Armada (18 page)

The admiral nodded.

“Is he here?” I asked, glancing behind me, wondering if he was about to walk in. “When can I see him?” I jumped to my feet. “I want to talk to him, right now!”

“Calm down, Lieutenant,” he said. “The general isn't stationed here at the Palace.”

He flipped open a clear plastic folder on his desk and handed me the single sheet of paper inside. It appeared to be some kind of office memo printed on Earth Defense Alliance stationery. My full name, rank, and other vital statistics were printed neatly across the top, followed by several lines of text that laced heavily with a lot of abbreviations and acronyms I didn't recognize. The admiral's name and signature were at the bottom.

“What is this?” I asked, still trying to decipher the text.

“Your orders,” he said. “Along with your duty station assignment.”

I looked up at him. “I'm not staying here?”

He shook his head. “Most of Crystal Palace's personnel are being relocated to other outposts as we speak,” he said. “The location of this base is obviously no longer a secret to the enemy—if it ever was to begin with. Besides, as you know, nearly all of our remaining aerial drones were destroyed when the reserve hangar went up.”

I continued to scan my orders, trying to figure out where I was being sent—then I saw it, printed near the top.
duty station assignment: mba—lunar dcs
.

“No way. You're sending me to
Moon Base Alpha
?”

He nodded.

“It's really up there?” I asked. “The EDA really built a secret defense base in a crater on the far side of the moon? Just like in the game?”

“Yes, Lightman,” he said. “Just like in the game. Try to keep up.”

His QComm buzzed on the desk in front of him, and he checked its display. Then he spun around in his chair and began to study the half-dozen display screens arrayed behind him.

“That will be all, Lieutenant,” he said. He pointed to the exit. “Get your uniform and report to the shuttle bay immediately.”

I stared back at him, not moving.

“I'm not going anywhere until you let me see my father, sir.”

“Can't you read, Lieutenant?” he said. “He's your new commanding officer.”

I glanced back down at the printout in my hand. There it was, printed just below my duty station:
co: gen lightman, x.

“Give your old man my best when you get to the far side of the moon,” Admiral Vance said, in a voice that suddenly sounded light-years away. “And tell him we're even.”

The map on my QComm's display screen led me back through the undamaged sections of the base, down to level four. When I stepped off of one of the turbo elevators that was still operational, I joined the procession of recruits filing into the New Recruit Induction Center, an enormous carpeted room filled with a maze of high-walled office cubicles. It reminded me of the DMV offices in Portland—although, thank Zod, the line here appeared to be moving much more quickly. When I reached the front of it, a uniformed technician gave my retinas another scan. Then he retrieved a crisp new EDA flight officer's uniform from the long rack behind him and presented it to me, on a hanger draped in clear plastic, along with a pair of black running shoes with dark gray soles, Velcro laces, and no manufacturer's logo anywhere on them. The two-piece EDA uniform was dark blue, and its zippered jacket had gold piping along the shoulders and down each sleeve. My name and rank were stitched over the jacket's left breast pocket, above the Earth Defense Alliance insignia.

I filed into the adjacent changing rooms, then found an empty stall and got undressed. After I finished stuffing my civilian clothes into my backpack, I put my EDA uniform on. Everything was just my size.

I avoided looking in the mirror until I was finished, then turned to face my reflection. I hadn't worn a uniform since Cub Scouts, and I was concerned that this one might look equally unflattering on me. But when I checked my profile in the mirror, I thought I actually looked pretty sharp, like an intrepid young space hero about to embark on an epic adventure. Then I realized—that was more or less my new job description.

I stared at my face in the mirror, taking in the strange mix of fear and anticipation battling each other for supremacy there.

Then I straightened my uniform one last time, picked up my backpack, and exited the dressing room, feeling several inches taller now than when I'd first stepped inside. The map on my QComm directed me back through the base, again highlighting a circuitous route that took me around the areas damaged during the enemy's sneak attack.

When I reached the shuttle bay, I was surprised to see that aside from some rocky debris scattering the runway, it seemed to have escaped the attack—and my monumental screwup—unscathed.

Several EDA shuttles were parked on numbered landing pads around the perimeter of the hangar's oval-shaped runway, and I walked down the line until I spotted the one specified in my orders. Its cabin doors were open, and through them I could see that several people were already sitting on board, waiting for departure.

