Armada (23 page)

Shin paused the video. “Your father is operating both of those mechs. Simultaneously. He's inside the one on the left, and it's connected to the mech on the right via a short fiber-optic tether, inside a titanium-reinforced cable stretching between them.”

“Shin would know,” my father said, never taking his eyes off the screen. “He finished helping me rig them together about ten minutes before this footage was shot.”

Shin pressed Play again, and my eyes were drawn back to the screen. I watched his two mechs lumber forward, unloading their sun guns and laser cannons into the Disrupter's massive spherical shield as they passed underneath its mammoth spinning form and the coupler array at its southern pole.

Then the mech my father was in reached Vance's mech, ripped its escape pod free—with Vance inside—and tucked it under his arm like a football.

A ring of explosive bolts fired around the armored cable tethering my father's mech to the one beside it, severing their connection. My father's drone threw Vance's now-limp drone skyward like a shot put, toward the Disrupter's still-shielded coupler array.

In the same motion he power-leaped in the opposite direction while hurling Vance's escape pod in front of him, a bare second before ejecting his own. Both of their pods flew out of the frame just before Vance's mech finally completed its seven-second self-destruct countdown and detonated. Two seconds later, the drone my father had hurled skyward did the exact same thing—a perfectly timed one-two punch. A nearly impossible shot, like a three-pointer from full court with one second on the clock.

But even that amazing bit of timing wasn't enough. Because just before both mechs would've impacted against the Disrupter's transparent shield, the shield dropped, leaving the dodecahedron unprotected for that narrow three-second window while its massive power core recharged enough to power its defenses back up. It was during this incredibly short sliver of time that both mechs detonated, one after the next.

The first detonation struck the Disrupter's diamond-hard hull, but its armor appeared to absorb the blast somehow, and the triangular facets of the dodecahedron's skin lit up molten orange as the energy dissipated across them. Only when the second mech detonated a half-second later did the Disrupter's weakened armor finally fail, in an explosion that took out the Disrupter itself.

Graham and Shin both broke into applause. I got the feeling they had watched this footage on a regular basis, and that they applauded like this every time. Whoadie, Milo, Debbie, and Chén all applauded, too, but I abstained. I was too busy staring at the screen.

“Can we watch that footage again?” I asked. “At half speed this time?”

Shin nodded and ran it again. Then he ended up running it for us several more times, at everyone's request. The footage became more impressive, and more unsettling to watch, with each viewing. My father had truly pulled off a one in a million shot. If the Disrupter's shields had failed a split second earlier or later, his attack would have failed, too. And studying the time counter on the video clip, it looked as if the Disrupter's shield stayed down a fraction of a second longer than it should have—just long enough for my father to pull off a miracle.

“How many more Disrupters are on their way here right now? Milo asked fearfully. “You left that little detail out of your briefing.”

“Three,” my father said. “There's one Disruptor accompanying each wave of their invasion force.”

“Three!” Milo repeated. “There's no way we'll be able to destroy three Disrupters, one after the other—not with a massive alien shit storm coming down on us!”

My father nodded. “Yes, I'd say that's a real long shot. But we do have one last card up our sleeves. The Icebreaker.”

“But I thought the Icebreaker mission already failed,” Debbie said. “It was destroyed before the melt-laser even breached the surface of Sobrukai—Europa, I mean.”

“The Icebreaker you escorted last night was destroyed, yes,” my father said. “But we had a contingency plan. We hoped we might be able to destroy the Europans before they launched their armada, but we knew our chance of success was extremely slim. So we constructed a second Icebreaker, which was hidden inside a hollowed out asteroid and placed into orbit around Jupiter, to avoid detection by the Europans. As soon as their armada departed for Earth—leaving Europa unprotected—we launched the Icebreaker. It's already on its way.”

“When will it get there?”

“It should reach Europa about the same time the second wave of the enemy's armada reaches Earth.”

“What if we don't survive the first wave?” Debbie asked.

