The traffic had halted in the city streets below, but otherwise Macross looked the same. Rick and Minmei glanced up at the nearest PA speakers as the voice he'd come to so dislike said, "Attention, all citizens! This ship will be undergoing modular transformation in two minutes. This operation is dangerous; please take all safety precautions.
"Move outdoors at once. Beware of possible quake damage. If possible, evacuate to a designated safety area." There was a slight pause before the echoing voice added, in a softer tone, "And-good luck."
"Transformation? What's that?" Minmei wondered. She and Rick had stayed where they were once the fighting started because it seemed as safe a place as any.
"I dunno; maybe something they came up with while we were-while we were stranded."
"I guess that Roy must be out there in the middle of the fighting," she said sadly, looking out at the city.
"You mean-you think I should join the defense force?"
"No, I didn't mean that at all. It's just that airplanes are your dream, aren't they?"
He could see that the war didn't matter very much to her; that wasn't the way her mind worked. But she'd seen that he was sad and saw what she thought to be a remedy to that sadness.
"I guess so. But if I go and join the defense forces, Minmei, I won't be able to see very much of you anymore." Painful as seeing her under present circumstances was, he wasn't willing to give it up.
She was suddenly smiling. "Rick, we're on the same ship! On your days off or furlough or whatever it is, we can see each other whenever we want to."
"If I survive."
"Oh, how can you talk that way? All the soldiers who come to the restaurant are in exactly the same position!"
"The same position?" He smiled bitterly. "You'd be the one to know, now, wouldn't you?"
She started as if she'd been slapped. "What?"
Up on the bridge, Claudia watched her monitors. "Ten seconds to transformation."
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
And so, my preliminary conclusions lead me to believe these creatures harbor certain unpredictable impulses of a nature as yet unknown to us. It seems obvious that this irrational side to their nature will impede their war-making ability and work in our favor, assuring us the ultimate victory.
"All sections on execution standby?" Gloval demanded.
"D and G blocks are running a bit late but they'll manage," Kim sang out.
"Good; continue," the captain said.
"Counting four seconds," Claudia resumed. "Three… two…"
"Commence full-ship transformation," Gloval ordered.
The bridge crew took up the quiet, critical exchanges of the transformation, listening to their headset earphones and speaking into their mikes. What would have been soft-spoken bedlam to an outsider was instantly intelligible to Gloval.
Sammie: "Commence full-ship tranformation. J, K, and L blocks, stand to."
Kim: "Number seven reflex furnace, power up. Seven-eight section start engines. Not enough power, J block!"
Vanessa: "Activate main torque-sender units."
And the ghostly voices came back, complaining of trouble with substrata plasma warps, of injuries in a hundred different locations, of machinery that was being asked to do too much, of overtaxed components that simply could not do their jobs, and of civilians who, confused and disoriented, were not prepared for the upheaval that was about to take place. Through it all, the bridge gang worked selflessly, concentrating on their jobs and their responsibilities.
Gloval knew that no matter what was about to happen, he was proud of them, proud to serve with them.
"Full-ship transformation under way, sir," Claudia relayed.
With the ship trembling and vibrating all around him, Gloval drew on his reserves of inner calm, clasping his hands behind his back. Now, what would happen would happen; he'd done all he could, and the odds of numbers or the vagaries of engineering or happenstance or some higher power-or all of the above-would make the final judgment.
"Very good," he told Claudia.
Rick looked down at the city. People had streamed from the buildings, racing this way and that, with no clear destination or purpose. Some seemed to be headed for designated shelter areas, but others darted aimlessly, unable to bear another catastrophe so soon after the last.
Rick didn't particularly care, didn't feel any urge to find refuge. "Y'know, Minmei, sometimes I wish they'd never found us."
"I can't believe I'm hearing that from you! How can you be so spiteful? Oh, I hate you!"
He looked back at her. "The same goes for me. If it doesn't mean anything to you that you and I were-"
The vibration had reached a level that nearly knocked him off his feet as enormous pylons, each as wide as a city block, began descending from the gigantic compartment's ceiling. The grinding of the monster servomotors that moved them became deafening.
Rick and Minmei barely had time to get an inkling of what was going on, barely had time to begin to cry out, when the ground at their feet split apart, he on one side and she on the other.
The tower on which humans had so tentatively begun a garden had functions none of them had foreseen. In answer to the reconfiguration order, the tower halves swung away from each other.
Minmei lost her balance and fell, barely catching the brink of a metal ledge that jutted out a few inches below the soil level. The tower part to which she clung pivoted on its supports out over the roofs of the city; screaming, she kicked and scrabbled for purchase against a sheer cliff face of technical components, systemry, and equipment modules.
"Minmei!" Rick fought for balance as the tower segment on which he was standing shook, moving into place with a grinding of massive gears. The gap between the halves was growing wider. He took a running start and hurtled out over empty air, barely making the other side.
Rick knelt to where Minmei hung, legs kicking, hundreds of feet above the roofs of Macross. She'd lost one hand grip, and her fingers were slipping from the other.
He threw himself prone at the brink of the abyss and grabbed her wrist with both hands just as she let go. He gritted his teeth and pulled, but the leverage was difficult, and he hadn't had time to get a firm hold.
Minmei's wrist slipped through his grasp a fraction of an inch. She stared up into his eyes, terror consuming her. "Rick, help me!"
Again the monster cam devices rotated SDF-1's forward booms apart in preparation for the firing of the main gun. But other alterations were taking place, too; and the ship, particularly the stupendous hold where the refugees had rebuilt their city, was filled with devastation, injury, and death.
A hull structure the size of a billboard moved to one side like a sliding door to reinforce the new configuration; out through the gap in the ship's side poured a tidal wave of air, ripping up everything in its way, hurling cars and people and trees into space. An inner curtain of armor dropped to close the gap in moments, but not before part of the city had been sucked away to utter destruction.
Elsewhere, more pylons were in motion, this time rising from the floor, climbing up and up, crushing the buildings atop them flat against the hold's ceiling. Debris rained everywhere; the thousands who hadn't sought shelter or hadn't been able to find it were crushed or injured. Falling signs, toppling light poles, vehicles careening out of control, ruptured power lines, and tons of plummeting concrete and steel claimed as many lives as the Zentraedi had.
Roy bagged another kill, a pod that had very nearly bagged him, and brought his fighter around to locate Captain Kramer, his wingman, and get his bearings. Then he saw the SDF-1. "What in the…"