“Look at you,” I heard a female voice say behind me. “An officer and a gentleman!”

I turned to see Lex, standing at rigid attention in her new EDA uniform, which looked as if it had been tailored to accentuate her frame.

“Well?” she said. “What do you think?”

I think you might be the girl of my dreams and I'll probably never see you again.
That was what I was thinking. But I couldn't bring myself to say it out loud, so instead I took a step, straightened my spine, and snapped her a sharp salute.

“Lieutenant Zack Lightman,” I said. “Reporting for duty, ma'am!”

“Lieutenant Alexis Larkin,” she replied, returning the salute. “Ready to save the world!”

I dropped my hand and took a step back. “You look outstanding, Lieutenant.”

“Why thank you, Lieutenant,” she said. “You don't look too shabby yourself.” She studied the rank on my uniform. “So I take it the admiral decided not to court-martial your insubordinate ass?”

I shook my head. “He let me off with a warning.”

She shook her head. “See what I mean?” she said. “You're clearly getting special treatment.” She gave me a shove. “Is your old man a senator or a mob boss or something?”

I wasn't sure how to answer that, so I didn't. “Where are they sending you?” I asked.

“Sapphire Station,” she said. “That's the code name for another base like this one, located just outside Billings, Montana. How about you?”

I handed her the printout of my orders that Vance had given to me. When she finally located my destination, her eyes went wide and she looked back up at me.

“Moon Base Alpha?” she said. “It's real?”

“Apparently.”

She shoved the sheet of paper back at me in disgust. “What a bunch of horseshit!” she said. “I get stationed in Montana, and you get to go to the fucking moon. That's real fair.” She gave me another playful shove. “Maybe I need to start being insubordinate, like you.”

I knew she was joking, so I didn't respond. An awkward silence descended.

Lex unsnapped her QComm from the strap on her forearm. “Hold your arm out for a second.”

I did as she asked. She touched her QComm to mine and both devices beeped.

“Now I've got your number, and you've got mine,” she said. “We can stay in touch.” She pointed to the countdown clock on her QComm and smiled. “We'll probably only be able to stay in touch for another six hours and forty-three minutes, so it's no big deal.”

“Thank you,” I said, staring down at her name on my own QComm's display, and then at the countdown timer next to it.

“Wow, you're a popular guy,” Lex said, staring down at her QComm screen. She tapped it a few times, then tilted it toward me again, and I saw the three names listed on my own contact list mirrored there: Arjang Dagh, Alexis Larkin, and Ray Habashaw. Then she tapped the music icon, and I saw that she had somehow pulled all of the music off of my device, too.

“Hey, how did you do that?” I said, making a halfhearted grab for her QComm. She snatched it out of my reach.

“I was pissed when they hacked into my old phone, so I decided to try hacking theirs. It was shockingly easy.” She smiled. “They may have used alien technology in these things,” she said. “But the software they installed to run it all was clearly created by humans—overworked, underpaid programmers like me who take all kinds of shortcuts. The security protocols on the file-sharing system are a total joke. It only took me about five minutes to jailbreak this thing.”

She tossed her QComm behind her back with one hand, then caught it effortlessly with the other, keeping her eyes on me the whole time. Then she held it back up in front of me.

“Access to the public phone network is still disabled, so I wasn't able to call my grandma,” she said. “However, I did figure out how to enable admin privileges on the QComm network. Now I can pull private data stored on another QComm, just by calling it or touching it with mine. Contacts, text messages, emails, everything.”

“But why would those features even be included in the software?”

“Why do you think?” she said. “So Big Brother can keep on spying on each of us, right up to the bitter end.” She grabbed my phone. “Here, I'll jailbreak yours, too.”

I handed my QComm back to her, then watched as her thumbs danced across the keyboard on its display for a moment.

“You're kind of amazing,” I blurted out—because that was what I was thinking, and I'd recently been told the world was about to end. “Did you know that?”

She blushed, but didn't avert her gaze from my QComm display.

“Yeah, well,” she said, playfully rolling her eyes. “That's just, like, your
opinion,
man.”

I laughed and moved a step closer to her. She didn't move away.

