ROBOTECH: THE HUNTED Acts I through VII [Fanfic]

[Peter Walker]

Robotech: The Hunted
A Robotech novella by Peter Walker
Copyright 1994

Act I

"Mayday," Michael cried into his radio. "This is Phoenix-four! My
starboard engine is out! I'm going to have to put down!"
Not that he believed that anyone could actually hear him; for all
he could tell, his squadron of six Alpha fighters and six Beta fighters
had been completely wiped out. All except for him.
<Where did they come from?> he asked himself. <This was
supposed to have been a routine patrol!>
The warning indicators in his cockpit were telling him that his
starboard engine had just caught fire. Lieutenant (jg) Austin craned
his head around to look over his shoulder. Though most of the engine
was blocked from his view, he could see a black column of smoke
trailing behind him. Michael held his breath, and began to override
the safeties that would allow him to purge the plane's reaction-mass
tanks of hydrogen. They were useful only in space, and with his
engine burning as badly as it was, they were an explosion just
waiting to go off. Even purging them would be risky at this point, but
it was the only alternative. Michael braced for whatever would come,
and released the final safety. His plane rocked viciously, and a vast
trail of flame poured out of the purge vents, leaving a thick white
contrail in his plane's wake.
The immediate threat taken care of, Michael turned his attention
back to his altimeter. He was losing altitude fast, and with one engine
out, and the power couplings to his secondaries acting up, he knew
he couldn't stay up here forever. <I'll either have to eject or land.> he
thought disconcertedly. Either way, he resigned himself to an
unplanned, and certainly unwelcome, stay on the jungle planet of
Dahlori-4.
Michael tried to figure out where the attackers had come from.
Phoenix squadron had been sent to this system to check for signs of
hold-outs of the armies of the Regent or another of the small Invid
hives that littered the galaxy long after their defeat on Optera.
Having come looking for the Invid, they seemed to have stumbled on
a nest of rogue Zentraedi instead.
The Zentraedi Quaedluun-rau battle-suit was easily the ultimate
achievement in power armor, especially considering the fact that the
average pilot for the suit was just a shade over thirty-one feet tall.
Indeed, it had been so effective against the mecha of the Robotech
Defense Force twenty-five years ago that Earth's best minds had
incorporated its better characteristics into its current front-line
fighter, the Alpha. Both ships were well-armored, heavily armed, and
bristling with missiles. But the Quaedluun-rau was still the better
ship. The 55mm shells from the old Valkyrie's GU-11 gun pod could
puncture the Zentraedi mecha's armor only half of the time at close
ranges; the Alpha's gun's 35mm shells didn't stand much of a chance.
The Zentraedi mecha was more than a match for an expert pilot, and
though Michael had all of the talent in his squadron, he was still a
relative greenhorn. But it had been enough to keep him alive until
now, which was more than any of his comrades could boast.
Michael's Radar Warning Receiver light began to flash; one of the
Quaedluun-rau suits was closing on him for the kill. It was the one in
the bright reddish-purple paint scheme, clearly distinct from the
others, which were in a dark green scheme. <She must be the
squadron leader.> he thought. Before his engine had cut out, Michael
had taken out her wingmen with enough Hammerhead missiles to
put several famous bodybuilders-turned-movie-stars into orbit. But
she had gotten away; she had seen through his maneuver, and now
he only had one salvo of eight Hammerhead short-range and four
Diamondback medium-range missiles left. Michael smiled; he knew
just how to put this enemy out of commission. Michael rolled the
crippled and burning plane and pulled up on the stick, going into a
deep inverted dive to pick up some speed. At 25,000 feet he rolled
again and pulled out of his dive behind the Zentraedi mecha, which
had matched altitudes, and was trying to get within its missiles'
range from him. Michael locked onto the target and fired the short-
range missiles, and veered his plane toward his enemy, closing fast.
The Zentraedi pilot did just what Michael expected; she fired her own
missiles at Michael's, hoping to remotely detonate them as they
passed by each other, destroying both volleys. It was a standard
tactic, and Michael knew it well; he'd had it drilled into his head by
an extremely distinguished former pilot of a Quaedluun-rau suit, his
godmother of sorts, Miriya Paarino Sterling.
Michael watched as the two salvos of missiles closed on each
other, with the two mecha not far behind. <Come on!> he thought,
selecting his medium-range Diamondbacks. "Lock on, damn it!" he
told his remaining missiles, frustration in his voice. <I can't let her
have time to react.> Soon, the two salvos of missiles had met, and
went up in a tremendous explosion. <Now!> His enemy only hundreds
of feet away behind the opaque curtain of a fiery maelstrom, Michael
let loose all of his Diamondbacks and banked hard to the right. They
did just as Michael had planned; racing through the smoke cloud
before his enemy could detect them, the missiles slammed into her
mecha with a fantastic force. The suit was sent reeling; still in the air,
but badly crippled.
Michael laughed. "She fell for it! What an idiot!" Suddenly, two
missiles struck the already damaged rear of Michael's plane in rapid
succession. Michael grunted, realizing he'd spoken too soon. The
Zentraedi had thought of the same strategy Michael had at the same
time; they'd both fallen for the trick. By now there wasn't much left
working to damage back there, so the hits merely added insult to
injury. "Shit," he swore as he veered away from his damaged
adversary into a thick cloud bank to the south; away from the
direction the enemy ships had come from. Beneath the clouds, at
around 10,000 feet, he began to look for a place to land. The jungle
canopy was frighteningly thick, and Michael contemplated a vertical
landing. <Damn!> he thought. The VTOL thruster was dead too.
Landing in the jungle was now definitely out; Michael was brave,
but not suicidal. Another possibility soon presented itself. Several
miles to the west, a long finger-like lake's blue surface shimmered
amidst the thick dark canopy of the forest. And not a moment too
soon; Michael's main powerplants had just gone out, and he lost all
cockpit functions for a few seconds before the batteries kicked in.
Michael cycled air through the empty reaction-mass tanks to
equilibrate them with atmospheric pressure, and then locked them
and his intakes up; he hoped to trap enough air in the plane so that it
didn't sink too fast. Finally, with the fly-by-wire controls growing
increasingly sluggish, he would fly in for a soft landing on the surface
of the lake; or that's what he hoped.
Michael T. Austin had been a combat pilot for barely three years,
and he'd been in more than a few combat actions. Nothing very big,
though. And certainly nothing to prepare him for this. Michael had
developed quite a reputation; as a pilot and as a troublemaker as
well. He was lucky to have gotten his one promotion, and he'd been
warned that if he didn't get his act together, he'd never get another.
Not that he really cared. He was having fun. Of everything else, more
than his literature, or his history books, or his music, or Takuda-
sensei's dojo, or even his several girlfriends, Michael loved to fly.
Getting shot at from time to time was just an occupational hazard.
Getting shot down, in Michael's view, wasn't part of the bargain.
<Hmmm.> Michael thought pensively. <I suppose if I'm going to
carry the name Austin, I'm going to have to expect to get shot down
once in a while.> Michael's thoughts quickly turned darker. His
parents, both of them pilots, had been killed in battle: his father
several months before he was born, and his mother when he was just
