GiovanniBlasini
Transhumanist Nutcase from Niops IX
- Location
- San Diego, CA, USA, Sol III
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Wait…is this a former Invid colony?
Venture [Robotech]
- Thread starter Blackleaf
- Start date
- Novel Sci-Fi
- Location
- Reading, Berks, UK
The Invid go in for spherical or hemispherical windowless hives rather than the described architecture.
The Masters like pyramids/ziggurats for government centres.
- Location
- Not the asylum anymore
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I wonder if Earthian civilization, and its burgeoning colonies, are trying to wean themselves off of protoculture after seeing how Robotech Master civilization collapsed. Solar and nuclear power, mayhaps? But with just how efficient and useful protoculture is, it'd be difficult without some sort of planned economy.
GiovanniBlasini
Transhumanist Nutcase from Niops IX
- Location
- San Diego, CA, USA, Sol III
- Pronouns
- He/Him
The Invid go in for spherical or hemispherical windowless hives rather than the described architecture.
The Masters like pyramids/ziggurats for government centres.
It was more the description of the crablike "robot tractors" that had me thinking Invid.
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
From what we saw in The New Generation alone they don't rely on protoculture for everything. There was that advanced geothermal generator in Denver that extended down to the boundary zone between the crust and the mantle and generated massive amounts of power. They also certainly made extensive use of fusion generators for day to day power needs.
Rather than hoarding and restricting Protoculture, I think the Masters must have encouraged their subject worlds to become dependent on it, just as the Zentraedi were. As long as the Masters believed that Zor was cooperating and that the supply of Protoculture could be replenished indefinitely, it was the perfect tool of control, making every planet within their sphere dependent on them economically, and rendering potential rebels militarily impotent as soon as their supplies on hand ran out.
It's quite a dilemma for Earth. Without all the technology and all the parts of the Flower of Life's life cycle that Zor hid or scattered, Protoculture is finite, and only incompletely understood, but it's just so amazingly efficient, and, for the time being at least, so plentiful on Earth, that it's hard for anything else to compete. Denver is an interesting case. It could be argued that geothermal made sense for a facility that was intended to last as a long-term shelter, perhaps for generations. It also didn't need to be able to intermittently spike its power output an order of magnitude higher the way a combat mecha would. I stop to consider sometimes how much difficulty Scott Bernard and his resistance group had keeping their veritechs running, and then think about how impossible it would have been for them to find more jet fuel every few hours to keep conventional aircraft flying, rather than a handful of thermos sized Protoculture canisters every few days.
Sojourn Chapter 2.3
The going was not easy, with all the rubble obstructing the streets. The convoy stuck to the widest boulevards, and nevertheless, frequently had to navigate around deep craters, large enough to swallow an ATV, and great jagged shards of the dully shining, bronze-colored material that most of the buildings were composed of. Countless wrecked ground vehicles, mostly sleek hovercraft and some type of bulky, high-tech cargo sled, were scattered about. Here and there, sections of bridges, walkways, and elevated highways had come down, and a quarter kilometer in, one such fragment blocked their path.
"The lead hovertanks will divert north at the next intersection," the comms crackled. "There'll be a two block detour, then the convoy will return to the main boulevard. There are destroids positioned at each turn to guide you through."
An olive-drab Spartan waited at the corner. The machine glowered down at them through the lime green visor shielding its sensor cluster, then ushered the convoy around the corner with a wave of one colossal metal gauntlet. Vanessa had yet to see a single building that had escaped the damage, which appeared to have primarily been caused by seemingly random explosive blasts. There was no sign of destroyed battle mecha, and the city clearly hadn't taken even a near miss from Reflex weaponry or nukes… though maybe the city had been shielded against weapons of mass destruction somehow. Occasionally she saw a skeletal corpse lying in rubble, or draped across the console of a smashed vehicle.
"Have recovered remains for analysis," one of Priest's scientists reported. "Remains appear to be human or near human. We'll need to get back to the field lab at the LZ for a full autopsy and DNA sequencing."
So many unanswered questions! Vanessa thought as the convoy rejoined the main route. The Zentraedi were genetically human, with a few distinctive DNA identifiers that made it possible to distinguish between them and humans born on Earth. Presumably that was the case for the Zentraedi's creators as well. What other genetic source for the clone lines could there be? So were these dead citizens of the Masters' empire? Micronized Zentraedi? Were the invaders intermixed with the planet's inhabitants - a civil war over dwindling resources?
"This is Storm Four. Hold tight, this next stretch is going to get bumpy!" one of the tank drivers warned, and then the pair of hovertanks smashed straight through a barrier of rubble and wrecked hovercraft blocking the street ahead. Vanessa shook her head to clear it of the riddles preoccupying her and gripped the handles welded around the edge of the ATV's upper hatch more tightly. A second later the vehicle lurched, rocking her, as they went over a taller piece of debris, and each articulated set of wheels rose and fell in turn. With the superhuman strength in her cybernetic limbs, there was no chance of her losing her hold, but she still had to be careful she didn't allow her body to slam painfully against the hull as they crossed the roughest terrain.
"Almost through. All vehicles, halt, and we'll take care of that last obstacle up ahead," Storm Four signaled. "Going to battloid."
The tankers expertly let their veritechs swing around ninety degrees to bleed off speed, then reconfigured, components and modules shifting until they towered over the rest of the convoy, nearly as tall as the destroids, and far more agile. The bulky armor shields mounted on their upper arms and their inhuman heads made Vanessa think of war-masked samurai. The pair stood shoulder to shoulder and bent down to roll three immense broken pieces of a fallen pillar out of the street, then smoothly changed back to hover mode and led the ATV's forward again.
Up ahead, the pyramid loomed larger, far out massing all the other buildings but for the half dozen multi-terraced arcologies that stood like giant stacks of saucers above the cityscape. Vanessa could see, now that she had a clearer view, that the pyramid was more reminiscent in shape of an Aztec temple than an Egyptian tomb. It was stepped, with three distinct tiers, and with a colonnade at the apex. As for its physical composition, the pyramid was a cyberpunk fantasy of megalithic plates, esoteric ornamentation, and thousands of faux windows that glittered turquoise where the sunlight caught crystalline shards of shattered glass. An open plaza big enough to accommodate landing spacecraft surrounded the pyramid, and at a distance from each of its corners was a dome-topped, hightech pillar of cyclopean scale, standing as tall as the pyramid itself.
"Captain, one of the Spartas teams is transmitting video from the industrial district in the southern edge of the city," Priest told Vanessa. She dropped inside, dogging the hatch behind her, and leaned in for a better look at the video being shared to the tiny screen set into the front of the compartment. She patched the audio through to her helmet, squinting to make sense of the blurry, shadowy image.
"Big building, at least four hundred meters across," another of Colonel Kravshera's hovertankers transmitted. "The damage isn't random, they cut a hole in the outer wall big enough to walk a destroid through. Storm Eight is providing overwatch. Storm Nine now making entry. There!"
She activated her battloid's spot lamps and cautiously entered the hole in the bronze colored wall of the lozenge shaped industrial building.
"Almost empty," she narrated as she panned her lights across the room. "I see a few small personal vehicles, and overhanging control booths. Some huge mounting plates along the far wall and extending two thirds of the way across the room, but the machinery is gone…"
Vanessa saw something, and patched into the Marines' frequency. "Storm Nine, hold there. This is Captain Leeds. Please focus on the angled section of that mounting plate. I want to get a look at that connecting equipment."
"Acknowledged."
The image zoomed in, wobbled, and then focused. Vanessa nodded. As she expected she recognized the hookups for power, monitoring devices, and shielding. This chamber had held Reflex furnaces, identical to the ones on the Jeanne d'Arc, and to the ones on the SDF-1 that the Jeanne d'Arc's had been copied from. She looked over her shoulder at Doctor Priest, who nodded his understanding. Vanessa sighed.
