[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
"Now at least we know where Scott's been," Lancer chimed in.
Rand turned to the mayor, furious now.
"Your time is up, Pedro! We need those Cyclones!"
The mayor remained tight-lipped. "We don't want any more fighting in our
village."
"If we don't get out there and help our friend, there won't be any more
village," Lancer pointed out.
Pedro scoffed at him. "Do you imagine you heroes are going to repel an
Invid attack by yourselves?"
"You better let us try," Rand said as the sounds of distant explosions
infiltrated the room.
"I mustn't endanger the town!"
"We're trying to help your town," Rook told him.
Lunk took the blaster back from Rand and raised it. "That tears it! I'm
not standing by while my friend dies for this stinking excuse for a town.
Pedro, you've got ten seconds!"
"Wait!" José said, stepping into the projected line of fire. He turned
to Gomez. "Tell them where the Cyclones are hidden."
"You're responsible for this, José," the mayor shouted. "If anything
should happen to our village-"
"I'll take the responsibility then," José answered, whirling on him.
"They're in the warehouse," Gomez said softly.
The warehouse was a barn situated close to the bridge, an odds-and-ends
storage facility for grain, farming tools, and rusting examples of early
Robotechnology. The Cyclones had been rolled into a corner and covered over
with a couple of mildewed canvas tarps.
Lancer, Rook, and Rand headed straight for their machines, activated
them, and rode off to the sound of the guns. Annie and Lunk wished them luck
and watched as the Cyclones reconfigured to Battle Armor mode. Lunk was
heading back to the van when he heard his name called. It was Pedro, looking
somewhat sheepish and conciliatory.
"Lunk, you're determined to go through with this?"
Lunk gestured to the by-now-distant Cyclones and said harshly, "That
oughta answer your question."
Pedro nodded sullenly. "Then there's something I want you to see," he
Page 74
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
said, leading Lunk back into the barn. Inside, he motioned to an object
concealed under a nylon cloth and pulled the cover away.
"I want you to have this."
Lunk knew it by its slang term-a "Stinger"-a lightweight autocannon no
larger than a turn-of-the-century M-70 machine gun that ran on Protoculture
and delivered piercing bursts of Reflex firepower. Stingers were the weapon of
choice for the resistance early on, but with the Invid's control of
Protoculture, the weapon had passed quickly into disuse. This one looked as
though it had never been fired, but it hadn't been well cared for either.
"This was given to our town by a group of freedom fighters," Pedro began
to explain while Lunk inspected the gun. "Before I was mayor, when...Nader was
alive." Lunk straightened up at the mention of the name.
Pedro's voice took on a harder edge. "But Nader didn't want it used. He
actually believed we could make a separate peace with the Invid and hid the
gun, afraid that fighting back would end in death for all of us. But many of
the townspeople misinterpreted his concern; they accused him of cowardice and
worse. When he still wouldn't reveal where he had hidden the thing...they beat
him to death. They burned his home, they..."
Lunk saw that Pedro was sobbing. "So that's your dirty little
secret...the reason why those men attacked us. You're all ashamed of what
happened here."
Pedro nodded. "May God have mercy on us. By the time we found the gun,
it was too late to do anything. The Invid had overrun everything."
"And now you're the one who feels responsible for this place. You've
inherited Nader's legacy."
"You could say that."
Lunk's hard look softened. "Pedro, maybe I've misjudged you."
"And I, you," returned the mayor. "A common enough mistake these days."
Out on the flats things were looking grim for Scott and the team. The
arrival of the Cyclones had taken the pressure off him to some extent, but the
Invid still outnumbered them three to one.
Shock Troopers again. Scott wasn't sure why they had showed up. It was
possible that one of the Scouts they had tangled with earlier had gotten away.
He had seen the first of the Troopers just as the team had been entering Roca
Negra and had doubled back to deal with it. But on the tail of the first came
a second, then a third and a fourth, and before Scott knew it, he was in the
midst of a full contingent of Pincer units.
He dropped the Alpha in for a release run now, going after three
grounded Invid who had pinned down Rook and Rand with cannon fire. The already
cratered and fused terrain was being torn up by annihilation discs, the air
above superheated and crosshatched by missile tracks launched from the
Cyclones' forearm tubes. Scott loosed a flock of heat-seekers at the bottom of
his dive and climbed sharply, looking back over his right shoulder to catch a
glimpse of the results of his run. Two Invid ships were flaming wrecks,
collapsed and bleeding green nutrient. Another was badly damaged but still on
its feet, one of its pincers blown away.
