"07 - Southern Cross" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Fifteen years before, the race that called itself the Robotech Masters had sensed the enormous discharge of Protoculture energy in the last battle on Earth. But their instrumentality was depleted because the rebellious genius Zor had sent the last Protoculture Matrix away in the SDF-1, and the Zentraedi's destruction and the endless war against the Invid had made great demands on the remaining reservoirs.
The Masters lacked the Protoculture power to send their armada to the target world by the almost instantaneous shortcut of hyperspace-fold generation. Therefore, the Elders had dispatched the six enormous mother ships, with their complements of assault craft and Bioroids, on a fifteen-year voyage by more conventional superluminal drive. Now that the journey was over, the Elders meant to rejoin the expedition by means of a small spacefold transference-of themselves.
But Shaizan, who most often spoke for the Robotech Masters, answered, his blue-gray hair flowing with the movements of his head. /No, Elders! We are very close to regaining the lost Protoculture masses and recovering secrets that Zor attempted to take to the grave with him. But we must not make the same mistakes the Zentraedi made!/
/We must know more about their strengths and weaknesses,/ added Dag, another Master, gazing up at the Elders' image.
Nimuul's frown deepened. /You must not fail./ The Robotech Masters all bowed deeply to their own Masters, the Elders.

When the Elders broke contact, the Robotech Masters looked in turn to the Clonemasters and the other triumvirates gathered below the hovering Protoculture cap. Shaizan, gathering his blue robes about him, his collar hanging like an orange flower around his neck, snapped, "Now, do you understand the plan, and do you anticipate any problems, group leader?
The Clonemasters and the rest looked in every way like Human males and females, fair-skinned for the most part. They tended toward an aesthete slimness, with long hair and form-fitting clothing that might have come from the early renaissance, draped with short capelets and cloaks. Among their triumvirates there was little differentiation in appearance or clothing.
The Clonemaster group leader replied in a voice somewhere between that of a Human and that of a Robotech Master. "Master, every Bioroid pilot is briefed and prepared to execute the first phase exactly as you have decreed. The only problem is in keeping our operators functional; our Protoculture supplies are quite minimal."
Shaizan frowned at the group leader as the Elders had frowned upon the Robotech Masters, with that same angry ruthlessness. "Then double the numbers of Bioroid fighting mecha assigned to the attack. You may draw additional Protoculture from the ships' engines only if it proves absolutely indispensable to success of the mission."
Dag, more lantern-jawed than his triumvirate-siblings, the most intellectual of them, added, "If possible, I would like some Human captives for experimental purposes."
Bowkaz, the most military of the three Robotech Masters, contradicted, as was his prerogative in tactical matters. "No," he told Dag. To the group leader, he added, "You will proceed, but only as per our original orders. Understood?"
The group leader inclined his head respectfully. "As you will."
Shaizan nodded, inspecting the Clonemasters and the other triumvirates coldly. "Then we look forward to your success and trust that you will not fail."
The group leader said emotionlessly, "We understand the consequences of failure, Master."
As did everyone on the expedition, the Robotech Masters' last desperate throw of the dice. The group leader met their scowls. The Bioroid war machines were waiting to bring destruction to the unsuspecting Humans.
"We will not fail you," he vowed.
When the clone triumvirates had hurried away to execute the probing attack, the Robotech Masters summoned up an image of the maze of systemry in their flagship. The living Protoculture instrumentality suggested internal organs, vascular tubes, clear protoplasmic tracts strobing with the ebb and flow of energy.
Dag bespoke his fellows. "If we could capture a Human, our mindprobe would reveal whether they've discovered any hint of the existence of the Protoculture Matrix."
"Not necessarily," Bowkaz replied.
They all looked at the shrunken mass of Protoculture left to them. The secret of making a Matrix had died with Zor, and there was no other source of Protoculture in the known universe. This Matrix was the Robotech Masters' last chance for survival.
"There will be time to interrogate the Humans once they lie defeated and helpless beneath our heel," Shaizan said.