"More evidence that your theory is correct, Doctor. All this destruction, just to steal energy supplies."
The ATV jerked to a stop. "The convoy has arrived at the pyramid, Captain," their driver called out. "Our infantry are dismounting and will have the entrance secured in a few minutes."
Up close, the pyramid was a staggering edifice, enveloping the entire convoy and its escorting tanks and destroids in hard shadow. Vanessa was no stranger to mega-constructs, and the pyramid indicated engineering more on par with the Zentraedi than anything built by pre-First Contact Earth, though it was scaled for typical humans, not giants. Vanessa flipped the toggle for her helmet's tiny lights and ascended the steps, accompanied by Doctor Priest, Ensign Garo with his backpack mounted transceiver, and a heavily armed and armored squad of Marines. It took several minutes to ascend the steps to the first tier, where there was a double-doored entrance nearly big enough to drive a tank through. Inside, she found a great hall with thirty meter ceilings and endless rows of columns disappearing into darkness. The floor was a nearly mirror sheen under the thick coating of dust she and the other members of the landing party were leaving fresh footprints in. Far away in the murky black, the lights of the initial entry team were tiny willow-the-wisps, catching the corners of columns hundreds of meters deeper into the hall.
"Anything from the teams on the level below us, Ensign?" Vanessa asked Garo, who was monitoring several different channels at once.
"Oui, Capitaine. It sounds like empty mecha bays. The entire perimeter of the building on that level consists of concealed launch bay doors. Also some enormous cargo bays, hoppers, storage tanks, and anti-grav lifts for moving thousands of mega-kilos at a time to the levels above us. It goes much deeper. Magnetic resonance scans indicate vast catacombs stretching many square kilometers."
Vanessa meandered deeper into the hall while she listened, noting the ornate fixtures and grand scale of the space, but also the lack of artwork or accommodation for visitors. "What about the level above?"
"More cargo bays and equipment for moving around containers. Those areas are a mess- sounds like the place was looted. There's nothing left but empty pallets, wall fixtures, and containers. There are also offices and servers for data storage, but there's no power to let us recover the data yet. The lift shafts go all the way up through the third tier to that colonnade at the pyramid's apex."
Vanessa nodded absently. A picture was starting to form in her mind, one she didn't like. "I think I took us the wrong direction, Doctor."
"What do you mean, Captain?"
"I assumed a building like this would be a government or cultural center, somewhere we could learn about the people living on this planet, and about the full story of what happened here. But I'm sure now that's not the case. This building is-"
Ensign Garo took hold of her upper arm, and she could feel the tension running from his fingers to her body like an electric current. "Channel seven, priorité! Priorité!"
Cold claws of anxiety sank into Vanessa's chest as she tapped her wrist console.
"-movement! Movement in the sublevel! They're coming off the walls!" There was a strange sound underlying the Marine corporal's transmission, a continuous whirring of metal against metal. Rolling? Vanessa wondered. But she had no time to ask for more details. "CONTACT! HOSTILE CONTACT! THEY'RE-!"
The floor shook underneath their feet as a muffled explosion echoed through the cavernous chamber, releasing dust in a torrent from the ceiling that dampened their lights in an impenetrable gray murk.
Next chapter… contact…
"The lead hovertanks will divert north at the next intersection," the comms crackled. "There'll be a two block detour, then the convoy will return to the main boulevard. There are destroids positioned at each turn to guide you through."
An olive-drab Spartan waited at the corner. The machine glowered down at them through the lime green visor shielding its sensor cluster, then ushered the convoy around the corner with a wave of one colossal metal gauntlet. Vanessa had yet to see a single building that had escaped the damage, which appeared to have primarily been caused by seemingly random explosive blasts. There was no sign of destroyed battle mecha, and the city clearly hadn't taken even a near miss from Reflex weaponry or nukes… though maybe the city had been shielded against weapons of mass destruction somehow. Occasionally she saw a skeletal corpse lying in rubble, or draped across the console of a smashed vehicle.
"Have recovered remains for analysis," one of Priest's scientists reported. "Remains appear to be human or near human. We'll need to get back to the field lab at the LZ for a full autopsy and DNA sequencing."
So many unanswered questions! Vanessa thought as the convoy rejoined the main route. The Zentraedi were genetically human, with a few distinctive DNA identifiers that made it possible to distinguish between them and humans born on Earth. Presumably that was the case for the Zentraedi's creators as well. What other genetic source for the clone lines could there be? So were these dead citizens of the Masters' empire? Micronized Zentraedi? Were the invaders intermixed with the planet's inhabitants - a civil war over dwindling resources?
"This is Storm Four. Hold tight, this next stretch is going to get bumpy!" one of the tank drivers warned, and then the pair of hovertanks smashed straight through a barrier of rubble and wrecked hovercraft blocking the street ahead. Vanessa shook her head to clear it of the riddles preoccupying her and gripped the handles welded around the edge of the ATV's upper hatch more tightly. A second later the vehicle lurched, rocking her, as they went over a taller piece of debris, and each articulated set of wheels rose and fell in turn. With the superhuman strength in her cybernetic limbs, there was no chance of her losing her hold, but she still had to be careful she didn't allow her body to slam painfully against the hull as they crossed the roughest terrain.
"Almost through. All vehicles, halt, and we'll take care of that last obstacle up ahead," Storm Four signaled. "Going to battloid."
The tankers expertly let their veritechs swing around ninety degrees to bleed off speed, then reconfigured, components and modules shifting until they towered over the rest of the convoy, nearly as tall as the destroids, and far more agile. The bulky armor shields mounted on their upper arms and their inhuman heads made Vanessa think of war-masked samurai. The pair stood shoulder to shoulder and bent down to roll three immense broken pieces of a fallen pillar out of the street, then smoothly changed back to hover mode and led the ATV's forward again.
Up ahead, the pyramid loomed larger, far out massing all the other buildings but for the half dozen multi-terraced arcologies that stood like giant stacks of saucers above the cityscape. Vanessa could see, now that she had a clearer view, that the pyramid was more reminiscent in shape of an Aztec temple than an Egyptian tomb. It was stepped, with three distinct tiers, and with a colonnade at the apex. As for its physical composition, the pyramid was a cyberpunk fantasy of megalithic plates, esoteric ornamentation, and thousands of faux windows that glittered turquoise where the sunlight caught crystalline shards of shattered glass. An open plaza big enough to accommodate landing spacecraft surrounded the pyramid, and at a distance from each of its corners was a dome-topped, hightech pillar of cyclopean scale, standing as tall as the pyramid itself.
"Captain, one of the Spartas teams is transmitting video from the industrial district in the southern edge of the city," Priest told Vanessa. She dropped inside, dogging the hatch behind her, and leaned in for a better look at the video being shared to the tiny screen set into the front of the compartment. She patched the audio through to her helmet, squinting to make sense of the blurry, shadowy image.
"Big building, at least four hundred meters across," another of Colonel Kravshera's hovertankers transmitted. "The damage isn't random, they cut a hole in the outer wall big enough to walk a destroid through. Storm Eight is providing overwatch. Storm Nine now making entry. There!"
She activated her battloid's spot lamps and cautiously entered the hole in the bronze colored wall of the lozenge shaped industrial building.
"Almost empty," she narrated as she panned her lights across the room. "I see a few small personal vehicles, and overhanging control booths. Some huge mounting plates along the far wall and extending two thirds of the way across the room, but the machinery is gone…"
Vanessa saw something, and patched into the Marines' frequency. "Storm Nine, hold there. This is Captain Leeds. Please focus on the angled section of that mounting plate. I want to get a look at that connecting equipment."
