Armada (15 page)

He rested both hands on the podium and angled his gaze downward, as if addressing the recruits seated in the first row.

“But we
are
going to stop them. If all seven billion members of the human race unite in the face of this threat, and we fight back as one species and one planet, with every ounce of strength we have, we can win this war. I know it. And that starts right now, with each of you.”

A cheer slowly rose from the audience. I didn't add my voice to it, and neither did Lex. But she nodded slowly, as if resigning herself to Admiral Vance's call to action. Down on the stage, the admiral paused to straighten his posture, and when he spoke again, the calm edge had returned to his voice.

“Even though the Europan vanguard won't reach our lunar perimeter for another eight hours, we have reason to believe the enemy may be preparing to launch a sneak attack sometime today, before the rest of the fleet begins to arrive. Over the past few days, dozens of Europan scout ships have been spotted in our atmosphere, and several of them were observed conducting surveillance on EDA installations and outposts like this one.”

He pointed to a map of the world that had just appeared on the screen behind him, which was scattered with flashing red dots indicating the locations of the scout ship sightings. Most of them were near largely populated cities, but one was flashing right over my hometown.

“We still have no way of tracking these Europan scout ships, so their current position remains unknown. However, we—”

We heard a low, rumbling boom from somewhere far above us, like a muffled detonation, followed by a fierce tremor that shook the entire auditorium, like a brief earthquake. A few people screamed; then a warning klaxon began to wail.

“Red alert. This installation is under attack,” a synthesized female voice announced over the PA system. “All personnel report to your battle stations immediately. Repeat—this installation is under attack. Red alert.”

Lex and I exchanged looks of disbelief.

“Seriously?” she said. “This can't really be happening right now, can it?”

“No way,” I said. “They're screwing with us. This has to be a drill or something. …”

Another blast up on the surface shook the stone floor beneath our feet once again—more fiercely this time—and there was another volley of panicked screams and shouting. The map projected on the auditorium's giant screen was suddenly replaced with eight live video feeds from cameras up on the surface, showing Crystal Palace's dairy farm façade from various angles around its outer perimeter. All of the buildings were in flames, and the sky overhead was filled with a swarm of dozens of Glaive Fighters. I could see their blade-shaped hulls flashing like mirrors in the morning sun as they rained lasers and plasma bombs down on the base.

The auditorium fell eerily silent for a moment as everyone stared up at the images on the screen. Then the screaming and the shouting continued, now at a much higher volume.

Up on the screen, a squadron of Glaive Fighters swooped down and carpet-bombed the armored doors over the docking bay entrance.

Another tremor rocked the auditorium, and silt began to rain down from cracks in the reinforced concrete ceiling. I wondered how much more abuse it could take before it collapsed.

“Remain calm, people!” the admiral ordered, shouting to be heard over the growing din of panic in the audience. “If you want to live, I need you to pull it together and follow orders!”

The fear in the admiral's voice was almost as unsettling as the video on the screen behind him.

“Repeat—this installation is under attack,” the computerized female voice repeated over the PA. “All personnel report to your drone controller station immediately. Check your QComm for further instructions. All personnel report to your drone controller station immediately—”

Lex whipped out her QComm. Its display lit up with another GPS-style map of the base, showing a green path from where we were sitting at the back of the auditorium, down the steps to the nearest exit, then down a series of corridors to a circular room labeled Controller Hub 3. I checked my QComm and saw that I was assigned to Hub 5, which was along the same route, but slightly farther away from us.

“Let's go!” Lex said, dropping my jacket in my lap as she squeezed past me. I didn't rise from my seat. My eyes were still fixed on the chaos unfolding on the screen, but my brain was churning through everything I'd learned today—and how little sense any of it made. Something was wrong here. And I still didn't know if my dad's—

“Zack?”

I looked over and saw Lex staring back at me from the end of the row, her eyes burning with impatience. “Well? Are you just gonna sit here and let these things kill us?”

She was right. This wasn't the EDA's fault. It was the Europans'. Here, revealed at last, was my true enemy—the cause of all the loss and hardship that had plagued me since birth. These invaders from another world—they were the reason all of this was happening. By declaring war on us all those decades ago, the Europans had disrupted human history and robbed us of our future. And now they were here to rob us of everything else, too.

Suddenly, the only thing I cared about was making them pay. Every last one of them.

“Yeah, I'm coming,” I said, jumping to my feet. I shoved the jacket back into my pack, then ran to catch up with Lex, who was already bounding down the tiered steps three and four at a time.

Lex and I squeezed through the bottleneck of people at the nearest exit. As soon we cleared it and burst into the corridor outside the auditorium, Lex took off running again, pushing past other less-eager recruits until she was out in front, leading the charge. I raced to keep up with her, following the machine-gun-like sound of her combat boots hitting the stone floor up ahead of me.

We heard another concussive explosion impact up on the surface, and the shock wave shook the floor. Dust and silt began to rain down from the tile seams in the corridor ceiling as the people around us continued to sprint in all directions, following maps on the glowing screens of their QComms.

I ignored mine and just focused on keeping up with Lex as she continued to run down a seemingly endless series of corridors, until finally she stopped outside a set of armored doors labeled
controller hub 3
.

“This is me,” she said, pointing down the corridor. “Hub Five is farther down.”

I nodded and opened my mouth to wish her good luck, but I'd only managed to get out “Goo—” when she turned and planted a kiss on my cheek. This may have caused a slight drop in the structural integrity of my knee joints, but I managed to stay upright.

“Give 'em hell, IronBeagle,” she said, just before she ran through the armored doors and they slammed shut behind her.