a boy. And he wasn't quite yet ready to join them.
As the last few hundred feet that separated him from the lake
vanished, Michael hit the airbrakes and pulled up hard. The surface
of the water was very close, and he wanted to hit it as slowly as
possible.
The plane struck the lake as gently as could be expected under
the circumstances; and somewhere in its middle, the Alpha had
surrendered all of its forward momentum to the blue waters, and
stopped.
Even with the air in the cargo compartment and that trapped in
the engines, the plane was sinking fast. Michael popped open his
canopy, unstrapped his flight harness, and withdrew his survival
pack from behind the pilot's seat.
He opened one of the pack's side compartments and pulled out a
yellow vinyl bundle: the self-inflating raft. Michael activated the
inflation, and set it on one of the winglets that ran along the sides of
the cockpit. He also freed his firearm from the pack. The Gallant was
new - it had never been fired in combat, and Michael attached the
rifle barrel and stock to the basic pistol and loaded in the energy clip.
He might just need it. Michael yanked off his flight helmet and tossed
it aside, and slung the rifle over his right shoulder. He heaved the
pack up, and lowered it into the raft, which was now fully inflated
and floating free, as the winglet it had been resting on was now
underwater. Time rapidly slipping away, Michael examined the one
item that remained behind the pilot's seat; the crossbow. Michael had
never fired it either. He kept it mainly to honor Praxian custom. It
was a gift from Gnea, a Praxian warrior-queen, for piloting the
shuttle that had rescued her and her bodyguard from a horde of
Invid inorganics a year and a half ago. Praxian tradition holds that if
a warrior is given a weapon by an elder to honor her valor, she must
keep it with her in every battle she fights thereafter or risk insulting
her patroness. No one was really sure if Praxian tradition was
binding on Michael, being a human and a male, but he followed it in
this case; the August Lady Gnea was a friend of his late mother's and
had fought alongside her in the Sentinels' Campaign. He doubted it
would be of much use, what with his Gallant Pulse Rifle and all, but
he strapped it across his left shoulder anyway. Hopefully, there
would still be battles for him to fight, his crossbow faithfully tucked
behind his seat, once he managed to get off this planet. If he
managed to get off this planet.
Michael climbed into the raft just as the water began to fill the
cockpit, and he pushed off from the canopy. A short row, then he'd
be in the jungle. Michael assembled the oar - the shaft would double
as a tent-peg and the paddles as shovels and entrenching tools - and
began to row towards the shore.
The sky was a clear blue, with only a few low clouds rolling in
from the east, but Michael decided he'd prefer to be hidden in the
thick foliage. No aerial searches could spot him there, and soon his
plane would be at the bottom of the lake. Nevertheless, if it would be
hard for the Zentraedi to find him, it would be nigh impossible for
Valiant. Michael had a field radio, but using that before he was sure
that one of his ships could hear him would just make it easier for the
Zentraedi to track him down. Besides, the planet's primary was
entering an active phase; he'd heard in the mission briefing that
several coronal mass ejections were expected to hit the planet over
the next couple of weeks, making radio transmissions from the
surface useless. To top that off, Valiant wasn't due back in-system
for another two weeks, and the three destroyers his squad had been
assigned to would be no match for the Zentraedi by themselves;
among them they only had one and a half squadrons of planes left.
Even if they managed to land one of the destroyers and drop off its
Ground Mobile Unit, would they even know to look for survivors and
where to look, or would they just assume that everyone had been
killed?
Michael looked over the raft into the water. It seemed clear
enough; alien fish swam to and fro in the sparkling lake. Michael
cupped his hands in the water; it smelled clean at least. He reached
into his pack and extracted a small metallic cylinder. The toximeter
was around eight centimeters long, and had a specimen collector at
the bottom and a screen at the top, with several lights to the side of
the screen.
Michael dipped the toximeter into the water. After a moment of
analysis, the green light went on, indicating that the water was safe
to drink. Nevertheless, the screen recommended that the water be
treated with iodine before drinking it. Michael returned the
toximeter to his bag.
<At least I won't die of thirst when my canteen's empty.> Michael
thought. "I just hope to God that the life on this planet has the same
protein and carbohydrate chirality as on Earth; the pack's only got a
week's worth of food, and I don't want to starve to death with a full
belly!" he said aloud.
Despite his worries, the world around him was awesome and
peaceful. Some sort of arboreal creatures were singing in the thick
canopy of trees that surrounded the lake. One would begin a melody,
and others, miles off, would pick it up, singing variations upon its
theme. Other creatures were calling out to others of their kind,
whooping and yelping from miles off.
The foliage was various shades of green and dark blue; and the
bark ranged from white to burnt orange, rather unlike the trees of
Earth. Not that Michael would have known. He'd never been there.
Michael smiled, "Well, I wanted a vacation!" He would have to be
more careful of what he wished for in the near future, for fear that
he might get that too. He tried to put the recent deaths of his
comrades behind him, and attempted to concentrate on keeping his
spirits up. It wouldn't be easy. Valiant, even if it finds the Zentraedi,
would probably give up on ever finding him. He might end up
stranded here permanently.
All of a sudden, he felt something bump the raft, about half-way
to the shore from where his now-submerged aircraft had stopped.
Michael looked around; the water was murkier here, and he had a
hard time seeing anything. Again, he felt something bump the raft.
This time, he saw the wake of a large creature as it dove back
underwater and swam away.
Michael readied his Gallant. He hadn't gotten a good look at the
creature, but it was big, and it was playing with him, whatever it
was. Michael released the safety on the gun and waited, peering over
the edge of the raft.
Michael felt something try to tip the raft from behind him. He
panicked and spun around to see his survival pack slide toward his
end, and fall into the water. Michael dropped his gun and caught the
pack just before it went under, and managed to right the raft. <Damn!
Good thing this pack's waterproof.> The prospect of losing his food
supply and radio didn't appeal to him much. But in the rush to save
them, he had lost his gun, and he sighed despondently as he realized
that it was on its way to the bottom of the lake by now.
Michael cursed as he checked the raft for leaks. None were
apparent, but he had now lost the only weapon he had that was even
remotely capable of taking out a full-sized Zentraedi. And that thing
was still out there, in the water.
He unslung the ornamental crossbow and examined it. It was
cocked by a shotgun-style pump action, and the magazine, containing
twenty steel-tipped bolts, was mounted on top of the bow, along with
an IR sight. Austin pumped it, and tried to stay alert.
He heard a splash, and spun around. A giant reptile-like creature
stuck its long neck out of the water, and was snapping at him with
rows of sharp teeth in the jaws of a dragon-like head as big as
Michael's torso. Michael ducked backward, away from the gaping
maw, and fired once. The bolt struck from point-blank range and
imbedded itself in the creature's thick skull. The monster gasped,
went limp, and sank back into the murky waters below.
With his first small victory over this alien world still fresh,
Michael paddled the rest of the way to shore.



