ftp.ee.pdx.edu/2014.02.ftp.ee.pdx.edu.tar/ftp.ee.pdx.edu/pub/frp/misc/roborift/roborift.1

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-03 | 221KB

From: [e-mail] (Chris Meadows)
Date: 25 Aug 92 01:50:53 GMT
Newsgroups: rec.arts.anime,rec.games.frp,rec.games.frp.misc
Subject: Robotech/Rifts Crossover Story, Introduction, Chapters 1-30

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..."