Armada (21 page)

“I'm not scared,” I said, lying right through my teeth.

“If that's true, then you're a fucking idiot,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I know that's not the case.” He looked me in the eyes. “I've been fighting this war for half my life now, Zack, and I'm terrified. You don't know how long I've lived in fear of this day, and now it's here.”

“You're not making me feel any better right now,” I told him.

“I know that, Lieutenant,” he said. “I also know how hopeless our chances must seem, given what you've been told and the images you've been shown. But believe me, Son, there are a lot of things about our situation—and our enemy—that you still don't know.”

He cast a glance back over his shoulder, toward a large security camera mounted above the nearest exit, sweeping its lens slowly back and forth. Then he turned back to me, and I think that was when I caught my first glimpse of something truly unsettling in my father's eyes. A hint of the very madness that I'd always feared I might have inherited from him.

“We can't talk now, or here,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “But things aren't nearly as hopeless as they seem, Zack. I promise you.” He gave me a hopeful smile. “That's why I'm so thankful you're here now. I'm going to need your help.”

Despite my better judgment, I went ahead and asked, “With what?”

“With saving the world, Son,” my father said. “You think you're up for that?”

I straightened my posture, and for the first time I noticed we were now the same height.

“Yes, sir, General, sir,” I replied. “Most definitely.”

There was no mistaking the look of pride on my father's face. It was intoxicating.

“I was hoping you'd say that,” he said, patting me on the back. “Follow me.”

He turned and began to jog back out through the hangar's exit.

I cast another furtive glance back over my shoulder at the gleaming fighter ships stockpiled around me. Then I turned and ran after my father—even though I still wasn't quite sure exactly where he was leading me.

As General Lightman led me through the dimly lit carpeted corridors of Moon Base Alpha, I kept biting the inner wall of my cheek every few minutes, because each subsequent flash of pain was proof that I was wide awake, and that this was all really happening.

As we took a circuitous route down to the Operations level, I marveled at how strangely familiar my new surroundings were, and at how perfectly
Armada
's simulated version of the moon base matched the real thing.

When I mentioned to my father that it looked like certain elements of the base's exterior design had been “borrowed” from the fictional Clavius Base seen in the film
2001: A Space Odyssey,
he was delighted to confirm that they had.

“The team of engineers who designed and built this place were in a huge hurry, so they borrowed from a lot of existing designs,” he explained, motioning to the carpeted corridors around us. “They stole a lot of ideas from Syd Mead and Ralph McQuarrie, like everyone else. Other people, too.” He grinned. “The access corridors down on the maintenance level look like they were stolen right off the set of
Aliens,
I swear—wait until you see them.”

Once he told me all of that, I suddenly began to see evidence of sci-fi design theft everywhere I looked inside the base. Everything was sleek, ergonomic, and vaguely retro-futuristic in its design, which often appeared to favor form over function.

There were also a lot of vintage rock band and movie posters taped up everywhere, but I was pretty sure those had been added by the base's current residents—as had the graffiti spray-painted in red on one of the corridor walls:
the cake is a lie.

We also passed one corridor lined with dozens of framed photos of men and women in EDA flight officer uniforms, wearing hairstyles from at least four different decades. Each photo was accompanied by a small plaque with the officer's name and two dates, indicating each individual's “Term of Service in the Earth Defense Alliance.” This was followed by “Made the Ultimate Sacrifice to Protect Us All.”

“All these people served up here?” I asked my father.

He nodded. “And they died up here, too,” he said. “Those are officers who lost their lives in the line of duty.”

“But they were just drone pilots, right?” I said. “How did they all die?”

“During previous attacks the enemy has made on this base,” he said. Then, before I could ask him to elaborate, he said, “I'll explain in the briefing.”

When we reached the end of that corridor, my father led me onto a turbo elevator that carried us down to the Operations level, located over a mile beneath the lunar surface, in just a few seconds. Then my father led me through a series of cavernous chambers carved into the lunar bedrock, which housed the cold-fusion generators, life-support systems, matter compilers, and the enormous gravity-distortion array.

“I don't know how most of this stuff works,” my father confessed. “Or even how to operate most of it. But I've never needed to, because all of the base systems are completely automated. And all of the maintenance is done by drones operated by real people back on Earth.”

When we passed the glass-walled med bay, I saw that it, too, was staffed entirely by drones. The base doctor appeared to be a specially equipped ATHID with a pair of articulated human hands that allowed a surgeon back on Earth to operate them remotely.

