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Robotech: Genesis
Book One of the Robotech series
Copyright 1987 by Jack McKinney


PROLOGUE

I've brought death and suffering in such magnitude, Zor thought. It's only right that I spent the
balance of my life bringing life.
He looked out from the observation bay of his temporary groundside headquarters upon a
planetary surface that had been lifeless a mere four days before. He saw before him a plain
teeming with thriving vegetation. Already the Flowers of Life were sprouting, reaching their
eager, knob-tipped shoots into the sunshine.
Zor, supreme intellect of his race and Lord of the Protoculture, nodded approvingly. At
times the memories of his own past deeds, much less those of his species, seemed enough to drive
him mad. But when he looked down on a scene like this, he could forget the past and be proud of
his handiwork.
And above him, blocking out the light of the nearby primary, his gargantuan starship and
super dimensional fortress was escaping, as he had directed. The satisfaction he felt from that
and from seeing the germinated Flowers made it much easier to accept the fact that he was about to
die...
He was tall and slender, with a lean, ageless face and a thick shock of bright starlight
hair. The clothes he wore were graceful, regal, cut tight to his form, covered by a short cloak
that he now threw back over one shoulder.
Zor could hear the alarm signals ring behind him, and the booming voice of a Zentraedi
announced, "Warning! Warning! Invid troop carriers are preparing to land! All warriors to their
Battlepods!"
Zor gazed away from the beauty of the exterior scene, back to the harsh reality of the
base, as towering Zentraedi dashed about, preparing for battle. Even though the appearance of the
Invid had taken them by surprise, even though they were badly outnumbered and at a disadvantage
since the enemy held the high ground, there was a certain eagerness to the Zentraedi; war was
their life and their reason for being.
In that, they had met their match and more in the Invid. Zor found bitter irony in how his
own poor judgment and the cruelty of the Robotech Masters-his masters-had turned a race of
peaceful creatures, once content with their single planet and their introspective existence, into
the most ferocious species in the known universe.
While subordinates strapped armor and weapons on his great body, Dolza, supreme commander
of the Zentraedi, glared down at Zor. His colossal head, with its shaven, heavy-browed skull, gave
him the aspect of a stone icon. "We should have departed before the Flowers germinated! I warned
you!"
Dolza raised a metal-plated fist big enough to squash Zor. Unafraid, Zor looked up at him,
though his faithful aide, Vard, was holding a hand weapon uneasily. Around them the base shook as
armored Zentraedi and their massive fighting pods raced to battle stations.
"What of the super dimensional fortress?" Dolza demanded. "What have you done with it?"
"I have sent it away," Zor answered calmly. "To a place far removed from this evil,
senseless war. It is already nearing the edge of space, too fast and far too powerful for the
Invid to stop."
That much, Dolza knew, was true. The dimensional fortress, Zor's crowning technological