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charge, addressing the cannon of his Officer's Pod to a new target. In
minutes, the ship would be his; and with it, the universe.
In the meantime, three of the accursed VTs made a close strafing run,
destroying the leading line of pods. But other pods would soon be there to
deal with them; even Veritechs couldn't keep Zor's ultimate creation away from
Khyron now!
Khyron was distracted by two lumbering Excaliburs that were closing in
on him, their power low, missile racks exhausted. He blew them both away in
the same moment with the tremendous derringerlike cannon that were arms of the
Officer's Pod.
The VTs were making another pass, and the enemy mecha were being
outrageously stubborn-but the final conclusion should only take another minute
or so.
But just then Khyron heard an alarm signal on his instrument panel. He
read his indicators, turned, and craned to look up into the distant sky.
"What's this? No! Impossible!"
Grimly, without looking up from her data displays, Claudia said,
"Captain, a second enemy attack force is on the way down now, from another
ship. They appear to be a new type of mecha."
Leading her combat drop, Miriya looked approvingly at the bitter
struggle raging all around the dimensional fortress. Behind her came a full
battalion of her Quadrono Battalion's powered armor mecha.
Azonia was still reiterating instructions over the com net, a rather
offensive bit of interference, Miriya thought. "Miriya, the purpose of your
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operation is to thwart Khyron's plan. Therefore, do not fire at the enemy or
damage the dimensional fortress."
Azonia had done some thinking in the interim and had consulted several
of her personal informants. It seemed Khyron was playing a game truly his own;
everything pointed to his intention to take the SDF-1 for himself.
And Azonia would win no approval from her superiors or the Robotech
Masters if that were to happen; quite the opposite, in fact. Thus: Miriya and
her Quadrono Battalion were launched to stop him.
So a Zentraedi warrior is expected not to fire at the enemy, eh? Miriya
smiled to herself maliciously. "Well now, it's too bad I never heard that
order because my communications gear is malfunctioning, Azonia!"
Her own personal mecha-suit was the one that had so dazzled the RDF
during her insertion of the three spies. It was supercharged, more
maneuverable and powerful than any other in the Zentraedi fleet. Now she
zoomed down like a lightning bolt, blowing an unsuspecting VT out of the air
with a double stream of the annhilation discs, destroying another a split
second later.
"I love it when a good plan works out well," she said languidly. And the
good plan in this case was her own-the one that had gotten her another crack
at the enemy and, if she was lucky, a little scuffle with Khyron's
incompetents as well.
The Quadrono armor hit thrusters, rocketing for the deck.
Azonia ranted at the com pickup in her flagship bridge command center.
"Khyron, come in immediately! Can you hear me? You are in violation of your
orders! Therefore, stop this attack at once!"
Perhaps he would claim that his equipment wasn't working properly. That
was the damnable thing about the Zentraedi armada, and for that matter their
whole instrumentality. With a few exceptions like that bitch Miriya's,
Zentraedi war machinery had a far from flawless operational record.
It was only right that warriors care only for war; maintenance and
mechanics were work for slaves. But there never seemed to be nearly enough of
those, at least ones of any use.
Azonia swore under her breath and waited to see what would happen.
But Khyron wasn't opposed to answering her. He was merely completing his
latest maneuver, having leapt his pod high to come down directly over two of
the last enemy attack mecha, a pair of Raider Xs, blowing them to bits with
the derringer cannon.
"Violation of my orders?" he mocked her. "But I haven't done anything to
these despicable Micronians, at least not yet!" He was firing to all sides.
"But in the centuries to come, if any of them are left alive, they will speak
the name of Khyron with terror!"
"Don't play games with me!" Azonia shouted. "Turn back at once or I'll
have you shot!"
The last of the enemy mecha were down, and Khyron was about to lead his
forces to the ultimate plunder, when the odds suddenly changed. Aircraft
elevator platforms ground up into view to either side despite the fact that
the last of the SDF-1 combat aircraft had long since taken off.
They were loaded, instead, with every MAC II Destroid cannon the
desperate defenders had managed to get to the trouble spot, arriving in time
only because of the attack mecha's courageous last stand and Vermilion's [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]