tone sounded; the pilot had locked onto
his position by tracing the missiles' trails back.  Fine.  That
was just what Jackson wanted.  He checked the clip on his
Gallant as the plane came back around, then pointed it as the jet
began to make its run.  Idly Lt. Jackson watched the twin trails
of dust the chin-mounted autocannons were kicking up as they
fired and prepared to roll out of the way.  As he rolled, the
plane passed, and Jackson turned and fired off several quick
shots at the plane's engines as it was going away.  A couple of
hits, but nothing severe.
     The plane began to come around again.  "Robot one, cease
your fire.  This one's mine."
     "Ah understand, power armor one.  Good hunting."
     The plane came around again, chin-mounted cannons flashing.
Jackson gathered himself in for a great leap, then kicked in his
thrusters.  As the fighter approached, Jackson rose out of the
cloud of smoke in front of it, his own gun flashing.  A row of
holes traced its way up the plane's nose toward the cockpit, and
penetrated the canopy in several places.  The plane passed just
beneath Lt. Jackson, treating him to a sight that he would never
forget: the pilot's face, mouth open in a final scream as the
plane headed downward toward its last resting place.  It was a
sight that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
     Jackson touched down, lifted off his helmet, and vomited
onto the ground.  When he was finished, he stood, walked a short
distance away, and let the Cyclone collapse into its motorcycle
format.  Then he went over and picked up the RL-6 and his
Cyclone's storage canisters, and started shucking six more
missiles into the launcher's cylinder as the smoke over the town
began to clear.
     Behind him there was a CLANK, CLANK, CLANK sound as the
robot that had assisted in the termination of the three fighters
walked up, and the pilot, a man wearing plastic-carbon armor,
climbed out and dropped to the ground.
     "Hey, you did an okay job!" the man said, walking up to clap
Jackson on the shoulder.
     Jackson shook his head.  "No.  No, I didn't."
     "What's wrong?" the pilot asked, concerned.  "Are you hit?"
Then he noticed the puddle of vomit a few yards away, and said
nothing.
     "I saw his face," Jackson said.  "God, I saw his face.  I
never--I mean--"
     "I know, son, I know," the pilot said.  His southern accent
was a lot less prounounced, now that the battle was over.  "You
can't think of them as human, or it'll get to you."  He paused.
"But I'd think that with that rig you're riding, you'd have seen
combat before, and killed plenty of people."
     Jackson shook his head as he shoved the last missile into
the chamber and mounted the gun on the right side of his bike.
"Only aliens, monsters."  His hands shook as he removed them from
the RL-6.  "This is only the second time I've actively
participated in combat, the first time against humans."
     "Well, don't worry," the pilot said reassuringly.  "You get
used to it."
     "I know," Jackson said after a long pause.  "That's what
I'm afraid of."
 
 
 
Chapter 25: A New Dimension
 
 
     Things were quiet on the campus of the Southwest Missouri
State University.  It was almost summer vacation, and more
students were inside studying than were outside doing things.
     Inside Wells Residence Hall, room 138, a student who
normally would have been studying at this time and his younger
friend who should have been in high school at this moment were
preparing to take on another role.
     The student's name was Chris Meadows, and he was sitting on
his bed as two men were telling him what he was going to have to
do.  His friend, Joe Moore, was sitting beside him.  Chris was
19, and had short dark hair and wore plastic-rimmed
ultraviolet-sensitive glasses.  He had a bad case of five-o'clock
shadow, as he apparently hadn't shaved in several days.  Joe was
15, about six feet tall (as was Chris), wore wire-rimmed glasses,
and had brown hair.
     "This is a bicycle helmet, exactly like the one you normally
use."  The first man, with dark brown hair and a grey three-piece
suit, picked up a black, yellow, and white TREK brand helmet.  As
he moved to get it, his suitcoat hung away from his body for a
second, affording Chris a brief glimpse of the butt of the 9 mm
Beretta 93-R auto pistol in its shoulder holster beneath the
coat.
     The man removed the liner from the helmet to reveal the
white styrofoam form.  However, this form had some holes cut in
it.  "We've placed a camera here, and a microphone here.  The
transmitter is in the back, here.  All concealed with the liner
in place.  Be sure to position the helmet so we can get a good
picture of the deal going down."  He stretched the liner and put
it back on the helmet.
     "What about me?" Chris's younger friend asked.  "Don't I
have to do something besides stand there and make the buy?"
     The man in the suit nodded.  "Yes, Joe, you have a very
important job."  He turned to the other man, this one wearing
coveralls that bore the logo of a popular exterminating service.
"Get the radio."
     "Right, Mr. Mulcarro."  He reached into a huge duffel bag
that also bore the exterminating logo and pulled out a large boom
box that sported an FM tuner, a CD player, and a cassete deck.
     "Hey, my radio!" Joe said.
     The man in the coveralls shook his head.  He set the radio
down and brought his fist down solidly on the CD hatch on the top
of the radio.  This caused the hatch to flip back vertically (far
beyond normal opening width), and other panels to fall open all
over the radio.
     "Hey, what have you done to my boom box?!" Joe yelled.
     Mulcarro shook his head.  "No, Joe, this isn't your radio.
It's just the same model."  Mulcarro pointed to the various
compartments in it and explained them.
     Where the wire mesh and paper conical shape of the speakers
had fallen forward were two canister-shaped smoke grenades, one
in each cavity.  Where the cassette deck had flipped open was a
2-shot .38 derringer, fully loaded, and four more bullets for it
("Though if you miss with the first two, you probably won't have
another chance to use them," Mulcarro said with a grin).
     Then Mulcarro turned the stereo around and showed where the
entire back of the radio had popped open.  In here were two
automatic pistols (a Colt .45 and a Browning 9 mm) a .38
revolver, and a 12-guage pump shotgun with the stock and much of the
barrel sawed off.  All, Mulcarro assured them, were fully loaded.
Under the CD lid was a small compartment containing an extra clip
for each automatic, two .38 speedloaders, and twenty shotgun
shells ("Buckshot, all of 'em," Mulcarro explained.  "For greater
dispersal and more killing power").
     After closing all the compartments back up, Mulcarro pulled
out two .22 revolvers.  "These saturday night specials, you'll
carry on your person, for the express purpose of being
confiscated by the dealers.  They're fully loaded, too...a lot of
good it would do you."
     Joe raised his hand.  "But what if we get caught toting
these weapons by SMS security?  My dad would kill me."
After he'd said it, he realized that the situation he was going
to be going into made that sound slightly ridiculous.
     "Don't you worry about SMS security," Mulcarro said.  "We've
taken care of all such angles."
     "Is that all?" Chris asked, rubbing his hands together.
     Mulcarro nodded.  "Yes, that's everything.  The operation
will commence in one hour, gentlemen.  We'll be waiting in the
van."  They walked out of the room, leaving Chris and Joe alone
to consider what they'd agreed to.
     Though the administration hadn't wanted to admit it, there
had been a growing drug problem at SMSU.  This problem was
bringing with it gang violence, with casualties in greater and
greater numbers.  Joe and Chris had nearly been killed months
before when they'd been caught in the middle of a gang rumble.
They'd only barely managed to escape with their lives.
     This had made them a bit angry.  They had sought out the
special government organization that had been set up to deal with
the situation and volunteered.  The organization had been only
too eager to accept.
     And thus for the last several months they had been
undergoing an accelerated training course in martial arts and
firearms proficiency in addition to their regular college and
high school courses.  They had received passing grades and were
now ready to help the college.
     And so the first bust had been set up.  They were to play
the part of an aspiring dealer (Chris) who was bringing a dealer
wannabe, the "spoiled bratty son of an administration higher-up"
(Joe), to meet his source and maybe become a dealer himself.
     In preparation for these roles, Chris had already had
several meets with this dealer in class and around the campus,
purchasing relatively minor amounts of drugs with agency-supplied
money.  These amounts were too small to prosecute for, but they
were only leading into the "grand bust."
     It was known in the agency that their supplier was receiving
his drugs from a larger St. Louis syndicate, and that a MAJOR
shipment was coming in today.  Chris and Joe would meet the
dealer on his own turf, getting evidence of a drug deal going
down.  Then, once the evidence was in hand, the agency would come
roaring in to arrest the dealer and, incidentally, seize the
shipment of drugs worth several million dollars.  A perfect
plan...as long as it didn't go wrong.
     Chris and Joe sat there for a while and thought about what
might happen, then started checking their weapons, trying not to
think about the many ways they could die.
 
 
 
Chapter 26: The Ouster of Bort
 
 
     Invid Hive leader Bort sat in his throne, receiving reports
on what was happening in his domain.  He was not overly happy at
reports that armored human forces were putting up resistance to
his takeovers of the small human settlements that were the only
traces of human activity in this region.  He would have to have
the hive mind see about increasing the quickening of the sleeping Invid
drones within the Hive.
     "I am here, my lord!" the mocking voice resounded, echoing
in the great hollow chamber in the Hive that was Bort's throne
room.  Bort looked up with a start.  Zyjinn was standing there in
front of him, with an insolent smirk on his face that Bort didn't like one
bit.
     Well, Bort would pretend it hadn't happened.  Zyjinn was too
good of a science specialist to kill or devolve because of one
incident.  But how had he been able to enter the room, or even
the Hive, without Bort being aware of it?  This disturbed him
deeply.
     "Zyjinn, I didn't notice you enter," Bort said, recovering
from his startlement.  "What have you to report on these 'ley
lines' that we have encountered?"  Zyjinn had been studying them
for the last few human weeks, and Bort was eager to learn more
about them, that he might exploit them.
     Zyjinn paused, to savor the moment.  "I have learned," he
said at last, "that they pulse with much more power than you
could possibly imagine.  Power which might be used for almost any
purpose imaginable.  Including getting rid of decadent and weak
rulers."
     Bort silently ordered the Hive brain to summon his Enforcer
legions.  "I don't think I like the sound of this, Zyjinn," he
said.  "It has the flavor of treason to it."
     Zyjinn paced around the room.  "Treason?  That word is
rather strong, esteemed leader.  Is it treason to throw out the
weak that the strong might survive?  Is it treason to wish to
further the Invid race in its just cause?"
     Now Bort saw another figure standing toward the back of the
room, behind Zyjinn.  "A human!" he gasped.  "No one brings a
human into the Hive!  It is forbidden!  Guards!"
     But his Enforcers were not there!  Bort sent another mental
command to the Hive brain, but received no response.  He probed
the brain, and discovered that its functioning threshold had been
lowered beyond conscious levels.  In short, it had been turned
off.
     Zyjinn threw back his head and laughed evilly.  "Oh, is your
little toy broken?  Oh, too bad.  Let me kiss it and make it
better!"  And with that lightning bolts crackled from his
fingertips, a la RETURN OF THE JEDI, nearly hitting Bort, whose
Invid reflexes barely saved him.
     "This is treason!  Guards!  Guards!"
     Zyjinn cackled some more.  "Your guards will never come. It
is I who hold the ultimate power now, Bort."  And with that,
three Royal Command Battloids walked into the room.  Bort, who
instinctively knew the markings of all his RCBs received another
shock: he DID NOT RECOGNIZE these Battloids!
     Seeing his shock, Zyjinn said, "That's right, Bort.  I have
the power to transmute as well as all those powers that you lay
claim to.  And with THAT..."  Zyjinn gestured at Bort, and his
reflexes did not help him now.  Lightning lanced from Zyjinn's
fingers toward him, and he felt himself shrinking, changing...He
had become one of what the humans called Level 4 Invid, the
standard pilot of the Enforcers and Pincer Command Units...
     Before Zyjinn could devolve him further, the Stage 4 who had
once been Bort turned and ran, into one of the darker tunnels of
the Invid Hive.
     "Let him go," Zyjinn said dismissively.  "He will no longer
be a problem to us."  Zyjinn took his place on the throne only
recently vacated by Bort.  "We shall now accelerate efforts to
grow our Flower of Life."  He brought the Invid Brain back
"on-line" and told it to increase production of Invid warriors.
     The human who had entered with Zyjinn, the Shifter called
Tal, said, "If I may be so impertinent as to suggest it, oh great
Zyjinn--"
     "Cease the flowery speech, Tal.  That sort of thing may be
fine for Bort's kind, but not I.  If you have something to say,
then say it."
     Tal nodded.  "Very well, Zyjinn.  I've been watching Bort's
actions.  It seems your race has been acquiring all the human
settlements in the area."
     "Yes, we have," Zyjinn admitted.  "We must have more workers
for our Protoculture plantations."
     "But with the small numbers of people in this area, there's
no way you can get enough people," Tal pointed out.
     Zyjinn nodded.  "You have cut to the very heart of the
matter, to use a" Zyjinn grimaced "human expression.  But we must
have more people!"  He stopped, paused.  "I can tell that you
have a suggestion.  Out with it!"
     Tal nodded.  "Do you remember how I told you it was possible
to open rifts between dimensions?"
     Zyjinn nodded.  "We could go home, if we so desired, and if
we had a way to open a rift between here and there.  But we have
neither the desire, wishing to conquer this world, nor the
means."
     "Ah, but you do have the means, through me."  As Zyjinn was
about to open his mouth, Tal held up a hand and said, "But you do
not have to use it for that purpose."  As Tal explained what he
proposed, Zyjinn began to smile, then to grin evilly.  "With your
raw power, and my finesse, we should be able to do it."
     "By all means, let us do so!" Zyjinn said.  "It should be
but a small drain on my immense abilities.  Let us make our
preparations.  Tomorrow we shall mount an invasion across
dimensional lines!"
 
 
 
Chapter 27:  Enter the Hive
 
 
     Lt. Martin Jackson continued driving south, but this time
he had company.  The pilot of the old combat robot insisted upon
coming with him.  "If you happen to come up against something
really nasty, son, it'll be all over for you."
     The name the pilot gave was Sam Fort.  He was 42, about as
old as his machine.  The thing seemed to require constant
maintenance, which Fort seemed to be more than able to provide,
while Jackson took notes on his field computer on the internal
structure of the robot.  It slowed them down immensely, but it
also promoted caution.
     Several days into Jackson's continued trek southwards, Fort
stopped him.  "You gotta be careful from here on in, son.
Dinosaur country starts about here."
     "Yeah, we saw some on our way north."  Jackson had already
explained about the interdimensional storm that had brought them
into this world.
     "Well, boy, you're gonna see plenty more."
 
     And they did.  As they moved further south, the dinosaurs
began to proliferate.  Jackson took plenty of still photos and a
great deal of footage on his mini-viddisk cam.  "I can't believe
that they're REAL..." he said in awe.
     "Oh, they're REAL, all right...real nasty if they gang up on
you in a fight..." Fort said from the cockpit of his robot.
"Let's just move on through and leave 'em alone."
 
     As they approached the Hive, Jackson was surprised.  "There
are almost no guards here.  This place should be CRAWLING with
Invid..."
     "What?" Sam Fort said.  "'Crawling,' did you say?  Funny, I
don't recall you mentioning anything about that before.  Let me
check my journal..."  Jackson could feel the biting sarcasm in
his voice.  He heard the flipping of pages over the radio pickup.
"Let's see, now..."
     "I'm sorry, I forgot to mention it.  It was my original plan
to go in alone, with my small, speedy Robotech Cyclone here.  I
hadn't realized I'd have a great, lumbering hulk of a robot with
me to attract attention."
     Pretty soon, the Hive began to show up on the horizon.
"You'll have to leave your robot here," Jackson said finally.
"And either stay here with it or come with me."
     "Nothing doing," Fort said.  "I'll bring it in until enough
Invid show up to make me change my mind."  He snorted.  "So far,
I haven't seen any of them except for in your pictures..."
     "Trust me, you don't wanna."  Jackson shrugged.  "If you
want to bring it, go ahead.  So far I haven't seen any Invid
around here myself.  I'm beginning to wonder if they packed up
and went home..."
     Fifteen minutes later, they approached the Hive proper.
Here there was a force field blocking the entrance.  "Any bright
ideas on how to get in?" Fort drawled.
     "We wait for an Invid to come along.  He'll do the job for
us."  Jackson moved back into some nearby underbrush.  Fort did
the same, as well as he was able.  They waited.
 
     From inside the Hive, a lone Enforcer armor unit looked out
the door.  "Humans detected," it muttered.  "Neutralize.
Neutralize--NO."  The Enforcer seemed to be fighting an inner
battle with itself.  Finally it won and took action.  It moved up
to the door and pressed the manual force-field release.
 
     "What the--?" Jackson said.
     "The force field's dissolved," Fort said.  "But nothin's
comin' out."
     "Hmmm."
     Fort pointed out, "It could be a trap."
     Jackson hesitated, made his decision.  "I'm going for it."
Before Fort could say or do anything, he had converted his
Cyclone into motorcycle form and was racing for the entrance.
     "Damn kid," Fort muttered, running after him.  He got in
just as the force field closed.
     Inside, the Hive seemed vacant.  There were no Invid to be
seen!  "Come on," Jackson said.  "We have to check this out.
Head for that glow."  He pointed at a gleam of light reflected
off of the walls in the distance.
     "I don't like this..." Sam Fort muttered.
 
     The lone Enforcer watched them proceed.  This could be his
chance...
 
     The 38-Lite Cyclone and the old robot made it to the door
and peered in.  This seemed to be the Hive's central chamber.  On
a throne in the center was a humanoid figure, slender with long
hair.  Standing beside him was a human clad in a cloak with body
armor beneath him.  There were also some more humans, a ragtag
bunch armed with laser rifles, pistols, slug-throwing submachine
guns, whatever they could get their hands on.  And seemingly all
the Invid from the entire Hive were there!  Scouts, Armored
Scouts, Troopers, Shock Troopers, Enforcers, Pincer Command
Units, even Royal Command Battloids!  The human and humanoid at
the throne were conversing.
     "I'm turning up my audio sensors," Sam Fort said, "and
transmitting what I'm hearing to you."
     "Got it."  Jackson adjusted his radio controls.  "Transmit
away."
     At first there was just a lot of staticky noise and the
whine of feedback.  But then a voice began to come through...
"This is all you have, Zyjinn?" the human said.
     "Apparently, yes," the humanized Invid on the throne said.
     "This guy's the Hive leader, why doesn't he know for sure
how many Invid there are?" Jackson said aloud.
     "Shhhhh!"
     "It will not be enough.  You need at least twice this many
troopers, to spread out and take as many as possible."  The human
was silent for a few moments, then he said, "Zyjinn, you told me
of your mother, uh, Regis' power to call the Invid to herself,
even across dimensions?"
     The one called Zyjinn nodded.  "Yes."
     "Do you think it might be possible for you to do this?"
     Zyjinn nodded.  "It might.  It might at that!  Using you as
a focus for my powers, I believe it could be done..."
     "Then let us do it!"  The human seemed to be concentrating,
making himself ready.
     "Yes, we shall!"  Zyjinn stood and raised his hands into the
air.  Lightning crackled around them, and from them to Tal.  His
voice reverberated in the chamber, so Jackson could hear it
without the aid of the robot's audio sensors: "Come to me, my
brethren!  Come, across the vast reaches of space and time!
Come, and help me claim this world for the glory of the Invid!!!"
     The room brightened inexplicably, and a ball of energy began
to form in the middle of the room.  It expanded, then vanished as
a group of Invid Shock Troopers appeared where it had been.  They
moved to the sides, and the ball formed again, depositing more
Invid.  And again.  And again.
 
     Across the myriad dimensions separating this rogue Hive and
the rest of the Invid, the Regis felt a massive shock, the like
of which she had not felt since that final climactic battle over
Reflex Point, that ended the first occupation.  Hundreds of her
children were vanishing at once!  What could this force be that
was pulling hundreds of Invid away?  The Regis resolved to
investigate.
 
     "Look!" Lt. Jackson gasped as more Invid appeared.  "Those
are Inorganics!  They're not part of the Regis' forces!  And
there are some grey Enforcers!"  He consulted his field computer.
"Hmmm...better enter this for posterity."
     The room was rapidly filling up with Invid.  At last, Zyjinn
collapsed back into the throne.  "That is enough, is it not?" he
asked.
     "Plenty, Zyjinn.  Now the invasion may commence as we
planned."
     "Invasion?"  Jackson looked at Fort, who'd opened the
cockpit of the robot and was looking at the Invid through his own
eyes.
     "This doesn't sound so good."
 
 
 
Chapter 28:  Another Crossover (Palladium's NINJAS AND
             SUPERSPIES)
 
 
     Chris Meadows rode his black Trek city/trail bike down to
the plaza in front of Craig Hall, and rode a couple of circles
around it, startling a few pedestrians.  Chris received a few odd
looks, but he didn't mind; he had better things to think about
than what PEDS thought.
     The deal was supposed to go down somewhere around here.
Chris didn't know where, but he knew the dealers would find him.
He looked around for Joe Moore.  Darn it, where WAS he?
     Oh, there he came.  He was on the rollerblade skates he'd
received the previous Christmas, and he looked quite happy.  He
was wearing kneepads, elbowpads, and a helmet, and had the radio
slung over his back.  He rode up to the plaza, stopped, and sat
down on one of the benches.
     Chris rode over to a bench near Moore, climbed off his bike,
and sat down.  They looked at each other.  Now was the time...
     One of the peds on the plaza walked over to Chris and Joe.
He was a tall, blond-haired, blue-eyed college kid, who looked
"for all the world like a damn Ken doll," as Chris had once said
to Joe.  Chris recognized him instantly; Rod Jordache, one of the
dealers he'd worked with during the setup.
     "So this is our prospective customer?" the guy asked.
     Chris nodded.  "Yep.  He wants in, and who am I to refuse
more money?"  He felt slimy just TALKING to this person, but he
managed to conceal it.
     "Good.  Lock your bike and come inside."  He jerked his head
at Craig.  "Meet me in front of the elevator."
     So Chris parked his bike and walked into Craig.  Joe quickly
pulled off the 'blades, put on some boots he'd brought with him,
and followed.  They got into the elevator together, and rode it
all the way up to the third floor of the building.  Here Rod led
them to a vacant office on the north side of the building.
     As they entered, they were frisked by two heavies, who took
the .22s they'd been carrying.  "Hey, what are you doing packing
arms?" Rod asked, real friendly-like.  "You don't need those."
     "With the kind of people around here these days?" Joe
sneered, something he was very good at.  "Come on now.  We both
know that isn't true."
     Rod shrugged, and pulled a briefcase out of his desk.
Belatedly, Chris placed his helmet on a nearby filing cabinet
with a good view of the room.  Joe set his radio on the floor,
within easy reach.
     Rod popped open the briefcase.  It was completely full of
small packets of a white powder.  "Go ahead, have a free sample,"
Rod said, tossing a package to Joe and Chris in turn.
     "Thanks.  I'll save this for later," Chris replied, slipping
it into his shirt pocket.
     Joe threw his back.  "That's okay.  I just want to sell it,
not to do it."  He was playing his role to the letter!
     Rod shrugged.   "Whatever.  You bring the cash?"
     Joe reached into his backpack and pulled out a small case.
"I got something even better," he said, flipping it open to
reveal glittering.  "Diamonds.  100 carats of them.  Stole 'em
from my dad's safe."  Actually, they'd been provided by the
agency.  Money was too hard to carry around, they'd decided, and
diamonds would be more likely to induce the dealers to be ready
to deal.
     Rod's eyes all but bugged out of his head.  "Well, I'd say
we've got ourselves a deal, then."  He reached for the diamonds.
     "Not so fast," Joe said.  "The deal was for a lot more than
is in that briefcase."
     Rod shrugged.  "You think I'd bring fifty keys in here?
Might as well say, 'Oh, somebody PLEASE arrest me.'  It's waiting
at our warehouse."
     "But you DO have it," Chris said, for the benefit of the
cameras.  "You wouldn't kid us, would you Rod?"
     Jordache said, "What, you think I'm lyin'?"  The heavies'
hands moved slightly toward their jackets, where they no doubt
had some sort of pistols ready.
     "No, no," Chris said, holding up his hands.  "I just wanted
to be SURE, that's all."
     "Good," Rod said.  "Now if we can just--"
     He never finished his sentence, for suddenly there was a
sound like a thousand lightning strikes happening at once, and a
huge flash of light from the north.  All the occupants of the
room gasped and looked out the window.
     There was a great blue gleam from the north, just south of
Wells Residence Hall and Cheek Hall.  It seemed to be about fifty
feet tall by fifty wide, and THINGS were emerging from it.  Joe
and Chris looked at each other.  "No, it can't be.  It just
can't!" Chris gasped.  Even at this distance, they recognized the
things.  Those were Invid Enforcers from their ROBOTECH
role-playing Games!
     "What?  What?" Rod asked, turning to them.  "What is this?"
     "Can't tell you right now.  The deal's off.  We're out of
here."  Chris grabbed his helmet, and Joe his radio.
     "What?  What are you talking about?!" Rod Jordache asked,
grabbing Chris by the shirt.
     "I can't say for sure, but if I were you I'd start running
and not look back."  Chris yanked himself free and followed his
own advice, with Joe Moore right behind him.
 
