[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

and mushroom overhead.
"Who were they, anyway?" Annie asked.
Perplexed by the conflicting emotions she felt, Marlene thought back to
Gabby's kindness, Jesse's laugh, Frank's gruffness, the brief holo-locket
image of Gabby's son...
"They were heroes," she sobbed.
CHAPTER FIVE
They thought they had stumbled into Denver, but in fact they had lucked into
Delta-Six, a top-secret subterranean installation attached to the Cheyenne
Mountain complex, constructed to ensure that America's heads of state would
survive any form of attack leveled against the continent. But they weren't
thinking of the Zentraedi then, and certainly not of Dolza's four million.
"Northlands" History of The Third Robotech War, Vol. LXXXVI
The team swung north, then east, leaving the desert behind and entering the
foothills of the Northlands central range. The Rockies, they were told. They
chose to avoid southern routes across the continental divide in favor of the
less traveled northern passes, even though this made for more difficult
ascents. But there were numerous satellite hives in the warmer valleys to the
south, and since the team's reserves of Protoculture were low, they couldn't
afford to risk all-out engagement. They had managed to procure a few canisters
of fuel, but Scott had insisted they be used for the red Alpha, which Rand and
Rook had retrieved.
The weather was against the team, however, and although a week went by
without an enemy encounter, their progress was slow. When at last they crossed
the spine, they began to sense the nearness of the prairielands beyond. But
tectonic upheavals brought about by the Zentraedi Rain of Death had so altered
the terrain here that they often felt off the map; and given their
precataclysm charts, indeed they were.
It was snowing now in this final pass that had no right being there.
Fearful of calling attention to themselves and careful to conserve what little
fuel remained, they had decided to keep the Veritechs grounded. Lunk had
secured chains for the APC and fashioned skids and tow bars for the fighters
using plate and barstock he had scavenged from what had been a recreational
ski area. They had the APC rigged as a kind of tow vehicle, but most of the
real propulsion was derived from battery-driven thrusters in the VTs'
raptorlike legs. Annie and Marlene were riding up front with Lunk; the rest of
the team was currently on foot.
"It's so cold," Annie whimpered to Marlene, shivering and clutching the
hooded poncho to her neck. "It feels like my nose is going to fall off or
something."
Marlene pressed herself closer to Annie and brought some of her own
poncho around Annie's shoulders.
Scott, Lancer, and Rook, similarly attired in coldweather ponchos, were
alongside the red Alpha at the middle of the caravan. "Soup," said Rook,
daydreaming. "Nice, hot soup. A cup of thick soup, a bathtubful of piping hot,
steaming soup..." She felt Lancer's hand on her shoulder.
Page 25
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"Don't. It only makes it worse."
Then she heard Rand: "Hold up a minute, guys!"
He was behind them at the Beta's wingtip, preoccupied with his latest
acquisition-the thermograph Jesse had given him shortly before the assault on
the broadcast tower. It was about the size of a small chain saw, with a
muzzlelike sensor and top-mounted carrying handle. Rook saw that he was
kneeling down, sweeping the instrument across the snow.
"Lunk! Stop the sleds!" Scott called out over the wind.
"It's amazing...There's something underneath us!" Rand was saying as
Scott, Lancer, and Rook approached.
"Yeah, we know. It's called ice," Rook told him.
Scott motioned her to lighten up. "What are you picking up?"
Rand double-checked the indicator readings. "A large heat source.
Massive, way off the meter."
"Volcanic?"
Rand shook his head, loosing wet snow from the poncho. "Definitely not."
"Then the thermograph is on the fritz," Rook said through chattering
teeth. "Either that or it's your brain."
Rand ignored the comment and began pushing snow aside, as if to get a
glimpse of something beneath the ice. "It's gotta be a generator of some
kind...just below this layer of snow..."
Rook made an impatient sound. "Come on, man, you're wasting our time."
He looked up knowingly and got to his feet. "Wasting our time, huh?" All
at once he was beside her, pushing her toward the window he had excavated.
"Quit your shoving!" she protested.
"Well, Miss Know-it-all, why don't you take a look for yourself?"
She glared at him for a moment, then went down on her knees, wiping away
flakes of new snow and peering in. The ice was virtually transparent, as clear
as Caribbean water. But her mind refused to accept what her eyes were telling
her: she seemed to be looking down on a turn-of-the-century building bathed in
artificial light-one of those twenty-story milk cartons she had seen pictures
of. There was steam or something issuing from exhaust elbows on the roof, and
below that she could discern other buildings and lit streets.
Overwhelmed by a sudden sense of vertigo, she had to turn away.
"It's a city!"
"Told you," said Rand.
Scott looked at both of them and frowned. "Sorry, guys, but it's no time
to play archaeologist."
"We just need a pickax and some ropes!" Rand said excitedly. He was
already up and running toward the APC. "Think of the food and supplies that
are down there!" He threw off his poncho and made a mad leap for the vehicle's
shotgun seat, mindless of Lunk's bewildered cries. He was rummaging around in
the storage compartment beneath the seat when the ground started to give way.
It was too late for the warnings Scott and the others were shouting out;
the APC fell through, almost dragging the VT caravan with it. Instinctively,
Scott grabbed hold of the Beta's skids, but momentarily the fighter train came
to a halt of its own accord, with the blue Alpha perched precariously at the
edge of the hole, its radome dropped, like the beak of a bird searching for
worms in a hole.
Down below, Annie felt herself for broken bones. She looked around and
saw that Rand, Marlene, and Lunk were performing similar self-examinations.
She had no idea what they had fallen into or onto, but it seemed to be some
sort of roof. The APC was upright nearby, the chains that had connected it to
the lead Veritech snapped. Overhead, Scott and the others were leaning in to
inquire if everyone was all right. Annie got to her feet and felt a strong
uprush of heated air.
"Hey, I think we can get down to street level!" Rand was shouting. He
had thrown open the door to a boxlike structure that housed the building's
stairway. Atop it were the jetting exhausts Rook had seen from above.
Rand disappeared through the door, and Annie followed him without a
Page 26
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
thought.
The rest of the team had lowered themselves to the roof by now and had
discarded their ponchos. Above the jagged rend in the ice the snowstorm was
still howling. Scott moved to the edge of the roof and looked around in
amazement: It was indeed an underground city, intact and apparently deserted. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]