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they would have married had the Sentinels not come between them. (Minmei had
vowed to steer clear of soldiers after her brief and disastrous fling with
Rick Hunter. Ironically, she caught the bridal bouquet at Hunter's wedding and
in a sense felt destined to marry Wolff. The subsequent degradation she fell
into can be attributed in part to her learning about the wife and child Wolff
had left behind on Earth.) Ripple asserts that Wolff's decision to return to
Earth was motivated by the broken engagement with Lynn-Minmei. Wolff was
suddenly convinced that he could take up where he had left off with the family
he had abandoned. When that didn't occur, he turned to drink and drugs and
embarked on a campaign of self-destruction. (Information that has only
recently come to light suggests that Wolff also had a brief affair with Dana
Sterling-the daughter of Max and Miriya, who took Wolff's ship back into space
with the hyperdrive perfected by her former Southern Cross comrade, Dr. Louie
Nichols-and that Wolff had learned the Invid were holding hostage both his
wife Catherine and his son Johnny.)
Selig Kahler, The Tirolian Campaign
A week of hard riding brought dramatic changes in both the terrain and the
social climate of the settlements the team passed through. The land was
thickly forested except where it had been cleared for farm cooperatives and
villages. The road system was well maintained, and food and supplies were
readily available. Lunk knew the reason for this: They were approaching one of
the Invid's so-called Protoculture farms, where Human laborers were forced to
toil endlessly in vast gardens, maintaining and harvesting the aliens'
nutrient plant, the Flower of Life. But where the team had expected to
encounter armies of Scouts and Troopers, they found none; and in place of a
downtrodden populace, they found people in a celebratory mood. The Invid were
said to have stopped their patrols a little over a month ago, and there were
rumors to the effect that this had something to do with the arrival of a
platoon of Robotech soldiers who were currently engaged in an assault on the
Protoculture farm itself.
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Scott was certain this unit was composed of men and women from the Mars
Division attack wing. One of the predesignated rendezvous points set up by the
mission commander was located some five hundred miles north of the team's
present coordinates, and it was likely that a splinter group from the main
force had moved south to engage the Invid at the farm. Scott was tempted to
take the Alpha north to see for himself, but his sense of loyalty wouldn't
permit leaving his friends on their own. At least not until each of them had
found a peace of sorts or, better still, a home. It was no secret to any of
them that the team was more like a family than the invincible military machine
each member sometimes imagined it to be. And it was something none of them
took for granted, least of all Scott, the most recent victim of the war's
dispassionate savagery.
So they stayed together and eventually found their way to the city where
the Robotech soldiers were supposedly garrisoned. It was an immense place, far
larger than any of the places they had passed through thus far, a former
military base (whose buildings had been adapted for civilian use) that had
grown up within the confines of an enormous depression in the Earth's denuded
crust, enclosed by the severe walls of an unnatural escarpment. The city now
had hotels, restaurants, and a thriving population of five thousand or more.
Scott left the Alpha concealed outside the city and rode down into the
bowl with Lancer and the others. As newcomers, they were questioned and
searched at the main gate-an immense security fence watched over by armed
guards stationed in nearby ultratech towers-but ultimately permitted to enter.
Scott, already searching for familiar faces, was perhaps a bit more
hopeful than the others if no less puzzled. There were indeed soldiers all
over the place, but they were hardly the strac troops Scott had convinced
himself he would find. Nor were they Mars Division. Their high-collared,
belted jumpsuits were the same iceblue color as Scott's own, but the unit
patches were unlike any he had seen. Scott glanced around some more, certain
he would find what he was after. Here were three soldiers stumbling out of a
bar; there, three more drinking on a street corner. Other troops in jeeps and
personnel carriers were joyriding through the narrow streets, trash and empty
liquor bottles in their wake. Even Annie was stunned.
"What's with this place?" she asked from the van. She was standing on
the seat in the open back, her arms draped over the vehicle's roll bar.
"There's no shortage of 'Culture, that's for sure," Rand observed,
motioning to the cruising jeeps.
Scott tuned in to a nearby conversation-soldiers, new arrivals by the
sound of them: "This town's a gas!" one of them said. "Unbelievable," said
another. "I didn't think I could ever feel this way again."
Scott heard tires squeal behind him and turned around. A jeep was
accelerating drunkenly from the main gate, slaloming its way up the street,
four soldiers laughing it up inside. It pulled up shortly next to Scott, one
of the soldiers offering a bottle out of the top.
When Scott refused, the man said: "What's your problem, pal?" His glazed
eyes took in the rest of the group. "You guys look like a war's going on."
"What about the Invid, soldier?" Scott snarled. "A couple hits of that
stuff and you forget, huh?"
The soldiers looked at one another, speechless for a moment, then
laughed. "Where you been, Colonel?" asked the driver. "They're history. We've
been kickin' ass and takin' names all over this sector."
"It's no lie," said another. "Long as ya stick 'round here, ya got
nothin' to worry 'bout. So, enjoy. The man's got it covered."
"You can get anything you want here, get me?"
"What man? What are you talking about?" Scott yelled as the jeep
screeched off.
"At ease, Colonel!" one of them yelled, eliciting laughter from the
others.
It was the same scene wherever they went: everyone talking up the town
like it was paradise. Drunken soldiers, hookers, scammers, Foragers, rogues,
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and hustlers, all thrown together in the same pot, reveling and lifting their
glasses in toasts to the mystery man who secured all this for them. The search
for food and drink led the team into one of the many bars along the strip.
Annie's attempt to flirt with the sideburned bartender ended with his walking
off just as Lunk was about to order. Lunk was looking around for something to
throw at the guy, when a soldier burst in through the bar's swinging doors.
"Wolff's back!" he yelled to the crowd at the top of his lungs.
Almost everyone got the message-out of sheer volume or at mention of the
name itself-and many started for the door. Others, too drunk to move, got as
far as lifting their heads from various tabletops. Scott took hold of a
soldier within reach and spun him around.
"Who's Wolff?" he demanded of the man.
"The Wolff, bro," the man slurred. "The Wolff."
"Jonathan Wolff?" said Scott.
The man snapped his fingers, pointed, and winked at Scott, then shuffled
off toward the door.
Rand saw the look of disbelief surface on Scott's face, but before he
could ask about it, Scott was shoving his way through the exiting crowd and
making for the street.
Rand and the others followed Scott out and found him amid a mob that had [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]