     To the north, Invid of all types were pouring out of the
Rift, along with some humans in and out of body armor carrying
rifles.  The Invid were there to kidnap humans to be slaves in
the Protoculture farms of their Hive; the humans were just along
to loot and destroy.
 
 
 
Chapter 29: Jack is Back
 
 
     As the Cyclone and Robot entered the Hive, their pilots were
unaware that they were being watched.  The watcher was a man clad
in CVR-3 body armor, straddling a Battler Cyclone (currently shut
off to avoid Invid homing in on the Protoculture emanations it
emitted when active).  He was holding a pair of multi-optic
binoculars and scanning through them.  "Lieutenant Martin
Jackson...well, well, well."  He made his desision shortly, and
followed them.  The force field was down for him as well.
     This man observed the two as they watched the interior of
the Hive, and managed to get a good vantage point himself.  He
listened to their radio transmissions (and the audio transmission
from Fort's robot).  "This could bear looking into," he decided.
Then when he saw the interdimensional portal opening up, he
almost backed out.  "Uh-oh...these interdimensional deals could
be trouble."
     "What?  Who said that?"  Jackson looked around.
     The man started; he hadn't meant to say it out loud.  He
sighed; might as well reveal himself.  "It's me, Jack, the
assistant to Dr. Thornton Smitty whom you rescued a few weeks
ago."  He stepped forward to stand beside them.
     "You!" Martin Jackson gasped, raising his gun.  Jack shoved
the muzzle down.
     "This is not the time to be fighting among ourselves.  If
what I've heard about the Invid is true, this thing could be BIG
trouble."
     "He's right," Sam Fort said.  "I don't know what it is
between you two, but you'd better be paying attention here."  The
portal was expanding.  Now they could see clearly through it.
There were buildings there, and young people walking around.  The
Invid, responding to some inaudible signal, all began to march
through the portal.
     "We have to stop them!" Lt. Jackson said as the last of
the invasion force entered.  "We can't let the Invid enslave
another dimension!"
     "Somehow, I don't think two Cyclones and a robot are going
to do it, do you?" Jack responded drily.
     "I don't care.  We have to DO something..."  Then Jackson
decided what it was he needed to do.  He converted his Cyclone
into motorcycle mode, revved the engine, and raced out into the
center of the room and through the portal before any of the
present Invid could do anything to stop him.
     "That damn kid..." Fort muttered, charging after him in his
robot.
     Jack's jaw dropped as he watched them go.  "Oh, what the
hell."  He followed them in.
 
     Sgt. Jerry Peterson and Lt. Dustin McNair, two officers from
the Springfield City Police substation that had been on the SMSU
campus for a couple of years now, were walking up the sidewalk by
Craig Hall, heading back from the scene of a nearby auto
accident.  Then they heard the loud thunder from nearby.
     "What the hell was that?!" Seargent Peterson asked.
     "Some kind of explosion," McNair guessed.  "Come on, it came
from up there."  McNair turned and ran northward, toward Wells
Residence Hall, a U-shaped building opening southward that served
as housing for SMSU's monetarily poorer students, and Cheek Hall,
one of SMSU's primary computer centers, where the thunder had
come from. As they approached the area, they saw the huge
electric blue portal that had opened between Wells on the left
and Cheek on the right.
     "I've never seen anything like it!" Peterson said.  McNair
simply crossed himself and muttered, "Mary, Mother of God...!"
     Then the creatures began emerging.  The first ones, as
McNair was to describe them later, were humanoid, about seven
feet tall, and mounted some kind of rifle on their arms.  But
their shape wasn't QUITE human...their heads were elongated with
some kind of optic sensor in the front.  The others were far
larger, perhaps thirty or forty feet tall, and resembled some
grotesque parody of an insect.
     But the other ones didn't come until later.  The first to
approach were the humanoid creatures, whom McNair didn't know
were Invid Enforcers.  He didn't know anything about them at all,
save that they had just emerged from some eerie electrical
disturbance.
     "Didn't TERMINATOR begin like this?" Peterson muttered.  As
one of the creatures noticed them and raised its rifle, McNair
said, "We may END like this if we don't get moving!" and shoved
Peterson to the left even as he drew his gun.  The Invid fired on
him, but he managed to dodge and return fire with his 9mm
automatic.  However, the bullets just spanged off of the armored
Invid.  McNair swore.
     "Get moving, Peterson," McNair yelled, breaking into a run.
Peterson, after a second's hesitation, followed.  That second's
hesitation cost him his life, for it gave the Invid enough time
to aim and fire on him.  "GAAAAAAAH!"  When McNair looked back an
instant later he saw the liquifying remains of his friend, who'd
been cooked by the plasma blast.  McNair, a 23-year veteran of
the police force who'd thought he'd seen the most grotesque
possible deaths in the various auto accidents he'd covered,
nearly threw up now.
     The Invid now turned toward him.  McNair dived to one side
as three energy blasts fired in unison dug a twenty-foot deep pit
in the sidewalk where he'd been standing.  He threw down his
useless pistol and ran for it, trying to put the east wing of
Wells between him and the Invid.
     As he rounded the corner, Dustin McNair saw the mag-locked
rear entrance to the east wing.  And then he saw that it had been
propped open, to keep it from mag-locking.  It was strictly
against the dormitory's security regulations, but McNair mentally
blessed whoever had done it, even as he jerked it open and ran
in.
     He tried the door at the first landing.  It was locked,
because the first floor of the east wing was primarily offices,
and the only entrance was from a different part of the building.
McNair charged up the stairs to the second floor, threw open the
door, and ran down the corridor to another flight of stairs.
This he went down.  At the bottom, he turned left, ran past
several vending machines, turned left again and ran eastward down
the hall to the main entrance, in the center of the bottom of the
"U" that was Wells.
     "Out of the way, police emergency!" McNair yelled at the
startled students who found themselves in his path. When he got
out to the north, he ran across the street toward a squad car
that was parked there, hoping to get in and get away before those
CREATURES caught up with him.
     But even as he got there, McNair saw that the things had
beat him to it.  There were five of them standing around the car,
aiming their weapons right at him.  McNair stopped running, and
realized that there was nothing he could do.  He closed his eyes
and waited for death to come, then--
     BOOM!  BOOM!  McNair opened his eyes, to see two of the five
creatures explode.  Then two more of them had their heads shot
off, and the last got off a shot at something above and behind
McNair.  Then a missile came in from behind McNair to demolish
the last Enforcer.
     McNair turned around, to see two armored individuals whose
silhouettes were, thankfully, recognizeably human, leap down from
the roof of Wells.  The two people were wearing blue
space-suit-like armor; one with smoking tubes on the forearms,
one carrying a gigantic smoking rifle; and some sort of strange
jetpacks that had--wheels?--on them.
     They raised the visors on their helmets.  They were both
young men, but the one with the large rifle appeared younger.
"I'm Lieutenant Martin Jackson, with the Science division of the
Robotech Expeditionary Force," the younger one said.
     "Pleased to meet you," McNair said dazedly.  "Robo-what?"
     "It's a long story," Jackson said.  "But one we don't have
time to tell you right now.  Listen, can you get on your radio
and call the National Guard, or whatever army you have in this
dimension?  You're going to need them."
     McNair looked back and forth from one to the other of them,
then promptly fainted.
 
 
 
Chapter 30: Learning to Fly...
 
 
     "...but I don't have wings..."  The song was playing in
Bio-Maintenance Engineer Barry Irrout's headset as he wrestled
with a recalcitrant computer servo-mechanism controlling unit on
the Ground Mobile Unit's main hangar doors.
     "...coming down..."  He ALMOST had it...He manipulated a
small screwdriver into place and tweaked a small lever ever so
slightly...
     "...is the hardest thing..."  Irrout's fingers slipped on
the screwdriver handle, the lever moved too far in the wrong
direction, and the huge hangar door came slamming down.  Irrout
barely managed to get out of the way in time.  WHAM!  The shock
reverberated throughout the entire vehicle.  Irrout tore off his
headset and threw down the Walkman in disgust.
     Ever since the successful Enforcer attack of a couple of
weeks before, Sgt. Irrout had worked nearly without cease, trying
to get the big ship combat-ready almost single-handedly (to his
mind).  His nerves were just about shot--he needed some sleep,
badly.  But he wouldn't let himself have it until he had made
sure that door would stop opening and closing unexpectedly.  He
just needed more tools.  Yes, that was it. More tools.  He walked
back in to one of the tool racks positioned along the side of the
large mecha bay.
     As he passed an Alpha fighter with an open cockpit, his ears
were assaulted by sound from its external speakers: "TO BE IN
LOVE...MUST BE THE SWEETEST FEELING THAT A GIRL CAN FEEL..."
Some joker had wired a CD player into the audio circuits of the
Alpha and was now blasting Minmei over it at a volume usually
reserved for head-banging music.
     "Will you SHUT THAT CRAP OFF?!!!" Irrout yelled irrascibly.
He didn't like Minmei; never had.  Her songs were always so whiny
and screechy!
     "Geez, Sarge!" muttered a young corporal who was playing
cards with one of his buddies on a makeshift table under the nose
of his plane.  He pulled out a small remote control, doubtless
co-opted from some worn out VCR, and aimed it at the head of the
plane.  The music stopped.  "Some people..."
     Sgt. Irrout ignored this and went on to get his tools.  If
he could just fix that door...
 
     The room was dark, then a door opened, admitting light into
the room.  A figure was silhouetted in the door, his arm reaching
to the left to hit the light button.  It was Joe Moore, the
Glitter Boy pilot.  He was wearing an REF flight suit he'd gotten
from the equipment lockers, however.
     This room was the small library of the GMU, the same one
which Dr. Thornton Smitty's assistant, Jack, had shot up shortly
before he'd slipped away.  The burn marks from that incident were
still on the walls.
     Moore walked over to one of the consoles and pulled out the
recordable CD cartridge he'd bought from the GMU's PX.  He shoved
it into a slot on the console, keyed in some instructions on the
keypad, and glanced at the screen.  It said BATTLE SIMULATION:
BELARRA FULCRUM."  Belarra Fulcrum, he'd found out, was a
little-known battle of minor strategic importance to the
Sentinels.  It was also one of the easiest victories they'd ever
taken.  Joe muttered, "Copy," even as he typed it in.  There was
a whirring of machinery that lasted for about thirty seconds,
then the green light that signalled he could remove the cartridge
now came on.
     Joe removed the cartridge and left the room.
 
     Corporal Felix Weidmann was now up and about.  Dr. Peltzer
had saved his life.  What was hard to live with was the way in
which he'd saved it.
     Weidmann now had this--this metal THING attached to where
his right arm had been.  It looked like an arm, save that it was
made of gleaming metal.  It acted like an arm, moving when he
told it to and grasping things just like a real arm.  It even had
a little bit of feeling in it, like wearing a heavy glove.  But
it WASN'T an arm!
     "We could have given you something that looked more like a
human arm, and had a little more feeling," Peltzer had said.
"But we figured that you would probably want the benefits that
come with a fully-bionic one more."
     Weidmann couldn't fault Moore, Peltzer, or any of the others
for saving his life.  He just wished he hadn't lost his natural
arm!  "Dammit," he muttered.  "I MEANT for the blast to strike me
in the chest, where my armor was thickest!  Then I would hardly
have been damaged at all, and Joe would have thought I'd saved
his life!" he told himself.  "I didn't mean to get my arm blown
off!"
     But Weidmann knew that wasn't true.  He'd knocked his friend
out of the way of a laser shot from an Enforcer and lost his arm
because of it.  He hadn't been thinking about where the beam
would hit him.  Now he was depressed about losing his arm.  He
had a right to be.
     In the course of his moping about, Weidmann had come up to a
vending machine set into the wall of the GMU.  He felt in his
pocket (his LEFT pocket...that was where he kept everything he
needed to feel to distinguish) for some change, inserted it in
the machine, and pressed the button for a candy bar.  The spiral
wire that held the snacks in place rotated, pushing the bar
off--but its wrapper got caught on the spiral, and held it there.
     "Oh, COME ON!" Weidmann said, banging on the glass front of
the machine in an effort to dislodge the bar.  CRASH!"  Without
realizing it, Weidmann had bashed with his RIGHT arm, which was
now halfway inside the machine.
     "The hell with it," Weidmann growled, smashing out more of
the glass and grabbing his candy bar, and a couple more besides.
"If I'm gonna be stuck with this thing, I might as well enjoy
it."
 
     Joe Moore sat down in the cockpit of the GMU's one mecha
simulator.  It had sat nearly unused here for months, as no one
had either the time or the inclination to use it during a
full-scale battle with the Invid.  When they were getting a
workout in battle while ON duty, why would they want to subject
themselves to more while OFF?
     Joe shoved the cartridge into a receptacle behind the seat
and touched the LOAD button.  The canopy closed over his head and
the blank panels in front of him opened to reveal Alpha Veritech
controls.  "Okay..." Joe muttered as the central commo screen
displayed the mission briefing.
     Invid were occupying a small Praxian settlement called
Belarra, and the REF was attacking from space at what computers
had determined to be the Invids' weak point.  The operation was
codenamed Belarra Fulcrum because of this.
     "Do you want to play as recruit, squadron leader, wing
commander, or operation commander?" a female computer voice
asked.
     "Might as well start at the bottom," Joe decided, touching
the "recruit" square.  Instantly the room darkened, the
holographic projectors came on, and Joe was catapulted into the
midst of space combat.
     As Joe learned the controls and started wiping out Invid
(and wiping out, himself), he thought about the Alpha fighter
whose simulation he was in. Sleek, compact, powerful, three or
four times as strong as his Glitter Boy...he wanted to fly one,
and if he just learned how it was done, maybe he could.  The old
Tom Petty song began running through his mind: "Learning to
fly..."

ROBOTECH/RIFTS CROSSOVER
 
By Chris Meadows
 
Chapters 31 through 53, and an Epilogue
 
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
 
DEDICATION:
 
This story is dedicated to Carl Macek, for making (or mangling,
depending on your point of view) Robotech; to the people at
Palladium Books (especially Kevin Siembieda, Alex Marciniszyn,
and Kevin Long) for their superior role-playing game products;
and last but certainly not least, to all the people on the
Robotech Mail Server at USCVM who asked for the story and then
helped me work the bugs out, especially Dave Deitrich.
 
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
 
A SHORT NOTE:
 
Okay, here's the final installment.  This includes Chapters 31
through 40, and the thirteen (fourteen, if you count the
Epilogue) chapters I wrote after that.	I'm putting them all
together so there's only two files to send; 0-30 and 31-54.
     More to come, after the Epilogue (no peeking, now!).
 
    cut here  cut here  cut here  cut here  cut here  cut here
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
 
 
Chapter 31: The Coalition Takes a Hand
 
 
     General Ross Underhill was sitting at his desk watching
footage on the viewscreen.  This footage had been confiscated
from Colonel Sebastian Mortifax, one of his underlings who had
since killed himself.
     Underhill wished that he could talk to Mortifax now,
interrogate him about the vehicles shown in these pictures.
Underhill thought he knew almost every robot and power armor on
earth by sight, but these he did not know.  And they were too
advanced to be new prototypes.
     As he watched a motorcycle become a suit of power armor and
smash three of the SAMAS armor units that he HAD thought were the
greatest ever made, Underhill knew that even though their design
was fundamentally human, these airplanes and motorcycles had not
come from this planet, or even this dimension.  They had to have
come through a rift.
     However, the pilots WERE human...perhaps they could be
bargained with...or tricked.  Ross HAD to have these machines!
 
     Underhill met with his subordinate, Colonel Thaddius Lyboc
of the Chi-Town Espionage Division.  Lyboc had contacts with half
of the city, and perhaps the contacts of those contacts had heard
about this force of robots passing through.  Of course it would
be dangerous to tell Lyboc TOO much...
     Underhill had a printout made of the giant vehicle the
robots were travelling with, waiting for a frame when none of the
robots was in the picture.  He gave this to Lyboc.  "I need you
to get in touch with your...friends, and see if any of them know
anybody who has seen this vehicle.  I need to know where it is.
It's probably somewhere to the south of us, perhaps heading for
El Dorado.  Wherever it is, I need to know immediately, is that
clear?"
     "Yessir," Lyboc said.  "I'll get right on it."  On his way
out of the office, Lyboc thought, Why do you want this thing so
badly, General?  If it's that valuable, maybe I should find it
for MYSELF...
 
     "...And that's when I stepped in and transferred the footage
to my office," Underhill finished.  He was addressing Emporer
Karl Prosek and his son Joseph II.  "Now all I know is this:
These strange new vehicles that change into robots appeared in
the southeastern sector of the continent, what used to be called
Florida or Georgia, about two months ago.  They've been
travelling northwest from there ever since.  They attacked one of
our field operations and delayed it long enough to rescue the
individuals we were trying to capture.  Then one of the
double-planes showed up at Kirksville when you were making your
appearance there, and destroyed the two Skull Transports that
were to pick you up.  This is apparently also when that fool
Mortifax noticed them.  He set up a network of Skull Transports
and robots to track the aircraft to its home base and deployed a
batallion of mechanized infantry to attempt to capture it.
However, he did not know that there were more of the planes, and
these other robots and power armor too, to thwart the Coalition
battlegroup."
     The Emporer nodded.  "And you believe that these robots are
extradimensional in origin?"
     "Yes, sir," Underhill said.  "I know every robot or power
armor currently made, and those are nothing like any I've ever
seen."
     "I see."  Karl Prosek rested his chin in his hands, deep in
thought.  "And you say their pilots appear human?"
     "Yessir.  As far as I could tell."
     "Hmmm.  Well, as soon as you discover their location,
dispatch an agent to the site.  Have him investigate.  If they
are human, we negotiate with them for acceptance into the
Coalition.  If not, or if they refuse, we destroy them."
 
 
 
Chapter 32: At SMSU
 
 
     Chris Meadows and Joe Moore had been drawn to investigate
the appearance of the Invid.  Leaving Chris's bike behind, they
carefully crept north from Craig, avoiding the Invid patrols that
now covered the landscape. As they got closer to Wells, Chris
said, "Look!" and pointed at one of the groups emerging from the
disturbance between Wells dormitory and Cheek Hall.
     This group consisted of two of the human-sized Invid
Enforcers, one Shock Trooper, and three humans.  And these humans
were definitely NOT Invid Royal Command Battloid pilots.  In
fact, they were wearing body armor and carrying energy rifles
that both Chris and Joe recognized as being from the Rifts
role-playing game!
     "What's going on here?" Joe wondered.  "Robotech Invid and
Rifts humans, together?"
     "Yeah, well unless I miss my guess that's a rift that
they're coming out of," Chris pointed out.
     "Tell me something I can't guess," Joe Moore replied.
     "Give me the shotgun and the 9 millimeter," Chris said.
"I'm going to see if I can find a human who's not wearing armor."
     Joe opened the radio (which he was still carrying with him)
and withdrew the weapons.  He pulled out the .38 revolver and the
.45 automatic for himself, and slung the boom box shell on his
back again.
     "Quick, get back!"  IMMKMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM;
Chris pulled Joe Moore   :/\:>>>Madison Street (One Way)>>>>>>>>:
back into the recessed   :||:   ZDDDDD?  ZDDDDDDDD?             :
doorway on the east side :N :   3Cam- 3  3 ZDDDD? 3 <- Wells    :
of Siceluff Hall, the    :o :   3pus  3  3 3    3 3             :
classroom building just  :r :   3Union3  3 3    3 3   ZDDDDDDD? :
south of Wells and to the:t :   @DDDDDY  @DY    @DY X 3Cheek  3 :
west of Cheek.  An Invid :h :Siceluff -> ZDDDDDDDD?   3       3 :
patrol walked by.        :  :            @DDDDDDDDY   @DDDDDDDY :
     "Whew!" Chris said. :  LMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMKMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM9
"That was too close."    :  : MAP OF WELLS AREA : X = The Rift  :
     "In here," Joe said.HMMJMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMJMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM<
"We'll go through Siceluff and come out by the Campus Union."
     "Good idea.  Let's try to get around north of Madison Street.
Maybe they'll be thinner up there and we can get a good shot at a
lone human."
     Chris and Joe made their way through, and came out the west
side.  They were yelled at for running, but managed to make it
without being stopped or their guns being noticed.  They ran
north, ducking behind a trash receptacle as some Invid walked by.
Then when they came to Madison Street, they noticed the giant
robot and two Cyclone Riders standing next to the police car on
the north side of the street.
     "This is shaping up like one of the stories you used to
write, Chris," Joe Moore said.
     Chris Meadows shook his head.  "If I were going to write a
Robotech/Rifts crossover story, I CERTAINLY wouldn't include
myself in it.  It would be laughed at as obvious escapism/wish
fulfillment through writing, and probably no one would read it."
     Joe shrugged.  "Well, come on, let's go over and greet them.
I've always wanted to see Cyclone Armor up close..."
 
     "So you see, I CAN'T call in the National Guard.  Only
governor Marshall Gordon can do that," McNair said weakly.
     "Then your dimension and a lot of your people are sunk,"
Jack said.  "They're probably carrying off prisoners right now."
     "But--but--"
     "That's a VR-052 Battler, and that's a VR-038-LT 38-Lite,
right?  Oh, and that would be a Triax X-500 Forager Battlebot,
wouldn't it?"
     "What?!" Jack and Lt. Martin Jackson said in unison, turning
around.  The person who had spoken was a college student wearing
a grey sweat suit, glasses, and a black, white, and yellow
bicycle helmet.  He was carrying a sawed-off shotgun and a 9mm
auto pistol, though he was pointing neither of them at anybody.
He had dark hair and some five o'clock shadow, indicating that he
hadn't shaved in a while.  Behind him was a shorter kid, with
brown hair and glasses, in blue jeans and a grey shirt.  He had a
couple of pistols stuck in his belt.
     "Who are you?" Jackson asked, unconsciously reaching for his
Gallant.  "And how do you know about our mecha?"
     "I read about it.  VR-052 Battler Cyclone, GR-97 forearm
missile launchers, GR-103 chest plate mini-missile launchers, the
whole works."
     "Read about it?  But--but--"
     Chris shrugged.  "I can't explain it either.  All I know is
that there is a Robotech cartoon series here, as well as a series
of Robotech novels and even a role-playing game.  And comic
books."
     "And how about my robot?" Sam Fort asked, leaning out the
hatch at the top.
     "There's a Rifts RPG, too," Chris's companion volunteered.
"I'm Joe Moore," he added as an afterthought.
     "Sam Fort," Sam said.
     "Lieutenant Martin Jackson, REF Science Division," Jackson
said.
     "Jack," said Jack.
     "Hey, wait a minute, Joe Moore," Jackson muttered.  "Don't I
know you?"
     "I don't think I've ever met YOU," Joe said.
     "Um, I notice the Invid are overrunning the campus," Chris
said. "Not that I don't mind, but don't you think we should do
something about it?"
     "What's this 'we' stuff?" Joe wondered.  "Isn't
Invid-fighting dangerous?"
     "Yeah, this isn't some game, kid," Sam said.  "Leave the
fighting to the professionals."
     "I am professional."  Chris worked the action on the
shotgun.  "Show me one of the guys without armor on, and I'll
show you just how professional."
     "Well, all right!" Martin Jackson said.  "Let's get to
work."
 
