"13 Sentinels 01 - The Devils Hand" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

Fabricated from the hull and power drives of Breetai's dreadnought and the salvaged remains from the SDFs 1 and 2, the ship was itself a wedding of sorts. Pursuant to Lang and Exedore's requests, it was more Zentraedi than Terran in design: a nontransformable deepspace leviathan, bristling with antennae and blistered across its crimson surface with scanner ports and laser-array gun turrets.
"We'll make sure you two get the backseat," Max said. "For at least a couple of hours, anyway."
Rick laughed from across the room; Max joined him at the external viewport, Earth's incomparable beauty filling the view. Sunlight glinted off the alloyed hulls and fins of dozens of in-transit shuttles. Rick was staring down at the planet wistfully.
"When's Lisa due back?" Max asked him.
"Tomorrow. But I'm thinking of shuttling down to meet her."
Max made an approving sound. "I'll ride with you."
"When haven't you," Rick said, after a moment.

With the destruction of the SDFs 1 and 2 on that fateful winter night in 2014, Macross's sister city, Monument, had risen to the fore as Earth's unofficial capital. The irradiated remains of Macross had been bulldozed flat and pushed into what hadn't been boiled away from Lake Gloval. Three enormous manmade buttes marked the resting place of the superdimensional fortresses, along with that of the Zentraedi cruiser that had destroyed them. But those mounds had not been completed before volunteer teams of valiant Robotechnicians had braved slow death to salvage what they could from the devastation.
Thrice-born Macross, however, was not resurrected, as much by choice as anything else; but the name lived on in a kind of mythic way, and Monument City, to the southwest over a rugged ridge, was doing its best to carry the tradition forward. This would change after the SDF-3 departed, but in 2020 things were much as they were in the Macross of 2014. That is not to say that there weren't sinister currents in the air for one and all to perceive; but the Expeditionary mission to Tirol was foremost on the minds of those who could have prevented the subsequent slide.
Monument was the seat of the United Earth Government, but the most important building in that burgeoning city was the headquarters of the newly-formed Army of the Southern Cross, a politico-military party that had its origins in the Southlands during the Malcontent Uprisings, and had all but superseded the authority formerly enjoyed by RDF, most of which was slated for the Expeditionary mission. The headquarters was a soaring megacomplex whose central tower cluster had been built to suggest the white gonfalons, or ensigns, of a holy crusade hanging from high crosspieces. The high-tech needles were crowned with crenels and merlons, like some medieval battlement, announcing to all the world the ideals and esprit of the Army of the Southern Cross.
Just now the building was host to a final press conference held jointly by members of the Expeditionary Mission Plenipotentiary Council, the RDF, and the Southern Cross. Dr. Emil Lang and the Zentraedi Ambassador, Exedore, spoke on behalf of the twelve-person council, while the military factions were represented respectively by Brigadier General Gunther Reinhardt and Field Marshal Anatole Leonard. The press was there in force, crowding the hall, jostling one another for position, snapping off shot after stroboscopic shot, and grilling the four-member panel with an overwhelming array of questions from special-interest groups and insulated power bases as distant as Cavern City and Brasilia in the Southlands.
Lang was doing his best to respond to one of these; for the third time, someone in the press corps had returned to the issue of Earth's potential vulnerability in the wake of the SDF-3's departure. As the high priest of Robotechnology, Lang had little interest in such mundane concerns, but he was doing his best to restate the importance of the mission and repeat launch details that had already been covered in the press releases.
"Final selections for the crew are proceeding and we should have no trouble meeting our launch schedule. If we are to avoid a second Robotech War, we must make peaceful contact with the Robotech Masters and establish a relationship of mutual cooperation. That is the mission of the SDF-3."
Murmurs of discontent spread through the crowd, and several reporters hurled insults of one sort or another. But then, could anyone expect anything in the way of a concrete response from someone like Lang? When the man chose to be profound, there were perhaps only a handful of scientists on Earth who could follow him. The rest of the time he came across as alien as any Zentraedi. Rumors and speculations about Lang went as far back as the early days on Macross Island, when he and Gloval, Fokker, Edwards, and a few others had first reconned the SDF-1, known then as "the Visitor." He had taken a Zentraedi mind-boost, some claimed, a megadose of Protoculture that had somehow integrated his internal circuitry with that of the ship itself. Certainly his marblelike eyes lent credence to the tale. Although he had been more visible, more accessible these past few years, he was still the same ethereal man who had been the driving force behind Robotechnology since the turn of the century.