“Listen,” I said, as if she weren't quite obviously already doing so, “I know we just met, but I just wanted to let you know that I wish we'd met each other a long time ago, under different circumstances. …”

She smiled. “Don't go getting all mushy on me now, Princess,” she said, stepping back. “So long.”

She turned as if to walk away—then she abruptly turned again, spinning back around on her heel, grabbed me by my lapels, and then she kissed on me—right on the lips, with tongue and everything. When we both finally came up for air, Lex wrapped her arms around me in a fierce hug. Then she stepped back and jerked a thumb over her shoulder, toward the lone shuttle on the opposite side of the bay.

“That's my ride over there,” I said. “I think they're probably waiting on me.”

“Yeah, we should both get going.”

“Yes. We should.”

Neither of us moved.

“Good luck, Lex,” I said finally.

“Give 'em hell, Zack,” she replied, grinning. “Call me from the far side of the moon. Let me know if you spot any Decepticons or secret Nazi bases hidden up there.”

“Will do.”

We saluted each other again; then she hoisted her new EDA backpack and ran over to her shuttle. I watched until she disappeared inside and its doors hissed closed. A few seconds later the shuttle lifted off and ascended through the narrow gap between the armored blast doors high above, which were now too warped and damaged to open all the way.

Then Lex's shuttle titled skyward and rocketed away, out of sight.

I took a deep breath, hoisted my own pack onto my shoulder, and turned to walk toward my own shuttle, wondering how long it would take to fly me to the moon.

A
s I approached the shuttle, I could hear several loud, overlapping voices coming through its open hatchway.

“Why does everyone always automatically assume that RedJive is a man?” a woman asked in a thick Southern accent. “That's pretty damn sexist, if you ask me.”

“Yeah,” a younger female voice chimed in. “The Red Baroness might be a better nickname—for
her
.”

Female laughter followed. I paused a few yards from the shuttle and crouched, pretending to adjust the Velcro straps of my new EDA sneakers so that I could continue to eavesdrop.

“People assume RedJive is a guy because Red Five was a guy,” a male voice replied. He had some sort of East Coast accent that sounded equally thick to my Pacific-Northwestern ears. “Hate to tell ya, but the Red Baron was a dude, too—just like Maverick, Goose, Iceman, and every other ace fighter pilot in history.”

“You're aware that those are all fictional characters, right?” the younger woman asked, talking over the man's chuckling. “For your information, there have been female fighter pilots for over a hundred years now. I wrote a report about it for school. A woman named Marie Marvingt flew combat missions over France way back in World War I, and the Russians used female fighter pilots in World War II. And the US military has had women fighter pilots since the seventies.”

After a pregnant pause, the male voice responded with an annoyed, “Yeah, whatever.”

This was followed by another round of high-pitched laughter and some scattered applause. I took it as my cue and stood up, then mounted the shuttle's small retractable staircase.

The laughter died out as soon as the cabin's four occupants saw me appear in the open hatchway and turned to face me. I stood there for an awkward beat, letting them size me up, while I did the same to them.

They were all dressed in newly pressed EDA flight officer uniforms like mine. To my immediate left sat a pretty middle-aged woman with tanned skin and dark hair, and the name
lt. winn
stitched onto her uniform. There was an empty seat to her right while on her left sat a heavyset guy with an unruly beard who seemed to be eying me suspiciously. Seated across from him was a teenaged African-American girl who looked like she probably wasn't old enough to drive yet. A young Asian man sat beside her. He looked like he was in his early twenties, and there was a small Chinese flag beneath the EDA emblem on his uniform, instead of the tiny embroidered version of Old Glory that adorned everyone else's uniform, and instead of the words
Earth Defense Alliance
there was a string of characters in Chinese.

After the five of us had stared at each other in silence for what I felt was a sufficient length of time, I stowed my pack in the overhead compartment and took the empty seat next to the older woman, because she was the only one who had smiled at me.

“Hi,” I said, offering her my hand. “I'm Zack Lightman. From Portland, Oregon.” As dazed as I was, I still remembered to say I was from Portland instead of Beaverton, to avoid sounding like a hick—or having to endure any Beaver-related attempts at humor.

“Welcome aboard, Zack,” she said, squeezing my hand between both of her own. “I'm Debbie Winn.” Something about her demeanor and tone made me guess that she was a schoolteacher.

“It's nice to meet you, Debbie.”

