fanfic_name = Counterpoint Finale

chapter = 1

author = aragonvaar

Rating = AP

Type = Angst

fanfic =

(This is constructed around two things: an oddball, eminently non-canon theory about the nature of the Invid hierarchy, and an extremely alternate, doesn't-go-with-anything retelling of parts of Dark Finale and Symphony of Light. I don't think that this is superior to the way the series played out-I like those last two eps just fine, thanks; this is just a strange little might-have-been in the pantheon of alternative Robotech storylines.)

Counterpoint Finale

"We are always two: the Mother and the Warrior, the Regiss and the Regent. The maelstrom of our people's energies passes from Mother to Mother; she shares it with the male of her choice because it is too great for any one Invid to control. The Regent is her balance and her ballast, her lightning rod and her strong right arm. Without him, her powers would slowly consume her?"-The Postwar Regiss, as quoted in the notes of Dr. Lang.

************

"Damn," said Admiral Rick Hunter. "The Invid? Here?" It had been at least three years since the misfold landed his ship in this hazy nebula: forcing them to grope their way from system to system, the background radiation preventing them from getting a fix on Sol and Earth. The Invid were merely the icing on a very nasty cake.

"It looks that way, Rick," said Admiral Lisa Hayes-Hunter. "They're concentrated in the Arctic continent."

"That's weird. The Flower of Life's all over the place; the natives have barely reached the Bronze Age; and they're cooped up on the top of the planet, making a greenhouse out of that?"

"That's what it looks like."

"Admiral? We're being hailed. Audio only."

"Patch it through."

"Greetings, human ship, from the Invid Regiss." Polite and melodic, with a cadence something like Lisa's, the voice was nothing like the recordings of the Invid Queen the Fleet had. "We are busy with our own concerns and do not wish to fight," the voice continued, "But if attacked, be sure we will retaliate."

"Understood," Rick returned briskly. "But perhaps you could give us a few pieces of information-I believe you have seen earth more recently than us."

A long pause. "May I send a representative, to speak with you directly?"

"If the representative comes alone and unarmed," Rick answered.

"Very well. It will however take a day or two to outfit a craft for orbit." Fair enough, thought Rick-it'll take us that long to hash out a gameplan.

"We will use the time to observe the natives, then," he said. "If you have no objection."

"None," said the voice. "I am assured that the famous Admiral Hunter is not in the habit of enslaving alien primitives. Excuse me, then."

Damn. That sounded like it was meant to be funny. Since when did the Invid have a sense of humor?

*************

"Well, the translators didn't work too well on the native lingo." Trust Higgins to begin a verbal report that informally. "But the basics are plain enough: the Djinns of the North first showed up about two, three years ago; warmed Arctica up with `big fires'-one of their usual energy tricks, I'd guess-and started growing the `pink fireflowers.' If people come up to take a gander, the Invid pick them up and dump them back in their own lands unharmed. The natives say the Djinns mostly want to be left alone."

"There was Invid activity near your position earlier today," said Rick.

"Oh, that. Funny story actually. The natives harvest the Flower and burn it instead of wood. Me and my men were watching. Then four, five Invid-something like the Scouts, but adapted for harvest work-swoop down and start harvesting."

"What did the natives do?"

"They flinched a bit, but didn't actually stop what they were doing. Then the Scout-harvesters paused. There was this huge teal-and-white Royal Command Battloid overhead, just looking down at them. They dashed over to the head native, dumped all their booty in front of him and zipped straight up to the big one."

"What about the RCB?"

Higgins grinned. "It barked something complicated in the native lingo and herded the Scouts back north. The headman says it happens sometimes-the little Djinns get restless and try to steal fireflowers from the people, the big Djinns stop them, apologize to the natives and haul the miscreants back in disgrace. The people almost seem to think it's cute."

Armed with the comforting datum that the Invid seemed to've learned respect for other people's property, the ranking officers on the SDF-3 settled in to expect the Regiss's ambassador. Who arrived, a day after Higgins's report, in a Protector that had been stripped of its limited armament and equipped with a booster.