"I want to take this opportunity to reemphasize that the Robotech Expeditionary Force is intended as a diplomatic mission," Exedore added without being asked. "The SDF-3 will be traveling to the homeworld of the Robotech Masters, the third moon of the planet Fantoma, known as Tirol." The Zentraedi motioned to the huge projection screen behind the speakers' platform, which showed a color schematic of the ringed giant's extensive system.
"The Masters themselves have not engaged in actual combat for nearly six generations. However, it is impossible to predict with certainty how they will react to our mission. For that reason the SDF-3 has been outfitted with a considerable arsenal of Robotech weaponry. In the event that we are met with force, we shall be ready and able to defend ourselves. But I must press the point that the departure of the fortress will not leave the Earth undefended. Commander Leonard and his staff have all the capabilities for defense necessary to repel any invasion force. And as the planet is not presently threatened by any enemy, we feel confident that the Earth is in no jeopard-"
"If I may interrupt for a moment," Leonard said angrily, getting to his feet. He had been biting back his words for half the press conference, but had reached his breaking point when Exedore-the alien!-began to imply that the SDF-3 would be facing greater potential danger than abandoned Earth. Reporters throughout the hall-certainly those who had been planted there by the Southern Cross command to steer the conference toward this very confrontation-took advantage of the moment to get shots of the bearish, shaved-skulled field marshal confronting and towering over the XT ambassador. Leonard's hatred of the Zentraedi was no secret among the general staff. He had never met Exedore full-size, as it were, but perhaps detested him even more in his Micronized state, especially since Terran cosmologists had gone to work on him, styling his hair with a widow's peak, and concealing the clone's dwarfish anatomy beneath specially-tailored uniforms. Leonard often wished that Exedore had been among the Zentraedi Malcontents he had hunted down in the Southlands...
"I'm not as optimistic as the ambassador about the lack of an enemy threat," Leonard continued, his face red with rage. "Mark my words, the departure of the SDF-3 and its weapons systems will leave the Earth hopelessly vulnerable to attack! Even that factory satellite's going to be nothing but a useless shell when the Expeditionary Force leaves. They've stripped it clean-and you've stripped us clean!"
"Gentlemen, please," Lang tried to interject, stretching his arms out between the two of them. Reinhardt, with his bald pate, beard, and fringe of premature gray hair, leaned back in his chair, overshadowed by Leonard's bulk.
"It's all very easy for him to say we'll be safe," the field marshal ranted. "When the attack comes, he'll be on the other side of the galaxy!"
"Frankly, I think you're a bit paranoid, Commander," Exedore announced evenly, almost clinically. "What attack do you mean-by whom, from where?"
Leonard's great jowls quivered; his eyes flashed a hatred even Exedore couldn't help but feel. "For all we know, there could be a fleet of your fellow Zentraedi out there just waiting for us to drop our guard!"
"That will be enough, Commander Leonard," Reinhardt said at last. "Alarmist talk is of no use to anyone at this point."
Leonard swallowed the rebuke as flashes strobed without pause. He was aware that his position with the general staff was still somewhat tenuous; and besides, he had made his point.
"Gentlemen, you're cutting our defenses to almost nothing," he concluded, as shouts filled the hall. "Once the SDF leaves orbit I won't be able to defend the Earth against a flock of pigeons."

The press conference was being carried live around the world, and to Luna Base, Space Station Liberty, and the factory satellite. But where many were finding cause for concern in Leonard's contentions, there was one viewer aboard the satellite who merely laughed it off. He had a drink in hand, his feet crossed on the top of the monitor in his spacious quarters.
Leonard was overplaying the role, Major General T. R. Edwards told himself as he set the drink aside. But his performance would have the desired effect nonetheless.
Edwards knew even then that the Southern Cross would eventually gain the upper hand. If necessary, Professor Lazlo Zand would see to that. And Senator Moran, whom they had spent years grooming for high office, would ascend to the seat reserved for him.
Edwards fingered the ugly raised scars that coursed across the right side of his forehead and face-diagonally, from his hairline to the bridge of his nose, and from there in a reverse angle to the heel of his jawbone. The eye at the apex of this triangular disfiguration was dead, sewn shut to a dark slash. He would not be around to reap the immediate rewards of these complex conspiracies and manipulations, but all that could wait until his return from Tirol. First, there were scores to settle with older adversaries, scores that went back more than twenty years.