“Then the Icebreaker won't make any difference,” Shin said. “But that's why we have to make sure we do survive! Because then we may finally get our chance to end this war, once and for all.”

I waited for Graham or my father to agree with Shin, but both of them were silent.

“Anyone hungry?” my father asked. He held up his QComm. “I just got word the drones have finished preparing our dinner in the mess hall.”

“Thank God!” Milo shouted, already moving toward the exit. “I was afraid that Cheetoos and Root Beer would be my last meal. Let's eat!”

Whoadie and Debbie nodded in agreement, as did Chén once he heard the translation.

“I don't have much of an appetite,” I said. If I was about to die, I wanted the breakfast my mother made for me that morning to be my last meal—not some Salisbury steak dinner reheated in a moon base microwave.

My father nodded, and he and Shin began to lead the others toward the exit. Graham saw me straggling behind and threw an arm around me.

“Trust me, you'll change your mind once you see the spread up there,” Graham said. “They sent up a special five-course gourmet meal for us on your shuttle.”

“Why?” Debbie asked. “Because it will probably be our
last
meal?”

“Probably,” Graham replied, giving me a grim smile as he quickened his pace toward the exit. “That's why I, for one, intend to stuff my face.”

T
he Moon Base Alpha dining hall was a long rectangular room containing four circular tables made of brushed steel, flanked by matching benches bolted to the floor. Several modular food and beverage dispensers were embedded in one long wall, along with a few microwaves—but no replicator, as far as I could tell. The opposite wall was dominated by a large curved window that provided a stunning view of the massive Daedalus impact crater spread below us, like a monochromatic Grand Canyon.

As promised, an extravagant meal was already laid out on the tables, ready and waiting for us—what looked like more than enough food for several Thanksgiving dinners. One of the steel tables was covered with a silk tablecloth and set with eight place settings, complete with silver cutlery and fine bone china, and off to the side stood a row of four ATHIDs standing at silent attention, ready to serve us. A paper tuxedo was taped to each of their chest plates.

I took the last empty seat, between my father and Milo. Graham sat next to Debbie, and only then did I realize from their body language that the two of them were crushing on each other in a big way. Milo noticed it, too, and rolled his eyes, then nudged me and nodded at the two of them, then at Shin and Whoadie, who were both making furtive eye contact, too.

“This is just great,” he grumbled under his breath. “Here I thought I was being recruited for an epic space adventure, but it turns out I'm a guest star on
Love Boat: The Next Generation
.”

“Set course …
for romance!
” Shin quoted, doing such a perfect Patrick Stewart impersonation that Milo and I both laughed out loud.

Everyone began to pass dishes and serve themselves food—everyone except Debbie, who bowed her head and began to mumble silently to herself in prayer. We all froze for an awkward beat, then bowed our heads in solidarity until she finished.

Even with all of that delicious-looking food in front of me, I still didn't seem to have any appetite. But the day's bizarre events appeared to have left everyone else ravenous, and for a while they were all too busy stuffing their faces to talk. I cast a few sideways glances at my father, but he was shoveling food into his mouth robotically while avoiding eye contact with me.

Chén was the one who broke the silence.

“My phone is still not functioning,” he said, via his QComm's translator. “When will I be allowed to call home and speak to my family?”

My father checked the time on his own QComm.

“An hour before the vanguard is expected to reach us,” he said. “That's when the leaders of every nation around the world will break the news to their citizens. Once the cat is out of the bag, you'll be able to call home. We won't have long to talk, I'm afraid.”

“Why is the EDA waiting until the last minute to tell everyone about the invasion?” Whoadie asked. “That won't give the world much time to prepare for the vanguard's attack.”

“The world is already as prepared as it's ever going to be,” my father said.

Shin nodded. “The population is already beginning to panic, judging by what's on the global news feeds. People all over the world saw those EDA shuttles with their own eyes this morning when the shuttles were flying around to pick up essential recruits. The media has been airing and analyzing footage all day, along with information about their connection to Chaos Terrain's videogames. The whole world wants to know what's really going on.”