 
 
Chapter 33: New Hazards
 
 
     "Sir, the repairs on Section C-09 are complete," a corporal
reported to Captain Steele, and handed him a compu-clipboard.
Steele glanced at it, used the attached light pen to sign his
name to it, and handed it back.  "Good.  Get me a status report
on, uh, G-02."
     "Yessir."  The corporal strode out, and Steele sank back
into his desk chair, relaxing for just a moment.  Then he sat
back up again and pressed a button next to his computer console.
     "Yes, Captain Steele?" his secretary asked.  She was sitting
at a desk in the next room, helping him direct the repairs by
screening out all the requisition forms and status reports that
didn't require Captain Steele's attention or approval.
     "Do you have a report on the interrogation of the enemy
prisoners?"
     "Uh, just a minute, sir, let me check."  The sound of keys
clicking came through the open intercom link, and she said, "Uh,
yessir.  Shall I send it through?"
     "Yes, please.  That will be all.  Thanks."  He pressed
another button to terminate the communication as the data he had
requested started coming up on his screen.
     It looked bad.  The troops captured were recon troops, much
the same as Steele himself had once been.  They had admitted that
they had succeeded in sending back detailed pictures of all the
mecha and the GMU to their headquarters in Chi Town.  They had
been acting under the command of a Major Mortifax, who had
apparently been tracking the Alpha-Beta fighter dispatched to
pick up Dr. Peltzer.  It was likely that there would be more
attempts to capture Robotech mecha in the future, some of which
might be successful.
     "Great.  Just what I need, something ELSE to worry about."
Steele rested his aching head in his hands.  He'd been getting
very little sleep lately, and what with the worry of the Invid
attacks, the repairs to the GMU, and now THIS, he hoped he
wouldn't collapse before the job was done.
     BEEP!  "Sherelynn is here to see you, sir," the secretary
said.
     "Send her in," Steele replied, collapsing back into his
chair and closing his eyes.  He heard her footsteps as she walked
into the room and sat down at a chair in front of him.
     "You don't look so good, Captain Steele," Sherelynn said.
     "I just have too many problems I have to deal with right
now, and not enough sleep to do it with," Steele said.
     "Here, let me help you."  Steele felt her hand on his
forehead, then he suddenly felt a great deal better.
     "Hey, I feel a lot better now," Steele said.  "What did you
do?"
     "I just eliminated a few of the poisons in your blood," she
replied.  "But I came here to discuss some serious matters."
     "Oh?  What?"  Steele was all ears, now that his head didn't
ache anymore.
     Sherelynn leaned forward in her chair and propped her arms
on the desk, exposing a cleavage that would have paralyzed many
men.  As Steele was intimately acquainted with the body parts in
question, however, he only turned slightly red.
     "Oh, sorry," Sherelynn said, realizing his problem.  She
leaned back in her seat, which was much better for Steele.
     "Now," Steele said, "I believe you had something you wanted
to tell me?"
     "Yes, I do."  Sherelynn relaxed.  "In this dimension, there
are many areas that are greatly strong in magic.  These areas
have hundreds or thousands of ley lines running through them, you
see."
     Steele nodded.  "Yes, I do.  Go on."
     "If the GMU continues on its present course, it will pass
into one of the strongest of these areas on the North American
continent in just under twenty-four hours.  It's called The
Magic Zone."
     "Tell me about this magic zone," Steele said.
     "The Magic Zone encompasses the entire Missisippi-Missouri
river system and the land to either side of it.  There are
perhaps thousands of individual ley lines running among it.  You
can even see the glow at night, from hundreds of miles away."
     "Oh, so that's why the glow to the west has been so bright
for the last week or two," Steele realized.
     Sherelynn explained some more about the Magic Zone.  "You
say the Gateway Arch in Saint Louis is the center of it?" Steele
asked when she finished.
     "Yes," Sherelynn replied.  "When the rifts came, a huge
rift opened and fused with the Arch.  Unlike other rifts, it
seems that this one cannot be closed, no matter how hard the
magicians try.  From it, magic has spread up and down the entire
Mississippi River.  The whole thing is magical, and is full of
nexus points--places where two or more ley lines cross, and where
rifts are likeliest to occur."
     "And this is bad?"
     "Yes, very bad.  All sorts of demons and monsters could be
waiting there for us."
     Steele considered.  "Hmm.  This is all I need.  Well, then,
I'll put the entire GMU and all the forces on full alert for
tomorrow."
     "That would be good," Sherelynn said.  "I've travelled too
long with this vehicle, and with a certain individual on it in
particular, to want to see it destroyed in the Magic Zone."
     Sherelynn stood and stretched, causing Steele nearly to
suffer a heart attack.  "Could I come by your quarters later
tonight?" Sherelynn asked.  "I would like to...discuss some
things with you."
     "I would be delighted," Steele said.  "Come by around
2300, okay?"
     Sherelynn nodded.  "I'll be there."  She raised her arms
above her head, shimmered, and vanished.
     "I've never seen her do THAT," Steele muttered, getting back
to his work.  "I wonder how--Well, she IS a dragon..."
 
 
 
Chapter 34: Steele's Appointment
 
 
     Steele was not a little nervous at being summoned to Lt.
Col. Avery Bowaz's office, but he was more annoyed than nervous.
This call was interfering with Steele's duties in the GMU repair
effort (and more impartantly, with the late-night appointment he
had made with Sherelynn...), and he hadn't had more than two
hours of sleep in the last twenty-four hours.
     Steele pressed the DOOR OPEN button and walked into the room
when the door slid open.  As always, he marvelled at how sparsely
furnished the office was.  No carpet, no pictures on the walls,
not even anything on the desk other than the computer terminal
and a picture of Bowaz's late wife.  Steele was aware that Bowaz
liked to think of himself as a "warrior, like the Spartans of
old," but this was a little extreme, was it not?
     Steele sat down on one of the non-upholstered chairs in
front of the desk with a sigh.  "You wanted to see me, sir?" he
asked, closing his eyes and letting his head sink backward.
     Bowaz nodded.  "I know how hard this is on you, Remington,"
he said.  Steele opened his eyes and looked up.  This was the
first time Bowaz had used his private nickname for him since
they'd crossed over into this other dimension.
     "I don't know what you mean, sir," Steele said because it
was the response required by the military ethic.
     Bowaz shook his head.  "Oh, yes you do, and I do too. You
never could stand routine tasks.  You feel compelled to give
whatever you're doing your utmost attention, and when you do that
you always neglect yourself in favor of the work."  As Steele was
about to make another contradictory comment, Bowaz raised his
hand to silence him. "Now that's an admirable quality, if you
have the disposition for the kind of work you're being forced to
do. But you don't, not for this effort.  And that's why I'm
reassigning you."
     "Oh?" Steele asked.  "Sir?"
     Bowaz nodded.  "What I'm about to tell you must not leave
this room.  It would be devastating to the morale of our men."
     Steele nodded.  He was familiar with such restrictions. "Go
on, sir."
     "We're running out of missiles."
     Steele sat bolt upright.  "What?!  But why?!  How?!  Sir."
     Bowaz sighed.  "Apparently it's part of our mindset. We've
become too dependant on our missiles, and thus we use them to the
virtual exclusion of all else.  Indeed, missiles and the GU-XX
gun pod are the only weapons the Alphas and Betas are equipped
with."
     Steele nodded.  "And?"
     "When one of the clerks was doing a routine inventory, he
happened to calculate the rate at which we've been using
missiles.  And to put it simply, it is not good.
     "If we continue using up our missiles as fast as we have
been, our reserves will run out in about two more months."
     Steele listened calmly to this bombshell.  "What are we
going to do about this, sir?"
     Bowaz punched a button on the computer terminal and turned
it to face Steele.  On the screen was a map of their current
location, which included what had once been southern Arkansas and
western Mississippi.  "There is the city/state of El Dorado, an
ally of the Coalition."  He pointed to a small position marked on
the map.  "According to Sherelynn and Moore, this is a major
population center.  Here, we might obtain information about
whether we can get more missiles to function in our mecha or not.
And perhaps also find out more about the Coalition.  You will
take a Cyclone Cycle up there to try to find out about those
things."
     Steele nodded.  "And should I also look for information on
how we might get back home?"
     Bowaz raised an eyebrow.  "Why should we want to do that?"
     Steele was flustered.  "I thought that we--"
     "Yes, yes, that was my plan too, when I first found out what
had happened to us," Bowaz said.  "But now I have rethought our
mission."
     "You have?"  Steele was very tired, and this made him a
little slow.
     "Yes, I have," Bowaz said.  "The Robotech Expeditionary
Force liberates planets, does it not?  Well, here is a planet
that needs desperately to be liberated, though whether from
supernatural creatures or from tyrannical states, I do not yet
know.  In El Dorado, I hope we can find out just which side we
should be on, and then ally ourselves with it.  A grand cause,
don't you think?"
     Steele thought Bowaz had finally gone over the edge, but he
said, "Indeed, indeed.  When do I leave?"
     Bowaz turned the computer back toward him and punched
something else up.  "In two days.  We will be passing through
something called the 'Magic Zone,' and Sherelynn and Joe Moore
both concur that we will need every available man for this.  But
after we're safely past the disturbance, you will be free to go."
He pressed another key, then rose.  "I suggest you return to your
quarters and get some sleep.  You look worn out."
     Steele rose, too, and nodded.  "Yessir."  He saluted, Bowaz
said, "Dismissed," and Steele walked out, heading back to his
room and a rendezvous with a certain beautiful dragon.  He was
thinking about what Bowaz had said.  Was it indeed their
"mission" to take sides in the one huge battle that seemed to
rule this planet?  Or had Bowaz finally fallen victim to battle
fatigue?  Steele was too tired to concentrate on it at this
moment.  He would think about it in the morning, or at least
after he was able to relax a bit.
 
 
 
Chapter 35: Encounter in the Zone
 
 
     After making love that night, Sherelynn and Steele lay in
bed talking to each other.  Steele related his earlier encounter
with Lt. Col. Bowaz and finished with, "I'm afraid the pressure's
finally gotten to him."
     "What do you mean?" Sherelynn asked him.
     "He's always imagined himself a Spartan warrior," Steele
said. "His office, his living quarters, his demeanor all attest
to that.  It's just one of those little idiosynchrasies that make
us all different from each other. Or it was, until now."
     Sherelynn nodded.  Steele continued, "And now he's got this
grand vision of 'liberating' this planet from whatever ails it."
     Sherelynn shook her head.  "Far too much ails this world for
all the equipment you have here to do much good at all."
     "I know.  But he seems to think he can free this planet
almost singlehandedly," Steele said.  "I think he's finally lost
it."  He sighed.  "What am I going to do, Sherelynn? Take over
the GMU because he's crazy?  He is my superior, and he'd call it
mutiny, and rightly so."
     "You'll do what you think is right," Sherelynn said, rolling
over toward him and embracing him.  "As long as he doesn't
actively do anything to put the GMU in any danger, it's all
right, isn't it?"
     "Yes..."
     "So just watch him, and if he starts to do anything
dangerous, then you can take appropriate steps."
     "But by then it may be too late," Steele said.
     Sherelynn kissed him to cut off any further comments, and
they proceeded from there.
 
     As the sun came up the next day, they were on the bridge as
the GMU thundered on toward the Mississippi River and the
so-called "Magic Zone," which was visible to the west as a great
blue glow just beyond the horizon.  Steele was taking a turn in
the pilot's seat, and Sherelynn was sitting in the co-pilot's
station beside him.  Lieutenant Colonel Bowaz was absent from the
bridge.
     Steele watched the ground and air ahead of the GMU carefully
for any possible trouble.  He was aware that the Alpha fighters
were flying sweeps ahead of the Ground Mobile Unit, but you never
could be too careful.
     At the back of the bridge, the elevator doors swished open
and a Cyclone Rider stepped onto the bridge clad in full Saber
Cyclone power armor.  This wasn't unusual, of course; when there
had been enough REF troopers to staff the GMU completely, it had
been common to have two or three security officers in power armor
on the bridge, to guard against possible acts of sabotage, or
something like that.  But such officers were rarely seen on the
bridge any more.
     This Saber-clad soldier was followed by another person in
Cyclone armor, this a VR-052 Battler carrying the EP-40 40mm
pulse beam gun.  They slid their helmet faceplates up, to reveal
Cyclone Rider Felix Weidmann in the Saber, and Glitter Boy pilot
Joe Moore in the Battler.
     "Hello," Felix said, waving.  "We were bored, we heard that
we were going to be passing through this 'Magic Zone' thingie
shortly, and so we decided to come on up to the bridge and watch
from here."
     Steele grunted and turned back to the control board,
noting that Weidmann was beginning to sound once more like
he'd been before the loss of his natural arm.  "This is the
first time I've seen you in a Cyc since..."
     Felix nodded, then realized that Steele couldn't see him nod
and said, "Yes."  He shrugged.  "I just realized that it didn't
do anybody any good for me to mope around.  I've got this thing
on my arm and all the wishing in the world won't bring my real
one back, so I might as well live with it."
     Joe was just about to say something when a light on Steele's
display panel started blinking, accompanied by a beep.  His
fingers played over the touch-sensitive control board.  "Hmm.  We
seem to be reading some strange electromagnetic energy
fluctuations.  I set the science station to alert me to any such
anomalies.  Sherelynn, do you sense anything?"
     In the co-pilot's seat, Sherelynn brushed a lock of her
long, luxuriant white-blonde hair back from her face and closed
her eyes in an expression of deep concentration.  "Yes...it's
close, just over the next rise."
     Weidmann and Moore looked at each other, and flipped their
visors down over their faces as one.  The radar tech moved over
to the science station and hit some buttons. "I'm reading a very
high concentration of the energy form associated with ley lines,"
she reported.
     Sherelynn nodded, eyes still squeezed shut.  "It's a triple
nexus point--three lines crossing at the same point." She gasped.
"It's very powerful!  I can feel it...There could be trouble."
     "And it's almost high noon," Moore pointed out.  "Some
magical activity goes on at noon and midnight, doesn't it?"
     "Yes," Sherelynn said.  "That is true.  Not as much as at
sunrise and sunset, however."
     Steele directed a division of Cyclone riders to check it
out.  "This could just be a false alarm, you know," Steele said.
"I mean, how likely is it--"
     Sherelynn cried out, interrupting Steele.  "There's
something happening there.  I--I feel it!  A rift is
opening...and something is coming out.  Something horrible!"
     Felix Weidmann and Joe Moore ran for the elevator.  As its
doors closed, Captain Steele raised the throttle, then got up and
ran over to the weapons station.  He flipped switches and pulled
levers.  "Arming missiles," he said, grimacing as he did so.
"Arming main cannon."  The vibrations reverberated throughout the
entire ship as components slid apart, rearranged themselves, and
locked together again, permitting the rapid-fire laser cannon
atop the GMU to deploy itself for firing.
     Sherelynn rose, and whispered to Steele, "I am sorry, my
love, but you know why I must go."
     Steele nodded.  "Return safely."  Sherelynn ran from the
bridge, long hair streaming behind her.  Seconds later, the light
blue/white dragon that was Sherelynn's natural form passed
overhead, flying toward the hill's crest.
     A minute later, the GMU crested the hill.  Now Steele could
see the three intersecting ley lines, and the glowing bright
nexus point in the center.  And emerging from it was a monster
the like of which Steele had never seen before.
 
 
 
Chapter 36: Who'll Stop the Rift?
(With apologies to Credence Clearwater Revival)
 
 
     Explosions were becoming audible to Chris Meadows as he
peered around the corner of the Campus Union at an approaching
man with a laser rifle.
     "Are you sure this is a good idea?" Joe Moore whispered in
his ear.  "One shot from that thing and we're toast!"
     "Yeah, but one shot from this--"  Chris waved the sawed-off
shotgun.  "--and he's dog meat.  Now shhhh."
     The man came closer.  He was clad in green pants made from
some rough cloth, and a tan leather vest, no doubt home-made, and
his dark mustache and beard were not neatly trimmed. The only
thing high-tech about this person seemed to be the TX-11 laser
snipers' rifle he was carrying.  The gun resembled an automatic
pistol with a long barrel, a sniperscope, and a metal stock
attached.  Chris wondered how he'd come into it, then pushed the
matter from his mind.
     As the man turned the corner, Chris raised the shotgun and
pulled the trigger.  Ka-BLAM!  The gun bucked in his hands, and
the man went down in a spray of blood.
     Joe ran out from behind Chris and grabbed the rifle, now
slick with the man's blood.  Then he looked closely at what was
left of the man, and gasped.  Chris looked, and nearly fainted
himself.
     The shotgun blast, coming at point-blank range as it had,
had blown a hole right THROUGH the man--Chris and Joe could see
the red-stained sidewalk and grass through the man's corpse as it
lay on its back.
     "I think I'm going to be sick," Joe said, dropping the
rifle.  It clattered to the ground, and Chris picked it up.
     "Try to hold it in until I can get whatever e-clips this guy
has on him," Chris said, steeling himself against the task at
hand.  He reached to the man's belt and pulled off two of the
longer type of clips.  "Good, 40 shots right there.  Wonder how
many are in the gun itself...?  Ah, 17.  Good."  Then he turned
away and threw up on the sidewalk.
     "Feeling better?" Joe asked.
     "Yes, a great deal better, thanks."
 
     Lt. Martin Jackson, the REF field scientist who had come to
Rifts and from there to this world where the Invid were invading
the Southwest Missouri State University, looked around him from a
vantage point atop the SMSU Campus Union.  There were Invid
everywhere--and not a darned thing could he do about it.  There
were just too MANY of them!  If the entire REF force from the GMU
were here, THEN they might have a chance.  But as it was, it
would take the intervention of the National Guard (or some other
heavily armed squad) to do any good.
     Jackson hopped back down to Madison Street, where the
enigmatic Operator, Jack, and the robot pilot, Sam Fort, waited.
"They're still taking prisoners and marching back through the
rift with them.  We have to DO something."
     "But what?" Jack asked.  "There's too many to stop with main
force, even with all the weapons we have here."
     Sam pointed over to the west, where about five or six police
cars had driven up and the police were now beginning to cordon
off the area. "Look at that.  At least someone's doing SOMETHING
sensible."
     "And look at THIS," Chris Meadows said, running up with a
laser rifle in his hands.  Joe Moore was right behind him.  "Now
I can hit those Invid where it hurts!"
     "Don't make me laugh," Jack said mockingly.  "If one Invid
gets off a shot anywhere near you, you're parboiled."
     "Well, yeah, I'm still working on that one..."
     "As I see it, there's only one way to defeat the Invid
here," Sam Fort drawled.  "At least, if what I understand about
rifts is correct..."
     "Which is?" Lt. Jackson asked.
     "Close the rift."
     Jack snorted.  "Easier said than done, Fort.  Anybody around
here got a Shifter on tap?"
     "What if we killed the guy who is maintaining it?" Chris
asked.  "That might do it."
     Jack shrugged.  "Who can say?"
     "Count me in," Chris said.  "I've always wanted to see Rifts
in person.  Are you coming, Joe?"
     "Are you kidding?" Joe asked.  "My dad would KILL me!"
     "I really doubt that," Chris said.  "Isn't that him being
carried away in the grasp of that Invid there?"
     Joe grabbed Lt. Michaels' binoculars.  "Oh my God, you're
right, it is!  We have to save him!"
     "Okay then, it's settled.  Oh, by the way, Lt. Michaels?  I
think you might be interested in stopping by my room over in
Wells there, so we could pick up the Robotech RPGs and
videotapes.  I'm sure you'll want to take a look at them."
 
     Ten minutes later, all the stuff Chris wanted to take along
was in the luggage compartment of Sam Fort's TX-500 Forager
robot.  He left a short note to Mulcarro, his superior in the
agency that had been running the drug bust he'd been supposed to
help make, explaining his reasons for blowing it and suggesting
the use of anti-tank missiles against the Invid.  He also left
one to his parents, telling them that he had gone to another
dimension and might never be back.  Then he closed the door and
was gone from Wells, maybe forever.
     Shortly thereafter, they stood at Madison Street and looked
south toward the rift.  "Everybody ready?" Lt. Jackson asked.
     "Let's do it!" Chris replied from the passenger compartment
of the Forager battlebot.  He felt a little scared--he'd never
even SEEN a rift before, let alone passed through one.  Before
today, he hadn't even thought they were real!
     "Well, here we go," Chris muttered.  The robot and Cyclones
ran for the rift, and then they were through!
 
     On the other side, the interior chamber of the Invid Hive,
there was nobody, save two figures.  Most of the other Invid in
the Hive had been called away to other duties, leaving just the
one Enforcer that had let the humans in, and Tal, the rogue
Shifter who had opened the portal in the first place and now
maintained it through his strength of will.  Tal was not aware of
the Enforcer's presence, because of the immense concentration
required to maintain a dimensional portal so far from a ley-line
juncture. Zyjinn was helping him, by feeding in his immense
supply of psychic energy for Tal to focus, but it was still a
strain.
     And then the robot and Cyclone Cycles emerged from the rift.
Tal looked up, saw them, and gasped.  "No--wait!" he said as they
raised their weapons.  They fired.  Tal was engulfed in a huge
explosion.  The rift closed.
 
 
 
Chapter 37: Swallowed!
 
 
     Elsewhere, however, another rift was open that would have
been better closed.  The location was on the Magic Zone, just
east of the Mississippi river, where the GMU was passing through.
It had just crested the hill east of where the rift actually was;
and Sherelynn, Jason Weidmann, and Joe Moore the Glitter Boy had
all gone to help fight whatever it was that was emerging from it.
     And now, as Steele caught sight of it for the first time, he
wished he was elsewhere.
     It was almost indescribable.  It looked like a cross between
a worm and a snake, with a huge, gaping, toothy maw, two small
bulbous eyes, and four tentacles positioned equidistantly around
its circumference.  It was a dull brownish-grey in color.  And it
was GIGANTIC--as it parted its great jaws and emitted a roar that
shook the earth, Steele estimated that its mouth was at least 150
feet across!  It wasn't even all the way out of the rift, but
there was already about two thousand feet of it protruding.
     The Alphas and Betas were firing their missiles at it, the
Cyclones were aiming their guns, and Sherelynn was flying
straight at it and strafing it with her frosty breath, but none
of this was doing much more than annoying it.  Conscious of the
waste of missiles, Steele ordered, "Draw back!  Draw back,
everybody, and prepare for firing of the main cannon!"
     He moved over to the weapons console and prepared to slam
his hand down upon the red button to fire the main cannon.  But
not all the fighters had heard the orders to pull back.
Sherelynn continued diving at the gigantic thing and blasting it
with her breath.
     Then Steele watched, horrified, as the creature flicked out
a five-hundred-foot-long tongue at Sherelynn as she passed in
front of it.  The tongue wrapped itself around the bluish-white
dragon and drew back into the worm's mouth, taking Sherelynn with
it!  The creature swallowed, and a lump passed slowly down its
body.
     "No!!!" Steele yelled, leaping to the pilot's seat and
frantically pressing buttons.  The floor of the GMU opened
beneath him, and the hydraulic system attached to the pilot's
seat lowered the chair through the hole and to the ground in
front of the GMU.
     "Recon Alpha 39, land in front of the GMU immediately,"
Steele yelled into his radio mike.  As the requested plane came
to a stop on the ground, Steele pulled off his headset, jumped
out of the chair, and vaulted to the cockpit.
     "Out!" he yelled at the surprised young man in the cockpit.
     "But what--why--?"
     "Never mind, just get out!"  He nearly threw the man from
the cockpit, then sat down himself and punched the controls for
takeoff.
     "Uh, Captain Steele, we still await firing of the main gun,"
someone said over the radio.  Steele irritably turned it off.
     "All right...let's hope I can get this right," Steele
muttered, aiming the plane right at the worm's mouth.  Shoving
the throttle full forward and keeping a careful hand on the
controls, Steele passed right between the worm's teeth and down
its throat.
 