Act II

Meliana's damaged ship set down in the upper hangar level as
smoothly as could be expected, considering that the power conduits
from over half its protoculture-cell energizers had been severed by
the Micronian's missile attack. Smoke bellowed out of the holes in the
armor, both from the salvo of Diamondbacks and the occasional hits
from the Alpha's 35mm guns that actually penetrated the mecha's
thick shell.
The canopy folded upwards, and Meliana began detaching the
environmental support feeds from her flightsuit. She looked up, as
two of her comrades-in-arms called her name.
Kaziana and Zeregrina dashed toward the crippled ship, and began
to help pull their friend's weakened form from the battlesuit.
"Meliana, have you suffered injury?" Kaziana asked. Their squadron
leader had taken several shrapnel and 35mm shell hits in her
shoulder and arm, and was bleeding profusely. She nodded, and
forced herself to stand.
"My battles are not yet finished," she said, echoing the Zentraedi
ritual reply.
"And the others?" Zeregrina asked. "Miloria and Ezoda?"
"They have fulfilled the Imperative," Meliana replied, again in
ritual fashion. "They are dead. But we carried the day!"
"Glory to the Masters!" her comrades shouted in unison. Meliana
only nodded.
"Come, let us help you to the infirmary," said the blonde-haired
Zeregrina. She hoisted her thirty-two foot tall squadron leader over
her equally large back, and began to carry her out of the hangar.
Meliana's rich green hair spilled out of her flight helmet, and fell
down behind her back.
"No," the wounded warrior said. "I must take another ship and go
back out. I believe one of the Micronians may have been able to
crash-land."
"I'll do it," Kaziana announced. "My ship is still functional."
"The last tracking data on the Micronian's craft is in my flight
recorder. I doubt he could have made it far; his ship was burning and
heavily damaged in the engine section."
Kaziana nodded, and ran for the flight-suit locker. Meliana
watched her go, as she was carried to the elevator.
<Where did they come from?> Meliana asked herself. She had
heard about Micronians, other than the Tirolians and their supreme
leaders, the Robotech Masters. But she had standing orders to avoid
or destroy all non-Tirolian Micronians on sight. The Masters and her
own commanders would tell her no more. The craft themselves were
especially puzzling. The vessels she fought looked somewhat like
miniature versions of the Zentraedi fighter pod, though somehow
they could reconfigure themselves into near replicas of her armor,
but only half as tall, a fact that made them hard targets to strike.
They were nimble, well-armed, and their pilots were well-trained.
But they were still no match for the 78191st Ragaeli Zentraedi
Quaedluun-Rau Air Battalion. As far as Meliana knew, only Miriya
Paarino, another from her own clone series, at last word attached to
Commander Azonia's fleet, commanded a better squadron.
<Except for that one...> Meliana mused. <His tactics were identical
to the Quaedluun-Rau standard maneuvers, and he was as skilled at
them as anyone I have seen.> This recognition of her opponent's
fighting style bothered her. Though the Masters vehemently denied
it, there were rumors that Lord Dolza's Grand Fleet had been
destroyed by the Micronians, and that what little was left of Lord
Breetai's Imperial-class Fleet had defected to their side. Such tales
were told only in hushed whispers, and for good reason: to be caught
saying such things was a sure death sentence, and Meliana had
herself ordered the execution of several warriors for uttering such
things. Then there was the even more disturbing rumor that Tirol
itself had fallen to the Invid. This might explain why the local
governor triumvirate had not received reinforcements or supplies for
many years and had moved the Tirolian colonists underground, and
it was common knowledge that their protoculture supply was
desperately low.
Meliana put such stray and seditious thoughts behind her, as she
was set on a table in the infirmary by her comrade, who saluted and
left. The medic-on-duty was soon tending to her injuries, and before
long, she was all sewn up, and sat silently in the recovery room.
Presently, a screen on the far wall lit up, and the Zentraedi base
commander's rugged face appeared.
"Meliana, it is good to see that we haven't lost our finest pilot,"
Commander Thurall said gruffly.
"I live yet but to fulfill the Imperative," Meliana replied. It wasn't
often that Thurall spoke to his female officers; the two sexes were
rigidly segregated on this and every other Zentraedi installation.
"I have news for you. Firstly, Kaziana has found no sign of that
Micronian aircraft. There is no unaccounted-for wreckage for miles
around, and the footage your gun camera shot of the vessel has
shown that it couldn't have gotten far. Further flights are scheduled
to search for it."
"Yes, my lord."
"And another thing," Thurall began. "It seems that the Governor
Triumvirate wishes to hear your report in person. You are scheduled
to be micronized in seven hours. Consider this a great honor. Few
Zentraedi are permitted to go before the Masters."
"Yes, my lord. Thank you, my lord."



