"McKinney, Jack (Brian Daley & James Luceno) - Robotech 01 - Genesis" - читать интересную книгу автора (McKinney Jack)

As he had before, Zor felt humbled before the mind-cyclone's force. Then its pinnacle unexpectedly gave shape to a great bird, a phoenix of mental essence. The firebird of transfiguration spread wings wider than the planet, soaring away to another plane of existence, with a cry so magnificent and sad that Zor forgot his impending death. He wept for the dreadful splendor of what was to come, two tears flowing down his burnt cheeks.
But he was buoyed by a renewed conviction that the dimensional fortress must go to that blue-white planet.
The sounds of the last skirmishes came from the distance as Zentraedi rooted out and executed the last of the Invid troops. Dolza stood looking down at Zor's blackened body as its life slipped away despite all that the healers could do. Dolza suspected that Zor did not wish-would not permit himself-to be saved.
Whatever Zor's plan, there was no changing it now. The ship itself, along with a handful of Zentraedi loyal to Zor alone, had jumped beyond the Robotech Masters' reach-at least for the time being.
It was of little comfort to Dolza that final transmissions from the dimensional fortress, in the moments before transition through a spacefold, indicated that the traitors aboard had been badly wounded during the battle to get past the Invid surprise attack.
"Zor, if you die, the mission is over and I must return in defeat and humiliation," Dolza said.
"I have thwarted the Robotech Masters' plan to control the universe." Zor had to pause to cough and regain his breath, with a rattle in it that spoke of dying. "But a greater, finer mission is only beginning, Dolza..."
Zor coughed again and was still, eyes closed forever.

Dolza stood before a screen that was large even for the Zentraedi. Before him was the image of a Robotech Master. Dolza spoke obsequiously.
"... and so we have no idea where the dimensional fortress is, at least for the moment."
The Master's ax-keen face, with its hawkish nose, flaring brows, and swirling, storm-whipped hair, showed utter fury. Dolza wasn't surprised; Zor, who'd given the Masters the key to their power, and the mighty dimensional fortress gone, at a stroke! Dolza wondered if the Invid realized just how much damage they'd inflicted in a raid that would otherwise have been an insignificant skirmish.
The Robotech Master's voice was eerily lifeless, like a single-sideband transmission. "The dimensional fortress must be recovered at all costs! Organize a search immediately; we shall commit the closest Zentraedi fleet to the mission at once, and all others will join in the effort if necessary."
Dolza bowed to the image. "And Zor, my lord? Shall I have his remains interred in his beloved garden?"
"No! Freeze them and bring them back to us personally. Guard them well! We may yet extract information from his cellular materials."
With that, the Master's image disappeared from the screen.

"Hail, Dolza! Breetai reporting as ordered."
Dolza looked him over. A day or two of Zentraedi healing had the senior commander looking fit for duty; though he was again the fierce gladiator he'd always been, he was far different.
The damage done by the annihilation discs of the Invid could not be completely reversed. The right half of Breetai's black-haired scalp and nearly half his face were covered by a gleaming alloy prosthesis, a kind of half cowl, his right eye replaced by a glittering crystal lens.
Breetai had always been given to dark moods, but his mutilation at the hands of the enemy had made him distant, cold and wrathful. Dolza approved.
Dolza had summoned Breetai to a spot on the perimeter of the reinforced base where Flowers of Life were sprouting underfoot. The supreme commander quickly outlined the situation. The details of the long struggle between Zor and the Masters, and Zor's secret plan for the future of Protoculture, shocked Breetai, as did certain other information that was Dolza's alone to tell.
"You're my best field commander," Dolza finished. "You will lead the expedition to retake the dimensional fortress."
The sunlight glinted off Breetai's metal skullpiece. "But-it jumped!"
Sympathy was not part of the Zentraedi emotional spectrum. Dolza therefore showed none. "You must succeed. You must recover the fortress and its Protoculture factory before the Invid do, or we'll have lost everything we've worked for."
Breetai's features resolved in faux lines of determination. "The dimensional fortress will be ours, on my oath!"


