Genesis

aerodynamics radically changed, the fighter struggled to comply.

They drifted like zero-gravity dancers; it seemed so silent and slow and yet so high-speed, with the air shrieking past them and death only an instant away.

Then, somehow, their fingers were together. Later, Rick never remembered shaping the image, but the Veritech altered its death dive to come around and catch them, Minmei drifting into the rear seat, Rick into the front.

A last ripping air current almost carried him away, but the descending canopy pressed him back in to safety, although he didn't recall giving the command for it to close.

Maybe if the pilot lives the ship, the ship lives the pilot? he speculated.

He grabbed the manual controls and got the Guardian stabilized again. Behind, there was a last grand explosion of several alien missiles committing fratricide. The Guardian's foot thrusters blowtorched; Rick trimmed his craft. He descended through debris and smoke for a shaky landing, trembling and wiping his brow while Minmei at last gave in to sobs in the rear seat.

'We're safe now. Please don't cry.' Rick turned toward her.

The Guardian was in a slow, easing descent, its feet only inches above the streets of Macross City. Minmei wiped her nose on the back of her hand.

'I'm all right now. Oh, no!'

Her eyes were wide as saucers-such a strange blue, he thought again-focused over his shoulder.

Even as he whirled, an image of what the Guardian should do sprang to mind; its heels caught the pavement, digging in as the thrusters retrofired.

A Battlepod had backed around the comer of a building at an intersection dead ahead-damaged and covering its own retreat, later reports indicated. The Guardian took it from behind, wings hitting the backs of its knees, neatly upending it.

The Guardian slid for nearly a hundred yards, upside down, Rick and Minmei howling as the pavement tore at the canopy, until it came to a rest.

The Guardian got to its feet; so did the pod, which seemed rather unsteady and showed heavy damage.

'You okay? Oh, no! Minmei!' She was pale and unmoving, slumped in the rear seat.

And why? Because these creatures, or whatever they are, came across a billion light-years to invade us? For more war? FOR MORE WAR?

'Yahhhhhh!' Furiously Rick gripped the trigger on his control stick, the chain-gun pelting the pod with a hail of high-caliber, high-density slugs.

The invader's armored front disappeared in a welter of explosions, shrapnel, and smoke. There were secondary explosions, and the machine fell to the ground like a dying ostrich, strangely articulated legs rising up behind as the rest of it crashed down.

Rick found that he was still thumbing the trigger on his control stick-to no avail; the Gatling's magazine was empty. He took his hand away, breathing a sigh of relief or despair-he wasn't sure which.

And then he heard a sound of metal creaking and shifting.

In the back of the downed pod, a hatch was thrown open. A hatch three yards across.

A figure emerged, helmeted and armored. It was on the scale of the pods-taller than most of the buildings around it. Its helmet's faceplate was a cold and untelling fish eye of green.

It was human-shaped, and it came Rick's way. And for the first time in his life, he froze. Couldn't leave Minmei, had no ammo left, and besides-the sight of the thing had him completely rattled. It was as big as a Battloid.

The ground reverberated under its feet; just as Rick thought things couldn't get any worse, its arms reached up and wrenched off a helmet the size of the Veritech's cockpit, dropping it tiredly.

The face might have been the face of anybody on the streets of Macross City. The monster made bass- register rumbling noises, unintelligible-not surprising in view of how long and muscled its vocal cords must have been if they followed human form.

It staggered and teetered toward the grounded Veritech. Rick froze in his seat-nothing to fire and unwilling to eject or otherwise abandon Minmei. A terrible basso growling shook the air; one metalshod foot of the giant alien warrior squashed a car.

The titan reached toward the Veritech; he quite clearly knew who his enemy was and what Rick had done to him. Dying, he would still have his revenge. Rick sat frozen.

There was a burst of high-decibel, buzz saw sound from somewhere. The alien, fingers not far from Rick's canopy, suddenly looked blank and vulnerable. He toppled to the ground and didn't move again, his weight bending and collapsing his body armor.

The alien pitched onto his face, his back showing the deep penetrations of Veritech Gatling rounds. He'd nearly made it to his objective; his right hand clutched the Guardian's immobilized left foot. The ground shook at Roy Fokker's approach, his Battloid shouldering its weapon.

Rick couldn't shake off his terror. 'What was it? What was that thing, Roy?'

Roy's reply sounded flat, tight. 'That's the enemy. Now you know why we built the Battloids, Rick. To fight these giant aliens.' Roy's Battloid toed the corpse with an armored foot.

Rick felt like he was losing his grip. Maybe it was a good time to, but he didn't have much experience in the practice. 'But-that guy looks just like a human being!'

Roy snorted, 'Yeah. If you ever saw a human fifty feet tall.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Lisa turned to me and yelled, 'I am getting sick of that name!'

And I thought, Mr. Rick Hunter, whoever you are, if you know what's good for you, you'll start thinking along the lines of an alias.

She had no idea what you'd brought us, Roy!

None of us did.

Lt. Claudia Grant, in a note to Lt. Commdr. Roy Fokker

Roy and Rick looked down at the dead goliath who still had one hand clasped around the Guardian's ankle in final rigor. Rick was just starting to get over the shakes but was still numb with the idea that beautiful, innocent Minmei, so full of life, had had that life taken from her in such a meaningless and appalling way.

His panic reassailed him as he realized that there were more aliens like this one-that the pods and the ships beyond the atmosphere were crowded with them-that a plague of them had come to obliterate the Earth.

'I guess you understand now why we kept this secret,' Roy said.

'Engineering reports backup rockets are fueled and ready for firing,' Claudia said. 'How's the evacuation progressing, Lisa?'

Lisa was still watching Gloval worriedly. 'All civilians have been safely transported to shelters. Macross City is deserted except for combat units.'

Gloval squared his shoulders. 'Very well. Bring up the booster rockets. We'll be blasting off immediately.'

Lisa blurted, 'I hope the standby boosters work,' before she could think better of it.

Gloval gripped her shoulder, calm in the eye of the storm, hiding the fact that he harbored the same misgivings. 'They'll work, Lisa; they were designed and built on Earth.'

But they'd never been tested under full power.