     Now that he was inside, Steele pulled back on the throttle
and converted to Guardian.  It was dark here, so he flipped on
the spotlights.
     He was in a kind of a tunnel, a hundred and fifty feet in
diameter, that continued downward.  Its walls were pink tissue
that faded into darkness up and down.  "Hold on, Sherelynn!" Steele
yelled over the PA system.  "I'm coming!"  He pulled back on the
throttle and the Veritech descended into the darkness.
     It was nearly a thousand feet down before the tunnel ended,
in a pool of greenish slime.  Several gigantic skeletons floated
in this muck, as did a struggling blue and white dragon.
     "Help me!" Sherelynn called up to Steele.  "I'm stuck in
here, and sinking fast!"  Even as she spoke, Sherelynn's
hindquarters slid deeper into the mire.  She struggled against
it, but all that did was make her sink faster.
     Steele lowered the plane to within a few feet of the surface
and said, "Grab the mecha's hand!"  He extended the Guardian-mode
Alpha's right arm to Sherelynn, who took hold of it with her
foreclaws.  "Okay, now hold on tight!"  Steele shoved the
throttle forward and tried to lift the dragon out of the grasping
mire.
     It was no good--Sherelynn's weight, combined with the
tenacity of the muck, prevented his lift from having any effect.
Then Steele had an idea.  "Can you change to human form?"
     "Yes!" Sherelynn said.  "I'll try that!"  Still holding to
the mecha's arm, Sherelynn began to change.  She grew smaller,
and her features melted and ran into a more human configuration,
ripping free of the green mire as she did so.  In just a few
seconds, the dragon had reformed into a human, now held securely
in the Alpha's right arm--covered with green slime, but otherwise
okay.
     "Now I'd better get us out of here."  Captain Steele checked
the Alpha's missile indicators.  There were 40 left.  "Hold on
tight--I'm going to try to blast a way out."  He selected a spot,
targeted it, and fired all 40 missiles, groaning inwardly at
having to deplete further the GMU's already waning supply.  The
concussion, especially in the confined space, was deafening, but
it had the desired effect--a hole, fully 40 feet wide, was blown
in the worm's side.  Steele flew out of it, Sherelynn still in
hand.
     But this wasn't the world he'd flown into the worm from!
This place had three orange suns and a pink sky, and the land as
far as he could see was a solid mass of 150-foot worm segments.
"Hey!  Where's the GMU!"
     It was Sherelynn who caught on.  "Above us!"  Captain Steele
looked up to see a glowing spot in the sky, from which the worm
he and Sherelynn had been swallowed by was slowly falling.  It
was the rift they'd come through!
     Sherelynn shifted to dracoform and flew up toward the rift.
Steele followed, and they both passed through as the worm fell
out.  Instants later, it closed beneath them.
     Steele set down on the ground, opened the cockpit, and
climbed out.  He walked over to the GMU, where the pilot seat was
still extended to the ground, sat down in it, and raised it back
up to the cockpit.
     "Someone else take over for me," he said.  "I'm going to my
quarters."  He left the bridge, a little shaky but still under
his own power.
 
 
 
Chapter 38: More Troubles in the Magic Zone
 
 
     Steele collapsed onto his bed in something of a state of
shock.  Not fifteen minutes ago Sherelynn the ice dragon, the
woman he had fallen in love with, had been swallowed by a
gigantic worm from a rift, and Steele had commandeered an Alpha
fighter to go in after her.  Now the adrenalin rush had faded,
leaving him utterly exhausted.
     Then Sherelynn, in her human form, emerged from the small
adjoining shower, a towel wrapped around her body and another
around her head.  She sat down on the bed next to Steele.  "Thank
you for rescuing me," she said.
     "It's just the standard fairy tale, you know," Steele
replied.  "The handsome young hero comes to the aid of the damsel
in distress."  He grinned.  "Only this damsel happens also to be
a dragon, whom young damsels are usually rescued FROM.  We're
getting the fairy tales all mixed up here, aren't we?"
     Sherelynn chuckled softly.  "Very true," she said.  She
removed the towel from her head and let her still-damp hair fall
free.  Even wet, it remained untangled and beautiful.
     "You look very..." Steele started, then stopped because he
couldn't find the words.
     "Thank you, Steele."  Sherelynn let the other towel drop,
and Steele reached to the light switch and darkened the room.
 
     Their interlude was interrupted a half-hour later by the
buzzing of the intercom.  Steele hit the audio only button.
"Yes?"
     "Recon has sighted more alien creatures ahead of us," the
female radar tech from the bridge said over the 'com.
     "Describe them, please," Steele said, rolling out of bed and
pulling on his trousers.
     "Body of a horse, and a spiny reptillian neck and head, with
a set of clawed arms.
     "A melech," Sherelynn whispered, too low for the intercom
mike to register.  "Ask how many there are."
     "How many are there?" asked Steele, slipping his shirt on.
     "About twenty or thirty."
     "I'll be right there."  He snapped the intercom off, slid
into his boots, and pulled on his gunbelt with Gallant H-90 and
rifle stock attached.
     "They're totally evil beasts," Sherelynn said, reaching for
her leather jerkin.  "They derive pleasure from torturing and
mutilating others.  They must be destroyed."
     "Well, we'll see what we can do," Steele replied, opening
the door.
     Ten minutes later, Steele and Sherelynn strode onto the
bridge.  "What's the approximate location of the melechs?" he
asked.  "The alien creatures, that is."
     "About two miles northwest of us, sir," the radar tech said.
"I'm getting pictures now."
     "Twenty or thirty of them shouldn't give you any trouble,"
Sherelynn said.  "Even that many would be easy prey for one or
two of your armored Alpha fighters."
     "They seem to be attacking a party of humans," the radar
tech said as the pictures came up.  They were obviously taken
from an overhead Recon Alpha.  They showed a herd of the strange
creatures surrounding a group of about six humans, some mounted
on horses, others on foot.  The monsters had many of them on the
ground and were striking relentlessly at them.
     "We have to help them!" Steele said.  "Recon Alpha, attack
immediately.  Rescue those under attack.  Also, Cyclone squadrons
to the following coordinates.  Cyclone squadrons to the following
coordinates."  He gave the designation for the area under attack,
then nervously sat down in the chair to wait.
     The picture veered crazily as the mecha taking the
photographs swooped in for the attack.  In split-second glimpses,
Steele saw several melechs down, and others being hit by
missiles.  "Bring any casualties to the GMU for medical
treatment," Steele added as an afterthought.
     "Roger.  We have some incoming now."
     "I'll meet you in the mecha bay."
 
 
 
Chapter 39: Escape from the Hive
 
 
     "Which way now?"
     "Don't ask me, I'm not an Invid tour guide!"
     Thus went the conversation between Jack the Operator and Lt.
Martin Jackson as their Cyclones and the Forager robot ran down a
tunnel in the Invid Hive, with pursuing Invid mecha not far
behind. Shortly after they had blasted the Shifter who was
keeping the rift open, they had encountered a group of angry
Invid who apparently wanted to avenge his death.
     There were about 20 of the Invid Troopers, whose sole
armament was their razor-sharp steel claws, devastating at
close-range.  There were ten or so Shock Troopers, exactly like
the Troopers save that they mounted heavy plasma cannons on their
shoulders, which they were firing a great deal now.  There were
two Pincer Command Units, the larger mecha that mounted dual heat
cannons on their shoulders, powerful enough to blast a hole in a
street.  And there were five Invid Scouts, smaller versions of
the Invid Trooper.  And they were all hot on the group's heels.
     "Do something!" Joe Moore yelled over the radio link.  "I
don't want to end my life as Invid road pizza!"
     "Shut up, Moore, you're not helping much," Jack shot back.
     Chris grabbed the laser sniper's rifle he'd picked up back
at SMSU.  "I'm not just going to sit here doing nothing."
     "What are you doing?!" Joe asked.
     Chris climbed the ladder to the gunner's hatch at the top of
the robot and opened it.  "Laying down a little suppressing
fire."  He aimed the rifle and let off a few shots.  Most went
wild, but one penetrated the sensor eye of one of the Shock
Troopers, which fell backward, causing more of the Invid to trip
over it, and more to trip over them.  "All right!" Chris whooped,
climbing back down inside.
     "That won't hold them for long, though," Sam Fort said.
     "Let's try down this side passageway," Lt. Jackson decided,
swerving around and racing off.  Jack and Sam Fort followed.  The
tunnel twisted and curved, but showed no signs of getting any
closer to an exit.
     Then the Invid squad that had been chasing them showed up in
front of them.  The Troopers and Pincers raised their weapons to
fire...
     "Stop!" a modulated voice shouted.  A lone Enforcer had just
stepped out between the Invid and the group.  "Your orders are
countermanded.  Return to the Central Chamber to await further
instructions."
     The Invid lowered their weapons, turned, and marched off,
leaving Jackson to say, "Well what in the--?"
     "Why did you save us?" Jack asked.
     The Enforcer turned to them.  "Follow me.  I will show you
the way out on one condition."
     "And that is?" Jack asked suspiciously.
     The Enforcer floored them with its response: "That you take
me with you."
     Lt. Jackson gasped.  "But why?"
     "I must speak to your superior."
     "Should we trust it?" Jack asked over the radio.
     "I've never known any Invid to behave like THAT," Chris
Meadows volunteered.
     "It could be a trap," Joe Moore suggested.
     Lt. Jackson shook his head.  "That Enforcer could have just
let those Invid kill us.  We owe it our lives.  The least we can
do is go along with what it says."
     Jack shrugged.  "Okay.  Into the jaws of death we go..."
     So the group followed the Enforcer, and it led them past
further Invid interference to the exit, and deactivated the force
field so that they could pass through.
     "I can't belive this," Chris muttered, looking back through
the hatch at the Invid Hive.  "This is actually Rifts we're in.
And that's a real Invid Hive.  Never thought I'd see one of
those."
     "Quit babbling," Sam Fort suggested.  Chris took his advice
and sat back down in the passenger seat.  "How long 'till we get
to the GMU?"
     "At least a couple of weeks," Lt. Jackson replied,
"depending on how far they've managed to travel by now.  But
we'll get there, don't worry."  And have I got something to show
them, the field scientist silently added.
 
 
 
Chapter 40: More and Different People
 
 
     Steele and Sherelynn stood at one of the doors to the mecha
bay, observing the people they had just rescued before going in
to talk to them.  They were already surrounded by a crowd of
curious on-lookers, and Steele'd had to request a squad of
Cyclone Riders to keep the crowd back.  The group was composed of
six people, mostly humans.  They had left their horses outside,
under Cyclone guard.  Two of these people were wearing flowing
robes over body armor, and one was followed by a wolf.  "Those
are Shifters," Sherelynn whispered to Steele, pointing them out.
"They are the ones who manipulate the rifts--open and close them,
et cetera."
     "Perhaps we should talk to one of them about getting home,"
Steele said.
     "Perhaps they might be able to help," Sherelynn agreed.
"But I doubt it."  Then she pointed to a third figure, this one
dressed in what appeared to be a World War I airplane pilot's
ensemble--leather helmet, jacket, gloves, and breeches, goggles,
long silk scarf, and polished black boots.  He had some sort of
rifle slung over his shoulder, and a sword at his belt.
     "Who IS this guy?" Steele wondered.
     "He's a Techno-Wizard," Sherelynn said.  "Remember, I told
you something about them earlier."
     "Oh yes, the people who combine magic with machines."
Steele shrugged.  "That's something I bet Sgt. Irrout, the
bio-maintenance engineer, would like to take a look at.  But what
in the world is THAT?"  He gestured at a--CREATURE--that stood
erect like a man, and had hands like a man, but it LOOKED like a
German Shepherd!  Its body was covered with brown fur, and its
face was that of a dog.  It wore a kind of loose-fitting plate
armor, and there was some sort of a long claw-type device on its
left wrist.  It also had a sword and a pistol at its belt.
     "That's a 'Dog Boy.'  The Coalition makes them.  They're
mutations of dogs, like something out of that book by the
Pre-Rifts author, Wells, I think he was--THE ISLAND OF DR.
MOREAU.  They turn animals into people, and use their special
psychic abilities to hunt down supernatural and magical
creatures, like myself.  They're as smart as people, they use
weapons the same as people--but the Coalition refuses to treat
them that way."  She grimaced.  "They treat them like pets, like
animals.  And they accept that, for the most part.  Just one more
reason why I hate the Coalition."
     One member of the group was made entirely of gleaming metal.
It looked like something out of an old vid Steele had seen--THE
TERMINATOR was the name of it.  "And that's a, uh--"
     "Full-conversion 'borg," Sherelynn supplied.  "Someone who's
had just about everything but his brain replaced with metal
parts."
     "Ugh," Steele said.  "Can't imagine why anybody would WANT
to do that."
     The last person Steele looked at was the leader of the
group.  This man's chest was covered in gleaming metal, but other
than that he seemed completely human.  He wore a sword at his
belt, and had an old hunting rifle slung across his back.
     "That's a Cyber-Knight," Sherelynn whispered.  "They are the
roving champions of the land, seeking out evil wherever it may
lurk and destroying it.  That metal on his chest is a form of
armor that most Cyber-Knights have implanted."
     "Sounds like my kinda guy," Steele muttered.  "Let's go talk
to 'em."
     Steele and Sherelynn made their way through the crowd to
where the group of adventurers stood at the end of the mecha bay.
As they got closer, they were able to see that Dr. Peltzer, the
cyber-doc they'd picked up in Kirksville to help Felix Weidmann,
was bandaging some large gashes in the Dog Boy's leg, and some of
their other medics were tending to one of the Shifters.
     As Steele and Sherelynn walked up to them, the Dog Boy
straightened up, turned, and pointed at Sherelynn, muttering
something to one of the Shifters.  The Shifter nodded, and Steele
let his hand drop to the butt of his Gallant for a few seconds,
looking the Dog Boy straight in the eye.  He wanted no
misunderstandings, and he thought the best way was to make things
clear from the beginning.
     The Dog Boy nodded back, a look of understanding in his
eyes, and Steele relaxed.  He turned to face the Cyber-Knight.
"Hello.  I'm Captain Steele of the Robotech Expeditionary Force."
     "I am Sir Peter de la Tere, of the village of Morganstern,
not far from here," the knight responded, offering his hand.
Steele took it.  "I thank you for saving us from those melechs."
He shuddered.  "I hate those creatures."
     "It was the least we could do.  See someone else in trouble,
we just have to help out."
     De la Tere looked around.  "I have never seen a vehicle such
as this."
     "It's a new model, from a company that's just started up,"
Steele prevaricated.  "We're, uh, field-testing it.  The same
goes for those motorcycles and airplanes."
     Sir Peter nodded.  He could probably see through the lie,
Steele reflected, but he was courteous enough not to indicate it.
"I see.  Well, we must be on our way, then.  Who knows what
creatures might have come upon Morganstern without us there to
protect it."
     Steele nodded.  "See you around."
     As they turned to go, the Techno-Wizard said, "Hey, Sir
Peter, I would like to stay here for a while."
     "Eh?  Why's that?" the knight asked.
     "I would like to take a closer look at some of these amazing
machines.  That is, if Captain Steele doesn't mind."
     The knight shrugged.  "If Captain Steele doesn't mind, very
well.  You know the way back to Morganstern."  And with that he
led the rest of the group down the ramp to their horses.  They
mounted up and rode off, leaving the magician standing alone in
the mecha bay.
     "Captain Steele, I'm Michael Fosser," the man said, offering
his hand.  Steele took it.  "I'm good with machines, and so-so
with magic."
     "It's nice to meet you, Michael," Steele said.  "If you
don't mind, I'd like to ask you a few things..."  Steele, Fosser,
and Sherelynn walked together toward an exit.  Steele hoped Lt.
Col. Bowaz wouldn't object to having yet another guest aboard the
GMU.

Chapter 41: El Dorado
 
 
     A week after the Techno-Wizard had decided to stay with the
GMU, two motorcycles pulled up on a hill overlooking the city of
El Dorado, Arkansas.  Steele had to admit, it didn't look very
pretty.  There were a few gleaming buildings in the center, but
most of it was the slums and poor areas called "'Burbs,"
stretching out across the land like a cancer.
     "Not very pretty, is it, sir?" Felix Weidmann asked Captain
Steele.  The two Cyclone riders were letting their engines idle
and had shoved the faceplates of their helmets up to get a better
look.
     Steele shook his head.  "Not pretty at all.  But it's the
best chance we have of finding out whether or not we can purchase
replacement missiles for our mecha."  Over the course of the
southward journey, Steele had confided in his young subordinate
the dire predicament that the GMU found itself in.
     "From what Joe Moore's told me, that place is a regular
rogues' gallery, full of people who will sell you anything if the
price is right."
     "You've been reading too many espionage novels," Steele
chided.  "Still, I have to admit that I've seen places I liked
better."
     "Well, then, sir, let's go."  Weidmann reached up and tipped
the visor down.  He revved the engine.
     "'Ride, boldly ride,'" Steele quoted, closing his own
helmet.
     "What's that, sir?" a puzzled Weidmann asked.
     "It's a quote from an old John Wayne vid about a town by the
same name," Steele replied.  "From a poem.  I forget the whole
thing, but the line that most stuck in my mind was, 'Ride, boldly
ride, if you search for El Dorado.'"
     "I guess we've found it, then," Felix Weidmann replied.  He
popped a wheelie.  "Race you to the bottom!"
     Steele grinned.  "You're on!"
     As the two riders raced off, they completely failed to
notice the nearby figure in camouflage-painted Coalition "Dead
Boy" armor raising a radio to his lips.  "They're on their way.
Let's take 'em."
 
     The two Cyclone cycles pulled up at the entrance to El
Dorado.  There was no gate here, just a gradual increase in the
amount of small buildings until it became a town, of sorts.
Steele, on his customary VR-041 Saber, looked around him at the
normal scenes of life in the 'Burbs.  Here, a small child played
half-naked in the dirt.  There, a couple of rebellious-looking
youths wearing leathers and tatoos toted MAC-10 submachine guns.
There were people just lying in the streets half-conscious, and a
few corpses leaking redness into the gutters.
     Weidmann, whose Cyclone Battler Cyclone mounted an EP-37
60mm Beam Cannon rifle in addition to its mini-missiles, looked
around nervously.  Something just didn't FEEL right, but he
couldn't put his finger on it..."Let's go on, okay sir?  I don't
like the feel of this place."
     "Yeah, neither do I," Steele replied.  "It's just too
squalid for my taste.  Let's head up that street there.  It seems
as good a place to start as any."
     The two motorcycles turned the corner and moved up a small
roadway.  Here, conditions were a bit improved.  This street was
lined with small shops, and there were battered-looking vehicles
and people moving slowly up and down it.  Steele and Weidmann
pulled up in the middle and let their bikes idle.  "That looks
like a weapons shop," Steele said, pointing.  "Shall we take a
look?"
     "Sounds good to me, sir."  Felix looked around warily.
"Maybe I'd better stay with the Cyclones."
     "That's a good idea, Corporal," Steele said.  They drove the
bikes to the side of the road.  Captain Steele climbed off his
Cyclone, took off his helmet, and went into a nearby shop.
     At the end of the street, a man in beat-up Huntsman body
armor raised a radio to his lips and said, "They're here.  One
inside, one out.  Stand by to move in."
     On top of a building across the street, a Coalition grunt
setting up a C-27 heavy plasma cannon, replied into his helmet
mike, "They won't get away."
 
     Inside the shop, Steele was commiserating with the owner and
examining the selection of weapons when he happened to glance out
the window.  He then noticed he was staring right down the barrel
of a heavy energy weapon mounted on the roof across the street,
with a Coalition soldier standing beside it.  Steele snatched up a
folding-stock, submachine-gun-style laser rifle and slapped a
clip into it.  He swung around, raising the gun to his shoulder,
and fired through the shop's window up to the opposite roof,
before the manager or his assistant could raise a hand to stop
him.  As the now-dead Coalition trooper pitched forward off the
top of the roof, Steele threw down some of the Coalition currency
Sherelynn had given him and said to a shocked store owner,
"Shoots straight, nice rate of fire...I'll take it."
     Grabbing another E-clip, Steele charged out through the door
and mounted his Cyclone, pulling on his helmet as he went.
"Something's wrong!" he yelled to Weidmann.  "Let's get out of
here!"  The Cyclones threw dirt as the two riders revved them up,
turned them around, and prepared to head out.
     But as they turned, they saw they were being cut off!  Four
tri-thruster civilian hovercycles with armored, rifle-toting
roughnecks were roaring down the road.  Steele thought rapidly.
They could have stood and fought, but he didn't want to injure
any civilians.  "We have to take the fight elsewhere!" he called
to Weidmann.
     "I understand.  Let's go!"  So the bikes spun around once
more, and raced forward, this time for the interior of the city.
They were followed close behind by the hoverbikes, which were
hard on their tails.
     The Cyclones and hovercycles raced crazily through dirt
streets, startled pedestrians scrambling for cover.  The superior
maneuverability of the Cyclones stood them in good stead on this
crazy pursuit, even against hoverbikes.
     Then the 'Burbs were behind them, with the city proper
ahead.  There was a 30-foot-tall wall around it, with a steel
gate in the middle.  The gate was closed and locked, and two
troopers with laser rifles were assuming kneeling positions to
fire.
     Steele thumbed a button on the handlebars, and the thrusters
on the back of the Cyclone kicked in.  The motorcycle took off,
leaping the wall with room to spare.  Weidmann followed suit, but
so did the hovercycles.  Without worry or perturbation, Steele
noticed the laser blasts spashing the road and walls around him.
Fired wild from the back of the hoverbikes, almost certainly, and
they would not have much chance of hitting.
     Now the Cyclones moved between buildings that were newer and
in better repair than in the 'Burbs outside.  These were large
and dark, and had spray-painted graffitti all over them.  There
were more pedestrians, who were leaping out of the way as before,
but there were also armored police officers with laser rifles.
Steele wasn't worried; the bikes were moving too fast for any but
the luckiest of shots to have hit them.  However, the presence of
these armored individuals was severely limiting their escape
routes.  In fact, Steele got the feeling that they were being
deliberately herded, a feeling he didn't like at all.
 
     Colonel Thaddius Lyboc, along with two skeleton-armored
troopers of the Coalition, watched the pursuit through binoculars
from the roof of a nearby building.  He had been so curious about
why Underhill wanted that mobile vehicle that he had come down
here himself, slipping out without Underhill's knowledge.  Or so
he thought, at least.  Underhill could be tricky, and it was just
like him to keep an eye on his subordinate, even this far away.
     It was Lyboc who had recognized the motorcycles from
intelligence reports two days ago.  It was Lyboc who had
orchestrated the ambush that was supposed to capture the
motorcycles and their riders, or the motorcycles at the very
least.  It was Lyboc who had the most to gain.
     So Lyboc watched and waited as the city's police officers,
working in conjunction with Coalition forces, worked to herd the
two motorcycles toward the trap arranged for them, right beside
this very building.  "Just keep coming," he exhorted the two
bikers whose interrogation he was beginning to look forward to as
he did all interrogations.  "Keep coming."
 