CHAPTER ONE
I had misgivings like everybody else, but I thought (the appearance of SDF-1) just might be a good thing for the human race after all when I saw how it scared hell outta the politicians.
Remark attributed to Lt. (jg) Roy Fokker in Prelude to Doomsday: A History of the Global Civil War, by Malachi Cain

When the dimensional fortress landed in 1999 A.D., the word "miracle" had been so long overused that it took some time for the human race to realize that a real one had indeed come to pass.
In the late twentieth century, "miracle" had become the commonplace description for home appliances and food additives. Then came the Global Civil War, a rapid spiraling of diverse conflicts that, by 1994, was well on its way to becoming a full-scale worldwide struggle; in the very early days of the war, "miracle" was used by either side to represent any highly encouraging battle news.
The World Unification Alliance came into existence because it seemed the best hope for human survival. But its well-meaning reformers found that a hundred predators rose up to savage them: from supranational conglomerates, religious extremists, and followers of a hundred different ideologies to racists and bigots of every stripe.
The war bogged down, balkanized dragged on, igniting every corner of the planet. People forgot the word "miracle." The war escalated and escalated-gradually, it's true, but everyone knew what the final escalation would be-until hope began to die.
And in a way nobody seemed to be able to stop, the human race moved along the path to its own utter obliteration, using weapons of its own fashioning. The life of the planet was infinitely precious, but no one could formulate a plan to save it from the sacrificial thermonuclear fire.
Then, almost ten years into the Global Civil War, the thinking of Homo sapiens changed forever.

The dimensional fortress's arrival was a coincidence beyond coincidence and, in the beginning, a sobering catastrophe.
Its entry was that of a powered object, and it had appeared from nowhere, from some unfathomable rift in the timespace continuum. Its long descent spread destruction and death as its shock waves and the after-blast of its monumental drive leveled cities, deafened and blinded multitudes, made a furnace of the atmosphere, and somehow awakened tectonic forces. Cities burned and fell, and many, many died.
Its approach rattled the world. The mosques were crowded to capacity and beyond, as were the temples and the churches. Many people committed suicide, and, curiously enough, the three most notable high-casualty-rate categories were, in this order: fundamentalist clergy, certain elected politicians, and major figures in the entertainment world. Speculation about their motives-that the thing they had in common was that they felt diminished by the arrival of the alien spacecraft-remained just that: speculation.
At last the object slowed, obviously damaged but still capable of maneuvering. Its astonishing speed lessened to a mere glide-except that it had little in the way of lifting surfaces and was unthinkably heavy. It came to rest on a gently sloping plain on a small island in the South Pacific, once the site of French atomic tests, called Macross.
The plain was long and broad, especially for such a tiny island, but it was not a great deal longer than the ship itself. A few hundred yards behind its thrusters, waves crashed against the beach. A short distance ahead of its ruined bow were sheer cliffs.
Its outer sheath and first layers of armor, and a great portion of the superstructure, had been damaged in the course of its escape, or in the controlled crash of its landing. It groaned and creaked, cooling, as the combers foamed and bashed the sand on an otherwise idyllic day on Macross Island.
The human race began assessing the damage in a dazed, uncoordinated way. But it didn't take long for opposing forces to convince themselves that the crash was no enemy trick.
For the first few hours, it was called "the Visitor." Leaders of the various factions of the civil war, their presumed importance reduced by the alien vessel's appearance, took hasty steps toward a truce of convenience. The various commanders had to move quickly and had to sacrifice much of their prestige to accommodate one another; all eyes were turned to the sky and to Macross Island. The Global Civil War looked like a minor, ludicrous squabble compared to the awesome power that had just made itself felt on Earth.
Within hours, preparations were being made for an expedition to explore the wreckage. Necessary alliances were struck, but safety factors were built into the expeditionary force. Enemies at the top had accomplished an uneasy peace.
Now, those who'd fought the war would have to do the same.