Not far from the Southern Cross headquarters in one of Monument City's more upscale shopping districts, Admiral Lisa Hayes was being fitted for her wedding gown. She had chosen one her late father would have approved of; it had a traditional, almost antebellum look, lots of satin, lace, and tulle, with a full, two-petticoat tiered skirt, long sleeves, and a simple round neck. The veil was rather short in contrast, with baby's breath and two silk roses affixed to the headband. Lisa gave an appreciative nod as the two fitters fell back smiling, allowing her center place in the shop's mirrored wall. She ran her fingers under the flip of her shoulder-length auburn hair-still unaccustomed to the cut-and said, "Perfect."
In the front room, Dr. Jean Grant and Captain Miriya Sterling wondered aloud what was taking Lisa so long, not out of concern but anticipation. The day was something of a shopping spree for Jean and Miriya as well; in less than a week they would be on their way to Tirol, and on this trip out the SDF wouldn't be traveling with a full city in its belly. And who knows what to expect in the way of shops on Tirol, Max had quipped when the two women left the factory satellite. They had brought the kids along, Dana and Bowie, both nearing eight years old, presently bored and antagonistic.
Bowie had Jean's petiteness and dark honey complexion; his health had never been robust, but that didn't prevent blond and lanky Dana from teasing him whenever she could. He was standing sullen-faced in the shop's doorway when she snuck up behind him to yank his SDF cap down over his face.
"Hey, cut it out!" Bowie yelled. "Why'd you do that, Dana?"
She returned a wide-eyed look of innocence, elaborate concern in her voice. "I didn't do anything. I think your brain must be getting smaller."
"Ahhh, whose brain's getting smaller?" Bowie said, working the visored cap up to where it belonged.
"Okay, I admit it, I'm guilty," Dana answered him, sincere all of a sudden. "I guess I can't pull the wool over your eyes."
Jean and Miriya had both turned at the sound of Bowie's initial howl, but they had long ago decided on a policy of nonintervention when it came to the kids. Though children were included in the Expeditionary mission, Bowie and Dana would not be among them. In Bowie's case it was a matter of health-a fact that had since steered Jean into research medicine. But Dana was exempt for reasons less clear-cut; as the only child of a Human-Zentraedi union, she had been studied, tested, and evaluated since birth, and was judged too precious a commodity to risk on such an enterprise. This, in any case, was the thinking of Professor Zand, who had headed up the medical teams, and Max and Miriya had reluctantly accepted the logic of it. The decision was unalterable now, no matter what, and it was guaranteed that Bowie and Dana would grow up as near siblings under the care of the Sterlings' close friends, Rolf and Laura Emerson.
Miriya was thinking these things through while she watched the children's bickering escalate, then dissolve into playful banter. "Look at them, Jean," she said the way only a mother can. "Do you think we're doing the right thing?"
Jean gave one of the clothes racks a casual spin. "Of course we are, sweetie. You know that."
The two women showed strained smiles to one another. How often they had talked about the irony of their friendship; how often they had remembered Jean's sister-in-law, Claudia Grant, who died in Khyron's suicide run against the SDF-1. And perhaps the conversation would have taken a turn in this direction even then, had not Lisa chosen just that moment to present herself as bride-to-be.
"Well, what do you think?" she asked them, turning around for their inspection.
Miriya, who had worn her hair emerald green for years, was too surprised by the gown's conservative cut to say much; but Jean said, "I think you picked a beauty, Admiral. That gown is shipshape from stem to stern."
"Yeah, but how will it travel in hyperspace?" Miriya thought to ask.
"You two..." Lisa laughed, while her friends began to finger the gown here and there. None of them were aware that a newcomer had entered the ship until a female voice said, "Excuse me."
Lisa looked up and uttered a surprised gasp. Lynn-Minmei was standing in the doorway. Lisa had been thinking of her not five minutes before, standing in front of the mirror seeing new age lines in her thirty-five-year-old face and comparing herself to the seemingly ageless star of song and screen.
"I-I hope I'm not interrupting, Lisa, but I heard you were in town, and well, I just wanted to congratulate you before the wedding. I mean, it's going to be such a madhouse up there." They had hardly been strangers these past six years, but hadn't seen each other since the wedding date had been officially announced some five months ago. "I'd love to help out any way I can-that is, if you'd allow me to, Lisa."
"Minmei," Lisa said with a note of disbelief. "This is so unexpected. But don't be silly, of course you can help," she added, laughing. "Come here."