Clouds of superheated air blew out across the ocean; gulls cried in the aftermath of the SDF-1's single volley.
Gloval was at the bridge's protective bowl-its "windshield"-his face all but pressed against it, scanning through the steam and fog. He breathed a prayer of thanks that the city was unharmed.
"Some sort of magnetic bottling," Sammie reported, focused on her work. "All the force was channeled directly out into space, except for some very marginal eddy currents."
"We have control over all systems again, sir," Claudia announced calmly. "What happened, sir?"
Gloval suddenly felt old-older than the ship, the island, the sea. He wasn't about to speculate aloud, not even to his trusted bridge gang, but he was just about certain he knew. And if he was right, it put the weight of a planet on his shoulders.
CHAPTER SIX
While Captain Gloval gets admittedly deserved credit for his handling of the disaster that day, male historians frequently gloss over Gloval's straightforward statement that if it weren't for the women on SDF-1's bridge, their nerve and gallantry and professionalism, the Robotech War would have been over before it had fairly begun.
The ground had stopped shaking, and the sky was clearing. The Veritech fighter stopped its trembling dance, and Rick Hunter caught his breath. The air seemed a little hotter in his lungs, but not terribly so.
He called back to Roy in a subdued voice, "Wow. What were all those fireworks about?"
Fireworks! Roy thought. 'Fraid not! Aloud, he said, "I dunno. I better go check. Wait here; I'll see what's goin' on."
He put aside his flight helmet-the "thinking cap," as Rick had called it-and hiked himself up out of the fighter cockpit. If what Roy feared the most had come to pass, Rick would be as safe where he was as anywhere else. And he'd also understand why some people could spend their lives preparing for war.
"The space monitor report's coming in," Sammie sang out. "It shows what our gun was firing at."
"I have it here, Sammie," Lisa cut in, studying her monitors. "Two large objects, probably spacecraft, origin unknown, on Earth-approach vector, approx two hundred miles out."
Gloval was nodding to himself without realizing it. The ship could be raised or lowered, the booms traversed for-what, a few insignificant minutes of arc? And the SDF-1 hadn't been moved, except to lift it onto the keel blocks, since it crashed. The range was incredibly long, making for a greater field of fire; but still, such a shot, such a series of events, could only come about with some forewarning, or intuition, or-We forgot that whoever built this vessel had to some extent mastered time; could, perhaps, see through it. Could see this very moment?
"Both objects were struck dead center by the beam and were destroyed-disintegrated," Claudia said. "Orbital combat task forces are deploying for defense, with Armor One and Armor Ten-sir? Captain Gloval?"
Sammie, Vanessa, Kim-they exchanged looks with one another as Lisa and Claudia traded facial signals. Gloval was laughing, a deep belly laugh, his shoulders shaking. Claudia and Lisa saw that they were both thinking the same thing: If Gloval, their source of strength and calm, had lost his grip, all was lost.
"Captain, what is it?" Lisa ventured. "What are you laughing about?"
Gloval stopped laughing, crashing his fist against the observation-bowl ledge. "It was so obvious! We should have known! A booby trap, of course!"
Claudia and Lisa said it at the same time, "Booby trap, sir?"
"Yes, it's one of the oldest tricks in military history! A retreating enemy leaves behind hidden explosives and such."
He clamped his cold pipe between his teeth. "The automatic firing of the main guns means that enemies have approached close enough to be a threat to us." He drew his tobacco bag out of the breast pocket of his uniform jacket.
"Captain Gloval!" Sammie was up out of her chair. Everyone turned to her, wondering what the new alarm was.
"No smoking on the bridge, sir!" Sammie said. "Strictly against regulations!"
Claudia groaned and clapped a hand to her forehead. Lisa reflected, Nothing throws Sammie.
"I was just holding it; I wasn't going to light it," Gloval said defensively. The unreality of the situation retreated with Sammie's interruption. There were both good things and bad things about having one's bridge crew be like family.
But doubts were past now. Gloval barked, "Hot-scramble all fighters and sound general quarters! I'm declaring a red alert!"
Down below, the crowds milled uncertainly as helos and other aircraft veered away to report to battle stations. Suddenly, launch crews were scrambling to get Veritechs into the air. Out on the carriers, all catapults were busy, while the SDF-1's own warcraft rushed up from the ship's interior and groundside runways to establish a protective shield overhead.
Out in the void, armored spacecruisers, human-designed vehicles incorporating some of the principles learned from Robotechnology, moved their interceptors and attack craft out of the bays and into fighting position.
It wasn't long before the swarm of human defenders had sensor contact, then visual sighting, on the aliens; the Zentraedi wouldn't have had it any other way.
A Scorpion interceptor pilot reported back to Armor One over the tac net, "Enemy approaching on bearing niner-zero. We are engaging. Commence firing!"
Scorpions and Tigersharks and a dozen other types of Earthly combat spacecraft, ranging up to the mammoth Armors themselves, rushed to close with the aliens' first attack wave.
Missiles-Stilettos and Piledrivers and Mongooses-were launched at extreme range so that all but the glows of their drives were lost to sight until the blackness blossomed with the spherical explosions characteristic of zero-g, the bursts overlapping one another, thicker than a field of dandelions.
The Zentraedi ships-of-the-line forged through the intense fire with few losses, closing the gap in seconds. The formations broke up to lock in a fierce, pitched battle.
The Armors launched all their missiles. Lasers, kinetic energy weapons-rail-gun autocannon and such-were the other main Terran weapons. The Zentraedi's were far superior; their warcraft simply outclassed the defenders', whose design involved fewer Robotech innovations.
Earth's forces fought with savage determination, but the unevenness in technologies was instantly apparent.
Aboard the alien command ship, Breetai studied the engagement solemnly in the projecbeam images and monitors, listening to his staff's relayed readouts with only a small part of his attention.
"Very heavy resistance, sir," Exedore observed.
"Yes," Breetai allowed. "But why are they using such primitive weapons? Our lead ships have broken through. It's unbelievable, this sacrifice they're making! Some sort of trick, no doubt."
Exedore considered that. "Yes, it is puzzling."
Breetai whirled on him. "It makes no sense, then? Even to you?"
"There has to be a reason, but it's beyond me. Surely, the Robotech Masters-"
He was interrupted by an urgent message from the tech at the threat-prioritization computers. "Commander Breetai! Two enemy cruiser-class vessels are approaching; they could be the ones who launched the missile bombardment."
Breetai smiled, but his single eye was chilly. "Destroy them!"
Specially designated main and secondary batteries opened fire: phased particle-beam arrays and molecular disruptors, long-range and fearsomely powerful.
Armor Two was hit on the first volley as hundreds of spears of high-resolution blue fury ranged in on it. It tried to evade the barrage; house-size pieces of armor and superstructure were blown from it. Many of the smaller defending craft were completely disintegrated.