“It's nice to meet you—even under such terrifying circumstances.” She laughed and gave me an anxious smile. I returned it with one of my own.

“That's Milo,” she said, gesturing to the bear-like man to her left, who was still staring at me with open hostility. The name patch on his uniform identified him as
lt. dobson.

“Hi there, Milo,” I said, reaching over to offer him my hand. “How goes it?”

He just stared at my hand without replying, until I finally shrugged and lowered it.

“Oh, ignore him—he's from Philly,” Debbie said, as if that explained his rude behavior. Then she nodded at the young woman across from her. “Zack, that's Lila. Lila, meet Zack.”

“Nobody actually calls me that,” the girl said. “Everyone calls me by my nickname, Whoadie. That's my
Armada
call sign, too.”

We shook hands, and I was about to tell her that I recognized her call sign, but then the young man beside her cleared his throat. The name
lt. chén
was stitched onto his uniform.

“This is Jiang Chén—better known as CrazyJi,” Whoadie said. “He's Chinese, and doesn't speak much English.”

Chén smiled and shook my hand. He had spiky red hair that obscured the right half of his face, but the look seemed to work for him. Chén glanced down at the QComm strapped to his right wrist, where a string of Mandarin characters were appearing on his display. It must've been translating what Whoadie had said, because after Chén read over them, he looked up and gave me an exhausted smile.

“Hell-oh,” he said with a thick accent.
“It goo to mee you.”

“It's good to meet you, too,” I replied slowly. “I know your call sign well, CrazyJi. Yours too, Whoadie. We've flown lots of missions together. It's an honor to finally meet you in person.” I stood up and held out my hand. “I'm Zack—also known as IronBeagle.”

As soon as they heard my call sign, the tension in the tiny cabin evaporated, and all four of my new companions visibly relaxed—especially Milo, who actually smiled in my direction for the first time since I'd stepped aboard.

“The Beagle!” Whoadie repeated, smiling with recognition. “Good to finally meet you. You're a fucking legend, man!”

I saw Debbie wince when Whoadie dropped her F-bomb.

“IronBeagle?” Chén repeated with raised eyebrows, in what sounded like perfect English.

When I nodded, he lunged out of his seat to shake my hand, talking excitedly in Chinese. Once he finally calmed down and let go of me, we both retook our seats.

“What's your call sign, Debbie?” I asked, even though I already had a good guess, just due to the process of elimination.

She laid a hand on her chest and bowed her head. “AtomicMom, at your service.” She smiled nervously. “You know, like ‘Atomic Bomb'?”

“Yeah, lady, we get it,” Milo said, rolling his bloodshot eyes.

“Let me guess,” I said, leveling a finger at him. “You're Kushmaster5000, right?”

He smiled, looking immensely pleased. “The one and only.”

The Kushmaster, also known as “KM5K” to his many detractors, was a pilot known for his incessant (and often unintentionally hilarious) boasting and trash talk on the Chaos Terrain player forums, where he used a prismatic cannabis leaf for his avatar. He also loved to do a running voice commentary of the battles over the public comm channel, like Jack Burton broadcasting on his CB. I usually muted him, but I still recognized his Philly accent, and the cocky attitude that seemed to come along with it. I wasn't sure I liked him, and he seemed to like it that way.

But in a strange way, learning their call signs suddenly made me feel as though I was among old friends—or at least familiar allies. AtomicMom, Whoadie, CrazyJi, and Kushmaster5000 were all names that I'd been seeing daily for the past year, because they were four of the call signs always listed among the top ten
Armada
pilot rankings—at first above, and then eventually below my own. When I'd checked the rankings last night, Whoadie's call sign had been listed right after mine in seventh place, followed by CrazyJi in eighth, AtomicMom in ninth, and Kushmaster5000 in tenth.

“Sorry if I acted like a prick before,” Milo said, solemnly offering me his fist to bump, which I did. “I thought you might be RedJive, or one of those other elitist dicks in the top five.”

Chén read the translation, then whispered a response into his QComm in Chinese. The device instantly translated his words and repeated them in English.

“I was thinking the same thing,” the computer said, in a synthesized male voice that sounded exactly like the one used by Stephen Hawking.

