[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
capering and lurching into the wastes. The Pollinator licked her face.
A thin whine of engines caught her attention, and she looked up to see
an assault ship coming in at her, flying unsteadily, seemingly about to go
into a nosedive.
She threw herself flat, expecting the worst, but somehow the vessel
righted itself enough for a jouncing set-down right near her. She remembered
that she was unarmed, but she had no place to run and was too tired and
battered to feel fear-thought that, perhaps, she would never know it again.
But when the assault craft's hatches opened, instead of letting forth
attack teams of Triumviroids, it yielded her own 15th squad, along with Nova,
Musica, and a bunch of clones.
"Damn it, Phillips!" Angelo Dante was seething. "I'd like to see you
make a better landing with an XT ship! We walked away from it, didn't we?"
"All I said was," Sean replied in a blase voice, "that I could do better
with boxing gloves on. Hey, Dana! You made it!"
The refugees stayed back, but her squadmates and Musica and Nova
clustered around her, along with Marie Crystal and Dennis Brown. She blinked
at him. "How did you find me?"
"Picked up your voice transmissions from the escape capsule," Angelo
said. "But then, all of a sudden, the engines and all the systems quit. We had
to land on emergency power."
"Ya shoulda let Marie and Dennis take over," Sean snorted.
But Dana was shaking her head. "No, Angie couldn't help what happened.
It's the Protoculture-there was nothing he could do." Angelo looked at her
strangely, not used to having her defend him.
There were still Protoculture power supplies on Earth, she knew, outside
the radius of effect of the wraiths' transformation. Enough to animate mecha
for a transition period. But there would be no new Matrices, no new sources.
Page 114
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"The war's over, Lieutenant," Bowie told her happily. "The enemy mecha
stopped fighting, and the clones just want peace."
"That's...that's great, Bowie." He didn't understand why she sounded
like she was about to start bawling. People noticed the Pollinator, but
hesitated to ask about it. They saw the huge Flower that had been Zand, but
they were used to seeing the triad plants by now, and even such a huge one was
far down on the list of topics of discussion.
"Where's Zor?" Musica inquired timidly, fearing to hear the answer.
Dana pointed to where the mushroom cloud of spores and petals still rose
up and up, funneled into the higher atmosphere, sent on their appointed way by
those strange winds. "He died trying to save Earth."
Musica was shaking her head slowly, looking at the pink petals and tiny
spores that filled the sky like a blizzard. "But in vain. Now the Invid come.
Oh poor, poor Zor!" Bowie slipped his armored arm around her.
Nova drew a deep breath and declared, "Well, then! We've got to get back
and report to whoever's in interim command! We have defenses to set up, plans
to make-" She looked a little funny acting military with the infant still in
her arms.
But Dana was shaking her head, too. "You do what you have to. I'm
through with war." She already saw where her new course lay.
She had beheld something greater than herself, greater than the Human
race or any other corporeal race. She understood at last the Vision that had
filled her dreams all her life. She knew that there was no way to oppose or
derail the Shaping, though there was much more suffering and strife ahead. She
recalled that magnificent, infinitely sad Phoenix of racial transfiguration,
and the recollection took away some of her sorrow.
"What d'you mean? You think you can hide from what's coming?" Nova
snapped. "There's nowhere to run, Dana." The 15th and the others were looking
at her worriedly, too, afraid that what she had been through had pushed her
over the edge.
"What's going to happen on Earth will go beyond armies, beyond
Protoculture," she told them calmly. "The next Robotech War will be the last,
but I've had enough. I'm going to find my parents, and my sister. They're with
a group that includes Admiral Hunter and Admiral Hayes, who've parted ways
with the original SDF-3 expedition. They're trying to establish a new,
positive force, the Sentinels. I'm joining them."
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]