Rick and the other officers from the Tactical Information Center-the ship's cavernous command, communications, and control facility-kept up the flow of information, but none of it was very helpful. The Plenipotentiary Council, the civilian body in overall control of the Robotech Expeditionary Force, had convened just long enough to give Lisa operational control over the situation; they were satisfied that she wasn't trigger-happy, and that she was well aware of the dicey tactical dilemma.
Veritechs were scrambled, sent out to block the newcomer's way, and intercept and engage if necessary. Alphas, Betas, and Logans were deployed to their appointed places. Lisa's eye found the tactical display symbol for the Skull team for a moment, and she thought of Rick-trapped down there among the rows of consoles and techs' duty stations, monitors, and instruments. She knew he was longing to be out there with his beloved former outfit.
She supposed his heart was even more with them in this moment than it was with her. If so, that was something she could understand, could forgive, as long as he carried out his current assignment.
She thrust the thought aside; the Veritechs were coming within range of the unidentified dreadnought. Although the ship was as big as any Earth battlecruiser, it was still far smaller than the mammoth SDF-3. It maintained its worrisome silence.
According to the rule book, the next step should be a close flyby, performed by VTs-a warning to the intruder. If there was still no acknowledgment, it would be time for a shot across the battlewagon's bow.
She found herself about to order Ghost in for the flyby, avoiding the use of Skull, but stopped herself. Although Rick would want to be with his old outfit in the thick of things, he would just have to maintain his duties as a commander. Edwards was too rash-he might even enjoy goading the newcomers into a shooting incident. Max Sterling, who had taken over Skull, was a more reliable man and the best flier in the REF.
She opened her mouth to give the command to Skull, when one of the male enlisted-rating techs said, "The incoming ship is decelerating, Captain. Changing course for possible insertion to Tirol orbit. It's deactivating its weapons systems."
As soon as the tech relayed the information, a female voice from the Tactical Information Center came up. TIC commo instruments were intercepting radio transmissions from the newcomer.
When the transmissions were patched through to the bridge, Lisa found herself listening to a strange, voice-processed-sounding garble. But bit by bit, she began to recognize syllables.
"Zentraedi," Lisa's bridge officer, Mister Blake, said softly, but Lisa was already turning to have a comline opened to Dr. Lang's science/research division.
"Respond, please," the transmissions came, in that strange, processed-sounding voice that might have been computer generated. "Alien vessel, please respond."
Alien? Lisa pondered as Lang came onscreen. He was flanked by Breetai, and Exedore.
Once Humanity's greatest enemies, these two Zentraedi were now staunch allies.
"Can you speculate on what this means, Doctor?" Lisa asked. "Or Commander Breetai? Lord Exedore?"
It was Exedore who answered, his voice still holding something of the weird Zentraedi quaver, even though he had been Micronized to Human size.
His was the greatest mind of his race, and the storehouse of its accumulated-in some cases, fabricated-lore and history. "The language is Tiresian," he confirmed, "with loan-words from our own battle language and some elements of the Robotech Masters' speech. But it is being spoken by a non-Zentraedi, non-Tiresian.
"As for the ship, it fits no profile known to my data banks, although certain portions of it bear resemblances to the spacecraft of various spacefaring cultures."
"But this is no Zentraedi ship," boomed Breetai. "Of that I feel sure. Our race conquered thousands of worlds, contacted tens of thousands of species. The language of Tirol became the lingua franca of much of this part of the galaxy. This warcraft might come from anywhere in the entire region, or even beyond."
All of them heard the next transmission from the battleship. "We come in peace," that eerie voice said. "We come in friendship. Do not fire! We are desperately in need of your help!"
"Identify yourselves," a commo officer transmitted in her clear contralto. "Incoming vessel, who are you?"
"We are the Sentinels," the eldritch voice answered. "We are the Sentinels."
Down in the TIC, Rick Hunter had a sudden vision of black obelisks and dire events to the tune of Also Spracht Zarathustra.
Lisa looked at the bridge's main viewscreen.
Suddenly Edwards's face appeared in an inset at one corner of it. "It's some kind of trick!
Admiral, you can't let them-"
"General, that…will…do!" Lisa thundered, and blanked him from the screen. A moment later she was talking to the Plenipotentiary Council.
"Ladies and gentlemen, I recommend that we allow the, er, alien ship to land under close escort by our VTs and with its weapons systems inert. We can track it with the SDF-3's main gun, and cover it with the GMU's as well, once it's down. If it turns out that they want to fight, let it be from a position of such tactical disadvantage."
That touched off a hectic, bitter debate in the council. Some members shared Edwards's attitude after the almost mindless hatred with which the SDF-3's arrival had been greeted by the Invid.
It was Lang who cut through the rancor with a single quiet plea, perhaps the most Human thing he had said since that Protoculture boost so long ago.
"My dear companions, we've traveled across the better part of the Milky Way galaxy with the express hope of hearing the word they've just used: friendship."
Permission to land was carried unanimously.
Exedore was less the frog-eyed, misshapen dwarf he had once been, thanks to Human biosurgery and cosmetic treatments. It seemed to make people more at ease in his presence, but other than that it meant little to him.
Now he pushed back his unruly mass of barn-red hair and squinted at the readouts as his own data banks interfaced with those of the SDF-3 mainframes, with input from the detectors tracking the newcomer battleship's descent. As had happened so often in the past, he could feel great Breetai looming nearby.
Exedore, Breetai, and many of the star players of the REF were in the Tactical Information Center. Techs, intel, and ops officers were scurrying around the compartment, which was two hundred feet on a side and half as high, crammed with screens and instrumentation. A main screen fifty feet square dominated the place.
Exedore was matching disparate parts of the newcomer's hull features with profiles in Zentraedi files. "You see? That portion toward the stern, starboard-it's Praxian! A-and the section there just forward of midship's starboard: is that not a Perytonian silhouette, I ask you?"
Nobody there was about to argue with him, but nobody understood what it meant-and neither did Exedore. "It's as if these Sentinels slapped together a variety of space vessels and united them with a central structure-you see? — to form, oh, I don't know-a sort of aggregate. Certainly, it's not a design well suited to atmospheric entry."
Exedore was correct. The assemblage ship, asymmetrical and unbalanced in gravity and atmosphere, was already being battered as it fought its way down toward Tirol's surface.
But by some miracle the lumbering vessel held together. Rick Hunter found himself rooting for the Sentinels, whoever they were. He felt emotions he hadn't felt in years-buried exaltation from his days in his father's air circus.
"Our analyses of their power systems don't make any sense," a female tech officer reported to the bridge. "Some indications are consistent with Protoculture, but other readings are totally incompatible.