     The two Cyclones roared through the town's back alleys, past
old dumpsters and old winos.  As they weaved in and out through
all the debris, one of the dumpsters ahead and to the left of
Steele exploded under the impact of a missile from one of the
pursuit bikes.  "This is getting serious!" Weidmann yelled.  "And
I'm going to take the next opportunity to take some of the heat
off."
     "How are you going to do that?" Steele asked, dodging a
trash can.  Weidmann didn't answer.  Instead, he acted.
     Just past the end of the alley there was an aquaduct, where
the local Mississippi river tributary passed through the town,
with a small bridge over it that the alley led into.  Instead of
taking this bridge, however, Weidmann turned and jumped into
space, splashing down into the river as Steele passed over the
bridge.  Even as it splashed down, Steele could see Weidmann's
Cyclone beginning the series of changes that would result in the
dramatic conversion to Cyclone power armor.  He knew that by the
time it was submerged, the change would be complete and
Weidmann's weapons deployed.
     Steele raced on.  Looking over his shoulder, he could see
two of the hoverbikes slowing to a halt to investigate this
sudden disappearance.  Weidmann would surely be able to take care
of them.  Then he turned a corner and they were out of sight.
     Steele jumped one more dumpster, avoided fire from more
troops, then turned into another alley.  Then he saw that he'd
been trapped.
     Running across this alleyway between two buildings  were
about four large pipes, probably gas or water mains.  They were
low--there was only about four feet between the bottom of the
pipes and the street.  It wasd too late to jump, and he knew he
couldn't stop in time to avoid slamming into the pipes.
     At times like this, Steele was thankful for the astounding
maneuverability that Cyclones had.  Because of the psychic bond
between pilot and Protoculture-powered mecha, a Cyclone even in
motorcycle mode could do some pretty amazing things.  Steele
leaned the Cyclone over to the right, jerked the handlebars to
the right, and went into a skid.  To his pursuers, it looked like
he was skidding out of control to avoid hitting the pipes.  But
Steele had something else in mind entirely.
     As the Cyclone skidded closer and closer, Steele leaned over
further and further, until his elbow was almost scraping the
ground, all the while imaging precisely what he wanted the bike
to do.  It responded eagerly and willingly.  Steele slid closer
and closer to the pipes, and then UNDER them, his head missing
the lower pipe by bare inches!
     The instant Steele felt the pipe pass over his head, he
slammed down on the mechamorphosis switch on the right handgrip.
1.4 seconds later it was no longer a motorcycle skidding over the
ground, but a suit of powered armor!  Steele rolled over three
times, then came up smoothly, the laser rifle he had purchased at
the weapon shop firmly in hand.  He boosted up into the air, just
as the two hovercycles were coming up over the pipe.
     As the two bikes passed overhead, Steele had a perfect shot
at their underbellies.  He emptied the laser rifle into one of
the hovercycles, then extended the special vibro-blades in the
Saber Cyclone's arms and stabbed them into the other.  Both
exploded satisfactorily.
     Then the plasma blast flashed by Steele's side.  He turned,
and saw three Coalition-armored troops standing on the roof, one
with a heavy rifle of some kind and another with a bazooka.
"That was a bad move, Dead Boy," he said, using the slang for
Coalition troops that arose from the way their armor resembled
skeletons.  This time the nickname was remarkably apt, Steele
thought.
     "Don't just stand there!  Kill him!  Kill him!" Lyboc
shrieked.  The two Dead Boys tried, but before they could fire
another shot the two panels on the front of the converted
motorcycle's chest flipped open, inundating the building they
were on with mini-missiles.  Then the building was gone.
 
     Ten minutes later, Captain Steele and Corporal Felix
Weidmann met back at the 'Burbs, at their pre-arranged meeting
place.  Steele hadn't had much trouble getting out of town, and
neither had Weidmann.  "How did it go with your pursuers?" Steele
asked.
     "They were stupid, sir," Weidmann replied.  "They came right
down above the water, looking for me, and it was easy enough to
put a couple of missiles right through their engine blocks.
After that, they weren't very concerned with finding me, oddly
enough."
     "I wonder why," Steele replied, grinning.  He chuckled.  "I
haven't had this much fun since the Carbonara campaign."
     "What did you find out in the weapons shop?" Felix asked.
     "Not too much."  Steele unslung the laser rifle from his
shoulder and tossed it over to Weidmann.  "I got that."
     Weidmann snatched it out of mid-air and raised it to his
shoulder, sighting down the barrel.  "Nice weapon," he said
admiringly.  "Good balance, nice weight...how does it shoot?"
     "Very well," Steele said.  "Has all the earmarks of a
technology that's been making these things for decades, not just
a handful of years like us.  We could probably learn a few things
from weapons like this."
     Weidmann nodded.  "Did you have time to see anything else?"
     Steele sighed.  "Yes, and I'm afraid that what I saw wasn't
encouraging.  I'm no weapons EXPERT--we should have brought Sgt.
Irrout, come to think of it--but all the guns show signs of a
technology that evolved very differently from ours.  I have
serious doubts that we'll be able to find missiles that will be
compatible with our launchers."
 
 
 
Chapter 42: An Arrival, and a Deal in the Making
 
 
     For most of the troops back at the GMU, the next couple of
weeks passed uneventfully.  Glitter Boy Joe Moore played chess
with Sherelynn, until she disappeared a couple of days into the
second week.  Dr. Thornton Smitty, Sgt. Barry Irrout, and the
technowizard, Michael Fosser, helped each other work on repairing
the remaining damage from the Invid attack of several weeks
before.  Dr. Peltzer, the cyber-doc who had saved Felix
Weidmann's life, sat in the CD library reading up on obscure
medical and technical journals.  Lieutenant Colonel Avery Bowaz
reread one of his favorite books on Patton.
     Then, on the fourth day of the second week, a Cyclone and a
giant robot showed up at the clearing occupied by the GMU. They
were challenged by the Destroids and Alphas on guard at the time,
but the rider of the Cyclone turned out to be Lieutenant Martin
Jackson.  He requested to see Lieutenant Colonel Bowaz,
immediately.  The meeting took place in Bowaz's office.
     "Young man," Bowaz began, "you are in serious trouble.  You
stole one of our Cyclones, and went gallivanting all over the
place without orders.  Do you realize that--"
     "Sir," Jackson interrupted, "that is not important.  What IS
important is that the Invid are growing stronger and may try to
take over this world, much as they did our own."
     "What?" Bowaz asked.  "You've seen this?"
     "Yessir.  And more."  He gave a brief account of his
adventures--how he had met the robot pilot, Sam Fort, how they
had infiltrated the Invid Hive and met Jack, how they had gone to
the other dimension, met Joe Moore the high school student and
Chris Meadows, and brought them back into this world.  He omitted
any mention of that dimension's Robotech cartoon.  Then he told
about the Invid Enforcer who had saved their lives.  "We had a
pretty uneventful journey back," Jackson concluded.  "We hid at
night to avoid demons and monsters, avoided areas of high magic,
and picked up the GMU's trail from where we left.  We followed it
up through the Magic Zone, all the way out to here."
     "What about the Enforcer, and Jack?" Bowaz asked.
     "We hid the Enforcer out in the woods, with Jack guarding
it, before coming in," Martin Jackson replied.  "Didn't want
anybody getting the wrong ideas and shooting first/asking
questions later."
     "I see, I see.  I would like to talk to this Enforcer as
soon as possible.  And to Chris Meadows and Joe Moore, also."
Bowaz went to his desk and took out his Gallant H-90 rifle.  As
he broke it down and stowed the components in holsters and
sheaths on his utility belt, he said, "But first the Enforcer.
I'll get my Cyclone and you can take me out to where this Invid
is..."
 
     Meanwhile, the Forager Battlebot piloted by Sam Fort had
parked itself in front of the GMU's mecha bay off-ramp.  Seargent
Barry Irrout, the bio-maintenance engineer, was thoroughly
fascinated and had come down to see it, accompanied by Dr.
Thornton Smitty.  Chris Meadows and Joe Moore climbed out the
hatch and down the rope ladder to the ground.  "I can't wait to
take a look inside that GMU," Chris said."
     Barry gawked at Chris's younger companion.  "Aren't
you--isn't that--?"
     "My name's Joe Moore.  Who are you?" Joe Moore asked.
     "What an astounding coincidence," Dr. Smitty murmured.  He
touched his wrist-comm.  "Say, Joe?  I think you should come down
here."
     A figure appeared at the head of the tall GMU mecha bay
ramp.  It was the Glitter Boy pilot Joe Moore.  He was dressed in
his Glitter Boy pilot suit, oxygen hoses hanging loose from
behind, laser pistol secure in its shoulder holster, the number
13 painted on its right chest.  "Yeah, what do you want?"  He ran
down the ramp.  And then stopped dead in his tracks.  "Hey, what
the--You're me!"
     "I'm what?" the younger Joe Moore asked.
     "Me!"  The Glitter Boy pilot pulled off his helmet,
revealing a face similar to the younger Moore's.  "I'm you, but
from another dimension!"
     The high school Moore stared, stunned.  "I can't believe
this!" he said at last.  "I'd NEVER be a Glitter Boy pilot.  I
would have become a Techno-Wizard."
     The older Moore shrugged.  "I tried that.  Didn't work.  I
just didn't have the knack."
     Chris Meadows could only stare as the two Joe Moores,
conversing excitedly together, walked up the GMU ramp.  "Say,
Joe, why don't I show you how to operate my Glitter Boy?  It's
really easy, and if I can learn to do it, you can learn to do
it..."
 
     The two Cyclone cycles pulled up in the clearing.  One was a
small light blue VR-038-LT, on which rode the field scientist,
Lieutenant Martin Jackson.  The other was a dark grey VR-041
Saber, carrying none other than Lieutenant Colonel Avery Bowaz.
Both men wore CVR-3 armor, and both had Gallants at their hips.
     "Okay, we're here," Jackson yelled.  "Come on out, guys."
     An Invid Enforcer stepped out of the forest, followed by a
VR-052 Battler with its EP-37 rifle/cannon at the ready.  "Okay,
you wanted to talk to him," Jack said to the Invid.  "Now talk."
He didn't completely trust the Enforcer, and had his weapons
always ready whenever he was around it.
     The Enforcer walked up to Bowaz's Cyclone and stopped.
"Greetings, human," it said.  "I used to be as humanoid as you.
I was Bort, the commander of the Invid Hive that is now in this
dimension.  But then the scientist Zyjinn, whom I had sent to
study the phenomena known as ley lines, mutinied.  Using powers
gained through his studies of these lines, he usurped command of
the Hive and changed me into--into this form you now see me in.
     "You must help me regain control of my Hive--Zyjinn is
insane.  He plots to take over this world, then the Invid race,
then the entire universe."  The Enforcer neglected to mention
that, as Bort, he had been planning to take over the world
himself.  "If I can get back in control of my Hive, I can put a
stop to this insidious scheme."
     Bowaz nodded.  "Mmm-hmm.  But what's in it for us?"
     This set the Invid aback.  "The end of Zyjinn's rule, of
course."
     "But we could kill you AND Zyjinn, and put a stop to it that
way," Bowaz replied.  "What would we gain by doing as YOU
request?"
     The Enforcer thought a moment, then found the solution.  "I
know that these vehicles of yours run on Protoculture.  I can
sense it.  But your supplies of Protoculture WILL run out in
time.  If you help me, I will supply you with enough Protoculture
to meet your needs."
     "Now we're talking," Bowaz said, grinning.  "Just what
exactly would you need us to do...?"
 
 
 
Chapter 43: A Fight in a Bar
 
 
     Steele sat in a small bar in the El Dorado 'Burbs, spending
a little more of the Coalition scrip Sherelynn had given him.
It'd been a long time since he'd had a good beer, and judging
from the fare available here, it would probably still be a while.
But it was cold and wet, and quenched his thirst.  He was
considering ordering something stronger, when someone sat down on
the stool to his left.  He turned and looked, and saw a beautiful
woman with long white-blonde hair and a light complexion.
     "Sherelynn," he said, surprised.  "What's a beautiful girl
like you doing in a place like this?"
     "I just came down to see how you were doing.  A pint of your
best ale, please!"  The latter sentence was directed at the
bartender as she laid a gold coin on the bar.  "And one for him,
too," she said.  The bartender drew two tall foamy mugs from
beneath the counter and set them down on the bartop.  Steele
scrutinized the coin, and estimated that the bartender could
afford to serve everyone at the bar and still come out ahead.
     "How I'm doing is not good," Steele said, sipping from the
glass.  "I've been to every weapons and robot dealership in the
'Burbs, and none of them seems to have anything that would be
compatible with Robotech mecha."
     Sherelynn nodded, downing half of the contents of her mug in
a single gulp.  Not very ladylike, Steele reflected, but
certainly dragon-like.  As she wiped the foam off her mouth, she
said, "I have to admit, that is really what I expected.  Many of
the weapons systems here are much more advanced than your own."
     Steele nodded, taking another pull at his drink.  "This
stuff is really good," he said.
     "Pretty expensive, too," Sherelynn said, "but I can afford
it.  I drink here whenever I'm in the area."  She finished off
her drink, and called for another.  The bartender hastened to
comply.  Steele stared.
     Noticing his look, Sherelynn laughed.  "A bit of advice for
you, Steele," she told him.  "Never try to outdrink a dragon."
     "I'll remember that," Steele pledged.
     They drank awhile in silence.  As Sherelynn was on her third
mug, and Steele finishing his first, she asked, "So where is
Weidmann?"
     "He's looking into a few cyber-clinics."  Steele gulped the
last of the ale and slammed the mug down onto the bar.  "He wants
to know what's available.  It's risky, what with the ambush the
other day, but it's his own time."
     Sherelynn choked on her ale, spraying it all over the
counter.  "What did you say?  An ambush?  When was this?  What
happened?"
     Steele described the little trap set up on the previous day.
"Must have been the Coalition, right?  Anyway, we haven't had any
trouble since then."
     Sherelynn shuddered.  "Someone in the Coalition is out for
blood.  They want your mecha, your weapons, whatever information
they can get from you."  She stood from the stool.  "I think we
should get out of town as rapidly as possible."
     "Okay..."  Steele stood, and they started to walk toward the
exit.  As they neared the door, two shadowy figures rose from
their tables and pulled knives.  Sherelynn moved into a defensive
position, and Steele drew his own blade, a K-BAR-type combat
knife that had seen him through many a rough fight.
     The figures moved in.  Steele wished he'd worn his CVR armor
into the bar, though that would have been considered unusual at
best.  "Come on, bring it on!" he yelled as the two assassins
split to take them on one-to-one.
     Steele's combatant didn't waste any time.  His blade flashed
down in a stroke that would have spitted Steele if he hadn't
moved aside in time.  Steele's left hand swept down in a knife
stroke that caught the assailant in the kidney.  Then he dropped
to the floor for a quick leg sweep that knocked the enemy to the
ground.
     However, this man knew martial arts too.  He recovered from
the fall by rolling backward and coming up on his feet, knife at
the ready.  He lashed out again!  Steele parried with his own
knife this time, and watched as the blade broke off with a
jarring snap.  "What the hell--?"  Steele dropped the now-useless
handle and assumed a defensive position.
     The attacker came at him again, knife hand extended.  This
time, Steele was ready.  Carefully avoiding the blade, Steele
grabbed the man's arm and twisted it around, catching hold of his
shoulder in a submission hold.  The knife fell from the
assassin's fingers and stuck in the floor up to the hilt.
     Sherelynn had handled her assailant, albeit with the use of
a bit more force.  She had managed to break the man's knife arm,
at the cost of a couple of slashes from the blade.  As her wounds
healed up, Steele looked at the knife stuck in the floor with new
respect.  It took a very powerful weapon to damage a dragon.
     "Who sent you?" Steele asked his prisoner, forcing his arm a
bit farther back.  "Come on, talk!"
     "N-nobody."
     Steele pulled his Gallant H-90.  "You're going to talk, or
you're going to die."  He shoved the man forward through the bar
doors, pausing only to pull the blade from the floor.  "What is
this thing, Sherelynn?"
     "Vibro-blade," the dragon-woman replied.  "Very powerful.
One slash would have done you in."
     "Hmmm.  Nice little toy."  He pressed the button on the side
of the hilt to turn it off and stuck it in his K-BAR's sheath.  A
perfect fit.
     In the light, Steele could see that the attackers were
wearing dark clothing and ski masks, much like the Ninja
assassins of old.  He prodded the uninjured attacker with his
Gallant.  "Move.  Around the back of that building there."  He
motioned to Sherelynn to follow him.
     In back of the building in question was a rather large
clearing, about 60 feet wide.  "You two, get right over here," he
said to the two men.  "Up against that wall."
     He nodded to Sherelynn.  "No one else is around," he said.
"Let's put a scare into these two, eh?"
     It didn't take long for Sherelynn to guess what he meant.
"Yes, let's.  Stand back, Steele."  She walked out into the
center of the clearing and reverted to dragon form.  It was a
remarkable thing to watch.  One instant she was a ravishing lady;
the next she was a terrifying dragon.  The two cried out in fear,
but then shut up resolutely.
     Sherelynn turned to them and walked up to where they were.
She opened her mouth and let loose a roar that could probably be
heard for miles.  The assassins cowered against the wall.
     "I think she's a bit hungry, don't you?" Steele called out
to the two men.  "Now which one of you wants to go first, eh?"
     "I--I'll talk!" the one with the broken arm said.
     "Me too!" the other one yelled.  "Just don't let that dragon
e-eat me!"
     Sherelynn growled softly.  "Then tell us what we want to
know," Steele said.  "Who hired you?"
     "We don't know!" the uninjured one said.  "The deal came
through the gang, same as usual!  We don't know who hired us!"
     "That's the wrong answer, pal," Steele said.  "Okay, Sher,
do what you will."
     The dragon's head reached down.  Her jaws opened, and she
took the one with the broken arm screaming into her mouth.  She
closed her jaws.  Steele shuddered.  "Now, who hired you?"
     "It was Lyboc!" the remaining assassin half-screamed.  "He
wanted us to kill you and take your bikes to him."
     Sherelynn lowered her head and deposited the other assassin
unharmed on the ground.  She then changed back into human form.
"Let's go.  I don't think we'll have to worry about these two
anymore."
     As they walked along the sidewalk a few minutes later,
Sherelynn spat into the road.  "People like that always leave a
bad taste in my mouth," she said.
     "For a while I thought you'd actually--swallowed him,"
Steele said.
     "What?  Don't be ridiculous.  I don't eat humans," Sherelynn
replied.  "Now let's get out of this crazy town before anything
else happens!"
     "All right."  Steele started pulling on his CVR-3 armor.
"We'll wait for Weidmann just outside of town."
 
 
 
Chapter 44: The Heist
 
 
     "Invid Squadron reports full ready, sir," the female radar
technician on the bridge of the GMU told Lt. Col. Bowaz.
     "Good, good.  Order them to stand by for takeoff."  Bowaz
turned to the Invid Enforcer, who was standing nearby.  "And you
say this plan of yours cannot fail?"
     "I have made a study of ley line energy of my own, with the
help of your techno-magician, Michael Fosser.  I am confident
that if you get me to the nexus located near the Hive, I will
succeed."
     Bowaz nodded.  "Very well, then.  Report to your position
aboard the Beta fighter that is to carry you to your destination.
And--I never thought I'd be saying this to an Invid, but good
luck."  The power source for all our mecha is riding on this, he
added silently.
 