"Acknowledged."
The image zoomed in, wobbled, and then focused. Vanessa nodded. As she expected she recognized the hookups for power, monitoring devices, and shielding. This chamber had held Reflex furnaces, identical to the ones on the Jeanne d'Arc, and to the ones on the SDF-1 that the Jeanne d'Arc's had been copied from. She looked over her shoulder at Doctor Priest, who nodded his understanding. Vanessa sighed.
"More evidence that your theory is correct, Doctor. All this destruction, just to steal energy supplies."
The ATV jerked to a stop. "The convoy has arrived at the pyramid, Captain," their driver called out. "Our infantry are dismounting and will have the entrance secured in a few minutes."
Up close, the pyramid was a staggering edifice, enveloping the entire convoy and its escorting tanks and destroids in hard shadow. Vanessa was no stranger to mega-constructs, and the pyramid indicated engineering more on par with the Zentraedi than anything built by pre-First Contact Earth, though it was scaled for typical humans, not giants. Vanessa flipped the toggle for her helmet's tiny lights and ascended the steps, accompanied by Doctor Priest, Ensign Garo with his backpack mounted transceiver, and a heavily armed and armored squad of Marines. It took several minutes to ascend the steps to the first tier, where there was a double-doored entrance nearly big enough to drive a tank through. Inside, she found a great hall with thirty meter ceilings and endless rows of columns disappearing into darkness. The floor was a nearly mirror sheen under the thick coating of dust she and the other members of the landing party were leaving fresh footprints in. Far away in the murky black, the lights of the initial entry team were tiny willow-the-wisps, catching the corners of columns hundreds of meters deeper into the hall.
"Anything from the teams on the level below us, Ensign?" Vanessa asked Garo, who was monitoring several different channels at once.
"Oui, Capitaine. It sounds like empty mecha bays. The entire perimeter of the building on that level consists of concealed launch bay doors. Also some enormous cargo bays, hoppers, storage tanks, and anti-grav lifts for moving thousands of mega-kilos at a time to the levels above us. It goes much deeper. Magnetic resonance scans indicate vast catacombs stretching many square kilometers."
Vanessa meandered deeper into the hall while she listened, noting the ornate fixtures and grand scale of the space, but also the lack of artwork or accommodation for visitors. "What about the level above?"
"More cargo bays and equipment for moving around containers. Those areas are a mess- sounds like the place was looted. There's nothing left but empty pallets, wall fixtures, and containers. There are also offices and servers for data storage, but there's no power to let us recover the data yet. The lift shafts go all the way up through the third tier to that colonnade at the pyramid's apex."
Vanessa nodded absently. A picture was starting to form in her mind, one she didn't like. "I think I took us the wrong direction, Doctor."
"What do you mean, Captain?"
"I assumed a building like this would be a government or cultural center, somewhere we could learn about the people living on this planet, and about the full story of what happened here. But I'm sure now that's not the case. This building is-"
Ensign Garo took hold of her upper arm, and she could feel the tension running from his fingers to her body like an electric current. "Channel seven, priorité! Priorité!"
Cold claws of anxiety sank into Vanessa's chest as she tapped her wrist console.
"-movement! Movement in the sublevel! They're coming off the walls!" There was a strange sound underlying the Marine corporal's transmission, a continuous whirring of metal against metal. Rolling? Vanessa wondered. But she had no time to ask for more details. "CONTACT! HOSTILE CONTACT! THEY'RE-!"
The floor shook underneath their feet as a muffled explosion echoed through the cavernous chamber, releasing dust in a torrent from the ceiling that dampened their lights in an impenetrable gray murk.
Next chapter… contact…
deathzealotzero
Mecha Guru
- Location
- Las Vegas, NV
Hmmmm... Maybe Invid Inorganics?
Sojourn Chapter 3.1
Chapter 3
It was no time for hesitation. The Marines were Colonel Kravshera's responsibility, but the landing team as a whole was Vanessa's. She slapped Garo on the upper arm to get his attention, and took Dr. Priest's wrist in her other hand and pulled him along until he followed.
"Lieutenant, we're getting out of here," she told the leader of their Marine escort, and they all began making their way back towards the entrance, peering through the fog of dust and tracking on a faint square of what she hoped was daylight. She switched to the general frequency.
"This is the Captain! All units, evacuate! All personnel are to remount and evacuate the city at once! Regroup at point Zebra! Colonel Kravshera, recover any casualties, if possible, and break contact. I need you protecting the convoy during the evacuation!"
Kravshera's voice came back, controlled, but intense. Even eager. "Please confirm, Captain. Break contact, do not engage?"
She knew what he actually meant; his phrasing was carefully couched so that he wasn't technically disagreeing or questioning her orders, but she knew that the instinct of any Zentraedi from one of the officer clone lines would be to counterattack, not disengage, especially a Kravshera. No, he's not that man! she reminded herself.
The tantalizing square of light that promised safety was growing brighter, and they broke into a full run. It had been a long climb already to reach the chamber, and Vanessa's breaths began to come in gasps as she answered. "Confirmed, Colonel! We are still under First Contact protocols. Cover our withdrawal, so that we can try to make remote contact with the unknown life forms and establish a cease fire!"
To his credit, he obeyed. "Received! All forward units, rally at the base of the pyramid and form a rearguard. Destroid teams one through four, keep an exit corridor open for us, there may be more of them in the city! Sergeant Coste, do you have a visual on the hostiles?
"Negative, sir."
"Can you reach the corporal's fire team?"
"We can't. The whole corridor collapsed in the explosion."
Kravshera swore. "Understood. Withdraw with everyone else. Use the service hatch you found below the mecha bays."
There was a noise. Not on comms channels- here, with Vanessa, in the Grand Hall. Metal on metal. Whirring. No, definitely rolling. A horrendous clang rang across the chamber, then another. She glanced over her shoulder as she ran, but it was useless, with so little light, and so much dust. That sound, though, something big, fast, and tremendously heavy. Smashing against the columns?
Closer, louder now, and she poured on speed even as she forced down an ancient primal terror of the thing that comes out of the darkness. They burst out of the second tier entrance of the pyramid, and Vanessa had to catch herself from tumbling down hundreds of steps to the unyielding metal surface of the plaza below. Around her was light, pink sky, and a reassuring bustle of activity. Her crew were moving with urgency, but not panic. The ATV drivers, bless them, were taking full advantage of their vehicles' superb mobility and were driving them right up the steps, their articulated wheels juddering and their high performance electric motors whining. Six of them slewed to a hard stop twenty steps below the entrance, rocking on their suspension, and the side hatches slid open. Four Marines pushed the heavy but well balanced entrance doors shut and sealed them.
"Mount up!" Vanessa ordered, waving the crew on, while she took the steps three at a time. Priest climbed through the hatch first, then Vanessa grabbed Garo, who had paused next to the ATV's to update the Jeanne d'Arc, by his comms harness, and roughly shoved him through.
"Later! Go! Go!"
Her foot was on the lower lip of the hatch when the pyramid doors were ripped from their hinges. A round, metallic blur shot out into the air past the cluster of ATV's and disappeared from view. Hurrying around to the rear corner of the vehicle, Vanessa saw the object drop in an arc like a solid iron cannonball, before it finally crashed into the steps near the bottom of the pyramid. It sank a deep divot into the structure, accompanied by a loud crunch that echoed off the surrounding ruins. It was big; a dark gray sphere about two meters across, with a glowing blue pattern on its surface that reminded her of the warning markings on a venomous insect. She was about to remind everyone to keep their distance and hold their fire, when it moved.