The two Admirals, Dr. Lang, and a few lesser lights were on hand to meet the newcomer. The creature that emerged from the mecha looked like a young man who worked too hard at keeping his hair in line, who practically ran over to Rick (not-quite-tripping over his long, pine-green robes), and pumped the hero of the Fleet warmly by the hand.

"Admiral Hunter! It's an honor to finally meet you!" The young man looked apologetically over towards the usually unflappable Lang, whose eyes looked like they were about to pop out of his head and bounce on the floor. "Uh, Doctor? I can explain everything?"

*************

What went wrong? I let the males stage a mock-war, and chose the one most fitted for real combat. That was the traditional way, left over from some era before the Long Peace, that the Regent be ready if war ever came. I came before him with all the blazing display of courtship, he accepted, and that should have been that.

But it was not: he would ignore my orders, or expect me to obey his. As time passed, he fell further and further out of step with me. But after all, the Regent is a warrior first and last-why should he understand the finer points of science and policy, when his true role is insurance against war?

War came. And he was little help. Oh, it was my own fault, and he saw through Zor before I did, but would I have been misled if my Regent had had a glimmering of true intellectual curiosity to rub against my own thoughts?

The wars continued, he fell in love with them, and we parted. He still aided me in his way: without his weight holding down half our peoples and their energies, I could never have focused my powers enough to move my children from one world to another.

Now he is dead, and I must act cautiously. I cannot now leave this world for another-without a Regent to dilute and stabilize, my energies would simply tear a hole in this set of dimensions and push us into another-and who knows what nightmares await us there? Transmutation is more difficult now: not long ago I attempted it across the span of a continent, trying to make a human infiltrator. I scorched its memory matrix almost to blankness. It is now in position and more or less functioning. I am loath to tamper with it again. I must be more careful when I attempt to shape a new warrior, a more manageable successor to the Regent?

*********************

/Why do you reject me, Corg? You desire power and scope for your abilities. I offer you that./

/You offer me a chance to be your puppet twice over. Once is enough./

/But the risk to me, to our people-/

/Then yield up your powers to one of your daughters, and vanish./

/You would be her `puppet' instead./

/No. Even Sera would be more manageable than you. Yet I was not thinking of Sera, but of the flame-haired infiltrator./

/Ariel is weak, with all the force of a crushed petal-/

/Exactly. For once, the Regent would dominate./

I did not press him further. I must shape a replacement, either for him or myself. But time is running short, and I am weary?but I cannot let my children see?

********************

And now the last battle. I order the defense as best I could (strange: Sera rescuing that human pilot), and my children did the rest (Corg filled his purpose perfectly). And then a tugging on my powers, that puzzles me when I find the source. Ariel sketching a faint little courtship display for a scattered gaggle of humans. Well, many things were dim in her mind; perhaps she thinks it some way of showing friendship to them. Then I realize she is leading them to me?

What follows is tedious in the extreme. They dialogue and argue: with Ariel, with myself, with Sera. I become more convinced than ever that the humans and the Masters are close akin and yet?I would have no qualms about killing or enslaving any Master. Seeing these creatures face to face, seeing how contact with them shapes Ariel and Sera to sentiment and Corg to battle, proves their connection to us. I must cut it as cleanly as I can, without long and bloody wars. But without a Regent for balance, my retreat would only tear into some other plane of the universe, where the laws are different and the dangers unknown. Oh, they'd follow me readily enough, if I dress it up in fine thoughts about another plane of existence and following the Spirit of Light, but the risks are too great.

I am so very tired of all this. I look again on Ariel. She has wielded my powers, if only faintly. Corg had desired her, and failing him, perhaps her display for the humans was not entirely pointless?

**************************

As the saying went, Marlene never knew what hit her. One moment, she was pleading with Lunk, only vaguely aware of the Regiss's interest, and the next, she found herself in a swirl of energies. A long thought lament-/What went wrong? I let the males stage a mock-war?/-echoed in her brain then died as the Regiss faded into mist. The whole physical world was nothing more than an overlay on top of countless energies, mostly the vast, all-connected Invid web (this was Reflex Point, after all), but some polarized in human patterns.