Act III

Michael wiped the sweat off his forehead and continued his hike
to the southwest, trying to put as much distance as possible between
him and the suspected location of the Zentraedi base. The jungle was
dark and hot, at least during the day, and pairs of ominous,
frightened, or curious eyes stared at him out of the darkness. Some
were safely nestled in the trees, yet others prowled along the
ground. As far as he could tell, a pack of dog-sized creatures had
been following him from a distance all day, and occasionally one
would approach close enough that he could make out its shadowy
form amongst the trees.
"Some vacation," Michael thought aloud, his crossbow at the
ready. There was more ground cover in this forest than he'd
expected, and the trunks of trees were covered in blue and red
lichens and mosses. The ground was soft and springy, and for this he
was thankful. Normally, even a brief walk would get his right ankle
to ache slightly: the result of a childhood sprain that never really
healed right.
Michael began to look for a clearing. Even if he thought his
chances of getting through weren't very good, he had to try to radio
the Claymore, if only to warn her and her companions that the
Zentraedi were about. Besides, he doubted that these creatures would
follow him into the open, where he could see them.
Before long, Michael had climbed to the top of a tall rocky hill that
was for the most part clear of foliage. He sat down, and began to
unpack his radio. Even with a protoculture-cell energizer, the
transmitter still wasn't particularly strong, but it was still worth a
try. Michael activated the field radio, and began to speak into the
microphone.
"This is Phoenix-four, callingClaymore. Repeat, this is Phoenix-
four, callingClaymore. Do you copy, Claymore?"
Michael waited, and repeated his hail. Still, for ten long minutes,
there was silence.
Michael gasped when the receiver crackled, and he heard a
familiar voice. "Phoenix-four, this is Claymore. What's your status,
over?"
It was Mary. Good old Colonel Mary Vandenberg, the REF Ground
Forces commander onboard the ship. Michael's father had taken care
of her for several years after the Zentraedi Holocaust, and had things
gone a little differently, she might ended up as Mrs. Tom Austin.
Because of this, or perhaps despite it, Michael was almost a son to
her.
"My bird went down, and I'm the only survivor of my squadron.
My coordinates are..."
"Say again, Phoenix-four. Your transmission is breaking up.
Sensors indicate an active jam..." Then he lost reception.
<Fuck!> Michael thought. <Those goddamned Zentraedi!> He tried to
boost the gain on the transmitter, tried a more focused signal, but
nothing worked. Then it hit him. If they had units in the air while he
was transmitting, they could triangulate his location with ease. Of
course, "they" could either mean his people or the Zentraedi. Michael
packed up the radio as fast as he could, and began to run. He had to
get as far away from there as possible before the strafing runs
began. And they came before he expected. The ground began to
tremble, and Michael could see the forest around him shake. He had
made it half of a mile from the transmission site before the missile
barrage began in earnest. He hit the dirt hard, and waited as the
world exploded around him. Under this thick canopy, they couldn't
use thermal-imagers to track him, and he knew they would give up
eventually. But that was little comfort now. The Quaedluun-rau suits
were now using their motion-trackers, blasting anything that moved
with their tri-barreled beam guns on each forearm and the two
impact cannons mounted in their torsos. Michael couldn't begin to
imagine how many of the indigenous forest creatures they must have
slaughtered in that attack. One of the seventeen meter tall
powersuits actually got within a fifty meters from Michael, who lay
as still as death under a rotting log. Soon, the Zentraedi gave up, and
rocketed away, presumably back to base. Here, in the jungle, the
advantage was his.
Michael waited for what seemed like hours before he dared to
move. By the time he got up and examined his surroundings, the
creatures that had been following him had all run away. They had
seemed to have learned of the danger the Zentraedi presented long
ago.
Soon, it was beginning to get dark, and Michael decided that it
would be wise to pitch his tent. He set up the dome-shaped structure
and climbed in with his pack for the evening, and activated by
remote the laser-tripwire fence that set a ten-meter radius
perimeter around his tent. He snuggled into his sleeping bag, as it
was getting cool, and dug out one of his MRE rations. Chicken a la
King was the meal for today. Michael would have rather eaten Trahl
stew, hairballs and all, but he was hungry. <A beer would be good
right about now.> he thought wistfully.
He grudgingly consumed the tasteless and cold meal, and lay
down for the night. He began to wonder if he'd ever actually get off
this rock. What would all his friends do if he never came back? What
about the Sterlings? Max and Miriya had taken such good care of him
between the time that his mother had died and the day he entered
the Academy, and he was fast friends with both their daughters,
Dana, who had come back from Earth several years ago on the
Marcus Antonius, and little Aurora. Then there were his true
girlfriends, Cathy and Keiko, both of whom he adored (though both
were also shamelessly cheating on him, but he didn't care - he was
not above doing the same to them).
And then there was Jeanne. That was the stickiest issue of them
all. Only fifteen and a half years old, and she was already an Ensign
stationed aboard Claymore, and was widely recognized for her
enormous talent. And where the other girls in his life viewed him
mainly as a sex object (which was also fair, because for the most part
he reciprocated the sentiment), Jeanne, the sweet spunky little
redhead he'd known for years, was really, truly, head-over-heels in
love with him. And just the thought of that gave him a serious case
of the heebee-jeebees. The two of them had spent the week together
on Tirol before they had shipped out on this patrol, and had almost
bought her a pet pollinator. She had even picked out a name for the
pet she eventually declined to buy - Jean-Claude. She was going
through a serious Francophilic stage right about now, and Michael
was really getting tired of hearing her try to romance him in French.
Besides, after having his mother sing to him as a child, he had always
thought Gaelic was a far prettier tongue anyway, though he couldn't
understand a word of it.
The more he thought about Jeanne, the more depressed he
became. In the week before they shipped out, the two shared a
picnic in a rather secluded park just outside of Tiresia. Michael had
imbibed the Rilac daelraed-berry wine a little too heavily, and his
judgment suffered for it. Nothing had really happened, except for a
fair amount of kissing, a few ungentlemanly gropes, and a lot of
disheveled clothing, but he felt guilty of having taken advantage of
her as far as he had. It had also set an ugly precedent in their
relationship, and he knew that when he got back - if he got back -
Jeanne would have a whole different set of expectations about what
was really going on between them.
Realizing that he really did need to sleep, rather than stay up all
night dwelling on such troublesome matters, Michael took a couple of
depressants from his med-kit and shut his weary eyes.