My father shook his head. “No they don't,” he said. “Once people find out about the invasion, chaos will spread like wildfire. Civilization will start to break down.”

Graham made a derisive sound. “The EDA knows people will be more likely to stand their ground and fight if they don't have time to turn tail and run for the hills.”

I looked at my father. He briefly met my gaze, then glanced over at Debbie, who was staring down at the countdown clock on her QComm. It was superimposed over a photo she'd set as her display background—three smiling, dark-haired boys resting their chins on the edge of a swimming pool in the bright sunshine.

“Handsome boys,” Graham said.

“Thank you,” she replied. “I'm worried about them.” Then she reached out and covered the countdown clock with her finger so she could still see her sons' faces.

“What about you two?” Debbie asked, addressing Shin and Graham. “Is the EDA going to let you contact your families, too?”

“I'm a bit nervous about that, actually,” Graham said. “Me mum is still alive, but she thinks I died back in the nineties. My father had already passed by the time I was recruited, so I left her all alone—and she's been alone ever since. The EDA has taken care of her financially, of course, but emotionally, well, what can one do?”

Graham blinked a few times, then swallowed hard.

“I hope she still recognizes me,” he said. “And if she does, I hope the sight of me doesn't give her a coronary—that is, if the PM's address doesn't do that first.” He shook his head. “The poor old girl is in her sixties now.”

I wasn't all that worried about how my own mother would react to the news our planet was being invaded. She had always been the picture of calm in the face of crisis. She seemed to thrive on it. But when she found out my father was still alive, well—that was another story.

“And you, Shin?” Debbie asked quietly. “Do you have any family, dear?”

Shin's smile faded slightly. “Unfortunately, my parents both passed away years ago. About halfway through my tour of duty up here. So I never got to say goodbye to them, which was extremely painful at the time.” Then his expression brightened, and he reached over and gave my father's shoulder a squeeze before slapping him on the back. “But my friend Xavier here had already gone through the same thing, and he helped me get through it. He lost his folks, too, a few—”

Shin cut himself off, then shot a nervous glance over at me and then my father, who was again staring intently at the tablecloth.

“Anyway,” Shin said, forging ahead, “right now I'm just thankful they got to live out their lives peacefully, and that they're not around for … what's about to happen.”

Everyone around the table nodded, save for my father, who seemed to be slowly turning to stone. Shin seemed to sense this, and he turned to me.

“How you doing, Zack?” he said. “You holding up okay?”

I nodded. Then I shook my head. Then I shrugged and shook my head again.

“Don't look so worried,” Shin said. “The general forgot to mention one thing during his little pep talk earlier.” He gave me a conspiratorial smile. “We have a secret weapon—the greatest drone pilot who ever lived.” He jerked a thumb at my father. “Did you know that your old man has shot down over three hundred enemy ships? He currently holds the EDA record.”

“Your father has also been awarded the Medal of Honor three times, by three different presidents,” Shin said. “Bet you didn't know that, did you?” He shook his head at my father. “He's too modest to even tell his own son.”

“Seriously?” I asked him. “
Three
Medals of Honor?”

My father nodded, closing his eyes to his embarrassment—the same way I did when I received compliments.

“They were
classified
Medals of Honor,” my father said. “It's not like anyone will ever find out about them.”

“I just did,” I said. “Mom will, too, when I get a chance to tell her.”

He gave me a half-smile, then dropped his eyes again.

My mother would be proud of him, but that might not be enough, and he knew it. I could see it in the defeated look that flashed across his face whenever I mentioned her. My father knew as well as I did that all of his noble motivations and heroic sacrifices might not be enough to win her forgiveness—or even her understanding—for what he'd done to us. Not in the limited amount of time she would have to do so. I still wasn't sure if I had forgiven him.