She came to herself to realize that her friends were staring at her with their best "What the hell..?" frowns and Sera was arguing with Corg. "The Regiss is dead," she snapped.

"Then long reign the Regiss," he sneered. "But that hardly changes my work."

"You're a butcher, Corg," Sera snarled, but the screen went blank.

"I've got to stop him." Scott dashed for his Alpha.

This was her only chance. "Scott-"

"No time, Marlene."

"I think I may be able to get the Invid off of earth-`

"Then do it."

"But Scott, I'll need your help. It's difficult to explain-"

"Don't bother. If it'll get your people out of here, I'm all for it. But later."

"Scott-"

"Marlene, that psycho's out there killing people. It'll wait that long."

He was already disappearing through the outer layers of the Hive by then." Rook and Rand took off after him?

****************

Scott came to briefly. Blood everywhere, scorched instrument panel-what happened? Oh yeah, Psycho Invid Boy had taken him down. He tried to move but his body didn't respond.

/Scott?/ Marlene again, in an even fancier version of that thing she'd done earlier.

/What?/

/I'm trapped. Every line of energy in my people runs through me. If I don't share it, don't direct part of this web through another, it will burn me up and leave nothing behind. Will you help?/

/Question is, *can* I help?/

/I'm not sure...I don't know if even these new powers run so far?you are so very different from us. And it will cost you-/

/I don't have much to lose right now. And whatever you are, Marlene, I don't want you?destroyed. Take what you can./

/Very well./ Invid thoughts pouring into his mind?a Scout tearing up its enemy, which he recognized as one of his wingmen from the 21st, a Protector trading protoculture for soldiers' lives with the heroic Colonel Wolff, the screaming and the agony when Scott's group destroyed the New York Hive. Their hateful point of view, rammed into his skull over and over. In his horror and anger, he barely noticed the feeling that his body was being pulled apart and reshaped one cell at a time?

Then it stopped, as suddenly it started. Physically, he felt?strange, but the pain was gone at least. There was a jabbering of many voices in the back of his head that would make sense if he tried to listen to it. He almost jumped when he saw what he was wearing. And he wasn't in the wreck of his Alpha?another shock hit him when he realized just what kind of mecha this was.

/Marlene?/

/No time to explain. Rook and Rand can't hold Corg at bay forever./

/Gotcha./ And without stopping to think about it, he put his hands on the glowing half-spheres either side of him, and the mecha bounded skyward?

******************

Corg had already crippled the green one; soon he would destroy it and its red comrade?but he didn't mind toying with them awhile longer-

"Hey, haven't we met before?" A snide voice cut in at Corg's ear. Odd, he thought he'd downed that particular human. He turned to face a Gosu he hadn't seen before, shimmering in iridescent teal and silver. There were some other design cues-for rank designation-which told him almost at once what he was dealing with. /You won't escape me so easily, Ariel,/ he promised, but the new Regiss was silent.

"Let us hope this will be the last time," he said to the other pilot.

"Rook, get Rand out of here. Met yah groundside, ok?"

"Good luck," the female pilot answered.

The two Gosu began to wheel and climb. The challenger was clearly new to the mecha, and showed it, but he had enough sense to block shots with the Gosu's arms.

/Corg, stand down./

/I am not your puppet, Regiss./

Then the challenger closed and fired. When Corg blocked, the other Gosu rammed him, slamming his mecha's arms into the cockpit. The Invid Prince felt crushing pain, a sense of falling, a dim awareness that the other Gosu had pulled free of him, a flicker of regret from the Regiss.

/I die not?as a puppet,/ he thought as his Gosu crushed itself against the earth.

****************************

Rook and Rand found him sitting beside the cruel-looking Invid mecha, with his arms around his knees. His red-green-silver armor was scaly and strange, more like the skin of a mutant lizard than anything the REF or the Invid would dream up. His face wasn't quite the same either: the cheekbones a bit higher, the nose a bit beakier. The expression, on the other hand, was vintage Bernard, even if it did make his despair over Point K look like one of his more playful moods.