“A doctor in London used one of those med drones to remove my appendix a few years ago,” he said. “The procedure went flawlessly.”

The crew quarters were packed onto the same level—fifty modular dorm rooms, each designed for two residents.

“Since only three of the rooms are currently occupied, everyone gets their own private digs,” my father said. He pointed to a door labeled
a7
. “These are your quarters. The door has already been coded to your biometrics, and your pack should already be inside.”

I held up my QComm and checked the countdown timer.

“Why even bother giving me a room?” I asked. “The vanguard arrives in just a few hours—it's not like I'm going to try to take a nap between now and then.”

“No,” he said, smiling. “But you might want some privacy later on, once you're able to call your mother.”

I stared at him until he met my eyes. “Are you planning to call her?”

He shook his head. “I doubt that would be a good idea,” he said. “Why would she be interested in speaking to me, once she finds out I'm alive and that I … abandoned you both?”

“Of course she'll want to talk to you!” I told him. “She'll be overjoyed to find out you're alive.” Then without thinking, I added, “Just like I am.”

He studied my face. “You really think so?”

“I
know
so,” I said, although I was trying to convince myself as much as him. “She never got over losing you. She never fell in love again after you. She told me so.”

My father suddenly turned away, and I heard a small noise escape him—like the sound of wounded animal, caught in a trap. When he made no other attempt to reply, I motioned to the other doors lining the corridor.

“Which room is yours?” I asked.

He pointed to the first door at the end of the hall, labeled
a1
.

“But that's not part of the tour,” he said, attempting to steer me in the opposite direction.

“Just let me peek inside for one second,” I said, standing my ground. “Please? Sir?”

“There really isn't that much to see,” he said, still interposing himself between me and the door.

But judging by his reaction, there was clearly a lot to see—and I was determined to see it. I didn't move. Our standoff continued for a dozen or so seconds before the general finally stepped aside and palmed open the door, his face already flashing red in embarrassment as I squeezed past him to peer inside the tiny modular room.

The entire back wall of my father's quarters was covered with photos of me and my mom, including all of my yearbook photos going back to grade school. A photo of my mother in her nurse's uniform, which he must have found on her hospital's website, was hanging over his bed. The rest of his walls were completely bare.

Before I could examine his living space further, he prodded me back out of it into the hall, then locked the door.

“Hurry,” he said, trying to hide the unsteadiness in his voice. “Every second counts.”

A
nother turbo elevator hurtled us downward at an unsettling speed, then slowed to a stop just a few seconds later. A screen embedded in the wall displayed a 3-D map of the base, and it indicated that we'd just arrived at its lowest level, at the very bottom of the egg-shaped structure nestled into the Daedalus crater. When the doors hissed open, we stepped out into a short, blue-carpeted corridor that terminated in a pair of sliding armored doors with
drone operations center
neatly stenciled across them. Above these doors, spray-painted on the wall in stylized graffiti, was the name
thunderdome
.

The doors slid open as we approached, and I followed my father through them into a large circular room with a domed concrete ceiling that was painted a bright iridescent blue, like the screens that were used on movie sets as placeholders for digital effects that would be added later.

“Welcome,” my father said, stretching out his arms, “to the Moon Base Alpha Drone Operations Center. We call it the Thunderdome.”

“Why?”

“Well, because it has a dome,” he said, pointing up. “And we fight inside it, just like Mad Max.” He shrugged. “And because ‘Thunderdome' sounds cooler than ‘Drone Operations Center.' ”

In the center of the room, on a raised platform, was a rotating command chair with curved ergonomic touchscreens built into its armrests. It was encircled by ten oval-shaped pits sunken into the stone floor, each containing an individual drone controller pod. Unlike the multifunction stations we'd used back at Crystal Palace, these pods appeared to have been designed to control Interceptors exclusively. Each pit contained a simulated ADI-88 Interceptor cockpit—a pilot seat, flight stick, and all of its familiar control panels and system indicators arrayed beneath a wraparound display canopy that slid into place over you when you climbed into the pilot seat.

My father tapped a button on his QComm, and the bright blue dome over our heads switched on, like the screen of a high-definition television, providing a 360-degree view of the cratered landscape surrounding the moon base that made it seem as if we were standing in the observation deck on the base's top level instead of in a reinforced bunker far beneath the lunar surface.

As he led me across the enormous domed bunker, I glanced inside each of the drone controller pods at my feet. I could see through their semitransparent canopies, and four of the pods were already in use: Debbie, Milo, Whoadie, and Chén were inside, giving their new rigs a test spin in some sort of training simulation.