I glanced over at my father. I knew he wasn't planning to call my mother, but I'd do it for him, if I had to. I wasn't sure what he was supposed to say to her, after disappearing for seventeen years—I didn't know what I was going to say when we spoke, and I'd just seen her earlier that morning—or if she'd be willing to listen. But I had to try.

When Whoadie finished eating a moment later, she got up from the table and went over to the observation window, then spent a moment staring down at the enormous radio dish nestled inside the enormous crater far below. “What did you say that thing was again?” she asked.

“That's the Daedalus Observatory,” Shin said, with a tinge of pride in his voice. “It's the largest radio telescope ever built—by humans, at least.”

“We built it to talk to the aliens?” Whoadie asked.

Shin nodded. “This crater is near the center of the moon's far side, so this location is completely shielded from all of the radio interference created by humans, which makes it an ideal place to send and receive radio transmissions without them being monitored back on Earth.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, the Europans have never been interested in talking.”

“One of the first acts of the EDA,” Graham said, “was to create an internal task force called the Armistice Council, made up of a bunch of prominent scientists, including Carl Sagan—”

“I've been wondering about that,” I said, interrupting him. “How did they get Carl Sagan to keep the Europans a secret for so long?”

“He knew the news could create a worldwide panic and upend our civilization,” my father said. “He only agreed to remain silent on the condition that the EDA give him the funding necessary to educate the world's population and try to prepare them for the news that humanity is not alone. That was how he got funding for his
Cosmos
television series.”

Shin nodded. “Unfortunately, Dr. Sagan passed away before things really began to escalate with the Europans.”

“The Armistice Council kept on trying to establish peace talks after he died,” Graham added, “but the squids never sent a single reply.”

“Squids?” I repeated. “I thought we didn't know anything about the Europans' biology?”

“That's the official story, all right,” Graham said, adopting a conspiratorial tone. “But trust me, mate—they're squids. The brass knows a lot more about our enemy than they let on—they always have.” He glanced at Shin, then at my father, then back at me.

“What are you talking about?” Milo asked. “The Europeans declared war on us, for no reason!”

Everyone had given up on correcting Milo every time he referred to the Europans as Europeans—even poor Graham, who actually
was
European.

“That's the official story, all right,” Graham said. “But does it make any sense? Think it through. If the Europans had attacked us ten or twenty or even thirty years ago, we never would have been able to stop them.”

I sat bolt upright, then glanced at my father. But his eyes were locked on Graham.

“We couldn't even have stopped an asteroid or a meteor from wiping us out back then, much less an angry alien species with vastly superior weaponry and technology,” Graham continued. “They had the upper hand from the start, so why didn't they use it? Instead, they basically just handed us their technology and then gave us all the time in the world to reverse-engineer it. Then they gave us even more time to build a huge stockpile of millions of drones to defend ourselves against the drones
they
were building.”

It was more than a little disturbing to hear Graham vocalize many of the same questions that had been eating away at me ever since the EDA briefing.

“And they built all of their ships and drones in orbit above Europa, in plain view of
Galileo
's cameras! There's no way they weren't aware that we were watching them. They wanted us to see! It was like they were running a nonstop, year-round episode of
How It's Made by Aliens
.”

Graham noticed that Shin was now making a screw-loose gesture with his index finger and flipped him the bird as he kept on talking.

“The Europans had this huge advantage over us, but then they slowly, gradually lessened it on purpose, instead of just slaughtering us over a weekend. Why? Why send a small group of scout ships every year, year after year, to study us, mutilate our cattle, and attack our secret moon base?” He lowered his voice to a whisper. “But they weren't really even serious attacks. They never try to destroy the entire base or kill everyone inside during their annual Jovian Opposition assaults. Instead, they always do just enough damage to prove that they
could
destroy the whole base if they wanted to. Then they leave without actually doing it. Why?”

Shin interrupted him again. “Are you gonna let him spout this nonsense in front of the new recruits?” he asked my father. “Right before the attack? He'll demoralize them!”