     Elsewhere in the ship, other troops were making preparations
to join Task Force Invid--surreptitiously, as it were.
     Joe Moore the Glitter Boy (whom everyone had started calling
Joe Moore One to avoid confusion with the other Joe Moore), Joe
Moore the high school student (called Joe Moore Two for the same
reason), Chris Meadows the college student, and Michael Fosser
the Techno-Wizard had become fast friends, a fairly close-knit
little group that did things together.  However, Joe Two often
worried about his father, captured by the Invid during the foray
into their dimension.
     "Are they going to rescue him or what?" Joe was often heard
to mutter when he thought no one else was listening.
     And then this top secret operation commenced--called Task
Force Invid or something like that.  No one would talk about it,
but it was quite clear that all or most of the GMU's Veritech
mecha would be mobilized for this mission.
     Both Joe Moores were quite nervous about this.  "If they're
going to free the Invid slaves, I wish they'd TELL me," Joe Two
had said about a hundred times over the next few days.  Finally,
Michael Fosser had used his powers of telemechanics--the ability
to comprehend and communicate with any type of mechanical
equipment, which Jack also had and had used during his previous
stay at the GMU--to find out exactly what was going on.
     What he had found was not good.  When he told the others in
a small conference room in the GMU, this is what transpired:
     "I can't believe this.  Can you believe this?" Joe Two said,
throwing his hands up in the air and pacing around.  "They're
going to put this Invid guy back in command, and not doing a
thing about the Protoculture slaves?"
     "Worried about your dad?" Chris asked.
     "HELL no," Joe replied.  "It's just the injustice of the
thing...all those innocent people, captured from our world and
forced to work here--"
     "Right, right," Fosser said.  "But what are we going to do
about it?"
     "What CAN we do?" Joe One asked.
     Fosser turned on him.  "Well, YOU can pilot an Alpha, can't
you?"
     "I THINK I can," he answered.  "But it's only in the
simulator.  I've never logged any actual flight time."
     "But you have over 300 hours on the simulator, right?"
Fosser pressed.
     "Well, yes," Moore admitted.
     "Good.  That's problem number one out of the way: how we're
going to get there.  That also covers problem number two:
preventing anybody from noticing our abrupt departure.  Now,
problem number three: how to get our hands on a Legios unit just
before takeoff."
     "Hey, whoa," Chris Meadows said.  "I think you're getting
ahead of us here."
     "Okay."  Fosser sat down at the head of the table.  "Here's
the plan."  Fosser outlined an amazing scheme.  They would steal
one of the linked Alpha-Beta fighter planes (otherwise known as
Legios) just before the mission was to commence.  They would fly
with the rest of the fleet to the Invid Hive, but would break off
shortly before the attack.  They would go into the slave pens,
free them, and proceed from there.
     "So what do you think?" Fosser finished.
     "I think it's going to take a miracle to pull it off," Joe
One said unbelievingly.
     "Good.  Then we'll do it," Joe Two said.  And that was that.
     So now they were going to put their plan into action.
Everything was in position.  First, it was Fosser's job to delay
Alpha-Beta unit KG-44's takeoff.  Fosser had fixed this up in
advance, during a maintenance check of the unit the day before.
He had planted a magically-modified electronic component in the
Alpha's main computer banks.  Now, he activated it.  Every single
electronic system onboard the Alpha and the Beta shut down.
     Now Fosser, dressed in mechanics' coveralls, ran out
makeshift airfield carrying a tool kit and a ladder.  "You'll
have to get out!" Fosser yelled up to the cockpit.  "I have to
get into the cockpit to fix your computer!"  At the same time, he
planted a hand firmly on the side of the Alpha, telemechanically
searching for the cockpit release.  He soon found it, and the
canopy started lifting.
     "But I--" the CVR-armored pilot began.
     "But nothing," Fosser said.  "Bowaz wants this plane in the
air immediately.  I have to get this thing fixed or Irrout'll be
in trouble with his superior, and I'll be in deep guacamole.
Comprende?"
     "Uh, right, right."  The confused pilot climbed out, and
Fosser climbed in and started dismantling the control board.
Actually, he only took the main access panel off and pretended to
be fixing things--his function was to occupy the cockpit until
Joe One could get in.
     The techno-wizard looked around.  It seemed to be about
time...He pulled out a small ruby and concentrated.  It glowed
briefly, and Fosser knew that its sister-stone, in Joe One's
hand, would also be glowing.  He put it away.  The signal was
sent.
     Now a small forklift-type vehicle came out onto the field,
followed by a larger flatbed truck and a Battler Cyclone in power
armor mode.  Joe Two was at the wheel of the forklift, Chris
Meadows drove the truck, and Joe One was in the Cyclone.  They
were also dressed in maint workers' coveralls, and Moore Two was
wearing a false mustache.
     Joe One waved to the cockpit.  Fosser gave him the
traditional thumbs-up "high sign" and directed a thought toward
activating one of the other functions of his techno-magical
component.  The Beta fighter's bomb bay swung open.
     "Okay, go, go, go!" the Cyclone pilot yelled.  The forklift
moved under the Beta, and the Cyclone jumped up inside and
started handing down bombs.  The forklift took them and deposited
them on the truck.
     The Beta pilot came back into the bay.  "Hey, now, what's
going on here?" he asked.
     "It's a new maintenance procedure," Moore replied, handing
down another bomb.  "We gotta remove all the bombs before doing
computer work.  They're afraid a short circuit could set them off
or something."
     "Why wasn't I informed?" the pilot asked.
     Joe shrugged.  "Don't ask me, I just work here."  He lifted
another bomb and passed it down.
     "But I should have--" the pilot protested.  Joe turned on
him.  "Look, do you think I like it?  It's a whole lot more work
for me, and I HATE working with hazardous--with EXPLOSIVE
materials!  But I'm just doing my job, so if you wanna bitch at
someone, go bitch at Irrout.  HE's the one in charge, NOT me."
Joe turned back to his task, leaving a silent Beta pilot in his
wake.
     When he was finished, Joe yelled down to the truck, "Okay,
move out!  And be careful not to drop any of those, you hear?"
The forklift also moved off, but not as far.  Joe Two jumped down
from the forklift, carrying a toolkit.  He ran back to the Beta.
"Hey, hey!" he yelled.  "Let me in there!  There's an important
adjustment I have to make."
     Joe One tossed the rope ladder down, and Joe Two climbed up
it.  He put his tool kit down and opened it.
     "Can I see your helmet please?" Joe One asked the Beta
pilot.
     "Huh?  Oh, sure."  The pilot took it off, and handed it to
Moore.  As he did so, the other Moore took a monkeywrench from
the tool kit and slugged the pilot on the back of the head with
it.  THUD!  He dropped like a rock.
     "Great.  One to go," the younger Joe Moore said.  "I'll drag
this one up to the cockpit for now."
     "Right.  I'll get the other one."  He jumped down to the
ground and pointed to the Alpha pilot.  "Hey, you!  I need to see
you in here!"  He jumped back up into the now-empty bomb bay, and
the pilot climbed up the ladder.  "Can I see your helmet,
please?"  THUD!
     Now Joe One convered the Cyclone back to motorcycle mode and
climbed off.  His CVR armor was identical to that the pilot was
wearing.  With his visor down, no one would know the difference.
Meanwhile, Joe Two was stripping the armor off both of the real
pilots, and getting into one suit himself.
     Joe the Glitter Boy pilot climbed down from the bay, ran out
to the side of the Alpha, and touched his finger to his
wristwatch, their prearranged signal.  Michael Fosser closed the
access panel and cast the final spell to reactivate all the
Legios systems.  "All ready, sir.  I'd better go make sure the
bomb bay is all right."  He climbed out, and Joe Moore climbed
in.
     Now the flatbed truck came rolling back out onto the field,
without the bombs this time.  It did carry a couple of the large
canvas sacks that Beta bombs were often carried in, however.
     It pulled up beneath the Beta, and the younger Joe Moore,
now in the Cyclone the older Moore had discarded, climbed down to
pick them up.  Once inside the bomb bay, however, the sacks
turned out to contain not bombs, but additional Cyclone cycles,
folded up in their cubical storage mode.  They were rapidly
removed and stored, and the unconscious bodies of the pilots
(given powerful sedatives from the Beta medical kit to insure
that they stayed that way) were stuffed in the sacks and lowered
to the truck.  It was then driven off the field, and its driver,
Chris, came running back out.  Chris climbed into the bomb bay
just after Fosser, and started pulling on the CVR-3 armor
belonging to the other pilot.
     Fosser got on the Alpha-Beta intercom.  "All right, we are
go.  I only hope no one noticed four mechanics come out, but none
go back."
     "They're all too busy with their own planes to notice,"
Chris Meadows said, pulling his helmet on.  As it turned out, he
was right.
 
     "All Veritech fighters, you are go for take-off.  Lock your
computers on the following compass headings and get ready to go."
     All the Veritech fighters engaged their thrusters and
launched into the sky.  This included the Legios unit piloted by
Joe Moore.
     "All right, we're airborne!" Joe Two whooped.
     "Yeah, but what are we going to do when we get there?" Chris
Meadows asked, checking the action on the laser sniper's rifle he
had obtained on the college campus and had smuggled into the
plane (along with all their other weapons) in Joe's toolkit.
     "Whatever we can," Fosser replied.  "Whatever we can."
 
 
 
Chapter 45: Where Invid Rule
 
 
     During the weeks that the GMU spent camped by the Magic
Zone, the Invid continued to move toward their plan of world
domination.
     "How goes the labor in the fields?" Zyjinn asked his
chief lieutenant, one of the Invid Enforcers he had mutated into
humanoid form before his successful bid to knock Bort from the
throne.
     "The humans are restive, but they work," the man reported.
"None have attempted to escape since we made an example of those
last two humans who tried."
     "Good...I knew that was a stroke of genius on my part.  Go
and ensure their continued loyalty."
     "Yes, my lord."  The Invid left the room.
     "It looks like things are going well for you, Zyjinn," the
human standing beside the throne said.
     "Yes, Tal," Zyjinn replied.  "Even though your portal was
closed and you very nearly lost your life, our foray into that
other dimension gained us more than enough workers to complete
the harvesting on our first experimental Protoculture fields."
     "But you will soon need more workers, am I correct?" Tal
asked.
     "How do you read my mind like that?" Zyjinn asked.
     "A simple trick, made possible through the monstrous amounts
of magic that surge around and through this planet.  But I assume
I am correct?"
     "Indeed, Tal, you are.  We must have more workers for our
expansion."
     "Then we shall open another portal.  Might I suggest the
same dimension?  Their armed forces seem to be quite inadequate
to the task of defending against your Invid hordes."
     "A very good idea, Tal.  Very good."
     "This time, however, I think we shall open it elsewhere than
here," Tal said.
     Startled, Zyjinn asked, "Oh?  What do you mean?"
     "I mean that it is too much strain to open a portal here.
We must do it at one of the three nexus points located nearby."
He indicated a crude map he had drawn on the floor.  "Any of
these three would do.  I will be able to keep it open virtually by
itself, thus leaving the bulk of my magical energies free to do
other things.  You know that my teleport to safety the last time
was a very close thing."
     Zyjinn nodded.  "There is sense in what you say.  We shall
locate our rift in THAT nexus."  He indicated one of them with
his foot.  "It is very close to our slave holding pens, so we can
transport the prisoners there with a minimum of effort."
     "Very good...And what if your enemies, the Robotech forces,
should show up?  We will need guards."
     "We shall have them.  Be assured, I can handle anything less
than the Regis herself."  And soon even that, Zyjinn thought.
     Tal chuckled to himself--he had caught the unvoiced
assertion at the end, and knew that he had caught himself a
rising star for sure.  And he was going to ride this one all the
way to the top.
 
     Meanwhile, the Invid Regis nervously considered the problem
of the small extra-dimensional Hive as she dwelled in her vast
main Hive on some undisclosed planet.  She had not had contact
with it for many days now, and was beginning to believe that it
had been destroyed.  It was no great loss, true--it was
expendable, and had been from the very beginning--but it was
puzzling.  If it had been destroyed, surely she would have felt
it.  Wouldn't she?
     But there were other matters on the Regis' mind at the
moment.  There was the puzzling disappearance of hundreds of her
Invid mecha.  As much as she had been trying, she could not make
contact with them.  Yet they had not been killed--just vanished.
Perhaps the two were somehow connected...?
     The Regis turned her attention back to the planet Earth of
her own dimension.  Strange new Robotech mecha had been showing
up there recently, and it was a mystery to her where they were
coming from.  It was beginning to look like she might have to
return to the planet to handle the problems herself.
     And the great mysterious wheel of Life rolled on...
 
     Tal and Zyjinn stood in the center of the great glowing
globe that was the nexus.  Together they concentrated, and from
their concentration a small disturbance in the fabric of space
and time appeared, and grew, and grew, until it was a gigantic
hole through which buildings could hazily be seen.  "Yes!" Tal
crowed.  "The Portal is open!"
     Then Zyjinn sensed a disturbance.  "Something is wrong.  I
will have my Invid check it out."  He mentally dispatched a
flight of Shock Troopers toward the source of the disturbance.
"I'm sure it is nothing of consequence.  Let us proceed!"
 
     About forty miles to the north of the nexus point, above
another, stronger nexus, one of the Betas opened its bomb bay
doors.  Out of it fell not bombs, but an Invid in the Enforcer
power armor.  Its rear thrusters fired, stabilizing it and
letting it land in safety.  It watched the Alphas and Betas
continue south for a moment, then turned and walked into the
glowing blue nexus.
     The Enforcer stood in the exact center of the area, threw
out its arms, and all the armor fell away.  Revealed was a rather
ugly-looking creature that was only humanoid in that it had two
arms and two legs.  Its torso terminated in a snake-like neck
with a flat triangular head at the end, and its arms and legs
were thick and muscular.
     "Mother Regis!" the Invid called out, "hear my cry!"
Blue lightning crackled around his body as he raised his hands in
supplication to the sky, sending the mental message with all his
might.
 
     In another dimension, the Regis gasped.  A mental signal of
astonishing clarity was coming in.  And she recognized--yet also
did not recognize--the sender!
     "Who are you?" she sent back.
     "I am Bort!" the reply came.  It was one of her children,
and it seemed almost like Bort's mental pattern--but this was
from a Stage 4 Invid, and Bort was one of the humanoid Stage 5!
     "Impossible!" she sent back.  "Bort is higher evolved than
you!"
     "It is true, Regis," the reply came.  "I am Bort."  And the
Regis could sense no duplicity in the signal.
     "Then what has happened to you?" the Regis asked, and waited
for the answer in a state of nervous anticipation.  Was there
some unforeseen flaw in the evolutionary process that caused
Invid humanoids to revert to their previous state after a certain
amount of time?  What had gone wrong?
     "It is Zyjinn's doing!" came back the faint reply.  "He
discovered a source of great power in this world and used it to
devolve me and usurp the throne, and to summon many Invid
brethren from our own dimension.  He has turned against me,
against the Hive, and even against you."
     "Impossible!" the Regis replied, but knew in her inner self
that it must be so.  It explained many things.  The failure of
the rogue Hive to acknowledge her mental reachings was due to
Zyjinn's mental signal blocking.  She had thought that the Regent
had been the only other one capable of such a feat, which was why
she had not suspected it.  And the disappearance of all her
children had been due to Zyjinn summoning them--again, a feat
that only the Regent was able to perform.
     "Mother, I ask you to lend me your power.  Grant me my
rightful form once again, and give me the ability to destroy
Zyjinn and his human sorcerer companion that I might again rule
the Hive for the greater glory of you and the Invid race!"
     A sudden fury went through the Regis.  How DARE Zyjinn usurp
her prerogative like that?  How DARE he devolve one of HER own
children?  That rage empowered her to break through the barrier
between their dimensions for long enough to transfer her power
into her outcast child.  Then, drained of much of her strength,
the Regis lapsed into an unconscious state that lasted many days.
 
     The Stage 4 Invid stood within the nexus point as lightning
gathered around it.  More and more lightning surrounded it, and
then a great crimson bolt from the heavens struck down and
transfixed the creature.  As that lightning burned, it grew
taller and slimmer, until it was at last a man!
     Bort raised his head and his eyes opened.  The anger on his
face made it strongly resemble the Regis' as he cried out, "At
last!  I am whole, once more!  Now Zyjinn and his minions shall
FEEL MY WRATH!"  Lightning again transfixed him, and he was gone.
 
 
 
Chapter 46: Dealing With the Coalition
 
 
     Inside the tiny security stockade of the GMU, several
Coalition Intelligence officers were incarcerated.  They were
brought food three times a day, and they had water, but that was
it.  Due to the immense shortage of personnel around the GMU
(especially with Operation Invid going on at the moment), no
guard was posted in their cell.  This gave them the perfect
opportunity for escape.
     It happened in the early afternoon of the day on which
Operation Invid was taking place.  The fighters had just lifted
off on their mission to free the Hive.  The leader of the
captured recon team, a middle-aged military specialist whose
brown hair showed touches of grey at the temples, decided that
this was the time to make their move.
     "What is that, sir?" one of the SAMAS pilots asked him as he
pulled something out of the sole of his uniform boot.
     "It's a vibro-stiletto," the officer replied, holding it up
for the others to see.  "I had it custom-made by a weaponsmith in
Iron Heart.  It's our key to freedom from this dump."  He
activated the blade and sliced through the metal bars of the
prison door.  Kicking them out of the way, he stepped through,
the vibro-dagger held in a thrower's grip by the hilt.  No one
else was in the room.  There was a security camera in the corner,
but judging from the attention they'd received so far, it was
probably not being watched.  It was a chance they'd have to take.
     "Okay, it's clear."  The other three men climbed out and
looked around.  "Now what, sir?" one asked.
     The Coalition military specialist looked around and
pinpointed the weapons lockers across the room.  "There.  I'll
just cut that one open..."
 
     On the bridge, all was quiet.  Bowaz had gone to the rest
room for the nonce, and the radar tech was left alone at the
console.  Then a klaxon sounded, and two red lights started
flashing on a different control board.
     Unfamiliar with those controls and knowing that Bowaz would
not want to come back to a blaring alarm, the technician ran over
to the panel, glanced at it, and hit the button to shut off the
alarm.  "It's probably just a short circuit in an airlock hatch
or something," she assured herself.
 
     "What do you think?" the military specialist asked, reaching
into the now-open locker and pulling out a strange-looking rifle
that said "MARS/Gallant H90" on the side.  "Can you work it?"
     The SAMAS pilot examined it and shook his head.  "This is
way beyond me.  I've never seen a weapon like this before."
     "What about this one?"  He pulled out a laser gun that
resembled a submachine gun, with a short, squat body and a long
stock.  "It says it's a 'Fal-2.'"
     "I think I can work that.  Standard laser rifle.  A bit
primitive, but standard."
     "Good.  Let's arm ourselves."  They took rifles and a few of
the 9mm staplegun-like auto pistols stored within the lockers.
     "Now what?" one of the SAMAS pilots asked.  "We don't even
know where they're storing our armor."
     "We'll go to the bridge of this vehicle," the specialist
decided.  "With surprise on our side, perhaps we can take it over
long enough to send a radio message to the Coalition.  Then we
can see what they advise us to do, and do it."
     The corridors were pretty empty, since many of the troops
were gone to fight the Invid.  The four Coalition soldiers had no
trouble getting to the control deck--they met nobody along the
way.
     When they entered the bridge, the Coalition recon team was
momentarily startled to find it so empty.  They had expected more
than one person to be on duty there.
     But they soon overcame their initial surprise.  "Hold it!"
the officer yelled at the startled radar tech.  "Stand away from
that control board.  Number Two, cover her."  He walked up to the
control station she had just vacated, sat down, and glanced over
the layout.  "This could take a while.  Numbers Three and Four,
cover the doors."
     A minute or so later, the man had the microwave transciever
set to the right frequency for the nearby Coalition relay
station.  Then he activated the microphone and sent the following
signal: "Sergeant Nordblick calling Coalition Base Station.
Sergeant Nordblick calling Coalition Base Station.  Do you copy,
Coalition Base Station?"
     When the go-ahead signal came, Nordblick related what had
happened.  "Shall I attempt to assume command of this vehicle and
take it to Chi-Town?"
     The officer on the screen was replaced by General Underhill.
Nordblick was startled.  He, a low-ranking grunt, had never
expected ever to talk to Underhill.  "No!  Do not attempt that!"
the general said.  "You will only fail, and thus turn them
against us.  You must negotiate with their leader and convince
him to join us."
     "But what about the attack, sir?  Surely he would not want
to join us after that."
     "Tell him it was that idiot Mortifax's fault, and that
situation has since been...remedied.  Tell him anything--offer
him anything.  Just BRING IN THAT VEHICLE and its accompanying
forces and you will be a Captain."
     "Yes, SIR!"  Nordblick saluted as the transmission faded.
He reset the microwave transmitter and turned to the other
troops.  "Drop your weapons, boys.  We have to negotiate our way
out of this one."
     They stared at him in disbelief.  "What?!"
     "I said drop 'em.  We don't want to hurt anybody.  Would
ruin our chances."  The sergeant dropped his own guns as an
example.  His men looked at him as if he were crazy, but did as
he commanded.
     Just then, Lieutenant Colonel Mortifax strode onto the
command deck from the elevator.  "Hey, what's all this?" he
asked, noticing the Coalition troopers in the room and all the
guns on the floor.
     "We want to talk with you," Sgt. Nordblick said.  "It was
necessary to use these guns to get here, but we don't need them
any more.  After all, we have no hostile intentions toward you,
your men, or this--this AMAZING vehicle."
     "What?!" Bowaz sputtered, pulling his gun and training it on
them.  "You'll get back in the brig, where you belong."
     "Really, Colonel," Nordblick said in his most ingratiating
voice.  "We're all civilized human beings here.  We can talk
about this.  It seems you've forgotten about us down there, and
we urgently need to speak with you."
     "On what subject," Bowaz asked suspiciously.
     "We want you to join the Coalition."
     Bowaz laughed bitterly.  "After you attacked us?  I think
not."
     "That wasn't our fault.  One of our officers did that on his
own initiative.  Surely you realize how full of idiots the chain
of command can be."
     Bowaz nodded.  "Very true.  But what can you offer me?"
     "Anything you want," Nordblick said.  Inspiration struck.
"Your own command.  An entire batallion of Coalition soldiers at
your beck and call.  Your own town, your own city to command.
Anything!"
     Bowaz's head began spinning.  In that instant, he dismissed
all the bad things he'd heard about the Coalition as rumors and
began seriously considering the Coalition's offer.
 
 
 
Chapter 47: Operation Emancipation
 
 
     Joe Moore nudged the stick slightly and the Alpha-Beta
banked to the left.  "This plane is so responsive!" he said.  "I
love it.  It's even better than the simulator."
     "Get ready to break formation," the squadron leader's voice
came over the radio.  "This is apparently an Invid facility of
some sort, and they're coming to intercept.  Let's burn them and
burn them good!"
     "Look!" Michael Fosser said excitedly over the intercom.
"Those buildings, at eleven o'clock low!  There are people there,
lots of people!"
     "And Invid guards outside, too," Chris Meadows added.
     "This must be the slave pens!  What a stroke of luck!" the
younger Joe Moore added.
     "But what's that over there?" Chris asked.  "At 12:00.  That
blue column of energy--is that a ley line?"
     "More than that; it's a nexus point," Michael Fosser said.
"And look--there's two people in it there, and--a rift!  They're
opening a rift!"
     "No time for that now," Joe Moore One said from the cockpit.
"I'm coming in."  He shoved the stick forward and pulled the
throttle back.  The Legios streaked for the ground.
 
     When Shock Troopers reached the source of Zyjinn's feeling
of disquiet, they had time to send a brief image of Veritech
fighters before they were destroyed by gunfire.  Zyjinn gasped.
"They are coming!  The Robotech soldiers are attacking now!"
     Tal started.  "Then what shall we do?"
     "I shall handle this attack.  Easily, in fact."  Zyjinn drew
power from the nexus and prepared to use it to knock the
offending planes out of the sky.  But then he was stopped--the
energy evaporated from his hands before he could cast it.
     "You will be handling NOTHING from now on, Zyjinn," a voice
thundered, and with a flash of lightning, Bort materialized in
front of the rift.
     "You!" Zyjinn said, a look of horror on his face.  "But I
devolved you!  How could--Well, I did it once, I can do it
again!"  Lightning crackled from his fingers, but it faded out
between himself and Bort.  "What--how--?!"
     "The Regis has granted me her power, Zyjinn," Bort
thundered.  "You will now pay for your transgressions!"  A
fireball flew from Bort's fingertips.  Zyjinn threw up a shield
that barely stopped the missile.
     "We shall see about that!" Zyjinn shouted, drawing more
power from the Rift and casting it at Bort.  Bort made no move to
stop it.  He let it strike him, and laughed, unharmed.
     "You fool, Zyjinn!  Did you really think you could stand
against the full force of the Regis, multiplied manifold by the
energies within this sphere?  Now, you will die!"  Bort threw out
his hands and gathered mystic energy around them.  This he
directed at Zyjinn, who fell to his knees under the onslaught.
     "No!  No, don't do it, Bort!  I'll do anything!  Anything!"
     "Yes, that's right, beg for mercy like the coward you are!"
Bort sneered.  "It will not help you one little bit."  And then
he cast the coup de grace, red lightning that struck Zyjinn, held
him, and devolved him.  Zyjinn became a stage 4 Invid like the
one that he had turned Bort into, but the process did not stop
there.  The Invid grew smaller and shorter, regressing into the
crab-like shape of the lowest-evolved of the Invid.  Then it went
further, growing smaller and smaller and less Invid-like until
all that remained of Zyjinn was a small clump of primordial ooze.
     "VENGEANCE HAS BEEN SERVED!!!" Bort thundered, as a tongue
of lightning licked down and he vanished from sight.
     Tal looked down at the puddle of slime that had once been
his ticket to the top.  "It's been fun, partner."  He looked
around.  "Now I'd better split before he remembers me."  Tal
performed his own disappearing act, but without the lightning.
 
     The Legios came in blasting.  The Invid who were guarding
the slave pens got in some return fire, but not much, before they
were reduced to smoldering piles of ashes.  "Get going!" Joe
yelled, hovering long enough for the other Joe, Chris, and
Michael Fosser to drop out the bomb bay.  All three were clad in
Battler Cyclone armor.  They ran over to the slave pens, now
unguarded.
     "Get those gates open!" Joe Two yelled.
     "Wait a minute," Chris said.  "Where are we going to take
them all?  The ground is flat with no cover for miles around, and
there's nowhere around here they can go--the Invid would catch up
with them in no time."
     Michael Fosser snapped his fingers.  "The rift, of course!"
He pointed to the glowing portal a few thousand feet away.  "If
we can get them through that..."
     "Right!" Joe said.  "Maybe it will even lead back home!"
     "Let's do it!"  Chris brought up his EP-40 cannon and shot
the locks off of the gates.  He ran inside.  Here were dozens of
filthy slave workers, huddling in scared bunches.
     "It's all right, people," Chris said, raising his visor.
"We're here to get you out of this."
 
     Meanwhile, the Veritechs were faring well against the Invid.
The aliens seemed to be distracted, and weren't fighting well.
At last the time came for the Veritechs to pull out.  "Okay, the
distraction should be over by now.  We've done what we came to
do; let's go home."
 