"What in the - a roly-poly?" Vanessa murmured in disbelief. The object - the machine, really did look like a giant woodlouse. The tight sphere unrolled, revealing a plump body of segmented plates, and underneath, dozens of spindly, insectile legs, with a pair of short feelers or antennae at the front. It looked almost comical as it sprawled on its side, then squirmed and righted itself, bringing back to Vanessa memories of her family's back garden when she was a little girl. She and her younger sister, Esther, had observed the inoffensive, sturdy little creatures browsing through the loamy soil, gently nudging them with their fingertips and watching them roll up into tight, armored balls, then unroll and wander off again. Here was a mechanical cousin, pulling itself out of the divot, its front third lifting off the steps, its feelers twitching as it pivoted left and right. There were no visible camera lenses, but it seemed to sense the presence of the line of remaining ATV's at the bottom of the pyramid. It froze, then gave forth a loud synthesized chirp, and scuttled toward the closest ATV. Its legs rippled with an unnatural syncopated motion that was disturbing to watch. One of the ATV crew, who had their head poking out of the driver's compartment hatch, watched its rapid approach, frozen in surprise.
Vanessa's instincts were screaming that the entity's intentions could not possibly be peaceful, and there was no way she would sacrifice the lives of her crew on a foolhardy hope that there had been a misunderstanding - not even in a First Contact situation. How could she look any of her crew in the eye if she didn't do everything in her power to keep them safe? The order to engage was on her lips, but Colonel Kravshera was faster.
"Destroy it! All units, weapons free!"
There wasn't enough time. The strange mecha climbed the side of the ATV, which settled heavily on its wheels. The machine clung tightly to the ATV and issued another earsplitting chirp, like a car alarm arming, and the glowing blue markings on its armored carapace pulsed brightly, once. Vanessa had just enough presence of mind to throw herself back around the corner of her own ATV.
The detonation was a physical shock she felt pass through her body. Dust and grit blew by her on either side of the hull she was crouching against. Then the entire pyramid groaned, and she could hear muffled clattering from dislodged debris falling inside the ruined building. She peeked back around to see, through the cloud of smoke and particles, a meter deep crater, and nothing else remaining of the vehicle or its unknown assailant.
Next week… Thunder…
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
Interesting.
From the insectile description of the attacking mecha I suspect that the culprits for the attack on this world are the Invid. The thing that just attacked being an inorganic sentry left behind as a booby trap by the Regent as unlike the Regis he would use tactics that were far more complex than just swarming the enemy with suicidally aggressive battle mecha.
From the insectile description of the attacking mecha I suspect that the culprits for the attack on this world are the Invid. The thing that just attacked being an inorganic sentry left behind as a booby trap by the Regent as unlike the Regis he would use tactics that were far more complex than just swarming the enemy with suicidally aggressive battle mecha.
Sojourn Chapter 3.2
The nearest ATV to the explosion had been tipped onto its side, and for a moment, everyone from the convoy and its escort force stared in shock. Then Vanessa again heard the rolling sound from inside the pyramid.
"Evacuate!" Vanessa repeated. "Priority evac! Get that ATV righted!" A Spartas battloid moved to obey, using its giant hands to gently lower the overturned ATV back onto its wheels. The driver waggled the wheels left and right, then scooted the vehicle forward and backward experimentally, before darting towards the boulevard they had all arrived from.
"Colonel Kravshera, there are more hostiles approaching from inside!" Vanessa warned. "You are authorized to use any necessary force to defend the convoy!" Not waiting for his acknowledgement, she threw herself through her transport's hatch, painfully striking her flesh and blood right shin against the rim, and then hammered her cybernetic fist against the hull. "Go! Go now!"
She caught the closest empty seat in a bear hug as the ATV driver threw the vehicle into a tight turn that threatened to toss her out of the still open hatch, and then they were bouncing back down the steps at reckless speed. Vanessa couldn't see what was happening, but she could hear enough to deepen her concern.
"Contact!" Storm Two called out. "Four more of those pill bug things just flew out of the pyramid!"
"Stormriders, engage and destroy hostiles! Check your fire when they land! They're intermixed with friendlies!"
Vanessa squinted against the glare of light entering through the open hatch as the Spartas opened fire with their lasers. Somebody - she wasn't sure if it was Priest or Garo- grabbed her by the straps of her life support pack and hauled her forward, allowing her to clumsily scramble into her seat. She fumbled with the seat's safety harness and managed to lock it down just as the ATV hit ground level with a tremendous jolt that shook them all like dry beans in a can. There was a brief view of one of the Spartas units wielding its EU-11 like a giant, spike-shaped rifle, firing relentless energy blasts, and then she dogged the hatch. She didn't need to watch the fight first-hand - she needed sensor feeds. Raw information.
"I want air support standing by," Vanessa said breathlessly, ignoring Garo's affirmative reply, and brought up a tactical overview on the ATV's monitor. Immediately the screen was covered in icons and numbers, marking the positions and distance of buildings, ATV's, hovertanks, destroids, and hostiles. The white square outlines of the destroids were converging on the area to provide protection, while the chevrons denoting the ATV's raced away from the pyramid, and the blood red circles of the hostile machines pursued hotly, rolling along just as fast as the first one had. But the diamonds marking the hovertanks intervened. Abruptly, the red enemy icons flashed, then vanished.
"Targets destroyed! Tough as sin to score a solid hit, but they'll go down!" one of the tank pilots crowed.
"Something strange happening with the pyramid," one of the other tankers reported. "A lot of debris shaking loose, and - my God!"
Vanessa gasped as the overhead view of the pyramid was replaced by a red blob on her tactical map. She zoomed in, trying to make sense of the radar returns. Dozens, no, hundreds of contacts. Maybe thousands.
"Captain!" Priest called out next to Vanessa. He was monitoring the visual feeds, and glancing over at the grainy, shaky image, she saw that the pyramid was collapsing. The pinnacle, with its regal collonade, was falling in, while the immense bay doors that formed a belt around the middle tier of the pyramid burst open under the weight of the 'pill bugs', and now they were pouring down every face of the buildings like tumbling boulders in a rock-slide. They funneled down the main boulevard in a chaotic mass, ricocheting off the walls and each other like mad pinballs. For a few seconds, everyone was again shocked, speechless. Colonel Kravshera kept his head and reacted first.
"Convoy, break formation and clear the boulevard!" the Colonel ordered. "Thunder Team, full barrage!"
Vanessa braced herself as the ATV pulled another gut-wrenching tight turn, its right side set of wheels actually climbing the nearest wall of the side street the driver had chosen, before dropping again with bruising force. The paired Tomahawk destroids of Thunder Team strode into the main boulevard from opposite directions, then turned to face the onrushing wave of foes with synchronized, parade ground precision. Their armor plates were the black of a stormcloud, and their forearms were marked by forked lightning bolts. The visors covering their active sensors glowed electric blue. Planting heavy feet, they popped the protective covers on their missile racks and unleashed a hissing volley of red-tipped death, then blasted painfully bright particle beams from their paired cannons through the snaking vapor trails. No sooner had the glare faded to purple afterimages than they followed with every secondary armament in their dual weapons clusters- lasers, autocannons, and incendiaries. An entire column of hostiles, scores of red contacts on Vanessa's screen, was overlaid by bold 'X'es, then winked blue and faded out. But the outnumbered REF troops were facing a tidal wave of the enemy. Hundreds more of the pill bugs rolled through the blasts, skipping and bouncing over craters, and riding out the explosions and flames.
"Withdraw! Split up and withdraw!" Kravshera ordered, recognizing a hopeless situation. "Try to draw them down side streets and thin their numbers. Don't let them get close!"
"Ensign, green light the air support!" Vanessa commanded.
"Aye! Fast movers inbound!"