As soon as I was able to will my legs back into motion, I took off running again. At the end of that same corridor, I reached a pair of doors labeled
controller hub 5
and bolted through them. They opened on an enormous barrel-shaped room with hundreds of drone controller stations honeycombed into its curved walls, to which were bolted a network of narrow ladders and access ramps. It looked like a larger version of the drone-control centers in
Armada
's cut scenes. My QComm display switched to a three-dimensional diagram of the room, then highlighted my station assignment—DCS537. I scaled the nearest ladder up to level three, then sprinted down the metal access ramp to my station. A scanner beeped as I approached, and the door hissed open. I hurried inside.

As soon as I sat down in the leather chair, the door hissed closed and the control panels around me lit up, along with the wraparound view screen, which currently displayed the Earth Defense Alliance insignia.

I looked around at the familiar array of controls and wrapped my right hand around the flight stick directly in front of me, which appeared identical to the
Armada
flight-stick controller Ray had given me the previous day. The dual-throttle controller by my left hand also appeared identical to Chaos Terrain's home version, except that it was bolted to the armrest of my ergonomic pilot seat.

The station was also outfitted with several other controller options, including a pair of
Terra Firma
battle gauntlets, used for operating an ATHID or Sentinel, along with more mundane options like a keyboard and mouse setup or a standard Xbox, Nintendo, or Playstation controller—enough choices to make almost any gamer feel right at home.

I saw a brief flash of red as my retinas were scanned; then a red
X
flashed on my display, along with the words
DRONE CONTROLLER ACCESS NOT AUTHORIZED
.

“Attention, recruit candidate,” the same synthesized female voice said as her words appeared on the display screen in front of me. “Only Earth Defense Alliance personnel are authorized to operate drones or engage in combat. Do you wish to enlist in the Earth Defense Alliance at this time?”

Several paragraphs of dense text began to scroll across the screen, an unreadable blur of legalese outlining all the details of enlistment. It would have taken hours to read it all, and then I still probably wouldn't have understood a word of it.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” I shouted. “I have to enlist before I can fight?”

“Only Earth Defense Alliance personnel are authorized to operate drones or engage in combat,” the computer repeated.

“That's a little manipulative, don't you think?”

“Please rephrase your question.”

“This is fucking ridiculous!” I cried, punching the console again.

“If you do not wish to enlist in the Earth Defense Alliance at this time, please exit this drone controller station and proceed to the nearest out-processing station.”

When I didn't respond to this right away, the computer said, “I'm sorry, I didn't hear your answer. Do you wish to enlist in the Earth Defense Alliance at this time?”

Another tremor rocked the base to its foundations. The lights embedded in the ceiling of my station dimmed for half a second.

“Okay, yes!” I began repeatedly tapping the
accept
button at the bottom of the screen. “I want to fucking enlist! Sign my ass up!”

“Please raise your right hand and read the enlistment oath aloud.”

A paragraph of text appeared on my display, with my name already inserted at the beginning. I began to read it, and each word dimmed once I'd said it aloud:

I, Zachary Ulysses Lightman, having been appointed an officer in the Earth Defense Alliance, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend my home planet and its citizens against all enemies, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; that I will obey the orders of the officers appointed over me; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office upon which I am about to enter. So help me God.

That last line was marked as “optional,” but I was in a hurry, so I said it anyway, even though I'd always been a devout agnostic. Besides, now I was thinking there just might be a God after all—that would explain who was currently fucking with my whole notion of reality.

“Congratulations!” the computer said. “You are now a flight officer in the Earth Defense Alliance with the rank of lieutenant. Your EDA skill profile and
Armada
pilot ranking have both been verified. Flight status—authorized. Combat status—authorized. Drone controller station access granted. User preferences imported. Interceptor synchronization engaged. Good luck, Lieutenant Lightman!”

My view screen suddenly switched to a familiar first-person view, from inside an ADI-88 Aerospace Drone Interceptor, prepped for launch. The song “Bang a Gong” by Power Station began to blast out of the drone controller station's surround sound system, making me jerk back in my chair. I relaxed as I realized that the computer had just made a Bluetooth connection to my QComm and automatically started playing the next song on my father's old
Raid the Arcade
playlist.

I didn't hesitate. I hit the launch release and my Interceptor rocketed forward, out of its launch tunnel—one of those disguised grain silos—and into the clear blue sky.

A real sky, filled with real clouds.

That was when I realized my view from inside the cockpit was slightly different than the one I was used to seeing when I played
Armada
. The HUD readouts and targeting reticle were identical, but they were superimposed over a live high-definition video feed of my drone's surroundings, seen from the stereoscopic camera mounted inside the real drone Interceptor I was now piloting. With the door of my drone controller station closed, the illusion of being inside an actual cockpit was almost total. I could even see the fang-like tips of its photon cannons protruding from the ship in front of me.

A split second later, my view of the sky was filled with another familiar sight: a swarm of Glaive Fighters firing in all directions, including directly at me. Thanks to Lex's prodding, mine was the first Interceptor drone to be launched. Which meant I was also currently the only aerial target for the enemy.

As I banked to take evasive action, I got my first glimpse of the landscape below. The farmhouses, barns, and silos—everything was on fire. Including the ground itself, which had already been scorched black by sweeping laser fire from above.

According to my HUD, there were exactly a hundred Glaive Fighters attacking the base.

And this time it's for real, Zack. If you don't stop them, you die.

I had to make a few adjustments to my controller setup, but it only took seconds because the interface was so familiar. Then I took a deep breath and scanned the field of battle. Down below me, other Interceptor drones were beginning to rocket up out of the open tops of rows of disguised launch tunnels along the farm's northern edge, all of which were now on fire. Hundreds of ATHIDs and several Sentinel mechs were beginning to stream out of the underground bunkers concealed beneath the flaming barns and utility buildings nearby.