Armada (27 page)

“Are you going to call her?” I asked, making him jump slightly.

He shook his head. “I was about to send her a video message instead,” he said. “I recorded twenty-three takes of it, but they're all terrible—so maybe I'll just give up and send her the least terrible one. …”

I plucked the QComm out of his hand and began to dial a number.

“Are you going to call her?” he asked, like a nervous schoolboy. “Right now?”

I nodded.

“I need to let her know I'm okay,” I said. “And before you send her some psychotic video message, I should probably break the news to her that you're alive first—otherwise she'll have a coronary when your face pops up on her iPhone.”

My father gave me a relieved smile, but before he could reply, we were interrupted by Milo's voice, coming from his nearby pod. When he'd climbed inside, he must've forgotten to close his canopy all the way, and now we could hear every word of his conversation.

“Ma, it's gonna be okay!” Milo said. “You know how they've been training everyone to fight with videogames? Well I'm one of the best
Armada
pilots in the world, and so that's why they recruited me early! Yeah! And guess what? Now I'm stationed up here on the moon!”

“The moon?” she cried. “That's ridiculous, Milo! Don't you lie to your mother!” She raised a giant TV remote. “I need your help with this blasted TV. The same nonsense is on every channel!”

I glanced over and saw Milo raise his QComm's camera, then tilt it to give her a quick look at the Thunderdome, and at the dazzling field of stars projected on its dome ceiling. She gasped and Milo grinned, lowering the QComm's camera and aiming it back at his own face.

“Told ya,” he said.

His mother started to wail in fear—there was no other word for it.

“They put
you
in charge of defending us? Now I know we're doomed!”

“Ma, please,” Milo said, sounding more and more like a little boy with each word. “Relax. I'm gonna stop these things, I promise. Don't worry. I'll do whatever it takes to keep you and little Kilgore from getting hurt. You're gonna be proud of me when this is all done, you wait and see—”

I didn't get to find out who or what Kilgore was, because my father walked over and closed Milo's pod canopy for him. Then he walked back over and watched nervously as I raised his QComm and placed the video call to my mother.

A second later, my mother's drawn and worried face appeared on the QComm's display. She was at work, of course, standing in one of the hospital's rooms, clustered in front of a TV with a dozen other nurses. Even now, after the announcement, she still hadn't abandoned the people she cared for.

“Zack!” my mother shouted the moment she saw my face. She rushed out into the empty hospital corridor, holding her phone up in front of her. “Thank God you're okay, honey! You are okay, aren't you?”

“I'm fine, Mom,” I said. “You know, aside from the impending alien invasion.”

“Can you believe it?” she said. “It's all over the news—every channel!” She held the phone directly in front of her face. “Where are you? I want you to get home, Zackary, right this minute!”

“I can't, Mom,” I said. “The Earth Defense Alliance needs me.”

“What are you talking about?” she said, sounding increasingly hysterical.

“I enlisted,” I told her. “In the Earth Defense Alliance. This morning. They made me a flight officer. See?”

I set the phone down on the console in front of me, then stepped back so she could see my uniform. The sight appeared to leave her speechless.

“Honey, where are you?” she finally managed to ask.

“I'm on the moon,” I said, panning the QComm's camera around the room, and then up at the dome above. “Moon Base Alpha. It's a secret base on the far side. I'm going to help fight off the invasion from up here.” I gave her a smile. “All those years I spent playing videogames weren't wasted after all, eh?”

She broke down into tears then, but she still managed to sound incredibly pissed off.

“Zackary Ulysses Lightman!” she shouted, making the phone tremble fiercely in her hands. “You are not fighting any goddamn aliens! You come home right this minute!”

“Mom, it's going to be okay,” I said, as soothingly as I could. “I'm not alone up here, okay? That's the other thing I have to tell you. It's going to be a shock, so brace yourself.”

I pulled my father in front of the QComm's camera, then stood just behind him. His legs were shaking so badly I worried he might collapse.

“Oh my God,” my mother said, covering her mouth. “Xavier? Is that you?”

“Hello, Pam,” he said, his voice shaking. “It's—it's really good to see you.”

“It can't be you,” I heard my mother say. “It can't be.”

“It's really him, Mom,” I said. “He's a general in the Earth Defense Alliance. A war hero.” I smiled at him. “He's been awarded three Medals of Honor. Haven't you?”

He didn't say anything. He just stared at her, like a deer in the headlights.

“Xavier?” she said. “It's really you?”

“It's really me,” he said, his voice breaking after each word. “I'm alive—and I'm so sorry. I—I can't tell you how much I've missed you—and how sorry I am for leaving you to raise our son all on your own. I'm sorry for a lot of other things, too, but …”

She started crying again. My father's face contorted in pain, and that was when I turned and walked away, well out of earshot, to let them talk in private—and to avoid a crying jag of my own.

I glanced around the room and saw Shin talking quietly with Milo. Nearby, Graham and Debbie were doing the same thing. Whoadie and Chén were both squeezed into Chén's pod, seizing their last chance to make out.

I climbed into my own control pod and lowered the canopy. Then I took out my QComm and closed my eyes, thinking about what I was going to say to Lex.

I tapped her name on my very short contact list, and her face appeared on my display so quickly that it startled me.

Her name, rank, and current location appeared in the bottom right-hand corner of my display. According to the readout, she'd already somehow managed to get herself promoted to captain, and she was still located at Sapphire Station, the EDA operations stronghold near Billings, Montana.

She was sitting inside a darkened control pod similar to mine, except that hers appeared to be designed specifically to control Sentinel mechs and ATHIDs and included a pair of “power gauntlets” that let her control the drone's massive hands with her own.

“Hey you! I was hoping I'd get to see your face again before the world ended.”