Act IV

"I am concerned," muttered Zened, stroking his long, graying
beard. His companions, identical in appearance except for their hair
color and style, looked up from their seats around the hovering
mushroom-shaped console and cast their gaze upon their clone-
brother.
"Yes," Garndal confirmed, shaking his shaved head slightly. "We
have had no word from the Elders for far too long. We can only
assume that the distress call from the homeworld was accurate; that
Tirol has indeed fallen to the Invid, and then to the Micronians. Our
only hope lies in the expedition to the Micronian homeworld. Without
the protoculture..." Garndal's voice trailed into silence, and he
considered his position. At last word, the Empire was crumbling, and
entire sectors were being ravaged by the rapacious blood-lust of the
Invid. As far as he knew, theirs might be the only world left in the
Empire. It was a recent colony, with only five thousand Tirolian
citizens and fifty-thousand clones bred from the Imperial Genetics
Reserve's approved chromosome sequences. But with the fear of
impending Invid attack, the colony-ship had been hurriedly buried,
with only the hangars of the Zentraedi defensive brigade left
accessible to the surface. But their power reservoirs were nearly
depleted, and they were already trying to activate fusion back-up
reactors that had lain idle for centuries.
Tharun, the third in the governor-triumvirate, grunted
perceptibly and nodded. "But we can not count on that eventuality. If
the Micronians occupy the homeworld, then they may have been
able to defeat the armada sent to their world. We must proceed with
our plan; the remaining fuel cells for our armies are beginning to
decay beyond the point of usefulness, and we only have enough
protoculture in the mothership's reactors for one fold-jump, if we
have that, and still not enough to defend ourselves wherever we may
go. Our only hope is to await the arrival of the Micronians'
mothership and attempt to take it by force, and transfer our flag
there. But the element of surprise is essential!"
"The loss of a squadron of their mecha should make them
suspicious - but they must not be notified of our whereabouts. Even
now, their surviving pilot has managed to contact their patrol ship.
Translation of the communication has indicated that he was unable to
inform them of our presence - only that his squadron was destroyed.
Likewise, our jamming could easily be mistaken for the
solar/planetary magnetospheric storms that have been occurring of
late. They may suspect foul play in the squadron's demise, but it is
likely that they will expect the Invid, not us," Garndal mused.
"If they remain ignorant of our Zentraedi contingent, we may be
able to convince them that we are the remains of a stranded
scientific expedition, and beg them for protection from the Invid. If
so, we can claim that we observed the Invid destroy their squadron,
and fabricate sensor logs to that effect. Once aboard their
mothership, we can sabotage their defensive systems and use our
clone warriors to board. If they resist, we will cripple their vessel
with our Zentraedi squadrons, and take their protoculture from their
own engines and storage facilities. However, this all is dependent on
two things. Firstly, we must learn all we can about their technologies.
Have our recovery teams retrieved the aircraft that crash-landed in
the lake?" Tharun asked.
"Yes; it was only just been dredged out of the water. Our Science
Triumvirate has already begun to investigate the wreckage. Their
preliminary studies have shown that their power system is identical
to our own protoculture cells, and their weaponry is similar to that
employed by our Zentraedi. The craft does employ a number of
unique systems, such as the ability to reconfigure from a
aerodynamically optimized morphology to something approximating
the Quaedluun-rau battlesuit," Garndal replied.
"Clever," the others added.
"Indeed," said Garndal. "Even now, our scientists are attempting to
resuscitate the flight computer. It is apparently of rugged and
efficient, if somewhat primitive, design. Once their computer
protocols are understood, we should be able to formulate an invasive
intelligent program that will shut down their primary systems:
weapons, shields, hangar bays, engines, life support and so forth.
That will give us the time needed to call for a boarding party."
"Excellent," exclaimed Tharun. "Now, the only worry is the plane's
pilot. We can not find him in the jungle with our mecha, and our
clone Terminators are not suited for such tasks. If he manages to
regain contact with his troopship, they will be able to warn the
mother-vessel when it arrives. He must be eliminated or captured."
Zened smiled faintly. "My brothers, it would seem that our
solution has just arrived." He turned to the micronized Zentraedi
warrior that had entered their chamber. Zened caused their hovering
platform to approach her, and addressed the newcomer. "Welcome,
Meliana Paarino. We have a mission of the utmost urgency, and we
can think of no one better suited to the task than yourself."



