Jack Baker struggled to steady the launcher over Bela's shoulder, the skirmish ship in and out of his sights, as Halidarre banked and evaded and the Enforcer peppered shots at the wonder horse and its riders.
Jack fired, but the rocket went wide as the skirmish ship rolled and got ready for another pass.
"Can't you hold this nag still?"
"Yes, Jack Baker," Bela said, almost laughing. "Still enough so that slug cannot miss. Would you like that?"
She would be just crazy enough to do it, too. Her wild laughter in battle, her bravado and amazing skill at handling Halidarre-they were a little tough to top. What do you say to a woman who rides through the air on a winged Robosteed, firing a pistol with one hand and waving a sword, for god's sake, with the other?
I'll tell you what old Jack Baker says, he thought angrily. "Yeah!" he said, before he could think about it twice. "Yeah, hold still for a second, if it's all the same to you. Looks like the only way I'm ever gonna hit anything today."
So she did. Halidarre hovered on her impeller fields, wings beating at half speed to steady her, as Jack wrestled the launcher around. He hadn't hit anything yet; three rockets were gone and only two remained in the magazine.
The Enforcer was on a new attack run, firing at long range. Bela was as good as her word, holding Halidarre in a dead hover, laughing that wild laugh again, brandishing her sword. Jack lined up his shot with the tube resting on Bela's shoulder and let both rockets go. "Let's get outta here!"
Halidarre rose abruptly just as a line of annihilation disks shrilled through the spot where she had been a moment before. The Enforcer, intent on its aim, tried to bank away from the rockets a bit too late. It blew apart and began raining down in tiny, burning scraps.
Bela gave a howl like a Hellcat. "That's my lad!" Then she spied something and put Halidarre into a dive that nearly sent Jack's breakfast up into his throat.
The Invid had shut down the energy wall again. They were closing in ominously on the barracks where most of the Karbarran cubs had taken refuge. The bipeds began firing at long range, setting the buildings ablaze to drive the prey out for more convenient extermination.
Jack threw the launcher away and got his pistol out. He and Bela dove straight at the Invid, firing and hitting, but having no effect.
Over by the fire pit, Kami backed up, Dardo and the others behind him, as Hellcats closed in all around them. The Owens gun was dead, out of power; Kami yanked its cable free of the backpack, threw the backpack aside, and held the gun as a club.
The recon party's shuttle had last been seen losing altitude, plummeting away to the east. Kami hoped dully that they had survived the crash. In any case, there was no hope of evacuation now.
The 'Cats' eyes seemed as bright as lasers; for some reason of their own, they spread out and began herding Kami and the helpless children toward the fire they had built-a pit eighty feet across, now carpeted with burning Sekiton. Kami, exhausted and still half caked with mud, could feel it singeing the fur on his tail. The cubs had thinned out in a ring one or two deep, all the way around the fire. Hellcats hemmed them in at every turn, forcing them back into the inferno.
His heightened senses shrieked torment and nightmare at him-agony was like a fog all around him, and gruesome death like electricity shooting up into him from the very ground under his feet.
"I'd rather die fighting than roasting!" With that, Kami raised the club wearily and began to totter straight at the 'Cat confronting him, preferring a quick death from claws to a slow one from flame…
Suddenly the 'Cat was bashed aside as something immense and heavy hit it like a multiton lineman. It took Kami a moment to realize that it was a Veritech, an armored Alpha in Battloid mode-white with red markings.
Battloid and Hellcat tumbled and fought, the feline's claws ripping at its foe, but the Battloid's big armored fists pounding and pounding at the 'Cat like huge pistons, staving in its sides, shattering one of its eyes.
The other 'Cats turned to throw themselves into the fight, but were prevented when Battloids began dropping from the sky on them, back thrusters blaring-Betas and Logans mixed in with the Alphas.
Kami skipped back out of the way as the red Alpha and the 'Cat it had jumped tumbled and tore and beat at one another.
The Skulls had arrived.
In Guardian and VT configuration, they swooped at the Inorganics over in the barracks area, driving them back or blowing them sky-high. Even the Hellcats who broke and fled found that their speed wasn't enough to save them; a second attack wave, diving from high altitude, overtook the things and chopped them down with missiles and cannonfire.
More Invid bipeds, rallying from outposts and patrols, headed for the camp by way of a canyon to the west, forming up to steamroll into the rescuers. The first problem with that plan was that the Wolff Pack was there, and met them head-on.
It was no open-country tank battle; it was a murderous set-to in a limited space, both sides throwing themselves into it without restraint, like a knife fight in a commophone booth. Tank and Gladiator mode didn't offer enough agility, so the Wolff Pack went to Battloid and grappled, fired, kicked, and punched. The Invid met them with claws, tentacles, chelae, and feet, annihilation disks and explosive globes. The valley was a slaughterhouse, but the heavier and more numerous Hovertanks began pushing back the tide inch by inch.
Kami watched as the Hellcat rolled to the upper position, determined to bite the Alpha's throat out or rip its head off with those enormous fangs.
But the Alpha got one forearm under the 'Cat's jaw, slowly levering it away. Then the Battloid had both hands on the feline's throat, squeezing with Robotech strength. The 'Cat screamed and went wild, tail thrashing, but it couldn't free itself. Alloy groaned and squeaked as it gave way, crushed. The light in the 'Cat's remaining eye slowly dimmed.
Then all at once it was dark, and the thing's body went limp and lifeless. The Alpha rose to its feet, lifting the Hellcat up, then threw it to the ground with an impact that made Karbarra quake under Kami's feet. The Invid mecha was a shapeless mass of smoking scrap.
The Skulls had turned things around in minutes. The ground was littered with the remains of Invid mecha, and no enemy was standing. But there were VTs down, too, and their fellows were attending to them.
The functioning Veritechs deployed repair servos that snaked forth on metal tentacles to fix what damage they could. Many of the disabled mecha were beyond such help, though, and would require the facilities of a full Robotech engineering bay.
But some of the damaged Skulls would never rise again, and their pilots had paid the final price. The living descended from their ships for the wrenching and ghastly duty of gathering up the remains. In several cases there was simply nothing left.
The red Alpha turned and walked over through the drifting smoke of battle to look down at Kami. A female voice said over an external speaker, "Sorry we cut it so fine, my friend." It was Miriya Sterling.
Kami could still smell his own singed fur. "It could have been much worse-by several seconds." She laughed. Then he thought of something. "The shuttle! It disappeared over that way!"
Miriya paused for a moment-perhaps informing Max of the situation-then blasted away through the air on her back thrusters, quickly mechamorphosing to true Veritech mode, and heading like a missile in the direction Kami had indicated.