The Japanese EDA officer I'd spotted earlier was standing at the command console with another EDA officer—a tall dark-skinned man I'd never seen before. Both men looked about the same age as my father, and both had the same weary, battle-hardened demeanors I'd seen in him. As they walked over to greet us, I glanced down at the collars of their uniforms and saw they both held the rank of major.

“Zack, I'd like you to meet two of my oldest friends,” my father said. “Major Shin Hashimoto, and Major Graham Fogg.”

“
Konichiwa,
Lightman-san,” Major Shin said. I saluted him, but he threw me off by returning it with a bow. “It's good to finally meet you. Your father has told me way too much about you over the years.” He grinned. “I've gotten pretty sick of it, actually.”

“Sorry,” I said, just to have something to say.

Shin studied my face until it started to feel creepy; then he glanced over at my father, then back at me, comparing our faces.

“Holy Toledo,” he said, whistling. “You really are the spitting image of your old man.” He elbowed me in the ribs, grinning broadly. “My sympathies, kid!”

He laughed heartily at his own joke, and my father gave me an apologetic look—the same look I used to give to my mom, when one of my friends came over and broke something. But I laughed politely in return, then turned to shake hands with Major Fogg, who appeared to be the tallest person on the moon.

“It is my distinct pleasure to meet you, Lieutenant Lightman,” he said brightly. He surprised me by speaking with a thick British accent. “Welcome to Moon Base Alpha!”

I glanced at the shoulder of his uniform and saw the Union Jack there, instead of US flag. I also noticed that the word
Defence
on his EDA insignia was spelled with a
c
instead of an
s
.

“It's just the three of you?” I asked. “No one else is up here?”

“Just us,” Shin said. “A resupply shuttle comes up twice a month, but the rest of the time we're all alone. Not counting all of the drones, of course.”

Graham nodded. “The Alliance used to have dozens of people stationed up here, to help keep all of the different systems running smoothly,” he said. “But once the QComm network came online, almost everything could be done remotely with drones, so they cut back to just a skeleton crew, made up of essential military personnel.”

“There used to be a few more pilots stationed up here,” my father added, “including Admiral Vance, but now it's just us.”

“The Three Musketeers,” Graham said, smiling. “Lucky buggers that we are.”

A long folding wooden table and three folding metal chairs were arranged against the far wall. The table's surface was covered with a variety of Dungeons and Dragons rulebooks, gaming screens, and dozens of oddly shaped dice.

“We play D and D four or five nights a week,” Graham explained when he saw me eying the setup. “Helps to pass the time. Shin is usually our dungeon master.” He smiled at me. “My character is twenty-seventh-level Elven archer.”

“Why don't you show him your character sheet, Graham?” Shin said. “That will really impress the kid.”

Graham ignored him and continued to shadow me with an enthusiastic smile as I wandered around the control center, like a kid showing off his room. A short distance away, I spotted a large drum kit, two electric guitars, and three mic stands, flanked on either side by a stack of amplifiers. I wandered over to examine the gear.

“What, do you guys have a band or something?” I asked.

“Indeed, we do,” Graham said proudly. “We call ourselves ‘The Bishop of Battle.' It's the name of—”

“The short film starring Emilio Estevez?” I finished for him. “From the
Nightmares
horror anthology?”

My father and both his friends blinked at me in surprise as goofy grins spread across each of their faces.

I grinned back, then nodded at my father. “I saw it when I was working my way through all of your old VHS tapes. It—”

I cut myself off when I realized how revealing my last statement had been. But none of them noticed. They were all still beaming at me for getting their band name.

“I like this kid, Xavier,” Shin said.

My father nodded. “Yeah, so do I.”

“We can play some pretty decent Van Halen covers,” Graham continued. “Maybe we'll jam for you guys later?”

“Sure,” I said uncertainly. “That would be cool.”

I glanced back over at my father, but he was staring at his feet and shaking his head in embarrassment. “We're not going to play for them, Graham, I told you,” he muttered. “Aliens are invading in a few hours, remember?”

“What better reason to rock out one last time?” Graham replied, throwing up two sets of devil horns.

I stepped over to the edge of the nearest drone controller station pit and peeked in. There was an
out of order
sign Scotch-taped to its tactical display.

“What happened to this one?” I asked.

“Graham spilled Coke Zero on it, that's what,” Shin said. “Cost the war effort millions.”

“Stop trying to pin that on me,” Graham grumbled back. “You left your sandals lying around and I tripped over them. Those millions are on you, Shin-bone.”