Act V

Meliana shed her uniform and climbed into the Nous-grani
chamber. It would be the second time in so many hours that she
would be undergoing biogenetic reconstruction, and she had to admit
she wasn't fond of the procedure. Having one's body dissolved and
rebuilt around one can be disconcerting, and the void of the
computer where one's brain patterns are stored during the
procedure is as empty as the most desolate patch of interstellar
space she had ever experienced.
But the idea of becoming a Nous-gran'diel excited her. Becoming
the ultimate warrior, stripped of mecha and sensors, relying only on
one's intuition and body to defeat the enemy, was every Zentraedi's
dream. And she had heard that many of the enhanced characteristics
- reflexes, healing ability, strength - still lingered on when the Nous-
gran'diel was returned to full size.
Meliana contemplated her meeting with the Masters. Her mind
was still reeling from trying to understand (and speak) their dialect.
Too used to the Zentraedi form of the language, she always had
trouble with High Tirolian, what with the fully pronounced vowel
combinations, the foreign syllable breaks, the r-l inversion, and all
those grammatical subtleties. All her life, she'd pronounced her
mecha as a quad.ron.o, and it bothered her to hear it pronounced
qu.a.ed.luu.n-ra.u, even if that's how it was spelled. Then there's
what they called her: t's.i.en-tra.ed.i. It gave her a double-take
before she realized that they meant zen.tra.di. All the ritual
expressions were different, and she was sure she'd gotten them all
wrong. And yet, every time she heard something spoken in their
tongue, it carried a mysterious air of authority over her - as it did
over all Zentraedi. Something in her warrior upbringing taught her
that the a command given in the tongue of the Masters was
command to be obeyed. But as she tried to fumble through the
language, she thought that she surely must have seemed like a
blithering idiot to her Masters.
But still, they had given her the mission. And as she began to
sense the new body forming around her, she shivered in anticipation.
The knowledge newly implanted in her brain about tracking,
survival, small arms tactics, martial arts, and even field repair
startled and amazed her. There was so much to know that had been
kept from her when she was just a normal Zentraedi. But now she
was a Nous-gran'diel! Already she had known that the name inspired
fear among all the races in the Masters' Empire, and even among the
Masters themselves.
A scientist opened the chamber, and her naked form emerged.
She flexed her newly built muscles, and stretched. <How strong this
body is!> she thought. She soon found herself distracted by the sound
of circuitry burning. The chamber that had just enhanced her and
made her into the consummate assassin was self-destructing as it
was designed to do: the chamber could only produce one Nous-
gran'diel. The scientist gave her a new uniform; a heavy self-
camouflaging suit. She slid into it, and then moved on to the weapon
the scientist had offered. She had never seen one of its sort before,
but its operation had been imprinted in her mind by the chamber,
and she inspected it with the same familiarity with which she
normally greeted her power armor. It was a cased, chemically
propelled, exploding round, rifled, projectile weapon - primitive, but
effective, reliable, and accurate. Her final accouterment was her
multi-spectrum optics helmet.
"You are ready?" the scientist asked.
Meliana concentrated on her mission: if possible, capture the
Micronian pilot before he can contact his ship. If not possible, kill
him.
"Yes."


