It certainly didn't resemble anything the new foe-the Human-Zentraedi alliance-would conceivably field. And no ship of a subject race posed much threat to an Invid command ship.
"We'll close with it, then," Senep decided, "within range of our main guns, but out of Tesla's.
Then we'll send our mecha to investigate."
Lisa refused to answer the enemy's query signals, of course; none of the Sentinels could imitate an Invid, and there wasn't even time to get Tesla up to the bridge, much less coerce him.
"But why are they approaching?" Veidt's eerie voice came.
Lron growled, "They know what our weapons can do; they know their flagship has us outgunned."
There were only seconds to act; Lisa turned to one of the gramophone mikes. "Patch me through to Commander Grant."
"Way to go," Rick whispered to his gutsy wife, realizing what she had in mind.
"I'm beginning to get unfamiliar Protoculture readings from that craft, Commander," the ship's Living Brain relayed.
"Launch mecha," Senep said, having taken up his position of advantage. "And at the first sign of resistance, open fire-"
It was as if he spoke into the ear of a listening deity. At that moment a tremendous bolt sprang from a peculiar design feature on the underside of the lone ship. It struck Senep's vessel almost dead-center, a star-hot stiletto of energy that pierced the command ship's shields and hull, stabbed it to its heart, and lit the vessels around it with its dying eruption.
But Senep had given a last order, and as the ball of superheated gas that had been the command ship expanded like a balloon, the troopships swung open like oysters about to yield pearls.
Invid mecha began boiling forth from them: bizarre, armored crab-shapes of assorted types riding powerful thrus-ters, diving for the Sentinels.
"Launch fighters!" Rick yelled. He could feel the ship shake as the Alphas and Betas of Skull Team roared from their launch tubes in the Ground Mobile Unit, and from the improvised bays in the rest of Farrago as well. "Vince, see if you can take out some of those other troop carriers!"
But before the command was out of Rick's mouth, the Sentinels' ship shuddered from a second firing of the GMU's monster cannon. Fastened to the underbelly of the ship as it was, the GMU
wasn't in the best position for accurate volleys; but Vince's gunners and targetting equipment were unsurpassed. A second nova-beam went through a troop carrier like a leatherpunch through a bug. Less than half its mecha launched, the enemy craft vanished in outlashing starfire.
"Commence firing! All batteries, commence firing!" Lisa was saying loudly but calmly into a mike. In all the mismatched portions of the ship, turrets and launchers opened up. The GMU's secondary weapons began putting out the heaviest possible volume of fire. So did the non-transformable Destroid mecha that Vince Grant had moved into the ground unit's larger airlocks, using them as gun emplacements-just as Henry Gloval had on SDF-1 during the desperate battle with Khyron out in Earth's Pacific Ocean, so long ago.
In rushed the Invid Pincer Ships, the massive Enforcers and comparatively small Scouts, firing as they came, enraged though they had no individual emotions, with the single-minded fury of a swarm of hornets.
Out to meet them came the second-generation Alphas, sleekly lethal despite their deepspace augmentation pods; the burlier Betas, with their brute firepower and thrust; and the new Logans, with their rowboat-shaped noses, the latest word in Veritechs.
Leading Skull Team were Max and Miriya Sterling, as cool and alert as ever. To them, as to the rest of the veteran Skulls, heavier Invid numbers just meant there were that many more opportunities to make kills. The dying began at once. Skull Team's tactical net crackled with terse, grim exchanges, the pilots automatically maintaining an even strain, upholding the generations-old Yeager tradition of Cool In The Saddle.
"Y'got one on your six, Skull Niner."
"Roger on that, Skull Two. Kin ya scratch my back?"
"That's affirm. Scissor right, and I'll swat 'im for you."
The Beta that was Skull Nine drew the pursuing Invid Pincer Ship into Skull Two's line of fire.
Brief, flaring bursts of free-electron laser cannonfire skeeted the bogey out of existence.
"Skull Leader," Lisa's voice came, "enemy element of six mecha has broken through your screen and is attacking the flagship."
"Skull Two, Skull Seven, go transact 'em," Max delegated, still concentrating on the Pincer that was trying to get into Miriya's six-the tail position, from which it could make the kill.
Two and Seven, leading their wingmates, headed off on a rescue at least as dangerous as the dogfighting; the Sentinels' AA fire was not as well coordinated as the REF fliers would have liked, and there was a very good chance the Skull two-ship elements would be flamed by friendly fire if the people on the bridge weren't completely on top of things.
On the other hand, that was what made combat more interesting to Max and his gang. They were the ultimate Robotech aces, living out on the edge where the juices flowed and death waved at you from every passing mecha.
"Skull One, Skull One, go to Battloid and hold 'em; we'll be right there," somebody was saying. Miriya pulled off an amazing maneuver, flipping her Alpha like a flapjack while the pursuing Pincer shot past her, its annihilation disks missing. Max's wife was suddenly in the six position.
Predator that she was, the onetime battle queen of the Quadronos lost no time in chopping away at the Pincer with short, highly controlled bursts of pumped-laser blasts. It trailed flame, debris, and outrushing gases for a moment, then became a drifting, brilliant cloudfront.
Max and Miriya came as one to a new vector, to engage three oncoming armored-trooper skirmish ships.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In my android state, I lack the appropriate Human referents to explain sufficiently what is transpiring here. I can only give factual synopses. But there is a Human phrase, employed in description of sporting events, that occurs to me, Dr. Lang: "playing over his-or-her head," which refers to achievement-due to psychological, emotional, and other factors that resist analyses-in excess of what one might logically expect under given circumstances.
Given that parameter, I think I can safety say that the Sentinels are playing over their heads. But the game has yet to reach its final score.
Janice Em (in android state) in a report to Dr. Emil Lang
Rick was trying to follow the battle both by eyeball-through the huge inverted bowl of the bridge canopy-and via the Sentinels' still-unfamiliar tracking displays and tactical-readout screens. At the same time, he was doing his best to coordinate the Human and non-Human elements of the Sentinels, and make sure foe, not friend, was the target of Farrago's gun turrets and missile tubes.
But always, in the background, there was that small voice prodding and eating at him. He wanted so much to be out there in a VT, doing the only thing he had ever really done well in his life-piloting. To be left out of the rat race and yet be so close, so intimately involved in it, was such heartbreaking torture that it seemed the universe must be against him-that Creation was malign, after all.
He was also keeping a nervous eye on that huge Sekiton-powered junction that held the ship together and made Farrago a functioning whole; if it failed, the Sentinels would be history.
The pair of two-ship Skull elements dispatched by Max tackled the flight of six armored Shock Troopers that had penetrated the Sentinels' defensive sphere. Far less maneuverable than the Pincers, the Shock Troopers mounted heavier firepower and had been no doubt sent in as kamikazes.