CHAPTER THREE
I couldn't really tell you who said it first-commo op, Black Lion, cruiser crewmember-but somebody did, and, given the circumstances, everybody just naturally picked it up, starting then and there: the Second Robotech War.
Lieutenant Marie Crystal, as quoted in "Overlords,"
History of the Robotech Wars, Vol. CXII

Space Station Liberty swung slowly in its Lagrange Five holding place, out near Luna. It combined the functions of outpost fortress, communications nerve center, and way station along the routes to Earth's distant colonies on the moon and elsewhere. Its complex commo apparatus, apparatus that wouldn't function as well on Earth, was the Human race's only method of maintaining even intermittent contact with the SDF-3 expedition. Liberty was in many ways the keystone to Earth's defenses.
And so it was the natural target.
"Liberty, this is Moon Base, Moon Base!"
The Moon Base communications operator adjusted the gain on his transmitter desperately, taking a moment to eye the radar paints he had punched up on a nearby display screen.
Five bogies, big ones, had come zooming around from the moon's dark side. The G2 section was already sure they were nothing the Human race had even used or seen before. Performance and power readings indicated that they were formidable vessels, and course projections had them headed straight for Liberty, at appalling speed.
"Why won't they answer? WHY?" The commo op fretted, but some sort of interference had been jamming everything since the bogies first appeared. And nothing Moon Base could get off the ground could possibly catch the UFOs.
The op felt a cold sweat on his brow, for himself as well as for the unsuspecting people aboard the space station. If Liberty were knocked out, that would leave Moon Base and the other scattered Human sentry posts in the Solar System cut off, ripe for casual eradication.
The indicators on his instruments suddenly waffled; either the enemy had been obliged to channel power away from jamming and into weapons, shields, or whatever, or the signal-warfare countermeasures computers had come up with a way to punch through a transmission. A dim, static-fuzzed voice from Liberty acknowledged.
The Moon Base op opened his headset mike and began sending with frantic haste.
"Space Station Liberty, this is Moon Base. Flash message, I say again, flash message! Five bogies closing on you at vector eight-one-three-slash-four-four-niner! You may not have them on your scopes; they have been fading in and out on ours. We didn't know they were here until we got a visual. Possible hostiles, I say again, possible hostiles. They're coming straight for you!"
In the Liberty Station commo center, another op was signaling the duty officer that a flash message-a priority emergency-was incoming, even as he recorded the Moon Base transmission.
When it was done, he turned and exercised a prerogative put in place during the rebuilding of Earth after the Zentraedi holocaust. There wasn't time for an officer to get to the commo center, evaluate the message, get in touch with the G3 staff, and have a red alert declared. Every second was critical; the Human race had learned that the hard way.
No op had ever used it before, but no op had ever faced this situation before. With the decisive slap of a big, illuminated red button, a commo center corporal put the space station on war footing, and warned Earth to follow suit.
He tried to piece together the rest of what the Moon Base op was saying just as he spied a watch officer headed his way. The op covered his mike with his hand and called out, "Red flag, ma'am! Tell 'em to get the gun batteries warmed up, 'cause we're in trouble!"
The commo lieutenant nodded. She turned at once to a secure intercom, signaling the station's command center. Klaxons and alarm hooters began their din.
"Battle stations, battle stations! Laser and plasma gunners, prepare to open fire!"
Armored gunners dashed to their posts as Liberty went on full alert. The heavily shielded turrets opened and the ugly, gleaming snouts of the twin- and quad-barreled batteries rose into view, traversing and coming to bear on the targets' last known approach vector.
Near the satellite fortress, a flight of patrol ships swung around to intersect the bogies' approach. They were big, slow, delta-shaped cruisers, slated for replacement in the near future. They were the first to feel the power of the Robotech Masters.
The five Robotech Master assault ships came, sand-red and shaped like flattened bottles. The leader arrowed in at the Earth craft, opening up with energy cannon. A white-hot bolt opened the side of the cruiser as if gutting a fish. Atmosphere and fireballs rushed from the Human ship. Within it, crewmen and women screamed, but only briefly.
The Masters' warcraft plunged in, eager for more kills.