The destroids were backpedaling, firing as they went, and one of the Spartas battloids was blasting over the tops of the ATV's as they retreated along the side streets. The first pill bugs entered the alley in pursuit, rebounding from the walls and street with clangorous impacts, cratering them as they went. More speed! More speed! Vanessa thought desperately, all too aware of how thinly skinned the 'armored' ATV's really were, but also knowing that shouting at the driver would serve little purpose. Then she heard the excited chirp, like synthesized bird song, so close it was audible even through the hull.
"Brace!" she screamed, gripping her harness with both hands. A second later, the ATV was tumbling end over end.
Next week… a world turned upside down…
"Evacuate!" Vanessa repeated. "Priority evac! Get that ATV righted!" A Spartas battloid moved to obey, using its giant hands to gently lower the overturned ATV back onto its wheels. The driver waggled the wheels left and right, then scooted the vehicle forward and backward experimentally, before darting towards the boulevard they had all arrived from.
"Colonel Kravshera, there are more hostiles approaching from inside!" Vanessa warned. "You are authorized to use any necessary force to defend the convoy!" Not waiting for his acknowledgement, she threw herself through her transport's hatch, painfully striking her flesh and blood right shin against the rim, and then hammered her cybernetic fist against the hull. "Go! Go now!"
She caught the closest empty seat in a bear hug as the ATV driver threw the vehicle into a tight turn that threatened to toss her out of the still open hatch, and then they were bouncing back down the steps at reckless speed. Vanessa couldn't see what was happening, but she could hear enough to deepen her concern.
"Contact!" Storm Two called out. "Four more of those pill bug things just flew out of the pyramid!"
"Stormriders, engage and destroy hostiles! Check your fire when they land! They're intermixed with friendlies!"
Vanessa squinted against the glare of light entering through the open hatch as the Spartas opened fire with their lasers. Somebody - she wasn't sure if it was Priest or Garo- grabbed her by the straps of her life support pack and hauled her forward, allowing her to clumsily scramble into her seat. She fumbled with the seat's safety harness and managed to lock it down just as the ATV hit ground level with a tremendous jolt that shook them all like dry beans in a can. There was a brief view of one of the Spartas units wielding its EU-11 like a giant, spike-shaped rifle, firing relentless energy blasts, and then she dogged the hatch. She didn't need to watch the fight first-hand - she needed sensor feeds. Raw information.
"I want air support standing by," Vanessa said breathlessly, ignoring Garo's affirmative reply, and brought up a tactical overview on the ATV's monitor. Immediately the screen was covered in icons and numbers, marking the positions and distance of buildings, ATV's, hovertanks, destroids, and hostiles. The white square outlines of the destroids were converging on the area to provide protection, while the chevrons denoting the ATV's raced away from the pyramid, and the blood red circles of the hostile machines pursued hotly, rolling along just as fast as the first one had. But the diamonds marking the hovertanks intervened. Abruptly, the red enemy icons flashed, then vanished.
"Targets destroyed! Tough as sin to score a solid hit, but they'll go down!" one of the tank pilots crowed.
"Something strange happening with the pyramid," one of the other tankers reported. "A lot of debris shaking loose, and - my God!"
Vanessa gasped as the overhead view of the pyramid was replaced by a red blob on her tactical map. She zoomed in, trying to make sense of the radar returns. Dozens, no, hundreds of contacts. Maybe thousands.
"Captain!" Priest called out next to Vanessa. He was monitoring the visual feeds, and glancing over at the grainy, shaky image, she saw that the pyramid was collapsing. The pinnacle, with its regal collonade, was falling in, while the immense bay doors that formed a belt around the middle tier of the pyramid burst open under the weight of the 'pill bugs', and now they were pouring down every face of the buildings like tumbling boulders in a rock-slide. They funneled down the main boulevard in a chaotic mass, ricocheting off the walls and each other like mad pinballs. For a few seconds, everyone was again shocked, speechless. Colonel Kravshera kept his head and reacted first.
"Convoy, break formation and clear the boulevard!" the Colonel ordered. "Thunder Team, full barrage!"
Vanessa braced herself as the ATV pulled another gut-wrenching tight turn, its right side set of wheels actually climbing the nearest wall of the side street the driver had chosen, before dropping again with bruising force. The paired Tomahawk destroids of Thunder Team strode into the main boulevard from opposite directions, then turned to face the onrushing wave of foes with synchronized, parade ground precision. Their armor plates were the black of a stormcloud, and their forearms were marked by forked lightning bolts. The visors covering their active sensors glowed electric blue. Planting heavy feet, they popped the protective covers on their missile racks and unleashed a hissing volley of red-tipped death, then blasted painfully bright particle beams from their paired cannons through the snaking vapor trails. No sooner had the glare faded to purple afterimages than they followed with every secondary armament in their dual weapons clusters- lasers, autocannons, and incendiaries. An entire column of hostiles, scores of red contacts on Vanessa's screen, was overlaid by bold 'X'es, then winked blue and faded out. But the outnumbered REF troops were facing a tidal wave of the enemy. Hundreds more of the pill bugs rolled through the blasts, skipping and bouncing over craters, and riding out the explosions and flames.
"Withdraw! Split up and withdraw!" Kravshera ordered, recognizing a hopeless situation. "Try to draw them down side streets and thin their numbers. Don't let them get close!"
"Ensign, green light the air support!" Vanessa commanded.
"Aye! Fast movers inbound!"
The destroids were backpedaling, firing as they went, and one of the Spartas battloids was blasting over the tops of the ATV's as they retreated along the side streets. The first pill bugs entered the alley in pursuit, rebounding from the walls and street with clangorous impacts, cratering them as they went. More speed! More speed! Vanessa thought desperately, all too aware of how thinly skinned the 'armored' ATV's really were, but also knowing that shouting at the driver would serve little purpose. Then she heard the excited chirp, like synthesized bird song, so close it was audible even through the hull.
"Brace!" she screamed, gripping her harness with both hands. A second later, the ATV was tumbling end over end.
Next week… a world turned upside down…
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
If its the Invid it's not surprising as there approach to warfare is heavily swarm based.
It does seem wasteful, doesn't it? (Though I'll note, there are only a handful of city centers on the planet - the population was only a quarter billion, and despite the enormous swathes of temperate land that were available, the civilization was much more urbanized than our own, so the resources needed to 'seed' every major population center with lurking drone units would be much smaller would be required for a planet like Earth) Would the actions of an alien culture appear wasteful or nonsensical to us? Certainly the Zentraedi considered the actions of the SDF-1's to be irrational. Much of the conflict in each series of Robotech came from the fact that the opposing sides did not understand each other's motivations, not until it was almost too late (and more tragically, in Southern Cross, it really was too late. What a downer ending. Both sides lost the war...)
I can't remember what the Regess says about her people's history in the last couple of episodes of Invid Invasion, but comic and novel sources seem consisent that the Invid were peaceful, completely in harmony with each other and their world, prior to their fateful encounter with Zor. So I ask, is their later, swarm based approach to warfare inherent to their nature, or a learned behavior?
- Location
- South Wales, United Kingdom
If I remember right it is something of both as the Invid are very much a hive mind species with the Regess and Regent being the Queen and King of the hive respectively. The thing is the Regess is the one who prefers swarm warfare, overwhelming a targets defences with sheer numbers of suicidally aggressive battle mecha piloted by Stage One and Two Invid who are little more than drones. While the Regent while he would use swarms preferred to use far more complex battle tactics and strategies which made him a dangerous opponent. His ships were also well armed unlike the Mollusk-class carriers used by the Regess which are unarmed aside from the few hundred battle mecha they contain - which makes them vulnerable as standard REF tactics are to target the Mollusk-class with their much longer ranged and far more powerful guns to the point that a single salvo of beams from one of the turrets on a Ikazuchi-class cruiser can blow a Mollusk out of space - unlike the Regent who while he used them also used heavily armed ships including a supercarrier which was armed with powerful plasma beam weapons.