Scott swung his head as he thought the Alpha through a roll and saw
Lunk's van streaking across the sands, seemingly on a collision course with
three more Invid ships. Alert to the van's approach, the Troopers lifted off,
forming up in a triangular pattern to deal with it.
But in a moment it was obvious that they had misjudged Lunk.
Scott caught sight of a brilliant flash at the front of the van an
instant before one of the ships exploded in midair. A second flash and another
Invid was blown to pieces. Scott realized that Lunk had mounted some sort of
cannon to the van. Apparently the Invid also recognized the weapon, because
they were suddenly giving the van a wide berth. Rook, Rand, and Lancer took
advantage of the opportunity to deal out death blows of their own, managing to
fell two additional Troopers with precision shots to the ships' optic
scanners.
Page 75
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Scott smiled broadly and uttered a short, triumphant cry to the skies
outside the Alpha's canopy. Not only had they cut the odds, they had won the
battle.
The remaining Invid were actually turning tail and fleeing the area!
It was the first time Scott had ever seen them retreat.
Lunk returned to Roca Negra alone. He had a longer talk with Pedro and
Josh about Alfred Nader. Both men had known Nader's son, Lunk's friend, and
were sorry to hear that he had been killed.
The battle on the flats hadn't affected the rest of the town's attitude
toward Lunk, but he understood this and pitied them the cross they had to
bear. He had his own, and the emotional weight of it hadn't been lessened any
by this brief stop at Roca Negra. In fact, he felt even more confused than
before. Would Nader have turned out to be a sympathizer in the end? Would his
town have been just another place where the people were too busy maintaining
their separate peace to rally to the cause of a greater one?
Lunk spent some private time at what had once been Nader's ranch,
picking up ripened olives from the tree and drinking cool water from the well.
Lunk kept the book. More than the object of a promise now, it had become a
symbol of confusion, of mistrust and treachery...markings engraved upon
Earth's tortured and embattled landscape and upon the very fabric of Human
life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Psychohistorian Adler Ripple traces Jonathan Wolff's treachery to his illicit
affair with Lynn-Minmei. He had met her on Little Luna (the Robotech factory
satellite), during the Hunters' wedding and fallen in love with her while the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl chiara76.opx.pl
"Now at least we know where Scott's been," Lancer chimed in.
Rand turned to the mayor, furious now.
"Your time is up, Pedro! We need those Cyclones!"
The mayor remained tight-lipped. "We don't want any more fighting in our
village."
"If we don't get out there and help our friend, there won't be any more
village," Lancer pointed out.
Pedro scoffed at him. "Do you imagine you heroes are going to repel an
Invid attack by yourselves?"
"You better let us try," Rand said as the sounds of distant explosions
infiltrated the room.
"I mustn't endanger the town!"
"We're trying to help your town," Rook told him.
Lunk took the blaster back from Rand and raised it. "That tears it! I'm
not standing by while my friend dies for this stinking excuse for a town.
Pedro, you've got ten seconds!"
"Wait!" José said, stepping into the projected line of fire. He turned
to Gomez. "Tell them where the Cyclones are hidden."
"You're responsible for this, José," the mayor shouted. "If anything
should happen to our village-"
"I'll take the responsibility then," José answered, whirling on him.
"They're in the warehouse," Gomez said softly.
The warehouse was a barn situated close to the bridge, an odds-and-ends
storage facility for grain, farming tools, and rusting examples of early
Robotechnology. The Cyclones had been rolled into a corner and covered over
with a couple of mildewed canvas tarps.
Lancer, Rook, and Rand headed straight for their machines, activated
them, and rode off to the sound of the guns. Annie and Lunk wished them luck
and watched as the Cyclones reconfigured to Battle Armor mode. Lunk was
heading back to the van when he heard his name called. It was Pedro, looking
somewhat sheepish and conciliatory.
"Lunk, you're determined to go through with this?"
Lunk gestured to the by-now-distant Cyclones and said harshly, "That
oughta answer your question."
Pedro nodded sullenly. "Then there's something I want you to see," he
Page 74
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
said, leading Lunk back into the barn. Inside, he motioned to an object
concealed under a nylon cloth and pulled the cover away.
"I want you to have this."
Lunk knew it by its slang term-a "Stinger"-a lightweight autocannon no
larger than a turn-of-the-century M-70 machine gun that ran on Protoculture
and delivered piercing bursts of Reflex firepower. Stingers were the weapon of
choice for the resistance early on, but with the Invid's control of
Protoculture, the weapon had passed quickly into disuse. This one looked as
though it had never been fired, but it hadn't been well cared for either.