Act VI

The sounds of the forest had Michael on edge for the last several
days. He had guessed that the enemy base was to the north-west,
and thus decided to head to the south-east. If he could get far
enough away, he could try to contact the ship again, after the solar
disturbances had subsided. It there were in orbit to extend the
jamming range (which he doubted), Claymore would have already
destroyed them. All he had to do was get a hundred or so miles
away, beyond what he expected to be the range of the jammer: not
an easy task, in this wilderness.
Michael supposed he should be used to the jungle by now. But
something had changed. The region he was moving into seemed
darker and more sinister. The eyes in the blackness had vanished,
but even more than before, he had a profound sense that he was
being followed. There had been no sign from the Zentraedi mecha,
but that worried him even more; he knew they'd keep searching for
him, but at least he could see and hear the Quaedluun-rau suits from
a mile off. The thought he might be pursued by less obtrusive means
had him quite terrified.
He hadn't slept in two days, thanks to this uncertain feeling. And
his use of the stimulants in his med-kit was already past the point of
diminishing returns. He was stumbling more often, and spent hours
at a time traipsing forward in a half-aware daze. Occasionally, he'd
be startled by what might have been the sound of footsteps or
breaking twigs, and he would crouch and freeze, searching the wood
with the IIR scope on his crossbow. Sometimes he could almost make
out a bipedal form, its head signature just barely registering over the
background, but he couldn't be sure that it wasn't just his
imagination.
"Boy, you've really gone and gotten yourself in it deep this time,
Michael," he told himself, almost in a whisper, sitting down to a meal.
Eating had lost a lot of its pleasure, when he began to feel the need to
keep looking over his shoulder.
Finally, when his ears had picked up no sounds for several
moments, he ripped into his food, and began to nibble away at it. He
was down to one MRE package per day; he had to conserve food as
long as he could, and he wouldn't even know where to begin with the
native vegetation. Hunting for animals was out, for now at least,
seeing as his only weapon had but nineteen bolts left.
Michael rose, and began to heave his backpack over his shoulder.
Suddenly, he felt an arm reach around his neck, choking off his air
supply. Michael staggered, trying to loosen the grip, and let his pack
slip to the ground. Somewhere in the back of his mind, Takuda-
sensei's voice was booming. <Baka! What's wrong with you? You
learned the counter for this in your first week in the dojo! Have I
taught you nothing?>
Michael turned his chin into the inside of his attacker's elbow, and
stamped hard down on its foot with a heel. Before the assailant could
respond, Michael had thrown the figure over his shoulder, and took a
defensive stance.
His enemy had landed on the ground well, crouching in an attack
posture. Whoever this was, it was definitely humanoid. It wore a
thick camouflaged bodysuit over a distinctly... feminine figure. The
face and head was covered by a helmet with some sort of multi-
optics package, and what looked to be a conventional rifle of ancient
Tirolian design was tightly strapped to his stalker's back.
"Surrender, Micronian. You shall return with me either as a
captive or a corpse," Michael heard a synthesized gender-neutral
voice say in his own tongue. "But you shall return," the automated
translator circuit added.
Michael smirked. "I don't think so." He considered swinging his
crossbow forward, but he wouldn't have time to pump it, aim, and
fire before his opponent was upon him. This fight would have to be
hand-to-hand.
The camouflaged figure attacked first, far more quickly than
Michael had anticipated. He managed to block blow after blow, but
was giving ground with each strike. His enemy tried a chop to his
neck, and Michael evaded it by ducking down and tried to sweep the
attacker's feet with a kick.
She - Michael had decided his enemy was definitely female - saw
through the maneuver. She jumped back quickly, and stood there,
planning her next move.
<Don't let her take the initiative!> Michael imagined his master
shouting. Michael shouted his unique kiai as he launched a series of
punches and kicks into her abdomen. Several hit their mark, and
though she was knocked back by the momentum, the strikes didn't
seem to injure her much. <Watch for the circle kick!> his mind's
version of Takuda-sensei told him. The fight was now going into high
gear; Michael managed to land a few good hits on his enemy, and she
on him. For her mass and height, this opponent was amazingly
strong; as strong as Michael himself. His first instinct was to go for
the head, but he'd be damned if he threw his fist into that helmet.
Still, Michael was growing more aggressive and confident. His enemy
was now faltering and retreating, blocking more than attacking.
<Watch for the circle kick!> he imagined his instructor repeating.
Michael reacted quickly as she threw a punch at his groin; he blocked
it almost too easily. Suddenly, in a move too fast to register, she spun
around and struck Michael's head with her instep with tremendous
force. Michael felt his teeth rattle in his skull, and staggered
backwards in a daze.
<You didn't watch for the circle kick.> the gruff voice chastised.
Michael spun slightly, and fell to his knees. He could hear his
opponent closing on him from behind, ready to deliver the knock-out
blow.
This time the voice in Michael's head was his own. <When the
going gets tough, the tough fight dirty!> He rose quickly, grasping a
heavy branch that had lain at his knees, and shattered it across the
helmet of his enemy. While she was still stunned, Michael returned
the earlier favor, and replied with a thundering circle kick of his
own, again to the helmet, knocking the assailant to the ground.
<Now's my chance!> Michael thought as he ran for his backpack.
Reaching for a single strap, he leaped over some ground clutter
towards an escape route.
Before he got far, he felt a tug on his backpack, and then felt the
strap he was holding tear away; the other strap had caught on a log,
and the backpack lay dangling over it. Michael turned to grab it, but
the camouflaged attacker had unslung her rifle, and was bringing it
to bear on Michael. "Shit!" he cried, hitting the dirt, and feeling the
first projectile go over him. Michael scrambled behind a thicket of
trees, and then ran as fast as his legs would carry him, leaving the
pack, his food, field radio, and any hope of escape behind.
Michael felt like he must have run five miles in the forest and his
heart fetl as if it was about to burst. His enemy was close behind
him; every so often, she'd take a pot-shot at him, and Michael would
flinch and keep running. Finally, her weapon hit its mark, as Michael
felt something impact the flesh in his thigh. The bullet passed
completely through the muscle, and exploded three feet in front of
him. Had Michael not been too preoccupied with the pain and not
falling on his face he would have been happy the wound was not
more serious.
Michael hit the ground in a practiced roll; that was the *first*
thing Takuda-sensei had taught him. After dragging himself behind
an old log, he unslung the crossbow and pumped it, scanning from
behind cover for the enemy.
He didn't have to wait too long. A figure burst out of from behind
a tree, and Michael aimed quickly and fired. The bolt sank into a tree
inches away from the figure's helmet, but it had the desired effect;
the assassin hit the forest floor for safety. Michael scampered away
behind another tree, hearing the sounds of exploding bullets striking
the log he'd used for cover. Michael pumped and fired twice again
from behind a tree; again, narrowly missing. The bolts sank deep into
the soft earth near the prone form.
Before his enemy had a chance to rise again, Michael had already
begin to stagger away as fast as his injury would allow.
He didn't see his pursuer again for several hours. Apparently her
mission had been to take him alive if possible, and she was likely
hoping his injury would wear him down. And as far as Michael could
tell, she was likely right. He was bleeding profusely, and didn't have
the time to make a proper tourniquet for his leg. Michael continued
to stumble forward, refusing to merely give up. He had a duty to
resist capture, and he didn't trust Zentraedi to be particularly
humane, micronized or no.
Eventually, Michael's leg failed him, and he collapsed. Michael
uttered a brief prayer: "Om namo Amitabha Buddha", and pulled
himself with great agony back to his feet.
His sight was greeted, not with a vision of a rescuing Bodhisattva,
but with the cold reality of his enemy emerging from behind a tree.
Michael swung his weapon around quickly and fired. This time, his
aim was true. The crossbow bolt sank deep into his enemy's
abdomen, with enough force to knock her completely off her feet.
Michael began to turn to stagger away, when his enemy, the arrow
still in her belly, rose and fired again, again missing by inches.
Michael ducked for cover, and cocked the bow once more, firing
again in her direction and missing her completely.
<How the hell is she still standing?> he asked himself as he limped
away, hoping to find better cover. She fired again, missing. The
wound was definitely affecting her aim. Michael pumped and fired
again; the bolt pierced her left arm. Michael cocked the crossbow
again, but before he could aim, she raised her rifle with the right
arm, and fired it one-handed. Michael screamed in agony as the
bullet pierced his right shoulder and emerged out the other side. This
time it exploded inches after leaving his body, and he felt fragments
of the bullet penetrate his back. Michael collapsed to the ground,
writhing in agony.
He heard the footsteps of his inhuman adversary behind him, and
the sound of a new bulled bring chambered. "Do you surrender?"
he was asked by the synthesized voice, as he felt the rifle barrel
being pressed into his back.
"Yes." Michael acquiesced. He slowly rose, deeply in pain, leaving
the crossbow on the ground. "I'll surrender..." With every ounce of
strength he had left, he spun around and grabbed the alien rifle,
tearing it away from its owner, and smashed it across her helmet,
shattering some of the electronics inside. His enemy dazed by the
force of the blow, Michael pushed her away with the butt of the rifle,
and swung it around to fire at her. "... when Hell freezes over!" he
cried. Michael grimaced as he pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened; the weapon had jammed. Michael threw the
rifle to the ground in disgust and quickly reached for the crossbow,
brought it to bear on his enemy, who was still staggering backwards,
and fired. The bolt pierced her chest, and she sank to the ground,
emitting one last gasp.
Michael looked over the body for a brief moment, and turned
away, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he vanished back into
the jungle's darkness.