Really though my point is that if you've reached the point of killing off a world just to steal its protoculture reserves, then it seems quite wasteful to spend the energy to power what we've just seen was left behind. Now if it's two different forces at work that's one thing, but if the same one is responsible for both events then it is pretty orange/blue thinking.
Sojourn Chapter 3.3
Vanessa was upside down. Her arms dangled beneath her, her fingertips just brushing the dented and warped roof of the ATV. The cabin lights had failed, and her monitor was cracked and dead, so the only light she had to see by shone from the tiny, feeble indicators built into her helmet and those of the other passengers. The cabin popped and pinged quietly from the heat and impact of the explosion and rollover, and she could also hear urgent voices calling out through her comms. The blood rushing in her ears, and the incessant drumming in her head, made it impossible to make sense of the transmissions. At any rate, the first task was escape, for her and her other crewmates in the ATV. It was better to let Colonel Kravshera handle the evacuation than to try to manage a battle in her current condition. Not knowing what the enemy was capable of, she resolved to maintain radio silence until they were in a position to see outside the wreck, and flee if necessary.
Vanessa's entire chest pulsed with pain where she had slammed against her seat's safety harness, and she knew she'd be lucky if she was no worse off than being left black and blue for several weeks. Her left hand was numb and clumsy from all of the blood pooled in it, making her wonder how long she had been out. Her right arm responded as readily as always, and she used it to pull the bright red and yellow emergency release pin by her shoulder. The harness instantly fell to pieces, dropping her to the debris-cluttered roof of the ATV.
"Oof!" She just managed to get her knees and forearms under her before she hit, taking most of the shock on her nearly indestructible right arm and left leg. Reoriented, she felt a wave of dizziness as her blood flow changed again, but she shook her head and forced herself to ignore the distraction.
Ensign Garo was hanging in the next seat, his eyes shut, and she scooted over until she was in a crouch, face to face with him.
"Ensign," Vanessa rasped. He didn't respond. "Malac!" she called more loudly, over the muffled sound of distant missile blasts. She tapped the side of his helmet, not too gently, and he groaned.
"Quoi?" he muttered, and she smiled incredulously. Is he so deep in that he's been thinking in French?
"Ensign!" she called again, sharply, and the Zentraedi's green eyes fluttered open and focused on her face. "Be ready, I'm getting you down from there!"
With no further warning, she pulled the release pin and got under him, taking his weight on her right shoulder and arms as best she could. He went to the deck in a graceless heap, but she was able to prevent him from hitting his head or otherwise injuring himself further. He groaned again, and she rolled him onto his side.
"Can you move? We may have to leave in a hurry."
The ensign nodded and pulled himself to his knees. "Oui. I'm… functional, Capitaine."
"Good, now let's see about the doctor."
"I'm ok, I think," Priest said, having come around while Vanessa was working on Garo. Vanessa clambered past Garo, and eased Priest down when he pulled his own release pin, managing a more graceful landing than the ensign.
"The drivers! Take a look at the side hatch while I check on them." Vanessa squirmed her way on her belly past the front row of seats and slid open the panel separating the passenger and crew compartments. Her heart clenched. Blood. Shiny and thick. Motionless bodies. The crew compartment had crumpled in the crash, and neither of the crew had survived. The last time someone had died a bloody death in front of her had been during the terrible boarding action on the rogue Zentraedi command ship, Sal-Dezir, over six years ago. She shut her eye and took a deep breath, trying to drive back memories of the sharp tang of someone else's blood in her mouth and nostrils, coating her body and dripping from her hands. The muted rattle of autocannons firing a few streets away only further reminded her of the buzzsaw howl of the gun pod when Jose Reyes had shot Captain Gota. She opened her eye and focused herself on the present. Save the living now, and confront the horrors later. She turned back to the others.
"They're gone."
Priest swore softly, a sure sign he was feeling out of his element. Garo nodded with the fatalism characteristic of many Zentraedi.
Garo pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "The hatch is jammed, Capitaine. I can't free it."
Vanessa made her way to the pair and examined it herself, then frowned and sighed. She'd been hoping to avoid testing one of her arm's features in the field. She pulled a utility knife and a roll of patching tape from her belt, extending the blade and handing the tape to Garo.
"Be ready with this, Ensign. I'm about to lose suit pressure."
"You're what?" Garo and Priest both exclaimed as Vanessa firmly sliced through the right sleeve of her pressure suit, just above the elbow. Her suit's indicators immediately turned red, and an alarm beeped insistently in her helmet. Her ears popped from the sudden change in air pressure. She ignored the alerts and continued in a circle around her lower bicep, until the sleeve was cut through completely. Dropping the knife, she pulled the loose sleeve down past her elbow, revealing the seamed, glossy blue surface of her cybernetic limb.
"Now, Mister Garo!" The dumbfounded junior officer started, and then hastily began struggling with the roll of tough adhesive, finally winding it over and over the ragged end of her sleeve, re-sealing her suit. The indicators in her helmet flashed, turning yellow, and Vanessa released her breath in a rush.
"Why did you do that?" Priest demanded.
"This is why." Vanessa pulled the loose sleeve off like it was a long glove and dropped it, then tapped out a sequence in her arm's control app. Her arm transformed. Hundreds of tiles shifted and rotated, clacking audibly against each other. She grimaced at a feeling not unlike bones dislocating, as her fingers merged into a single matched pair, like a set of thick, heavy pincers.
"Amazing!" Priest had received training from Doctor Lang's research team, and shared their obsession with all things Robotech.
Vanessa nodded. "You might say I have the smallest veritech ever made attached to my arm." She'd long ago gotten over any embarrassment over her cybernetics, but she typically didn't show off their features like a party trick either.
"But it's strong, right? Couldn't you have just forced the hatch without cutting your suit open and changing your arm?" Garo asked, still staring at her reshaped limb.
"No, my whole body isn't cybernetic. I could probably arm wrestle Lord Breetai if he ever had himself micronized, but I'm not up to the stress of breaking the hatch loose. Trust me, this will work better."
Vanessa returned her attention to the hatch, but then they heard an entire series of explosions, closer than any of them felt comfortable with. They had just started to relax slightly when a large fragment bounced off the hull above their heads, making everyone's ears ring.
"We can't stay here." Vanessa found a small gap in the hatch's seal, and inserted her reconfigured arm. The hatch resisted with a grinding noise, before reluctantly sliding open a few centimeters as the pincers slowly spread, letting in a narrow shaft of light that forced them all to squint. For Vanessa, the feeling of pressure was immense, but there was no pain. Priest let out a small chuckle.
"You're carrying around your own personal Jaws of Life."
Vanessa put her good eye to the gap, and looked out. Dust, shadows, and pink sky. "I can't make much out. I'll see if I can widen it."
She returned her hand to its normal configuration with a sigh of relief, and found a fixture in the roof to brace her cybernetic foot against, then place both hands against the edge of the hatch and pushed. The hatch creaked, and slid another centimeter as she grunted with the effort. She had worked hard the last few years to maintain the combat aviator's body condition Miriya Sterling had imposed on her through harsh physical training, and she did her best to leverage her cybernetics, but for a task like this, her ability was not superhuman. She gasped as the hatch moved again, over a handspan this time, and then stopped with a jerk. Priest, who was closest in the tight confines, crouched over her and threw his weight in too, and they yelled together as they poured their full strength into the task.