     As the Veritechs retreated and the remaining Invid just
stood there, stunned from the shock of their former leader's
death/devolution, three Cyclones and one Legios shepherded a long
line of weary prisoners toward the glowing hole in the space-time
continuum that represented their only way out.  Chris noticed
that Joe seemed to be searching the procession for one prisoner
in particular, but he hadn't found him yet.
     "Hurry up, people!" Fosser yelled.  "We don't know when
they're going to wake up!"
     As the head of the procession reached the Rift, Chris took a
look through it.  "Looks just like home," he reported.  "I can
see Wells and Cheek through it--it's the SMSU campus, alright."
     "Then let's get 'em through," Joe said, still searching.
     As the huge crowd of people got halfway through, Fosser
noticed something.  "Hey, look!  The rift is closing!"
     "We've got to get all these people through!" Chris yelled.
"Hurry up, people!  Doubletime, doubletime!"
     As the last of them got through, Chris and Joe Two turned to
look at Fosser and the Legios piloted by Joe One, which was
hovering about a hundred feet away.
     "Guys, I'm sorry but we're going back now, too," Chris said.
"It's really been fun and all, but my family's probably worried
about me, and you know what they say--there's no place like
home."
     "I'm going too," Joe Two said.  "Robotech is nifty and all,
but I like a world where I don't have to worry about getting
blown up behind every corner.  And I've got this really neat
Cyclone, now, and all..."
     "You'd better go, then," Fosser said.  "The Rift is closing
fast."
     "Goodbye, Joe," Joe Two said.  "I'll always remember
you--er, me--oh, whatever."
     "Don't get mushy on me," Joe One said through the Alpha's
loudspeaker.  "You know how you and I hate that."
     Joe stepped through, and Chris put one foot into the
rapidly-closing rift then turned back to add, "Oh, and tell
Lieutenant Michaels he can keep my Robotech stuff.  I can always
get more, and this Cyclone more than makes up for it."  He
stepped all the way through.
     The rift was now only about four feet in diameter, but
through the blue haze, Fosser and Joe One could barely see Joe
Two, still in the Cyclone, running up to one of the prisoners.
As from a distance, they heard, "Dad?" and "Joe?" and then the
rift closed entirely.
     "We'd better get back to the others," Joe Moore said.  "We
don't want to arrive late and have to do a lot of explaining."
     "I suppose you're right," Fosser said, climbing into the
Beta's bomb bay.  "Let's go home."
 
 
 
Chapter 48: A Shocking Discovery
 
 
     In their camp two miles from the El Dorado 'Burb limits,
Steele and Sherelynn waited under for Felix Weidmann to arrive.
They had made love under the setting sun, and now lay beneath the
stars.
     Steele lay on his back in his CVR-3 armor, with his hands
behind his head.  As he looked up at the merrily twinkling stars,
Steele said, "I used to be out among those, or among stars like
those."
     "So you've said."  Sherelynn was leaning against a tree,
looking warily toward the city.  She thought she had seen lights
coming up the long hill, but wasn't sure.  "Perhaps someday you
can be out there again."
     "I hope so."  They lay there in silence, each thinking of
different things, until they heard the sound of the motor.  Then
Sherelynn jumped up and hid behind the tree, and Steele rolled
over and got to his feet, Gallant H-90 in hand.
     But it was just Felix Weidmann on his Cyclone.  He pulled up
in the clearing.  "Hey, Captain, I just found this really neat
cyber-clinic.  If I get the credits, I can get vibro-blades
implanted in the arm.  That's like the CADS blades on your
Cyclone, sir--they cut through armor, and--"
     Steele interrupted the breathless Corporal.  "I know all
about them.  Now you'd better get some rest.  We're going to move
out in the morning.  I'll stand the first watch."
     "All right, sir."  As Weidmann dismounted, Sherelynn stepped
out from behind the tree.  Felix was so startled that he fell on
his rear.  "Hey!  How'd she get here?"
     Steele shrugged.  "To quote an old song, she moves in
mysterious ways."
     Weidmann knew that he wasn't going to get anything out of
Steele, so he started removing his armor and preparing his
bedroll.  "Wake me at two."
     "Right."  As Weidmann crawled into his bedroll, Sherelynn
and Steele moved off to another clearing nearby, where they could
do things that he would have busted any subordinate for doing on
his watch.
 
     The night passed uneventfully (in the sense of enemy
attacks, anyway), and in the morning, all three of them were
ready to move out.  Sherelynn, as a dragon, flew high above the
two Cyclone riders, looking for signs of danger.  Nothing
threatening showed up, however, until the fifth day.
     That was the day on which they would arrive back at the GMU,
and Steele would be able to give his report to Lieutenant Colonel
Bowaz.  It wasn't going to be a very heartening report, he was
afraid.  All he had found had led him to suspect that he would
find no compatible missiles for the REF's missile systems.  It
looked like the GMU REF might be in trouble.
     It began to look even more like they might be in trouble
when Steele and Weidmann rounded the bend into the clearing that
afternoon--and the Ground Mobile Unit was not there.
 
     Sherelynn joined them as a human.  Weidmann gave her the
"I-don't-know-how-the-hell-you-got-here-and-so-I-don't-trust-you"
expression that he had perfected over the last week by wearing
every time the humanform dragon showed up.  Steele was beginning
to think it might be best to tell Weidmann about Sherelynn's true
nature just to keep peace in the squadron, as it were.
     But this was no time for petty bickering, and Steele glared
at Weidmann to get the point across.  Felix subsided, and
together they looked around the clearing.  "Are you sure this is
where we parked?" Felix asked with a slight grin.
     "I don't find it funny, Corporal," Steele said sternly.
"How could they just--Bowaz said they'd wait for us!"  His tone
wavered between panic and disbelief.
     "There must be a solution," Sherelynn said.  "There are the
tire tracks, so we know this is the right clearing.  We just have
to follow them to find out where they went, right?"
     Then a signal started showing up on the console radar of
Steele's Cyclone.  It was within a mile and getting closer.
"Everybody back into the woods!" he yelled, wheeling his Cyclone
back in among the trees.
     Out of the brush on the opposite side of the clearing
stepped a shining silver battloid.  Wait!  That was no Battloid,
that was a Glitter Boy!  It walked out to the center of the
clearing, then came to a halt.  Then the front panel slid open
with a pneumatic hiss, and a man climbed down.  It was Joe Moore!
     "Steele?  Felix?  You out here?  I know I read some radar
contacts from down this way...guys, we HAVE to talk!"
     Captain Steele stepped out, followed by Felix and Sherelynn.
"Okay, we're here.  Where is the GMU?"
     "That's what I wanted to talk to you about!" Joe said,
breathless.  "That idiot Bowaz has decided to join the
Coalition!"
 
     It had started (Joe said) about five days before, when the
Coalition prisoners had broken out of the brig.  They had talked
with Bowaz and somehow managed to convince him that the Coalition
wasn't the nasty evil empire it had been made out to be.  Before
another day had passed, they had convinced Bowaz to take the GMU
to Chi-Town so their scientists could take a look at it.
     "I bet I know just how they pulled that off," Steele said
bitterly.  "They probably offered him a commission as General and
his own command."
     Joe nodded.  "That's exactly how they did it."  He went on
with his tale.
     The next day, a Coalition battalion had been airlifted in
and rendezvoused with the GMU.  Sensing trouble, Moore had taken
his Glitter Boy and hit the road.  Michael Fosser, the
Techno-Wizard; Dr. Thornton Smitty, the robotics scientist wanted
by the Coalition; and Jack, the Operator who was Dr. Smitty's
assistant had come too.  The foursome were currently camped in
another clearing, a couple of miles away from this spot.
     "That's all I know," Joe concluded.  "I don't know what's
been going on since then, but it can't be good."
     All through Joe's story, Sherelynn had been listening, first
with a look of anger on her face, then a look of outright horror.
"If the Coalition gets ahold of those robots and manages to
duplicate them, the potential damage could be colossal!"
     "We have to get them back," Steele said.  "Dammit, I should
have taken command from him a long time ago, and this never would
have happened."
     "We don't have time for recriminations," Joe Moore pointed
out.  "The GMU's probably half-way to Chi-Town by now.  We have
to go and stop it."  He pointed north, along the huge tire
tracks.  The four friends gazed up the trail, each pondering the
job they were going to have to do.
 
 
 
Chapter 49: Chi-Town Bound
 
 
     Lieutenant Martin Jackson didn't often leave his quarters
during the journey toward Chi-Town.  He didn't like the Coalition
soldiers who had moved in to surround and guard the GMU, and he
got the feeling they didn't like him either.  Jackson instead
concentrated on his research.
     What his research consisted of was reading the eighteen
paperback novels Chris Meadows had left with him.  These
purported to tell the story of Robotech, from Zor's discovery of
Protoculture to the disappearance of the SDF-3.  They were
written by someone called Jack McKinney, and were extremely good
reading.  Not all of the events described were verifiable, but
those that were checked out, and this lent credence to the theory
Chris Meadows had advanced, during the trek back to the GMU from
the Invid Hive.
     "What if," Chris had said, "someone gathered accounts from
all or most of the people involved, and then wrote the story of
what happened?  He could then have gone back through time or to
an alternate dimension, then gone to Japan.  There, he could have
influenced the creation of the three separate anime (Japanese
animation) series that make up Robotech, so that their characters
and mecha would strongly resemble those of the Robotech
dimension.  Then he could have found employment at Harmony Gold,
the company that put Robotech together from those anime series,
and helped them put it together.  Hey, stranger things have
happened."
     Yes, reflected Jackson.  Stranger things HAD happened, many
of them in this dimension.  It was a plausible theory--there just
wasn't any other way to explain the discovery of books,
videotapes, and role-playing games based on Robotech in another
dimension entirely.  He had not mentioned this to anybody else,
and had asked those who were with him at the time of the
discovery to keep silent about it.  He was sure that he would be
laughed at if he revealed the contents of the books and tapes
prematurely.
     The eighteenth book, THE END OF THE CIRCLE, was different
from all the rest.  There was a small note tucked in it as a
bookmark that said "Speculative fiction--not true."  Chris had
said that he believed it had been written just after the Invid
had been banished from the planet (before they'd come back a
second time) and was an attempt to explain where the SDF-3 had
gone.
     The videotapes were another matter.  The GMU's library did
not have a VHS player--the format was virtually as antiquated as
the eight-track tape, and the need for such a player had been
unforeseen by the GMU's builders.  However, with Sgt. Barry
Irrout's help, Lieutenant Jackson was able to cobble together a
working player from spare parts.  As he watched, he was amazed.
Finally, he accepted.  "So THAT's what happened," he often
muttered, learning why certain events had happened that had
puzzled him before.  He was so fascinated by the books and tapes
that he almost forgot where the GMU was going.  Almost.
 
     Meanwhile, Sgt. Barry Irrout had been dissecting one of the
SAMAS power armor suits taken from the Coalition reconaissance
team.  He was amazed at the technology displayed in the power
armor, especially the micro-miniaturized fusion reactor.  "We
could use something like this in our Cyclones," he muttered.
"Only thing is, it's so radioactive if ruptured..."
     However, Irrout did NOT want to see the secrets of
Robotechnology go to the Coalition, and was doing his utmost to
prevent it.  Before he had left, Joe Moore had said to him, "I'm
confident that when Captain Steele hears about this, he'll come
rushing in to put a stop to it."
     Working under that assumption, Irrout was fighting a
delaying action to stop the Coalition from getting their hands on
the mecha.  He had instructed all the technicians under his
command to create maintenance problems that would prevent any of
the fighters from being flown direct to Chi-Town: malfunctioning
flight computers, non-working engines--whatever the technicians
could think of.  As a last resort, Irrout planned to remove all
the Protoculture cells from their engines.  He hoped Steele would
get there soon...
 
     The Coalition surrounded the Ground Mobile Unit.  There were
about two hundred footsoldiers and dog boys, and about fifty
heavy robot vehicles.  Dozens of SAMAS pilots flitted around, and
there were three platoons of the grimly gleaming Coalition
Skelebot search-and-destroy robots (72 in all) also on guard.
     On the bridge of the GMU, Coalition Colonel Thaddius Lyboc
had joined Lieutenant Colonel Avery Bowaz as the mighty machine
rumbled toward Chi-Town.  Lyboc had been flown up from Fort El
Dorado several days before, where it had taken five hours to
excavate him from the ruins of a building that Captain Steele had
brought down with a barrage of mini-missiles.  His armor had
kept him from being crushed until he could be dug out.
     Now the two men sat on the control deck, talking about their
military careers.  Bowaz disliked Lyboc from the start--the man
seemed to derive too much pleasure from interrogations, which
were a lot of what he talked about.
     Bowaz was silent, letting the man speak and trying to get a
feel for the government he had just committed the mecha carrier
to serving.  If it was full of this kind of man, he was not so
sure that he had made the right decision.
     "Your technicians CAN provide equivalent missile and
ammunition systems for our mecha, can they not?" Bowaz
interrupted Lyboc, seeking reassurance.
     "What?  Oh, yes, of course!" Lyboc said, and went on with
one of his stories of torture.
     "Good," Bowaz muttered.  "That's all I needed to know."
 
 
 
Chapter 50: Death of a Hero
 
 
     The cordon of guards and robots surrounding the GMU was
surprised to observe a solitary Cyclone motorcycle speeding
toward the giant vehicle.  They had been ordered to let any
motorcycles of that type through, assuming that they were
returning patrols, so they let it pass without interfering.
     The Cyclone cycle drove around to the front of the
stationary mecha transport and sped up the ramp to the mecha
storage/repair bay.  He screeched to a halt right in front of a
startled maint tech.  "You crazy son of a--" the tech began, but
faltered when he noticed the rank insignia on the driver's CVR-3
armor.
     "Where's Bowaz," Steele demanded grimly.
     "I dunno, sir," the technician replied.  "Probably on the
bridge, with that Coalition--" he spat on the floor "--officer."
     "Coalition officer?" Steele asked.
     "Yeah, a Colonel Lybark or something.  Bowaz is really
buddyin' up to him, because he thinks he can get a good deal for
turning over the Robotech mecha."
     "I see.  Where's Sgt. Irrout?"
     "Over there, by the access panel of that Destroid."  The
tech pointed.  "Will that be all, sir?"
     "What?  Oh, yeah, go on with whatever you were doing."
Steele parked the bike by the wall and walked over to Irrout,
where he was having at the interior workings of a Gladiator's leg
with a monkeywrench.  Steele came up behind him, clapped him on
the back, and said, "Hi, Barry,"
     Irrout turned, surprised.  "Captain Steele!  You're finally
back!"
     "Yeah, and I intend to talk some sense into that idiot
Bowaz," he said.  "It's something I should have done a long time
ago."
     "Great!  If there's anything I can do to help--"
     "As a matter of fact, there is," Steele interrupted.  "I
want you to call Bowaz, get him to leave the GMU, alone, and head
about a mile up the back trail.  I don't care what you tell him--
tell him ANYTHING, just get him to go alone and don't tell him
it's me.  I'll be waiting, back thataway."  He jerked his thumb
in the direction of the back of the GMU.
     "Can do, sir."  Irrout saluted, then dropped the wrench and
walked over to an intercom panel set in the wall.  "Lieutenant
Colonel Avery Bowaz, please.  Priority One call from Sergeant
Barry Irrout."  Captain Steele straddled the Cyclone motorcycle
and roared out of the bay and back up the trail.  The Coalition
guards again let him pass.
 
     Fifteen minutes later, another Cyclone rode down the trail.
This one carried a figure whose armor signified the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel, and he rode alone.
     "I don't know what could be so important to me that I would
have to go alone," Colonel Bowaz muttered to himself.  "I should
have brought guards, but he piqued my curiosity.  Besides, I can
defend myself with this Cyclone cycle..."
     Bowaz pulled around a bend, and there was another Cyclone
rider waiting in the road, facing him.  Bowaz pulled up in front
of him.  "Remington?" he asked at last.  "That you?"
     Steele nodded.  "Follow me," he said, turning the Cyclone
and heading off the road along a wooded trail.  Mystified, Bowaz
followed his subordinate until they reached a clearing, where
Sherelynn was waiting, leaning against a tree.  The riders pulled
up their cycles, shut off the engines, and removed their helmets.
     Steele dismounted and turned to his commanding officer.
"Sir, it's time we had a talk."
     "I'm not sure I like your tone of voice," Bowaz said
uncertainly.
     "And well you shouldn't!" Sherelynn snapped, getting up from
the tree and walking into the middle of the clearing.  "You
idiot, you've gone and done a very foolish thing."
     "You've joined the Coalition," Steele said.  "Of all the
stupid, foolish, simple-minded things to do, what you've done is
the most unpardonable.  You've committed yourself, AND the
technology of the REF, to serve a barbaric regime of the very
kind that plagued our planet in almost every major war we've ever
had!  The Coalition is an evil empire built on the illiteracy of
its people and the genocide of intelligent races.  It's no better
than the Robotech Masters or the Invid!"
     Bowaz was at a loss.  "But--but they're trying to wipe out
the supernatural monsters that plague this planet, the same way
we're trying to defeat the Invid.  You've seen the kind of
creatures that come from the Rifts.  Melechs, giant worms--"
     "And dragons," Sherelynn added viciously.  "Let's not forget
dragons."
     Unaware of the dangerous territory on which he was treading,
Bowaz said, "Yes, and dragons.  They should all be wiped
out--they're a threat to humanity.  And the Coalition looks like
the best--"  He broke off, for Sherelynn had begun to change, her
human form melting and distorting, growing and reshaping itself
into that of a gigantic ice dragon, more than 40 feet long.
     "You fool!" Sherelynn bellowed, very angry now.  "I saved
Steele's life--YOUR life, too--on more than one occasion!  And
this is how I am repayed?!"  She lowered her head until it was
barely two feet away from Bowaz, who had fallen to the ground in
fear and surprise.  "I tell you THIS, little man--I have NEVER in
my entire life been as tempted as I am right now to devour a
human being!"  Bowaz turned ten different shades of pale and
fainted dead away.  Steele nervously reached for his Gallant,
lest Sherelynn attempt to carry through on her threat.  He was
angry with Bowaz too, but not that angry; and the fury of a
dragon (especially a female one) is a terrible thing to see.
     But Sherelynn made no further move toward Bowaz.  She
withdrew a few feet and waited until he opened his eyes to shift
back into her human form.  "But fortunately for you, I do not
always succumb to my temptations.  VERY fortunately."  She turned
and walked away to the edge of the clearing.
     Steele went over and helped Bowaz to his feet.  "Do you
understand now, sir?  I can't let you take those mecha to the
Coalition.  It could mean the eventual death of not only the
woman" (he stressed the word "woman") "I love, but many other
sentient, peaceful species as well.  And I am not about to let
that happen."
     Bowaz nodded, still shaken from his experience.  The bad
feeling he'd had from the start about joining the Coalition had
just materialized.  And, he told himself wryly, all but
threatened to eat him.  "I understand.  Quite a remarkable lady
you have there."
     "Yessir," Steele began.  "I--"  He never got a chance to
finish.  Sherelynn came running up from the edge of the clearing.
"Coalition soldiers!  They're closing in, and--"
     Then several laser blasts hit the clearing floor, blowing
small craters in it.  Steele pulled out his own gun, as did
Sherelynn, and looked for targets, but they were hidden in the
woods.
     "Drop your weapons!" a rasping voice called out from the
trees.  "Drop them!"  Steele and Sherelynn looked at each
other--they had no choice but to comply.  The Gallant and the
NG-Super laser pistol fell to the ground.  The instant they did,
the troops moved in.  First footsoldiers--dog boys in riot armor
and humans in Coalition armor with the spiked helmets and PSI
lettering on the breasts that signified psi-stalkers--genetic
mutations specifically adapted for hunting down supernatural
creatures and magic-users.
     Then came regular grunts, and then Samas power armor and
Urban Enforcer robots.  All pointed their guns directly at them.
     A man walked out from the crowd with his helmet under his
arm.  Bowaz recognized him as a Captain Arvid Torjack, Colonel
Lyboc's temporary liason officer.  "Colonel Bowaz, are you all
right?" he asked.  "We noted you leaving the GMU alone, and
decided we should send some men to follow you.  It looks like we
arrived just in time to save you from this--this DRAGON."  He put
so much hate and disgust into the word that Steele shuddered
inside his armor.
     "You did indeed," Bowaz said.  "They ambushed me, and were
threatening my life.  I must speak to Colonel Lyboc about this,
immediately."  He pulled on his helmet, climbed onto his Saber
Cyclone, and revved the motor.  "Do NOTHING until I get back or
you hear otherwise, is that clear?  I might want to interrogate
the prisoners later."
     "Yessir," Torjack replied, saluting in the Coalition
fashion.  "We will await your orders concerning the prisoners."
     Bowaz rode off at top speed.  Steele and Sherelynn glanced
at each other nervously.  They both knew that Bowaz was
attempting to buy them time, but could it succeed?  Did it have a
chance?  Steele certainly didn't relish the--the HUNGRY looks on
the faces of those psi-stalkers who had removed their helmets.
He hoped that none of the soldiers was trigger-happy.
     Five minutes later, Torjack picked up a radiophone, said a
few words into it, then hung it up.  Any hope Steele or Sherelynn
might have had was dashed when he said, "You have been sentenced
to death for crimes against humanity.  Riflemen, READY!"
     "Teleport out of here!" Steele whispered to Sherelynn.
"You've got to go; save yourself!"
     She shook her head.  "And leave you behind?  Never.  I'd
rather die at your side than flee without you."
     "Riflemen, AIM!"  There was a loud clattering as all the
troopers surrounding them raised and steadied their guns.  Steele
and Sherelynn looked into each others' horrified faces.  They
embraced.  "Just don't think about it," Steele said.  "It'll all
be over in a second."
     It was over, Steele thought as the Coalition soldiers
aimed their guns and looked down the barrel at them.  There was
no hope.  But wait!  What was that noise--it sounded like--
     Captain Korjack raised his arm, getting ready to drop it as
he pronounced their doom.  "Troopers, FI--"  At that
very moment, the VAF-6R Recon Alpha appeared overhead and fired
dozens of missiles into the Coalition lines.  Steele pulled
Sherelynn down as they hit.  KA-BOOM!  Several Urban Enforcers
and Samas troops exploded, and all the troopers misfired.
     Steele crawled for their guns, which the Coalition troops
had neglected to pick up, as the plane converted to Guardian mode
and fired more missiles.  He picked up the Gallant and tossed the
other gun to Sherelynn.  "Let's go, while they're still
distracted!"  He ran to his motorcycle and changed it to power
armor as Sherelynn fired some grenades into the Coalition lines.
Together they ran into the jungle.
     There was another explosion behind them.  Steele turned to
see railgun fire rip through the fuselage of the Alpha as it was
converting to fighter mode.  It flew unsteadily toward them then
crashed into the forest, mowing down a wide swath of trees before
finally coming to a stop.
     "Come on!"  Steele raced toward the plane, cutting his way
through downed trees with the VR-041 Saber blades.  When they
reached the plane's side, its canopy was already open.  The pilot
had half-fallen, half-climbed out of the cockpit, and now lay on
his side under the plane.  Steele turned him over, gently.  It
was Lieutenant Colonel Bowaz.  Blood was welling out of a hole in
the side of his CVR-3 armor.
     Steele was later to learn that Bowaz had rushed back to the
GMU and seen Colonel Lyboc in an effort to get them released.
Lyboc had adamantly refused, saying, "Monsters and those who
consort with them deserve to die."  As he had given the orders to
execute them, Colonel Bowaz had rushed down to the mecha bay,
convinced Sgt. Irrout to put one of the Alphas back in working
order, and taken it to go and save Steele and Sherelynn.
     "I've--been such a damned fool, Remington" Bowaz gasped out.
"I see now where I went wrong.  I never should have--have
listened to those Coalition soldiers."
     "Sir, don't try to talk.  Sherelynn, can you--?"
     She knelt beside him and concentrated.  "I'll try, but I
think he's too far gone for me to save."
     Bowaz continued.  "You must--MUST not let the Coalition have
the GMU or its mecha.  Fight them--take the GMU and the Veritechs
far away--let none of it fall into Coalition hands."  He half sat
up and grasped Steele's arm with surprising strength for one so
near death.  "You--you must promise me," he gasped.
     Steele nodded.  "I promise."  Then Lieutenant Colonel Avery
Smithson Bowaz, veteran of 24 years in the Robotech Expeditionary
Force, died.
     Sherelynn shook her head.  "I'm sorry.  There was nothing I
could do."  She shook her head.  "He saved our lives.  He died a
hero."
     Steele reached down and gently closed Bowaz's eyes. "We
won't fail.  We WILL keep the GMU from the Coalition.  I'll find
a way."
 
