The energy salvos and counter-salvos sent narrow beams of blindingly bright light and streams of angry red-orange annihilation disks skewing through the blackness. The mecha whirled and pounced like craft maneuvering in atmosphere, though that was prodigiously wasteful of power; such were the peculiarities of Robotech, the pilots' Earth-honed flying instincts channeled to action by the thinking caps.
It was the thickest of the rat race, the centerpoint of the fighter pilot's life, the Heart of Unreason-the terrible venue of the dogfight.
Barrages of missiles whooshed and energy blasts of such power were exchanged that they seemed almost material. Holed and damaged machines tumbled and spun, leaking atmosphere and flame, and dying. The Invid fought with the unanimity of the group mind, but it became manifest that the REF, too, had learned to wage war with total concentration. Neither side lacked for ferocity.
But the tide turned in the Sentinels' favor; in a mass Robotech rat race like that, the shift didn't take long to make itself apparent.
Max and Miriya flew through it like gods, dealing death when they saw an opponent and, by their intervention, granting life to beset VT fliers. Max felt like he had an extra edge, with Rick behind on the bridge.
Once Max's boss as Skull Leader, Rick had been away from combat flying too long to be jumping into a VT seat, no matter how restless he might feel. Max had already saved Rick's life once, at considerable risk to his own, since Rick had begun chafing at the restrictions of flag-rank life.
Max had to endure no such distractions now; with the enormously augmented power the pods and other enhancements of their Alphas gave them, Max and Miriya, wingmates and soulmates, flew where they willed. Mighty Enforcers and evasive Pincers were their prey, like prey for tigers. The Invid quarry stalked the VTs, too, with fire that could kill them, but that only made the hunt more worthwhile.
Computer and sensor constructs of the battle in various tactical-analysis thinkpools showed a moving nimbus of death and destruction-Max and Miriya Sterling, in an almost superhuman performance of cunning and aero-combat excellence.
The tide turned quickly and surely against the survivors of the late Senep's task force. In seconds, the scale had dipped unmistakably; the Invid were trying to disengage, to run for troop carriers that weren't there anymore, as the volcanic cannonshots of Vince Grant's GMU found their mark again and again.
The Invid's turning tail tripped some essential instinct of pursuit in the VTs, and they rushed in, crowding one another, for the kill. A whole field of retreating Invid mecha were suddenly in a shooting gallery like nothing seen in any Robotech scrap so far. Some turned to fight, others ran and dodged; the Skull fliers went after them all, merciless because they had seen what the Invid did to captive worlds, and hungry for kills. Wolves flying at the fold were no more voracious.
Screened from Karbarra by its planetary ring and by the jamming efforts of the ECM techs, the Sentinels had managed to win their first battle with a sort of unintended stealth. But the first of their main events waited below.
The last of the killing was still going on, the mopping-up of the Invid mecha being carried out by the men and women of the Skull squadron, but that was already a fait accompli. Rick Hunter wanted to stay where he was until the last of the VTs was back, safe, or at least accounted for. But he knew he couldn't; the strike at Karbarra must be launched now, within the hour, because the Sentinels' presence might already have been discovered.
Rick had a sudden vision of Henry Gloval, and knew what had been trying to bow the old man's shoulders as he stood there on the deck of SDF-1 in the old days. Rick thought of Lisa with a vast burst of love, and wondered whether any of the Sentinels would be alive in a few hours.
"We hit them now; take them by surprise, and the whole of Karbarra is ours!" Kami, the foxlike Gerudan, said from behind his breathing mask.
The rest of the Sentinels agreed with that and Rick Hunter slammed the flat of his hand down on the U-shaped table, making everybody, even the stolid Lron and Crysta, start a little.
"I lost eight good people in the fight just now, and eight mecha we couldn't afford to lose; I won't lose more if I can help it! The quicker we jump the planetary garrison, the fewer our losses and the quicker we win major mecha-producing facilities."
Lron suddenly reared up, there beneath the bridge dome where a trestle table had been set out atop empty Karbarran beer barrels. "And I say we, we…"
He seemed to be drifting in thought, and many of the Sentinels looked at one another, especially the Humans. But nobody appeared to have an explanation. Still, the deaths of REF-assigned fighter pilots were Rick's direct responsibility, so he found himself pressing his own view.
"We must exploit our current tactical advantage to the fullest, to minimize our losses, by attacking at once! Intel-computers and sensors and the G-3 ops staff have already pinpointed the primary and secondary Invid targets on Karbarra. Our VTs are being refueled and rearmed at this moment; we can strike in something under an hour. Fellow Sentinels, let's free Karbarra."
Lisa was looking at Rick in a new light. Granted, he hated his desk job, but he had shouldered the responsibility that had been given him and was undergoing that torment, that near-schizophrenia, that any decent commanding officer knew in combat: the need to carry out the mission weighed against the lives of his or her command. She wouldn't have wished it on him, but she saw now that he had come into his full growth, as Captain Gloval had always put it.
Rick, for his part, looked over at his wife and saw that she understood the forces vying to rip him apart-understood, too, more vividly than he ever had, the forces that had pressed Lisa so agonizingly when she was SDF-l's first officer, and later SDF-3's captain.
Rick had something of a revelation. I'd rather be in a cockpit, responsible for one VT and my own life, because it's easier! Let this cup pass…
But it didn't. Nonetheless, Rick saw that Lisa fully understood, and that gave him a strength that surprised him. He also felt a measure of shame; how often had she been in this kind of dilemma, when he couldn't see beyond his own Skull Leader problems?
Every time he thought he had run out of reasons to love her, a new one appeared.
Except it didn't help him with his Karbarran problem. Lron, till now, the Papa-bear stalwart, swung a fist the size of a Thanksgiving turkey, and took a considerable portion off the lip of the table nearest him.
"No!"
CHAPTER TWELVE
Here's where you get back
Some of your own;
Here's where we visit
Part of the horror upon its author
From an Augury chant of the Karbarrans
Nobody was about to tell Lron he couldn't have his say, or to try to stifle Crysta, who had risen up next to her mate.
Their goggles were pushed down around their thick, furry necks; The armor and accoutrements they wore only made them seem that much more like captive and dangerous wild animals.
"We cannot attack yet," Lron roared, and Lisa began to consider the tactical problems of having half-ton ursinoids turning mean on the bridge. Stun guns might not even faze them, given the thick pelts and subcutaneous fat. It was either shoot to kill, or listen. And given how much Humans still had to learn about their allies, she followed the example of Veidt and the other Sentinels, and listened.