< - you can't sir! There's too many! We have to call in the air strike! >
< Negative! My orders are final! All units proceed to the nav points I highlighted! I'm about to - >
With a sudden howl of tortured metal, the hatch gave way another half meter, more than enough room to escape through. Vanessa and Priest both lost their footing and collapsed in a tangle of limbs. As the pair tried to separate themselves, she saw Garo staring, transfixed, through the open hatch, his face bathed in daylight. His voice came softly through her helmet comms.
"Oh. Merde."
Next chapter… rescue, Rick Hunter style…
Vanessa's entire chest pulsed with pain where she had slammed against her seat's safety harness, and she knew she'd be lucky if she was no worse off than being left black and blue for several weeks. Her left hand was numb and clumsy from all of the blood pooled in it, making her wonder how long she had been out. Her right arm responded as readily as always, and she used it to pull the bright red and yellow emergency release pin by her shoulder. The harness instantly fell to pieces, dropping her to the debris-cluttered roof of the ATV.
"Oof!" She just managed to get her knees and forearms under her before she hit, taking most of the shock on her nearly indestructible right arm and left leg. Reoriented, she felt a wave of dizziness as her blood flow changed again, but she shook her head and forced herself to ignore the distraction.
< -half the convoy retreating along route A3, bypassing the collapsed highway. No sign of Cap- >
Ensign Garo was hanging in the next seat, his eyes shut, and she scooted over until she was in a crouch, face to face with him.
"Ensign," Vanessa rasped. He didn't respond. "Malac!" she called more loudly, over the muffled sound of distant missile blasts. She tapped the side of his helmet, not too gently, and he groaned.
"Quoi?" he muttered, and she smiled incredulously. Is he so deep in that he's been thinking in French?
"Ensign!" she called again, sharply, and the Zentraedi's green eyes fluttered open and focused on her face. "Be ready, I'm getting you down from there!"
With no further warning, she pulled the release pin and got under him, taking his weight on her right shoulder and arms as best she could. He went to the deck in a graceless heap, but she was able to prevent him from hitting his head or otherwise injuring himself further. He groaned again, and she rolled him onto his side.
"Can you move? We may have to leave in a hurry."
The ensign nodded and pulled himself to his knees. "Oui. I'm… functional, Capitaine."
"Good, now let's see about the doctor."
<-instruct the air support to hold for my command. I'm not ready to->
"I'm ok, I think," Priest said, having come around while Vanessa was working on Garo. Vanessa clambered past Garo, and eased Priest down when he pulled his own release pin, managing a more graceful landing than the ensign.
"The drivers! Take a look at the side hatch while I check on them." Vanessa squirmed her way on her belly past the front row of seats and slid open the panel separating the passenger and crew compartments. Her heart clenched. Blood. Shiny and thick. Motionless bodies. The crew compartment had crumpled in the crash, and neither of the crew had survived. The last time someone had died a bloody death in front of her had been during the terrible boarding action on the rogue Zentraedi command ship, Sal-Dezir, over six years ago. She shut her eye and took a deep breath, trying to drive back memories of the sharp tang of someone else's blood in her mouth and nostrils, coating her body and dripping from her hands. The muted rattle of autocannons firing a few streets away only further reminded her of the buzzsaw howl of the gun pod when Jose Reyes had shot Captain Gota. She opened her eye and focused herself on the present. Save the living now, and confront the horrors later. She turned back to the others.
"They're gone."
Priest swore softly, a sure sign he was feeling out of his element. Garo nodded with the fatalism characteristic of many Zentraedi.
< - Thunder Team, out of missiles. We're pulling back parallel to the route ATV's seven through nine are taking. We'll do our best to cover - >
Garo pointed a thumb over his shoulder. "The hatch is jammed, Capitaine. I can't free it."
Vanessa made her way to the pair and examined it herself, then frowned and sighed. She'd been hoping to avoid testing one of her arm's features in the field. She pulled a utility knife and a roll of patching tape from her belt, extending the blade and handing the tape to Garo.
"Be ready with this, Ensign. I'm about to lose suit pressure."
"You're what?" Garo and Priest both exclaimed as Vanessa firmly sliced through the right sleeve of her pressure suit, just above the elbow. Her suit's indicators immediately turned red, and an alarm beeped insistently in her helmet. Her ears popped from the sudden change in air pressure. She ignored the alerts and continued in a circle around her lower bicep, until the sleeve was cut through completely. Dropping the knife, she pulled the loose sleeve down past her elbow, revealing the seamed, glossy blue surface of her cybernetic limb.
"Now, Mister Garo!" The dumbfounded junior officer started, and then hastily began struggling with the roll of tough adhesive, finally winding it over and over the ragged end of her sleeve, re-sealing her suit. The indicators in her helmet flashed, turning yellow, and Vanessa released her breath in a rush.
"Why did you do that?" Priest demanded.
"This is why." Vanessa pulled the loose sleeve off like it was a long glove and dropped it, then tapped out a sequence in her arm's control app. Her arm transformed. Hundreds of tiles shifted and rotated, clacking audibly against each other. She grimaced at a feeling not unlike bones dislocating, as her fingers merged into a single matched pair, like a set of thick, heavy pincers.
"Amazing!" Priest had received training from Doctor Lang's research team, and shared their obsession with all things Robotech.
Vanessa nodded. "You might say I have the smallest veritech ever made attached to my arm." She'd long ago gotten over any embarrassment over her cybernetics, but she typically didn't show off their features like a party trick either.
"But it's strong, right? Couldn't you have just forced the hatch without cutting your suit open and changing your arm?" Garo asked, still staring at her reshaped limb.
"No, my whole body isn't cybernetic. I could probably arm wrestle Lord Breetai if he ever had himself micronized, but I'm not up to the stress of breaking the hatch loose. Trust me, this will work better."
< - mass breakthrough, east of your position! Fall back, Storm Four! Drive! Just drive! >
Vanessa returned her attention to the hatch, but then they heard an entire series of explosions, closer than any of them felt comfortable with. They had just started to relax slightly when a large fragment bounced off the hull above their heads, making everyone's ears ring.
"We can't stay here." Vanessa found a small gap in the hatch's seal, and inserted her reconfigured arm. The hatch resisted with a grinding noise, before reluctantly sliding open a few centimeters as the pincers slowly spread, letting in a narrow shaft of light that forced them all to squint. For Vanessa, the feeling of pressure was immense, but there was no pain. Priest let out a small chuckle.
"You're carrying around your own personal Jaws of Life."
Vanessa put her good eye to the gap, and looked out. Dust, shadows, and pink sky. "I can't make much out. I'll see if I can widen it."
She returned her hand to its normal configuration with a sigh of relief, and found a fixture in the roof to brace her cybernetic foot against, then place both hands against the edge of the hatch and pushed. The hatch creaked, and slid another centimeter as she grunted with the effort. She had worked hard the last few years to maintain the combat aviator's body condition Miriya Sterling had imposed on her through harsh physical training, and she did her best to leverage her cybernetics, but for a task like this, her ability was not superhuman. She gasped as the hatch moved again, over a handspan this time, and then stopped with a jerk. Priest, who was closest in the tight confines, crouched over her and threw his weight in too, and they yelled together as they poured their full strength into the task.
< - you can't sir! There's too many! We have to call in the air strike! >
< Negative! My orders are final! All units proceed to the nav points I highlighted! I'm about to - >
With a sudden howl of tortured metal, the hatch gave way another half meter, more than enough room to escape through. Vanessa and Priest both lost their footing and collapsed in a tangle of limbs. As the pair tried to separate themselves, she saw Garo staring, transfixed, through the open hatch, his face bathed in daylight. His voice came softly through her helmet comms.
"Oh. Merde."