I suddenly found myself wondering if Hawking had been a part of the EDA's big cover-up, too. And what about Neil deGrasse Tyson? If Carl Sagan had been let in on the secret, it seemed likely that other prominent scientists had, too. I added this to the list of unanswered questions whirling around inside my head, which seemed to only be growing longer as this insane day progressed.

“I am not liking RedJive also,” Chén's translator went on to declare loudly in its uninflected monotone. “He is an asshole total!”

Whoadie laughed and mimicked the translator's voice while she made stiff robotic motions with her arms. “Yes!” she intoned. “The Baron is complete face-fuck!”

The others laughed, but I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Luckily, my dad's impromptu roast was interrupted a second later, when the hatchway leading to the cockpit slid open and an ATHID clanked through it on metal feet. The drone's head split open and extended a small flatscreen telepresence monitor that displayed a live video image of the drone's operator, a middle-aged EDA officer with an impressive Sam Elliott–gauge mustache.

“Welcome aboard,” he said. “I'll be your shuttle pilot today: Captain Meadows.”

The second he finished introducing himself, he was bombarded with questions from all sides, in a variety of accents, and in at least two languages. I wanted to ask him a few thousand of my own, but he was already holding up one of his drone's clawed hands, motioning for silence. It took a minute.

“I'm not authorized to answer your questions,” he said. “Your new commanding officer will brief you as soon as we arrive at the moon base. If you have any other questions and the answers aren't classified, you can type them into the EDA Recruit Orientation Manual app on your QComm. Understood?”

Everyone nodded and glanced down at their QComms.

“Outstanding,” the captain said in response to our silent compliance. “We'll depart in just a few minutes. But before we leave, I'm told there's someone who wants to see you off.”

He motioned to the open hatchway just as a familiar-looking middle-aged man with red hair stepped through it, leaning into the shuttle's crowded cabin. He greeted everyone with a gleaming, press-photo friendly smile.

“Finn Arbogast?” several of us said in unison.

“Guilty as charged,” he said, grinning and slightly out of breath. “I ran all the way down here from the Op Center so I wouldn't miss my chance to finally meet all of you.” He went around the cabin, giving each of us a firm handshake in turn. “You five people have been the pride and joy of the Chaos Terrain project for a long time now. In fact, your talent and dedication were what helped us convince the higher-ups that our civilian simulator training initiative could actually work on a global scale, so thank you!”

I'd seen plenty of photos and video interviews with Chaos Terrain's founder, but in person he was shorter than I expected. He shook my hand last, and when our eyes met, he cocked his head at me sideways.

“You're Zack Lightman, aren't you?” he said, shaking his head as he studied my face. “The famous IronBeagle?”

I nodded. He glanced around at the others, then gave me a sheepish grin.

“Listen, Lieutenant,” Arbogast said. “I hope Admiral Vance wasn't too hard on you earlier. There was no way you could have known about the security blockade doors on those drone launch tunnels. No enemy ship ever attempted that maneuver during any of their attacks against our moon base, so we never included it as a possibility in any of your
Armada
training missions.” He shrugged. “Live and learn, I guess.”

I glanced around the cabin. Everyone was staring at me in wide-eyed surprise.

“That was you?” Milo said, laughing. “You're the kamikaze dumbass who chased that Glaive Fighter into the hangar before it went kaboom?”

I nodded.

Everyone stared at me for an awkward beat; then Arbogast clapped his hands.

“Well—I know you're about to depart for MBA, so I don't want to hold you up,” he said. “I just wanted to thank each of you, and commend you on your bravery—”

“Excuse me, sir,” Milo said, in his thick Philly accent. “But where the hell is RedJive? You know, The Red Baron? He's the top-ranked
Armada
pilot in the world, right? So why ain't he here? Aren't you gonna recruit him, too?”

Arbogast shot a glance at me, then looked back at Milo.

“RedJive was recruited decades ago,” he said “He's our most decorated pilot.”

Arbogast studied my reaction while the others exchanged looks of surprise.

“But who the hell is he?” Milo asked. “Or she?” He gave Whoadie and Debbie a placating smile.

Arbogast nodded. “RedJive is the call sign used by General Xavier Lightman.”

One at a time, the others each turned to look at the name patch sewn onto my uniform. Then they all stared at me for a few seconds. When I failed to say anything, Debbie finally broke the silence.