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front seat of the APC. Her head felt as though it was splitting open, but she
was determined not to let the others see how much pain she was in.
The three pilots became more brazen on the downhill stretches and were
soon winging the fighters along at a good clip. Encouraged (and seeing an
opportunity to raise the noise level of the mecha above that of Annie's
nonstop complaining), Rand began to feed the Cyclone more throttle.
"Mint, what d' ya say we goose this thing a little. That sound good to
you?"
Annie hammered her fist against his shoulder. "Don't call me Mint-Whoa!"
With a turn of his wrist, Rand saw to it that her words were left
behind. The three Veritechs had disappeared around the bend, but with a bit of
fancy weaving under the foot thrusters, Rand thought he could not only catch
up but pull out into the lead. As soon as he made his first move, however, the
first Invid ship appeared on the scene. It elevated into view from the trees
at the base of the slope and skimmed two streams of annihilation discs
straight into Rand's path. Consequently, he had to bring that fancy
maneuvering into play sooner than planned, but he did succeed in dodging the
energy Frisbees of the enemy's first volley.
Of course, it meant leaving the road entirely to do so.
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But at least we're alive! he screamed to himself as the Cyclone was
bounding down the steep slope toward the trees, Annie hanging on for dear
life, in and out of the pillion seat half a dozen times before they hit the
flat ground at the base of the cliff. Rand risked a look over his shoulder and
saw that the APC had also left the ledge roadbed.
What he, didn't see, however, was that Lunk's landing was far from
smooth. A second discharge of disc fire had forced Lunk to swerve at the last
moment; the nose of the vehicle connected with some large rocks and
overturned, sending Marlene sprawling while Lunk rode out the roll. The same
Invid ship swooped down for a close pass over the fleeing Cycloners, loosing a
barrage as it fell, but Lancer's Alpha was on the thing now and holed it
before it could manage a follow-up burst. Rand, meanwhile, was closing on the
trees at top speed, heartened when he heard the Pincer unit explode behind
him, but panicked when he saw two more rise unexpectedly out of the forest.
"They're everywhere!" he shouted.
"Rand! Get into your battle armor!" he heard Scott say over the mecha's
tac net. "I'll keep you covered."
Rand halted the Cyclone and began to snatch sections of armor from one
of the storage compartments. Off to his right he saw Lunk leading a dazed
Marlene to shelter among the rocks at the base of the slope and told Annie to
join them there. She ran off, holding her cap on her head with one hand.
Rand struggled into the "thinking cap" and launched for reconfiguration.
A moment later he was back on the ground in Battle Armor mode, squaring off
with one of the ships. The thing tried an overhand pincer swipe that missed,
then a, quick spray of disc fire after Rand had aggravated it with two
Scorpions from the Cyclone's forearm launchers. The discs tore into the earth
at Rand's feet and threw him flat on his back, but he countered with three
missiles that found their way into seams in the ship's alloy. The Invid had
enough life left in it to attempt a second pincer crush, but Rand rolled out
from under it and watched as the ship collapsed onto its face and exploded.
Elsewhere, Rook was in pursuit of the second new arrival; Scott was
several lengths behind her as she chased the ship across wooded valleys and
dry fingers of foothills. The lieutenant's face came up on the red VT's
cockpit commo screen.
"That's enough, Rook-let it go."
"But we can't let this one report that it found us," she pointed out.
"We've gotta finish it."
"Forget it," Scott told her more strongly. "They're on to us already, or
we wouldn't have had that little skirmish back there. Swing around."
Rook glared at Scott's screen image, then began to ease the VT off its
pursuit heading. She couldn't help but notice how beautiful the land was below
her-green hills and meadows, in startling contrast to the barrenness of the
high ground. She saw a town and alerted Scott to her find.
"It doesn't look like anybody's home," she commented as the two fighters
completed a quick flyby.
Scott was silent for a moment, then said: "That'll be perfect."
"Perfect for what?" she asked him. But he had nothing further to say.
They all agreed that the village must have been a delightful place when
it was alive. Now it was just a motley collection of buildings and houses
(spanning several hundred years of architectural styles), but nothing could
diminish the tranquillity of the valley itself or the beauty of the
surrounding mountains.
Scott ordered the Veritechs in and instructed Rand to assist Lunk with
whatever repairs the APC required; afterward the two men were to join the
others in town, but Marlene and Annie were to wait until they received an all
clear before coming down from the hills.
A building-to-building search of the place revealed little in the way of
supplies, but Lancer stumbled across one item that prompted a scheme to turn
the tables on the Invid Troopers in the nearby hive-as well as carry out the
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more prosaic surprise Scott had in mind for Annie. What he had found-hidden in
a barn on the outskirts of town-was a device known as a bio-emulator, a
Protoculture-powered instrument that was capable of mimicking the energy
emanations of a supply-sized cache of the pure stuff. It had been developed
not by the resistance but by the black market racketeers at the close of the
Second Robotech War, for luring Southern Cross personnel to their deaths.
Given top billing in Scott's reworked plan was an unusual building that
dominated the town, a circular structure with a columned cupola adorning its
domed roof that had once served as an armory. Installation of the bio-emulator
setup required a certain amount of group effort to conceal wiring and such,
but the original plan, the prosaic one, called for little more than setting up
several strategically placed rocket launchers and breaking out some of the
supplies the team had brought with it from the Rocky Mountains underground
complex. The freedom fighters split up into two teams, with Rook and Rand
handling the indoor chores while Lunk and Lancer worked together rigging the
armory building with charges. Scott did what he did best: he supervised.
Then Rand was sent to fetch the two women.
The sun was setting, huge and golden, and. Annie and Marlene were still
waiting in the mountains, sitting side by side on the rock with a western
view.
"I guess birthdays are very special days," Marlene was saying
consolingly. "I wish I could remember if I ever had one."
"Oh, you've had one," said Annie. "I don't think there's any way around
that."
"Do they always make you unhappy?"
Annie brought her knees to her chest and put her head in her hands. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]