"Scott, what happened?"

"Marlene saved my life. By making me one of them." An accent of loathing on the last three words.

"Gee, how terrible to have to see yourself as one of them," said Rand sarcastically. "Now you know how she must have felt that day."

"That doesn't give her the right-"

Rook held up her hand. "Stop. Don't say it. You can't honestly think she went to all this trouble just to get her hooks into you. You know her better than that-"

"Do I?" He looked up at them for the first time.

"Yes, you do," Rook retorted. "She spoke up for Earth, for humans and for peace back there in the Hive. Would she have done that if she wasn't still your Marlene-hell, *our* Marlene?"

"Say." Rand looked thoughtful. "This wouldn't have anything to do with that plan she was talking about? The one for getting the Invid out of here?"

"It does. Under her leadership, the Invid will leave. Including me." He shuddered. "Including me."

"Now hold on a moment, Scott, I see what's eating you," Rand began. "But you've always talked as though no price was too high, no sacrifice too great, to free earth from the Invid. Was it all just talk?" He paused. "Was it?" He pleaded.

Rook put a hand on Rand's shoulder. "I don't think we can understand well enough to judge," she said, almost gently.

"No, he's right," Scott pulled himself to his feet and squared his shoulders. "What must be done?must be done." His face softened. "C'mere you two." The three friends hugged. The one who'd talked of leaving earth after the war and returning for shore leave?was leaving early, and he wasn't coming back.

"Take care of yourselves," he told them when they broke apart. "I intend to imagine the two of you being insanely happy, healthy and prosperous."

"Will do." Rand sketched a mock-salute. "Say goodbye to Marlene for us."

"Sure, if you'll say goodbye to the others for me." He cocked an ear towards the gabble from the mecha's comm. system. "I gotta run?."

*******************

Lancer blasted a few of the Shadow drones, but they kept coming.

"There's just too many of them," he cried. "We can't take them all!"

A flash of disc-fire behind the drones leveled the intruders. "You won't have to," said a familiar voice.

"You're a welcome sight, my lord," said Sera.

"Scott?" Lancer sized up the RCB with the strange color scheme. He'd dropped acid exactly twice in his life, but neither trip had been half as weird as today.

"Yeah, well, no time to explain, we'd better get moving."

"Not that way, Scott, you're headed towards the core!"

"Don't try to stop him, Lancer. The Regent's place is with the Queen."

"Regent?" Both men exclaimed together.

"Find Ariel, my lord. She will explain all."

Lancer's comm. system caught a muttered "She'd better" as the Blowsperior sped towards the exit.

************************

Sulkily-/So, basically, I am to Invid voodoo what ballast is to a submarine./

Gently-/Your part in this operation is something like that, yes. Try to drain excess energies away from me, as I draw the Invid to me. Once you understand what I'm doing, follow my lead./

/Ok./

At her call, the Invid consume all the protoculture available (by the Regent's orders, sparing any already processed and in human control), transforming themselves into masses of energy, sweeping around the curve of the earth to unite in the geyser of light above Reflex Point.

/Now!/ The light shoots upward, one beam with two navigators.

/Shit, shit, shit! Neutron-S missiles. They wanted you gone badly?/

/Those would do great harm to Earth. Can we stop them?/

/Well, the trigger mechanism's over *here*, and the fissionable matter's in this part. Dunno if that helps us?/

/It will be enough./ She explains her plan. The beam splits like crooked lightning?but thunderbolts don't have dragon's heads on the ends. The dragons attack the missiles, reducing them harmlessly to atoms.

/Marlene, battleship ahead!/

She dodges harmlessly around it. Time elapsed since the Regent first spotted the missiles: four seconds.

/Now where are we going?/

/I've created a list of Flowering planets: we need a peaceful one, preferably without a sentient race who might be affected by our arrival./

/Since when was that ever Invid policy?/

/Since now. What do you think?/

/Of the list? Half of them are in the Sentinels region. Your people, uh, our people aren't exactly popular there-/

/I hadn't thought of that-/

/So I guess that just leaves the two in the nebula. It's a long haul, and neither of them support the Flower real well?/

/They will have to do./ The dragons merge, the Invid Phoenix changes direction, and sets out. The crewmen who see it pass swear that it has a human face, but some call it male and some call it female.