Next chapter… rescue, Rick Hunter style…
It explains somewhat, how the REF was overwhelmed in Earth orbit, if they expected fewer strike mecha and more heavy warships. Point defense turrets seemed to be in short supply on the major warships and even the escorts. The REF would not have attacked in the way they did if they had not expected to achieve orbital superiority fairly quickly. I really like the use of similar core units between the Regess and Regent, juxtaposed with the differing battle doctrines and specialized units. You've prompted me to think on that a little more, and I'm actually more impressed by Robotech now. It's really rare to see an alien species in fiction which not only has distinct factions, but also differing military forces and approaches to warfare, especially a series as old as Robotech.
From a pure efficiency standpoint, I think you're right, though there is also the matter of scale. What is the cost tradeoff of hundreds, or thousands, of disposable drone mecha vs. the cost of even a single major warship of the size we see in Robotech? And what if those drones are in the gravity well already? If you have limited lift capability, does it make sense to leave your drones in place as semi-intelligent landmines, and use all of your transports for the loot you just secured? Armies have at different times in history outright abandoned weapons or other equipment when withdrawing, even after a victorious campaign, because they determined they were not worth the cost of transporting. But you can be sure that the nature of the pill bugs, and why they were present in the city, will not be ignored in the story.
GiovanniBlasini
Transhumanist Nutcase from Niops IX
- Location
- San Diego, CA, USA, Sol III
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Oh damn, we didn't lose our new favorite Khyron clone already, did we?
Glad to hear it. But yes the energy cost to boost them back out might be higher than their worth, but at that point why not drain their batteries first? I mean it seems like everything else was drained! I'm just thinking about a cold blooded resource energy thief. I don't have the wider context of other goals to muddy my avaricious desire for energy yet!
deathzealotzero
Mecha Guru
- Location
- Las Vegas, NV
I don't think so??? They where not on the same transport as Vanessa?
Sojourn Chapter 4.1
Chapter 4
The grinding and squealing of the hatch had covered the pill bugs' approach. There were eight of them, rolling to a stop in the street in a snaking line just on the other side of the crater created by the explosion that had launched the ATV through the air. The dust was starting to settle, and all eight enemy units unfolded and panned their sensors back and forth across the street.
"Down!" Vanessa hissed. Garo stared dumbly for another second, and Vanessa, who hadn't been able to disentangle herself from Priest yet, kicked her frozen subordinate behind his knee. He dropped to the ground with a small grunt.
"Desolé," Garo whispered, rolling out of sight, but Vanessa hadn't been fast enough. The chirp echoed loudly in the cabin, and then the nearest pill bug scuttled toward them, its scores of legs tapping out time on the street with the same unnerving gait possessed by the first one they had encountered. Before it reached the defenseless officers, an eye-wateringly bright bolt of energy intercepted it and blew the murderous machine to fragments.
A black and blue Spartas battloid had lurched around the corner behind the pill bugs and unleashed a burst of continuous fire from its EU-11. Two more pill bugs were crisped before the others all emitted their alert calls, curled up defensively, and then rolled off in the Spartas's direction with astonishing speed. They clattered and slammed off of the walls and each other as each plotted an erratic course toward the hovertank. The incoming fire slowed as the pilot was forced to pick their shots with care so as not to blast the wrecked ATV too. Still, their marksmanship was some of the most impressive Vanessa had ever seen, knocking out one, two, then three of the hard to hit attackers by the time the last two finally closed the distance and, somehow, defied gravity and bounced up at the battloid. They both flashed blue and sounded their detonation signals as they uncurled in midair.
"No!" Vanessa cried out uselessly as their protector crossed both its arms, putting its narrow and bulky integrated armored shield modules in front of it. Priest pulled her back from the open hatch just before the almost simultaneous explosions rocked the ATV and blew more smoke and dust over them. Bits of debris pelted the alloy plate above their heads, and then all was quiet.
"Is anyone alive in there?"
The familiar voice coming from the loudspeaker surprised all of them. Vanessa sprang back to the hatch and looked out. The battloid loomed over them, still intact… mostly. The cloud of black smoke was drifting away in the breeze, revealing a scarred chest carapace and the sparking stumps of both arms.
"Colonel, that was you?" Vanessa called in disbelief, then remembering, fumbled with her comms. "Colonel Kravshera?"
"Indeed, Captain. I'm very pleased to see you safe and uninjured."
"Are you here without backup? That was extremely reckless!"
The battloid transformed in front of her, its modules splitting, folding, and swinging into place until it was back in hover mode. The worst of the damage was hidden by the new configuration, and Vanessa could see Kravshera in the open-topped cockpit. He unbuckled himself and stood, planting one boot on the rounded slope of the tank's front hull plate as he looked down at her.
"The rest of my unit was needed to execute my plan. Given your last order was to evacuate all personnel from the city, it was necessary for me to come and recover you myself. Bold action was needed."
"If you held off the air support so you could play hero, I'd call it bold to the point of madness!"
The Colonel stiffened, then inclined his head. "Madness is what made the Kravshera line famous, is it not?"
Vanessa suddenly felt her temples pound with the rush of blood, such was her anger. How dare he throw that in my face, as if I haven't supported him at every step since the Pioneer Mission began! She slammed her exposed right fist against the inside of the hatch, and the shock of the blow, strong enough to rattle the wreckage of the ATV, brought her to her senses. She remembered the legendary arguments on the bridge of the SDF-1 between Lisa Hayes as Flight Direction Officer, and a teenaged Rick Hunter, commanding the old Vermillion Team. The brash young Valkyrie pilot had been the only person able to get under her mentor's skin and break her cool, commanding persona during combat. But Captain Gloval had always been above it all, nearly unflappable in battle. Now Vanessa was the Captain. She had to model herself after him. She took a breath and slowly forced her fingers to uncurl from clenched fists.
"We'll review your decision-making during the debriefing. Do you have room for the three of us?"
Kravshera let the matter drop, and quickly crouched down to release a chain link ladder from a port in the tank's upper hull. "It won't be comfortable, but yes. I can only get us out of here in hover mode, and that attack deprived me of all my weapons, so I suggest you move quickly. This sector is not secure."
With a sharp gesture, Vanessa wordlessly ordered Garo and Priest to climb the ladder first, then clambered up after them. The colonel gave each of them a helping hand in turn. His build was nowhere near as massive as Lord Breetai's, or even Bron's, but his grip was strong. He didn't flinch even slightly at the strength in her cybernetic hand. Was that a smirk she saw through his helmet's green-tinted visor?"
"The jump seat is rather cramped, I'm afraid," Kravshera said. "You'll have to double up." Priest and Garo looked dubiously at the tiny, bare metal seat that their rescuer folded down behind the padded pilot's position, and then back at each other.
"Après vous, Docteur."
"No, no, Ensign, after you, I insist."
Kravshera hopped back into the cockpit and beckoned to Vanessa. "Captain, since you're the smallest, you'll ride up front with me. I need to be able to steer."
Vanessa swallowed dryly. It seemed the universe was laughing at her today. Just how many times had Admiral Hunter ended up flying with a woman in his lap, or clutched in his Valkyrie's hand like an ingenue in an old monster movie? She hesitated, but even as Garo reluctantly began squeezing himself into the jump seat, the clattering racket of metal on pavement echoed off the buildings around them.
"I'm sorry, Captain, but it is time-to-GO!" Kaden Kravshera exclaimed as he reached up and seized Vanessa's hand, roughly pulling her off her feet to fall atop him. Before she even had time to face forward, he spun up the fans with a howl, lifting the enormous main battle tank a meter off the street and kicking up new storm-fronts of dust in every direction. Behind them, Priest let out a panicked cry and forced his body down into the narrow passenger space, crushing a wheezing groan out of Ensign Garo. Then Kaden slammed the throttle all the way forward, the speed of their departure pressing her chest against his, and she could do nothing but wrap her arms around his neck and hold on for dear life.
Next week… Lightning strike…