'For flying a Veritech, buddy boy. You'll still handle a lot of manual controls, but there are things this baby does that it can only do through advanced control systems.'
Rick hiked himself around in his seat and leaned out to look back at Roy. 'Look, I saw your guys flying, remember? What's so special about these crates that you have to wear a thinking cap just to steer one?'
Roy told him, 'The real secrets aren't supposed to go public until the politicians are through with all their blabbing, but I'll tell you this: The machine you're sitting in isn't like anything humans have ever built-it's as different from
'Because you don't just pilot a Robotech ship, Rick; you
On the main reviewing stand high above the crowd, Senator Russo stood at the speaker's rostrum, his voice echoing out over the throngs, amplified so that it reached to the farthest shores of the sea of people. Flags snapped in the wind, and the moment felt like a complete triumph.
'This is the day we've all been looking forward to for ten years! The Robotech project has been a tremendous asset to the economy of Macross City and to the welfare of our people!'
Captain Gloval, standing to one side with a few other dignitaries, tried to keep from yawning or simply throwing up his hands in disgust. So far, all Russo and his cronies had done was take credit for themselves and do some not-too-subtle electioneering.
Gloval cast a critical eye at the weather and gave it his grudging approval. He was impatient to launch; various other Earth military forces were already deployed in space, patrolling and awaiting the start of the SDF-1's first space trials. But the politicos didn't care who they kept waiting or what careful timetables they spoiled when they had the spotlight.
A liaison officer came up the steps at the rear of the reviewing stand and approached Gloval as Russo went on. 'More important, though, is the fact that the technology developed here will benefit all mankind, now and in the future. And I need not mention what it means to the defense of our great planet, Earth!'
The liaison cupped his hand to Gloval's ear and said, 'Excuse me, sir: urgent message from the space monitoring station. A strange flash of light and an explosion, tremendous radiation readings, accompanied by irregularities in solar gravitational fields.'
In spite of the warmth of the day, Gloval suddenly felt cold all over. 'The same sort of event occurred ten years ago. You know what happened then, don't you?'
The aide was trying to conceal his fear, nodding. 'That's when the alien ship arrived.'
Gloval assumed the icy calm of a seasoned captain. 'Better check it out. Come with me.'
Gloval was descending the platform steps as Russo announced what a great honor it was to introduce the commander of SDF-1, Henry Gloval.
For once, Russo didn't know what to say. 'Come back here! You have to make a speech!' he shouted.
Gloval never even looked around. The time for speeches was over.
On the SDF-1 bridge, the women who were the battle fortress's heart worked furiously to make some sense of the sudden chaos around them.
'What's going on here, anyway?' Claudia demanded, trying everything she could think of to interpret her instruments and reassert some control over the ship's systems.
'Claudia, give me a readout!' Lisa called calmly. All around her, the bridge was a din of alarms, flashing indicators, malfunctioning controls, and overloaded computers.
Claudia looked up from her hopeless efforts. 'Every system on the ship is starting up without being turned on!'
Unprecedented, impossible-to-interpret mechanisms had self-activated in the ship's power plant-the great, sealed engines that not even Lang had dared open. And the many different kinds of alien apparatus connected to it were doing bewildering things to the SDF-1's structure as well as its systems, making the humans helpless bystanders.
'The defense system is activating the main gun!' Claudia reported, horrified.
Far off at the great starship's bow, gargantuan servomotors hummed and groaned. The huge twin booms that made up the forward portion of the ship moved to either side on colossal camlike devices. The booms locked into place, looking like a fantastic tuning fork. The ship's reconstruction had the bow high up now, pointed out above the end of Macross Island's cliff line at the open sea.
Lisa's mind raced. The main gun had never been fired; no one was even sure how powerful it was. That test was to be reserved for empty space. But if it salvoed now, the ensuing death and destruction might well be greater than that created by the ship's original crash.
At the same time, everyone aboard could feel the supership shifting slightly on the massive keel blocks-the monolithic rests on which it lay. Warning klaxons and horns were deafening.
'Shut down all systems!' she ordered Claudia.
Claudia, trying the master cutoff switch several times to no effect, looked at Lisa helplessly. 'It doesn't work!'
A sudden glare from the bow lit the bridge with red-orange brilliance, throwing their flickering shadows on the bulkhead behind them.
Around and between the forward booms, tongues of orange starflame were shooting and whirling and arcing back and forth. The fantastic energy cascade began sluicing up the booms toward their tips, sparks snapping, seemingly eager to be set free.
And still Lisa could think of nothing she could do.
Just then the hatch opened and Gloval hurried in so quickly that he bumped his head on the frame. He didn't spare time or his usual swearing at the people who'd refitted the largest machine ever known for not providing a little more headroom.
'Captain, the main guns are preparing to fire!'
Gloval assessed the situation in seconds, but Lisa could see from his expression that he was as much at a loss as she.
'I can't control them!' Claudia told Gloval. 'What'll we
Lisa absorbed a terrible lesson in that moment. Despite what they might teach in the Academy and the War College and Advanced Leadership School, sometimes there was nothing you could do.
The energy storm around the booms had built to an Earth-shaking pitch, a noise like a million shrieking demons. Then huge eruptions of destructive energy streaked off the booms.
The bolts streamed off into the distance, thickening into a howling torrent of annihilation, a river of starflame as high and wide as SDF-1 itself, shooting out across the city.
Lisa expected to see everything in the volley's path consumed, including the gathered populace.
But that didn't happen. The superbolt went straight out over the cliffs and over the ocean, turning water to vapor and roiling the swells, raising clouds of steam that wouldn't settle for hours. The shot was direct, the curve of the Earth falling away beneath it as it lanced out into space.
And just as Lisa Hayes was registering the fact that the city still remained, intact and unharmed-that her father was down there somewhere, still alive-new information began pouring in on scopes and monitors.
The Zentraedi heavy cruisers, closing in on the unsuspecting Earth, barely had time to realize that they were about to die. By some unimaginable level of control, the blinding shaft of energy split in two.
The twinned beams holed each heavy cruiser through and through, along their long axes. Armor and weapons and hull, superstructure, and the rest were vaporized as the beams hit, skewering them. They expanded like overheated gas bags, skins peeling off, debris exploding outward, only to disappear, blown to nothingness, an instant later in globes of bright mass-energy conversions.
From his command station, Breetai watched impassively, arms folded across his great chest, as the projecbeam displayed the death of the two heavy cruisers.
'Now we know for sure: The ship is on that planet!' This time he didn't bother soliciting Exedore's advice.