 
 
Chapter 51: Steele Takes Over
 
 
     The Alpha fighter streaked through the sky.  In its cockpit
was Captain Steele of the Robotech Expeditionary Force.  And he
was fighting mad.
     The seat he occupied was still wet with the blood of his
superior, Lieutenant Colonel Avery Bowaz, who had died saving his
and Sherelynn's lives from a Coalition firing squad.  Daylight
was visible through several quarter-sized holes blown in the
cockpit during that battle, but all the systems still functioned.
There were thirty missiles left in the compartments, and a nearly
full load of GU-XX ammunition.  And the man at the controls was
determined to make the Coalition pay for Bowaz's death.
     Even as he flew the plane toward the GMU, Steele was on a
pre-arranged encrypted emergency frequency, speaking to the crew
of the GMU.  "I only have time to say this once, so listen up,"
he said. "This is Captain Steele speaking.  Colonel Bowaz has
been killed by the Coalition.  It is up to us to make them pay
for that, and to keep the secrets of Robotechnology out of their
hands. Everybody to your battle stations.  If the Coalition asks,
tell 'em it's a drill, tell 'em anything--then start blasting
them. We must wipe them out to the last man, or make them flee.
We will take the GMU and our mecha to where they'll never find
it.  That is all.  Out."
     By now, Steele was in sight of the GMU, and the Coalition
forces around it were in range.  Steele switched to Battloid
mode.  "Computer, set missile target priority at increasing scale
from zero, exception all REF mecha."  This meant that the
computer would target all the most vunerable troops first, then
the less-vunerable mecha, and so on, firing most of its missiles
at targets that could be taken out with one or two missiles.  It
would not fire at any REF vehicles or mecha.  "Fire all."
     At the last two words, thirty missiles went streaking out of
the Alpha's shoulder and leg compartments, heading for where they
would do the REF the most good.  As Coalition armor exploded, the
rest of the Ground Mobile Unit's mecha started coming to life.
All nine of the other Alphas and six Betas converted to Battloid
mode and bombarded the Coalition with cannon fire and missiles.
     "If you go down, set your self-destruct and get out!" Steele
ordered over the radio.  "We don't want the Coalition to have
even the remains of a Robotech ship."  He emptied his GU-XX into
the back of a Spider-Skull Walker, which exploded.
     Many things happened in the next five minutes, far too many
for Steele to keep track of.  An Alpha crashed and burned here, a
Coalition APC blew up there, missiles and cannonfire streaked
back and forth.  Sometime during the fray, Joe Moore's Glitter
Boy, Jack's Cyclone, and Sherelynn in dracoform showed up to add
their might to the REF's side.
     At the end of the battle, twenty people on the REF's side
had been killed.  Three of the Alphas, one of the Betas, two
Excalibers, both Raidar Xs, and 14 Cyclones had been completely
destroyed.  Many of the other mecha were seriously damaged,
including the Veritech Steele had flown.  And many missiles from
the REF's rapidly dwindling supply had been used up.
     But the Coalition had died or fled to the last man.  Colonel
Lyboc had been personally observed turning tail and running, but
he hadn't been killed.  There were no prisoners this time.
     Steele called a hurried meeting of his remaining officers
and enlisted men.  He outlined the situation as it stood, and
explained what they were going to have to do.  "We have to take
the GMU/Titan and her mecha to a safe location where no one will
ever find her.  Toward this end, we will start driving south.  We
should reach the coast within a week, and then I will submerge
the vessel in the ocean."
     The plan made, the crew hastened to their battle stations to
get the Ground Mobile Unit ready for Steele's Operation
Sherman--the march to the sea.
 
     In Chi-Town, General Underhill was livid.  "What do you
mean, they rebelled?!" he was yelling at Lyboc.  Underhill was
sitting behind his desk and Lyboc was standing before him.  "The
technology contained within those robots could enable us to
cleanse this planet of its alien infection once and for all, and
you LET THEM GET AWAY?!"
     "I couldn't help it, sir," Lyboc protested.  "They turned on
us, caught us unaware.  By the time I saw what was going on they
had already wiped out half of the Coalition forces.  There was
nothing we could do!"
     "So you RAN, eh Lyboc?" Underhill asked, cooling down
slightly.  "No matter.  At least we now know what we suspected
all along--these people are entirely undependable.  Therefore..."
He punched the intercom button on his desk and spoke into the
mike.  "Get me Tac-Com Three."  He looked back up at Lyboc and
said, "Now we shall totally wipe them out, and scavenge what we
can from the remains."  He slammed an armored fist down on the
desk, and Lyboc thought how much he would hate to be in the REF's
shoes right now.
 
 
 
Chapter 52: Battle for Freedom
 
 
     Steele looked with dismay at the fifty or so people left in
the GMU's Robotech Expeditionary Force detachment.  He had
gathered them together just outside the GMU so he could tell them
what was going on.  He sighed.  With just fifty people and a
handfull of mecha they were going to hold off the entire
Coalition army?  Steele groaned--it looked pretty hopeless.
     Sherelynn picked up on his thought.  "Don't worry, my love,"
she whispered to him.  "After all, your SDF-1 destroyed the
entire Zentraedi battle fleet of five million ships, did it not?
I'd say our odds are a great deal better than five million to
one, wouldn't you?"
     "The SDF-1 had the Grand Cannon to help it," Steele
retorted.  Then he spoke aloud to the men and women of the REF.
"Okay, I'm not going to give you a long pep talk or anything,
because we don't have the time.  I'm just going to tell you this:
the Coalition is an evil organization, on a par with Nazi Germany
of a hundred years ago in our dimension.  If we let this
technology fall into their hands, we'll be doing all the people
and intelligent beings of this world an extreme disservice.
Therefore--"
     "So let's get going already!" a soldier yelled.  Looking
closer, Steele could see that it was Corporal Felix Weidmann.
"The longer we keep talking about it, the more likely it is
they'll catch us.  We know what we need to do, and we're with you
all the way.  So let's have no more talking about it--let's DO
it!"
     There was a round of cheering from the assembled crowd, and
several looked ready to break away and run for their battle
stations.  Steele held up his arms to stop them.  "It's great to
see you're all behind me.  All right, I just want to say one more
thing."  He stopped talking until they were silent.  Then he
said, "The Coalition is going to come after us.  There will be a
huge battle.  Some of you, or many of you may die.  This may be
the last time I address all of you like this, so I just want to
say that it's been great serving with you for all these years.
If I--"
     "Well, don't get all mushy on us, chief!" It was Sgt. Barry
Irrout.  "We know what you're saying and what we have to do.  I
think that's everything you have to tell us.  All right, guys,
BATTLE STATIONS!"
     There were cries of "Yeah!" and "Awright!" from the crowd,
which immediately scattered.  All the troops ran to their mecha,
or to the GMU.  Steele watched, bemused.  "Shall we go, milady?"
he asked Sherelynn.
     "Of course, my love," she replied, offering him her hand.
He took it, and together they ran to the pilot's and co-pilot's
seats, which had been lowered through the bottom of the GMU
cockpit for this occasion.  They climbed in, and the seats slid
back up into the cockpit, and the hatch closed beneath them.
 
     The next copuple of days passed hectically for Steele.  He
spent every waking hour in the pilot's seat, spelled only by
Corporal Weidmann.  Sherelynn spent most of her time away from
the GMU, where she could revert to her natural state and fly
lookout against any Coalition scouts.
     The REF forces headed south, crossing the Magic Zone without
incident and driving through central Mississippi.  They had
encounters with some monsters, but generally drove on through,
trying to avoid slowing down for anything.  The GMU's
bio-maintenance engineers worked feverishly to try to repair all
the mecha damaged in the previous battle.
     At last the coast was within reach, barely twenty miles
away.  Just an hour's travel for the GMU.  But here was where the
Coalition finally caught up with them.
     The first report came from Sherelynn, who teleported onto
the bridge of the GMU in human form.  "Coalition Skull transports
are unloading troops and mecha five miles to the south!" she
said.
     "How many?" Steele asked.
     "About fifty!" Sherelynn replied.
     "Elevate the cannon," Steele ordered.  "We should be able to
see them once we crest this ridge.  We'll see if we can lock onto
them and blast some of the ships before they can off-load their
mecha."  Then, noticing that there was nobody close enough to the
weapons console to activate it, he jumped up and did it himself.
Sherelynn sat down in the driver's seat and took over for him.
     As the GMU came over the top of the ridge, Steele gasped at
the wide array of armed forces confronting them.  "They sure
pulled out all the stops," he said, targeting the cannon.  "There
must be thousands of soldiers out there, or tens of thousands!
And hundreds of robots and robot vehicles."
     "And they're starting to fire at us, sir!" the female radar
tech yelled from her console.
     "Then let's let them taste hot lasers!" Steele yelled,
targeting the rapid-fire cannon and pulling the trigger.  He
fired again and again, then punched the radio button.  "GMU
forward!  All mecha, to the front!  We have to break through!"
     And the giant battle machine rolled into the fray.  It was
clear that the laser cannon mounted on the machine was doing the
most damage.  The Coalition had to take it out.  They began
directing their heaviest assaults at the GMU.
     As the attacks began to come in, Steele called out, "All
mecha, break off engagements and return to GMU!  All mecha,
protect the GMU!"  The Veritechs and Destroids moved back,
walking in line beside the mecha transport and blasting would-be
attackers before they could do any serious damage.
     But they weren't entirely successful--three missiles from an
Urban Enforcer got through, blasting a hole in the sealed
hatchway to the mecha bay and wounding two of the mechanics who
had been standing nearby.  Sergeant Barry Irrout and an assistant
ran out to drag them to safety, but just as they got there two
SAMASes came through the hole.  "Don't move!" one of them
shouted, the voice sounding oddly metallic through the power
armor's voice filter.  Instead, Irrout and his assistant dived
behind a heavy console, unslinging their Fal-2 automatic laser
rifles as they hit the floor.  As one, they opened fire on the
Coalition armor.
     The SAMASes returned fire with their railguns.  The
assistant's head exploded in a fountain of gore and his body fell
back on the ground.  Irrout ducked as another railgun blast
nearly hit him.  "Throw down your weapon and come out with your
hands up and we will not harm you!"
     Irrout looked around.  There was nothing he could do.  Yet
if he surrendered, the SAMASes would make their way through the
unguarded GMU to the bridge deck, and the battle would end in
victory for the Coalition!
     Then Irrout saw the answer--the Protoculture storage locker,
right next to the SAMASes.  It had been left open, and all he had
to do was shoot into it.  Though the locker was nearly empty from
re-fueling most of the mecha this morning, there was enough left
that the resulting explosion would blow the Sams to smithereens,
and perhaps some of the floor and the wall along with them.  But
the door was at such an angle that he would have to be about
half-way to the Coalition troops before he would have a chance of
hitting it.
     "All right, I'm coming out!" Irrout yelled, tossing his
Fal-2 out from behind the console.  He stood up and walked out,
hands in the air.  As he walked toward the Sams, one of them
said, "Show us the way to the bridge."
     "All right, all right," Irrout said, slowly lowering his
hands.  "I'll take you there..."  Just a few more steps...
     Then Irrout turned toward the Protoculture storage locker
evan as his hand whipped down and grabbed the Gallant H-90 pistol
from his shoulder holster.  He steadied the gun, raised it...
     Even as he pulled the trigger, Irrout saw that he had
miscalculated.  There was still twice as much Protoculture
remaining as he had guessed.  The explosion would be much more
powerful than he had meant.
     As the blast engulfed him, Sergeant Barry Irrout's last
thought was that he wished he'd advanced farther up the ranks
than Sergeant.
 
     Surprisingly, the explosion only destroyed the Protoculture
storage locker, the Sams, Sgt. Irrout, and a few lockers of tools
and miscellaneous equipment.  Though there was some damage to
walls, floor, and ceiling, the mecha bay remained remarkably
intact.
     But the GMU shook, and Steele momentarily wondered what it
was.  But his first instinct was to keep firing the cannon, and
this he did.  It had gotten to be such a largely repetitive
procedure now--aim and shoot, aim and shoot--that he hadn't
noticed that the troops were beginning to thin out.  It was
Sherelynn who noticed their retreat.
     "Steele, we've done it!" she told him.  "We've fought
through!"
     Steele stopped firing as he noticed it was true.  The enemy
was retreating in disarray.  He shut down the laser cannon and
retracted it into the body of the Ground Mobile Unit.  He looked
around.  "Yes, we've done it.  We've won," he said.
 
     But at a terrible cost.  In the quick head count that
followed, Steele found that they'd lost many men and mecha.  Only
twenty-seven REF soldiers remained, out of the fifty-five who had
gone into battle.  Other survivors included Glitter Boy Joe
Moore, Dr. Thornton Smitty, his assistant Jack, Dr. Peltzer the
cyber-doc, Sam Fort the robot pilot, and Techno-Wizard Michael
Fosser, all of whom had also participated in the battle in one
way or another.
     Sgt. Barry Irrout, the top bio-maint of the entire crew and
a long-time friend of Captain Steele, was dead.  And the only REF
mecha remaining were a battered REF Gladiator, an Alpha, a Beta,
and 22 Cyclones.  Steele shook his head in disgust.  "So many
good men dead, to keep these machines out of the hands of
tyrants.  And we thought the worst of the Robotech wars were
over."
 
 
 
Chapter 53: Conclusion
 
 
     The remaining repair staff of the GMU hastily welded new
armor into place over the hole in the ramp/hatch to the mecha
repair bay.  Finally they pronounced it water-tight and ready to
go.
     Steele addressed his men one last time.  "Well, this is it.
Rather than open ourselves to more attacks from a power-hungry
Coalition, I have decided to disband this REF detachment and
allow you to go your separate ways."
     There was a murmur of disbelief from the small crowd Steele
was talking to.  "That's right.  As of several minutes from now,
the REF will no longer exist.  At least, as far as we constitute
the REF in this alien dimension."  He paused.  "But I'm afraid I
will have to ask one last favor of you."
     "Anything, boss!" Corporal Weidmann called out.
     "I want you to leave all your mecha behind.  Also all your
armor, and your Gallant H-90s, too.  I'll issue you Sal-9 and
Fal-2 lasers.  Take nothing that will reveal you to be Robotech
soldiers.  If the Coalition knows who you are, they could catch
you and torture you into revealing this location, and whatever
else you know.  It's up to you to make your own ways in this
world, WITHOUT Robotech mecha."  He glared at Jack.  "Is that
clear?"
     The operator sighed.  "I didn't really like that Cyclone
anyway," he said, then muttered something about petty tyrants and
dictators that Steele didn't quite hear.
     "I guess that's it, then," Steele said.  "Before I say
goodbye, I propose that we all return to this very spot in
exactly one year.  We'll tell each other where we've been, what
we've been doing, and how close we are to finding a way home.
Until then, farewell.  Sherelynn and I are going to take the GMU
on into the water by ourselves, with all the mecha on board.  We
will be the only ones who will really know where it's
hidden--just another safeguard against the Coalition finding it."
     There followed about fifteen minutes of routine farewells,
the passing out of weapons, and the inspection to make sure that
none of the departing troopers took any Protoculture-powered
devices or anything with a recognizeable REF insignia on it with
them.  Then Sherelynn and Steele climbed into the GMU alone, and
set out for parts unknown.
 
     The GMU cruised up the east coast underwater for several
days, Steele and Sherelynn enjoying the underwater scenery, the
privacy, and each other for all that time.  They stayed within
sight of the coast, to keep away from the strange creatures that
were known to haunt the depths.
     At last, when they reached what had once been New York in
the late afternoon of the sixth day, they stopped the GMU on the
ocean floor.  Steele went out through an airlock in a suit of
SAMAS armor that had been captured during the original battle
with Coalition forces, just after Weidmann's arm had been blown
off.  Sherelynn followed him ashore.
     "Well, here we are," Steele said, looking around.  Manhattan
had been totally destroyed.  Not a building was standing.  Still,
it was a start.
     Sherelynn nodded.  "It is a start, Steele.  A new start, for
all of us."  The two lovers stood together on the beach and
watched the sun go down, hand in hand.  Steele knew that no
matter what happened, they would find a way to survive, together.
Together.  That was the key to everything, Steele thought, and
Sherelynn nodded in silent agreement.  They were together.
 
     "It is only a minor setback, at worst," General Marshall
Cabot, Emporer Karl Prosek's personal military counsel was
saying.  It was a private meeting between him, General Underhill,
Emporer Prosek, and Prosek's son, Joseph Prosek the Second,
propaganda minister and heir to the throne.
     "I would be interested to know exactly how you come to that
conclusion," Underhill said stiffly.  He didn't add, "You old
fool," but Cabot could tell that was what he was thinking.  "I
would call having fifty percent of our available attack forces
wiped out by one large ground vehicle and several robots
something in the nature of a major catastrophe."
     "Ah, but you are only looking at the short term," Cabot
replied.  "Our production facilities still have not reached their
zenith of production yet, and within several months we will have
forces equal to all those we lost, with several hundred more of
our new FASSAR-20 Skelebots in addition.  We will be stronger
than before."
     "But what of the loss of the reconfiguration technology?"
Joesph Prosek asked.  "Would that not have made a major
difference in our campaign against the supernatural?"
     Cabot shrugged.  "You have to take things as they come and
look at the long range picture," he said to the young man.
"True, it would have been a great victory for us to have that
machinery, but would it really have made that much of a
difference?  I think not.  More than likely it would require
years of study to master the new technology, and by then would it
really be that much of an advantage?  I doubt it."
     Karl Prosek broke in to say, "None of this discussion really
matters.  The thing that DOES matter is that our strength is
down, and if any of our enemies know this, they could attack at
this moment for maximum advantage.  Now, General Cabot, I wish to
discuss with you the positioning of our remaining forces for the
utmost advantage.  Now, if we..."
 
     In the Florida Hive, Bort reposed in his throne.  Over the
last couple of weeks, he had worked on mastering the great power
inherent in the ley lines.  He now believed that he was almost as
strong as the Regis herself when he was in this world, and now
harbored no thoughts of ever going back to the home dimension.
It was his duty to further the cause of the Invid in this realm.
And with the extra Invid that the mutineer, Zyjinn, had summoned,
he believed that he would reach his goal.
     "Ah, Zyjinn," Bort said, talking to the glass container
which held all that remained of the former Invid scientist: a
putrid microbiotic slime that bubbled and seethed in its jar.
"How ironic that the forces you brought here for your own gain
now fall to me.  Though some of them are strange to me, I will
use them, of course.  Against the humans on this planet, against
other creatures, even against the REF if need be, though we have
a treaty of sorts.
     "Yes, we shall conquer this planet.  And when it is ours, we
will re-conquer the earth of our own dimension, and then those
worlds that the Sentinels once stole from us.  We will become the
galactic power that we were destined to be from the start!"  The
Invid humanoid laughed gleefully at the thought, then subsided.
He would have to plan his next moves carefully, for premature
discovery could mean his doom.  He lapsed into silence, thinking,
meditating, planning for the future.
 
     In a different space-time continuum altogether, the Regis
also meditated.  Her thoughts were disturbed by the new human
forces returning to HER planet, the earth.  She still thought of
it as her planet, even though she had left it more than a human
decade before--it was the only place in the cosmos where the
Invid flower still thrived.  Other than Optera, which was now
occupied by those foolish Praxians.  It was an alternative, of
course...but it was only in her mind for the merest flicker of a
moment, then gone.
     More humans were coming to the earth, possibly the precursor
of another invasion fleet.  It was plain to her now that she
would have to leave the small planet where she had been
conducting further evolution experiments, and return with the
balance of her brood to the earth and prepare to repel the next
invasion.  She had done it before, and she would manage to do it
again.  Of this, she was certain.
     The Hive in the other dimension was doing well, or so Bort
had said.  The first crops of the Flower of Life were apparently
healthy, and there was no major human resistance to the Invid
takeover.  It was good to know that at least some of her progeny
were safe from the violent conflict that raged across their own
galaxy.
     The Regis left her meditation chamber and prepared to gather
her children to her for the hyperspace transport to earth.
Whatever happened this time, she would not fail!  She could not
afford to.
 
 
 
Epilogue: Prologue
 
 
     Life continued for the survivors of the GMU/Titan.  Captain
Steele and Sherelynn made their way to Lazlo, a peaceful kingdom
built on the sciences of magic and techno-wizardry, where they
found gainful employment in the militia.  Joe Moore, Dr. Smitty,
and Jack dropped in from time to time, and so did Lieutenant
Martin Jackson, who was now a free-lance science consultant and
medical practitioner.  They worked hard, and they lived
fulfilling lives.
     The Invid Hive's territory expanded, until it controlled a
small empire spanning the entire state of Florida.  As it stood,
it was only a matter of time until the Splugorth, a monster race
of aliens who lived on the newly arisen island of Atlantis in the
Bermuda Triangle, noticed them.  After a great battle, the Invid
and Splugorth managed to strike a bargain, a pact that said that
the Invid would leave them alone and give them any extra slaves,
in exchange for noninterference and some assistance from the
Splugorth.  As the two forces were pretty evenly-matched, the
agreement was an uneasy one.
     The Coalition began to rebuild its forces, planning for the
day on which it would be able to invade Minnesota, the site of a
magical kingdom called Tolkeen and the Coalition's next
territorial acquisition.  From there, they would be able to
combat the Xiticix, an insect-like race which was yet another
invader of Rifts earth.  They were determined to make the world
safe for human beings, whatever the cost.
     In the Robotech home dimension, the Regis took her Invid
back from the nondescript planet on which she had been running
more experiments to the earth, to help defend against the
returning hordes of a new generation of Robotech Expeditionary
Force humans.  The battle was to be a close one, for the SDF-3
was still missing.
 
     And that was how it was for the next two years.  Everybody
grew, learned things that they hadn't known before.  Steele got
no closer to finding a way to go home.  Life was, if not
peaceful, at least routine.  Most of those involved managed to
forget about the past, living only for the day, surviving.
     Until two years later, when there was a great disturbance at
the edge of the solar system.  In the midst of an energy release
equivalent to a small nova, a something HUGE burst through from
hyperspace...
 
                             THE END
                           (or is it?)
 
 
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
 
     Well, that's it.  I can't say it's always been fun writing
this--sometimes I wracked my brains for new creative avenues down
which to explore. I had way too many characters going at once.	I
ran out of ideas several times.
     But in the end, I always figured out a new direction in
which to take the story.  And I finally finished, and have plans
for a sequel (as you might be able to guess from the Epilogue).
But NOT YET!!!	After getting all fifty-five installments of this
monster finished, I just want to RELAX for a while!
     Not to give away too many hints about what might be going on
in the sequel, but if you've read the Robotech Role-Playing Game
supplement that Dave Deitrich and I have been working on (which
isn't likely; we aren't sending it to many people yet), you might
be able to guess what the "large object" is (and if you're
reasonably familiar with the Robotech storyline at all, you'll
probably KNOW :).  Suffice it to say that the next story will
cover an integral part of the Robotech post-history Dave and I
have been working on, and I am frankly wondering if I am up to
the task.  Maybe in a year or two...
     The story is now complete.  I hope you enjoyed it.  Please
send any feedback to CHM173S at SMSVMA.BITNET,
CHM173S@VMA.SMSU.EDU (Internet), or CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU (also
Internet).  Or, if your access to netmail vanishes, my snailmail
home address is
 
Chris Meadows
Rt. 2, Box 2368
Cassville, MO  65625
 
     Once again, thanks for requesting or just reading my story,
and I hope that when I get my sequel done, you'll read it, too.
 
---Chris Meadows, August 2, 1992