Act VII

Michael could hear the river in front of him; he was near some
rapids and noted the splashing and gurgling of the water from some
distance away. When he finally stumbled out of the brush, he looked
upon a mountain stream, foaming and rushing over the many
obstacles, rocks and broken tree limbs, that blocked its path.
Austin knew he was in bad shape. He'd taken a bullet in the leg
and in the shoulder, and he was lucky that they had overpenetrated
before they exploded; otherwise he'd be dead now. Now it was time
to lick his wounds.
Michael wondered how to get back to his survival pack. No
matter; he had an antiseptic solution and a collapsible water-pan on
his utility belt. Michael unfolded the pan and dipped it into the
water, and then added the sterilizing tablet. The water turned faint
purple; and Michael took a cloth from another pocket, and dipped it
in the solution. He painstakingly removed his blood-soaked shirt, and
began to wipe the blood from his chest and back. The solution
burned as it entered the open wounds, but Michael only winced -
that meant it was working. He finished cleaning that wound, and
began to bandage his shoulder.
Michael considered his predicament. <No radio, no food, no
motorcar, not a single luxury.> His only supplies were in a scant
utility belt, and a half-empty crossbow. And he was wounded. <What
if they send more of those... things against me?> he thought. The
dread began to surround and overwhelm him. It was over. <I'll never
get off this rock alive!> he thought.
<I can't think like that.> he told himself. <Damnit soldier, brace
up!> But his heart just sunk deeper into his chest. He shook his head,
lay down with his eyes to the twilight sky, and did the only thing he
could think of. Softly, barely a whisper, he began to sing to himself.
"Freude, schoener Goetterfunken, Tochter aus Elysium..." His
German was rusty, but he knew the choral part of Beethoven's 9th
by heart. It was the only piece of Classical music (apart, perhaps,
from Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody #2) that he truly enjoyed.
Michael began to feel a little better, and sat up to clean and bind
his leg-wound. Somehow, the pain was less intense, and he laughed
at himself for his former despair, slowly beginning to lose himself in
the song, even going so far as to mimic the orchestral parts (albeit
crudely), singing ever louder with the next verse. "Froh, wie Seine
Sonnen fliegen durch des Himmels pracht'gen Plan," was his
challenge to the foreboding jungle.
Something in the forest stirred; and Michael stopped singing. Was
it one of the animals that were following him earlier, or was it that...
what ever that thing was? Or was it an illusion - merely frayed
nerves? He knew he shouldn't have broadcasted his location like
that, and he waited. Convinced he was just seeing things, he resumed,
albeit more quietly. "Laufet Brueder euhre Bahn!" The forest stirred
again. The figure, still clad from neck to toe in thick camouflaged
cloth, bleeding profusely from several crossbow bolts yet imbedded
deeply into the assassin's body, emerged from the dark wood.
Michael stopped singing again, and she halted her hesitant approach.
Michael looked for the crossbow, but it was out of reach. And she
seemed to have lost her weapon anyway.
Michael started to rise, and she backed off slightly. "Par d'larna?"
she said. <The translator circuit must be broken.> Michael reasoned.
It was the Meltran dialect of Tirolian, spoken by female Zentraedi.
'What is it?'
"Qoomi?" Michael replied. 'What do you mean?'
"D'lar tren girong. Par d'larna?" 'That noise you make. What is it?'
<The song!> Michael thought. He finished the verse: "Freudig wie
ein Held zum Siegen!"
She approached closer - just out of reach. "What is it?" she
repeated in her tongue. Her voice was very weak, and Michael could
see that she'd lost a huge amount of blood. How she was still
conscious was a mystery.
"What is it?" she repeated one more time, and collapsed.
Michael caught her, and carried her to the river. He was still
hurting himself, but managed to lay her onto his metallized plastic
emergency blanket.
He tore off her helmet, and watched as her long pale-green hair
spilled into his lap. Her face was remarkably beautiful and familiar,
and her eyes stared up at him with puzzlement and fascination.
"What is it?" she gasped, barely a whisper.
"Lie still; you are hurt!" Michael ordered in her language. He took
out his survival knife, and cut off her uniform. The crossbow bolts
had to be removed and the wounds closed, if she were to survive.
She feebly tried to resist, but her strength was spent. Michael
wondered if he were doing the right thing in trying to save her, but
she was his prisoner now, and he had a responsibility to her and to
the REF. It was a matter of duty.
"This will be painful," he told her gently as he began to work on
removing the arrows. One had passed through her arm, on in her
lower chest, and a third in her abdomen.
Michael removed the head from the one that had passed through
her arm, and pulled out the arrow. <That was the easy one.> he told
himself. He noticed that she had, for the most part, already stopped
bleeding, but he still had to get the other two out.
One was deep in her chest, possibly penetrating a lung; it had
passed cleanly between two ribs. She hadn't been bleeding
noticeably from her mouth, but he couldn't be sure.
"I'm going to have to cut into you to remove this," he told her.
"Can you take the pain?"
She nodded, and Michael dipped his knife in the sterile solution
and cut her open, making a clean incision between the ribs. Before
long, he found the arrow-head, and carefully pulled it out of her,
taking care not to do any more damage than was already done.
Remarkably, she hadn't fainted from the pain, and Michael looked
into her eyes as he started to stitch up the chest wound and clean it.
She was staring at in him in puzzlement: why was he trying so hard
to save her life?
Michael took her hand and squeezed; remarkably (for a Zentraedi)
she squeezed back. "One more," he told her. She closed her eyes and
waited. Michael cut into her abdomen and examined the wound.
Luckily, the bolt hadn't punctured any organs, but there was some
internal bleeding, and Michael used his limited knowledge to try to
control it. He pulled out the bolt, and closed, finishing up with
another wipe with the antiseptic solution.
Night was coming on. And if it were as cold as the last several, she
wouldn't make it. Michael grimaced and checked his own wounds
again before staggering off to assemble wood for a fire. She watched
him carefully, but remained silent. Michael got the fire going, and
brought her some water.
"How are you?" he asked.
"Weak," she replied. "Why do you do this for me?"
"Shhh. Talk later. For now, you rest."
Michael walked over to her and knelt by her side. "You've lost a
lot of blood, and it's going to get very cold tonight. We need to
conserve warmth." Michael lay down beside his enemy, and covered
the both of them with the blanket.
Her body was very cold, but she didn't show any signs of shock or
hypothermia. Still, she was weak, and it was clear that her life hung
on by a thread.
Michael thought it odd that she didn't resist. Meltran warriors
were notorious for their tenacity, even when micronized as she was.
But her response to the injuries was peculiar. Michael knew many
micronized Zentraedi, and had never seen them come this tough.
The woman nuzzled against him, craving his heat, and Michael
could already feel the warmth returning to her lithe body.
<Tomorrow should be an interesting day.> Michael thought as he
drifted to sleep.