/Marlene? Do Invid, um??"

/It isn't necessary for reproduction, at least not in the way you're thinking. For pleasure-/ -a flicker of wholly feminine naughtiness in her mind- /it is perfectly feasible-/

/Actually, that was question number two. My first question was what the Invid do for entertainment./

/Nothing much. We'll have to remedy that./

/Think we can?/

/Why not? So far, we make a pretty good team./

/Um. One more question: do the rulers of the Invid *have* to be bald?/

Laughter-/Absolutely not./ And they are gone from the solar system: the cradle of his heroes and ancestors, the only home she can remember.

*********************

Lancer and his friends stood in a row staring up at the sky, as the last shimmer of the Phoenix passed. Sera stood a little apart from them. Earth no longer belonged to the Invid, but she belonged to Earth. Or at least to Lancer.

/Look after Lancer and his friends,/ the Regiss-no, Ariel or Marlene, she'd want to be remembered that way-had counseled Sera. /I know you love Lancer, and I think you'll love the others too-not in the same way of course./ Of course. I don't know these people, Sera thought, but if I'm living here, I need to befriend more humans than just Lancer. And who better to start with than the friends of Ariel.

`It's over," said the red-haired boy, still looking at the sky. The bulky man and the child were frankly triumphant, but there was a sadness in the boy's face, as in the blonde girl's and in Lancer's. They knew.

*********************

It was an insane story, even told in young Bernard's dry, apologetic way. If Higgins's report hadn't suggested that the Invid might be able to "change their spots," Rick probably wouldn't have bought it.

"So," he said. "Can you give us coordinates for Earth?"

The young man looked pained. "Can we? Yes. But there is a problem from the Invid point of view: what will you say about this place when you get back? We chose this place, the Regiss and I, because it seemed like a nice quiet place to break the Invid of their warlike habits."

"You can't keep them isolated forever," said Lisa. "It seems to me as though they can only become more human under your guidance."

Bernard grimaced. "That isn't necessarily a good thing," he said. "I spent the last year of the war hating the Invid, despising them as monsters. Now I mostly think of them as kind of bone-headed alien children my girlfriend made me adopt," he smiled, then turned grimmer. "But sometimes?I slip up, my old attitudes boil over into their minds, and some poor Stage One starts mutilating itself in self-loathing. Or the whole Hive shrieks as the Regent's nightmares bleed through it."

"My point was, that if they become human enough, they will need more contact with Earth," Lisa said.

The younger man smiled wryly. "They're along way from that at the moment," he said. "But back to the point: if we point you in a homeward direction, what guarantee can you give us that some self-righteous jackass won't come charging out here for revenge?"

The two Admirals looked at each other. "I think the data entry on this planet will end up being scrambled by the trip home," said Lisa.

"Ah." Bernard paused, seemed to be listening silently. "Marlene-uh, the Regiss-finds your plan acceptable. She's hoping you'll stay a day or two, maybe visit her down on the planet-"

"Yes, please!" Lang looked like he'd been handed a particularly expensive birthday present.

"-But, she understands if you'd rather not."

"We've waited this long. I suppose another day won't hurt," Rick decreed.

"Good. Now that that's settled, I guess I should be getting back-"

"You don't have to leave," said Lisa cordially. "I'm sure you and the good Doctor have some catching up to do."

The young man looked wistfully over at his godfather. "We do, but I'm afraid it'll have to wait until tomorrow."

"What's the rush?" Rick asked bluntly. "Is your Regiss afraid we'll spoil you for the Invid lifestyle."

"No, sir. She trusts me implicitly-no accounting for taste. *I* am afraid spending too much time here will spoil me. Thank you for your courtesy and open-mindedness." With that, he bowed, and headed back towards the hangar.

State = Continuará/To Be Continue

feedback = Sí/Yes

email = aragonvaarAThotmail.com