Graham laughed, but when I laughed, too, he scowled at me.

“What's so bloody funny, kid?” he said. “I fried one drone pod—that's nothing compared to the zillions of dollars in drones we lost this morning, thanks to your little stunt!”

Shin nodded, and they both continued to scowl at me for a few more seconds before they both burst into laughter.

“I'm joking, lad,” Graham said, still laughing. “I must've watched the video clip of you chasing that Glaive into the base fifty times so far today! Priceless, that was!”

Shin shook his head. “How did you stop Viper from murdering you for that?”

“Maybe he realized I'm already a dead man, so there was no point?”

My father frowned at me and seemed about to say something, but Shin changed the subject before he could.

“Care for some snackage, Lieutenant?” he asked. “Your favorite snacks were listed in each of your EDA profiles, so we stocked up on all of them. You're a Lucky Charms man, right? Dry, with no milk? We laid in a few dozen boxes for you, see?”

He pointed over at one of the unoccupied pods across the room, where half a dozen boxes of my favorite breakfast cereal sat stacked up like crates of ammunition. The other new recruits had an assortment of snacks and beverages laid out on the floor around their sunken pods, too. Stacks of Nacho Cheese Combos and Slim Jims were scattered around Milo's pod, along with a small mountain of Diet Mountain Dew. There were bags of Cheddar Jalapeño Cheetos and a row of two-liter bottles of Hawaiian Punch laid out for Whoadie, bags of multicolored Skittles for Debbie, and beside Chén's pod, dozens of silver energy drink cans with
qi li
printed on the side, surround by writing in Chinese.

“How did our favorite snacks end up in our EDA profiles?” I asked Shin. But it was Graham who answered.

“The EDA knows everything about everyone, kid,” he said. “Your food and beverage preferences weren't the only things being recorded while you were playing
Armada
and
Terra
Firma,
trust me. Your pulse rate, blood pressure, sweat content—the EDA makes the CIA and the NSA look like the PTA.”

“Great,” I said. “The government has been spying on all of us our whole lives, but at least we get to have our favorite snacks. Bonus.”

To my surprise, my father grinned at my remark. He seemed about to respond, but just then the other new arrivals emerged from their pods, and he went over to greet them. Chén snapped to attention when he saw my father approach, and the others scrambled to follow suit.

“At ease, recruits,” my father said as he walked over to them. “Welcome to Moon Base Alpha. I'm General Xavier Lightman, your new CO. I apologize for keeping you waiting.”

He scanned their faces, waiting for a response, but my new friends all seemed too starstruck to speak. My father walked over to stand in front of Milo, who was grinning like he was about to meet one of his favorite movie stars, his earlier disdain apparently forgotten.

“You're Milo Dobson, right? Better known as Kushmaster5000?”

Milo nodded imperceptibly, caught in the throes of some sort of gamer fanboy aneurysm.

“It's an honor to finally meet you in person, Lieutenant Dobson,” my father told him. He turned to the others. “It's an honor to meet all of you. Whoadie, CrazyJi. AtomicMom.” He shook hands with each of them in turn, then nodded at me. “And, of course, IronBeagle. You're five of the most gifted pilots I've ever seen in action. We're privileged to have you here.”

The others smiled and their faces flushed with pride—and mine may have a bit, as well.

“Thank you, sir!” Chén said, carefully repeating his QComm's translation.

“Yeah, thanks, General!” Milo said, finally recovering from his stroke of paralysis. “I mean, holy shit—that's a huge compliment, coming from RedJive himself! You're the best of the best of the best, sir! I've been studying your moves for years—we all have.”

My father seemed genuinely embarrassed by this praise.

“You're giving me way too much credit,” he said. Then he pointed to his two comrades. “Shin and Graham were both heavily involved with your simulator training, too. I'm sure you'll recognize their call signs. Shin uses the handle MaxJenius, and Graham—”

“My call sign is Withnailed,” Graham finished. “Though these two rarely use it.”

“We prefer to call him ‘Limes' instead,” Shin said. “It's short for ‘limey.' He hates it.”

Graham nodded. “Indeed I do.”

We all smiled in recognition at their familiar call signs. MaxJenius and Withnailed were both mainstays in the top-five pilot rankings, too. Since the first year the game was launched, they had both alternated between second and third place, right below RedJive.

“I don't mean to be rude, General Lightman,” Debbie said. “But when are you going to tell us why the EDA sent us up here?” She glanced over at Shin and Graham. “Why couldn't we just remain back on Earth with the other recruits?”