“I considered putting it off until the weekend. I didn't want to seem too eager.”

“No, of course not.” She smirked. “So, what's it like up on the moon, Lieutenant?”

“Are we being honest?”

“Why not?” she said. “We probably won't live to regret anything we say.”

“It's pretty terrifying up here, actually. How are things down there?”

“Equally insane,” she said. “But civilization hasn't descended into total chaos yet. People seem to be holding it together. If the news is to be believed, it seems like the whole world is ready to fight back. It's kind of amazing.”

It was hard to hear so much hope in her voice and not be able to tell her about the second Icebreaker—or my father's theory. I desperately wanted to hear what she thought, but there was no time.

“You ready to give these aliens what for, Lieutenant?” she asked.

“As ready as I'll ever be, Lieutenant— Excuse me, Captain Larkin.” I gave her another salute—then, like a goofball, I pretended to poke myself in the eye as I did, just to hear the sound of her laugh. “How'd you get promoted so fast?” I asked.

“For heroism in the Battle of Crystal Palace,” she said. “And I had the high score on the ground, as far as enemy drones downed. Plus I didn't blow up half the installation.”

“Yeah, they frown on that.”

“Here, I'm sending you a present,” she said, tapping at her QComm display with both thumbs. “A playlist of my favorite
Terra Firma
battle tunes. I like to rock out when I'm knocking clocks out,” she said. “Helps with my aim.”

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “Mine, too.”

A
file transfer complete
message popped up on my QComm a split second later—she'd somehow bypassed the security software, so it didn't even ask me for permission before it transferred the songs onto my device. The music player opened, displaying her playlist—which, at first glance, appeared to be a mix of songs by only Joan Jett, Heart, and Pat Benatar.

“This should come in handy,” I said, grinning. “
Gracias.
”

“
De nada.
”

I asked her to show me how to do the file transfer trick myself. When she was done, I managed to successfully send her a copy of my father's
Raid the Arcade
mix.

She scrolled through the track list for a few seconds, smiling and nodding.

“Hey, wanna hear some good news?” she asked.

“Yes please!” I said. “More than I probably ever have in my life.”

“I think I'm going to be assigned to help defend Moon Base Alpha from down here,” she said. “You know, provided they don't attack Earth first. We've been running MBA defense sims nonstop since I arrived.”

I smiled—something I wouldn't have thought possible a few seconds earlier.

“So you're going to have my back, eh?”

She nodded. “Just give me the QComm ID number on your drone controller station,” she said. “I figured out a hack that will allow me to use it pinpoint your location, and tell me which drone you're operating during combat.”

“When did you have time to do that?”

“I've been sitting here all day, exploring the QComm network between training sims,” she said. “The EDA set it up a lot like a traditional computer network, which made it really easy to figure out and use—that's probably why they did it that way. So what's your QCLID?”

“My what?”

“Your Quantum Communicator Link Identification number?”

I stared at the icons that ringed the edge of my display screen and shrugged.

“I have no idea.”

She grinned at me and rolled her eyes. “See that gear icon at the top right of your display? Those are your drone controller station settings.”

“Right,” I said, tapping it with my finger. “I knew that.”

She helped me navigate through menu screens until I located the twelve-digit-long numeric code she needed and read it off to her.

“Got it,” she said, as her fingers danced across one of the touchscreens in front of her. “Now I can keep an eye on you.”

“I feel much better now,” I said. And I did, too.

“You should,” she said. “I've got the skills to pay the bills.” She winked at me—all smooth, like a movie star. “And I'm to make sure you keep all of your pieces in one piece,” she said. “Until I get a piece. Get me, soldier?”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said. “I believe I do.”

Then I saluted, and it made her laugh—but a few seconds in, it somehow turned into a strangled sob.

“Fuck, I'm scared, Zack,” she said. She bit her lower lip—to stop it from trembling, I think.

“I'm scared, too,” I said, suddenly unable to meet her eyes—even through a screen. “My whole life, I always imagined fighting off an alien invasion would be some epic adventure. That it would be like the movies—humanity would triumph in the end.”

“
Invasion of the Body Snatchers,
” she said. “The pod people always win. That's the smart way to invade—not this
Independence Day/Pacific Rim–
job crap.”

Her words brought me back to my conversation with my father, and the doubt he'd managed to instill in me during the course of it. Was he right? Would the Icebreaker save humanity, or only seal our doom?

“I don't want to die for nothing, Zack,” Lex said, looking determined now. “Do you think there's a chance we can stop them? All of them? That humans can survive this?”

I nodded my head way too enthusiastically.

“Yes!” I answered, way too quickly. “We have to.” I stopped my head from nodding. “Do, or do not, there is no try, and all that stuff.”

She laughed and gave me a smile.

“I'm really glad we met, Zack,” she said. She was twisting her fingers into knots in her lap. “I just wish …”

“Me too, Lex.”

She took a deep breath. “ ‘I must not fear,' ” she recited. “ ‘Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.' ”

I laughed and picked up the quote where she'd left off. “ ‘I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me.' ”

“ ‘And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path,' ” she continued. “ ‘Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.' ”

She exhaled slowly; then we shared a smile.

“If the world doesn't end tonight, and we're both still alive tomorrow, then I'm taking you out on a date,” she said. “Deal?”

“Deal.”

0h14m49s remaining.

My father finished his preparations at the command center and climbed down into his own drone controller pod, which was adjacent to mine. Then the eight of us sat there, each alone in our stations, watching the last fifteen minutes elapse on the countdown clock.

The general still looked as if he was trying to recover from the emotional strain of speaking with my mom. I didn't want to ask what he and my mother had talked about. But I still wanted to say something to him, to try to make peace while there was still time.