"This was given to our town by a group of freedom fighters," Pedro began
to explain while Lunk inspected the gun. "Before I was mayor, when...Nader was
alive." Lunk straightened up at the mention of the name.
Pedro's voice took on a harder edge. "But Nader didn't want it used. He
actually believed we could make a separate peace with the Invid and hid the
gun, afraid that fighting back would end in death for all of us. But many of
the townspeople misinterpreted his concern; they accused him of cowardice and
worse. When he still wouldn't reveal where he had hidden the thing...they beat
him to death. They burned his home, they..."
Lunk saw that Pedro was sobbing. "So that's your dirty little
secret...the reason why those men attacked us. You're all ashamed of what
happened here."
Pedro nodded. "May God have mercy on us. By the time we found the gun,
it was too late to do anything. The Invid had overrun everything."
"And now you're the one who feels responsible for this place. You've
inherited Nader's legacy."
"You could say that."
Lunk's hard look softened. "Pedro, maybe I've misjudged you."
"And I, you," returned the mayor. "A common enough mistake these days."
Out on the flats things were looking grim for Scott and the team. The
arrival of the Cyclones had taken the pressure off him to some extent, but the
Invid still outnumbered them three to one.
Shock Troopers again. Scott wasn't sure why they had showed up. It was
possible that one of the Scouts they had tangled with earlier had gotten away.
He had seen the first of the Troopers just as the team had been entering Roca
Negra and had doubled back to deal with it. But on the tail of the first came
a second, then a third and a fourth, and before Scott knew it, he was in the
midst of a full contingent of Pincer units.
He dropped the Alpha in for a release run now, going after three
grounded Invid who had pinned down Rook and Rand with cannon fire. The already
cratered and fused terrain was being torn up by annihilation discs, the air
above superheated and crosshatched by missile tracks launched from the
Cyclones' forearm tubes. Scott loosed a flock of heat-seekers at the bottom of
his dive and climbed sharply, looking back over his right shoulder to catch a
glimpse of the results of his run. Two Invid ships were flaming wrecks,
collapsed and bleeding green nutrient. Another was badly damaged but still on
its feet, one of its pincers blown away.
Scott swung his head as he thought the Alpha through a roll and saw
Lunk's van streaking across the sands, seemingly on a collision course with
three more Invid ships. Alert to the van's approach, the Troopers lifted off,
forming up in a triangular pattern to deal with it.
But in a moment it was obvious that they had misjudged Lunk.
Scott caught sight of a brilliant flash at the front of the van an
instant before one of the ships exploded in midair. A second flash and another
Invid was blown to pieces. Scott realized that Lunk had mounted some sort of
cannon to the van. Apparently the Invid also recognized the weapon, because
they were suddenly giving the van a wide berth. Rook, Rand, and Lancer took
advantage of the opportunity to deal out death blows of their own, managing to
fell two additional Troopers with precision shots to the ships' optic
scanners.
Page 75
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
Scott smiled broadly and uttered a short, triumphant cry to the skies
outside the Alpha's canopy. Not only had they cut the odds, they had won the
battle.
The remaining Invid were actually turning tail and fleeing the area!
It was the first time Scott had ever seen them retreat.
Lunk returned to Roca Negra alone. He had a longer talk with Pedro and
Josh about Alfred Nader. Both men had known Nader's son, Lunk's friend, and
were sorry to hear that he had been killed.
The battle on the flats hadn't affected the rest of the town's attitude
toward Lunk, but he understood this and pitied them the cross they had to
bear. He had his own, and the emotional weight of it hadn't been lessened any
by this brief stop at Roca Negra. In fact, he felt even more confused than
before. Would Nader have turned out to be a sympathizer in the end? Would his
town have been just another place where the people were too busy maintaining
their separate peace to rally to the cause of a greater one?
Lunk spent some private time at what had once been Nader's ranch,
picking up ripened olives from the tree and drinking cool water from the well.
Lunk kept the book. More than the object of a promise now, it had become a
symbol of confusion, of mistrust and treachery...markings engraved upon
Earth's tortured and embattled landscape and upon the very fabric of Human
life.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Psychohistorian Adler Ripple traces Jonathan Wolff's treachery to his illicit
affair with Lynn-Minmei. He had met her on Little Luna (the Robotech factory
satellite), during the Hunters' wedding and fallen in love with her while the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]