Just as I finished reading the message, that synthesized female voice spoke over the base PA system. “Lieutenant Zack Lightman. You are ordered to report to Admiral Vance in the command center on level three immediately.”
As Lex stepped aside to clear my path, she softly sang, “You’re in trouble.”
THE THREE-DIMENSIONAL map on my QComm took me on a circuitous multilevel route through the base. It seemed to be detouring me around the sections most heavily damaged by the hangar explosion, but I still saw signs of its aftermath everywhere.
As I made my way down half-collapsed corridors filled with smoke and sparking electrical fires, several ATHID emergency response teams marched past me, coming the other direction. I also saw a few of my fellow drone operators, many of them covered in dust or ash. Some shuffled along like zombies, while others ran past me in hysterics. At every turn, I expected to see a corpse—someone who had died because of me.
The dreamlike euphoria I’d felt during my arrival here had now completely subsided—replaced with a cocktail of confusion, uncertainty, and, most of all, doom.
When I passed through the security doors leading into the Crystal Palace command center, the two guards at the entrance seemed to know who I was and what I was doing there. In fact, it seemed as if everyone who saw me fixed me with a withering glare. But I glared back at each of them defiantly.
When I finally reached Admiral Vance’s office, I paused outside in the corridor and practiced saluting a few times, mimicking the way I’d seen soldiers do it in the movies. Then I took a deep breath and pressed my hand to the scanner plate on the wall. A tone sounded and the doors slid open. With some effort, I stepped inside, and the doors hissed shut again behind me.
Admiral Vance was sitting behind his desk, but he stood up when I walked in. I halted just inside the entrance and gave him the amateur salute I’d just finished rehearsing.
He surprised me by straightening his posture and returning it, raising a rigid right hand to his brow in a blur, then dropping it like the blade of a guillotine a half-second later. That was when I noticed the sidearm on his right hip. An old-fashioned nine-millimeter Beretta. I was pretty sure he hadn’t been wearing it earlier in the briefing auditorium.
I lowered my salute, but made sure to remain at rigid attention, while doing my best to avoid making direct eye contact with the admiral—which was surprisingly difficult, considering he was only rocking one eye. The admiral let the silence wear on, and I realized that he was waiting for me to speak first.
“Lieutenant Zack Lightman,” I said, clearing my throat. “Reporting as ordered … sir.”
“At ease, Lieutenant,” the admiral replied, sounding surprisingly calm. “Sit.”
He motioned to a metal chair beside his desk. As he took his own seat, the admiral reached over to shut off one of the computer monitors arrayed around his desk in a semicircle, but just before the screen went dark, I caught a glimpse of what was displayed on it—the same mug shot that was on my EDA security badge was clearly visible at the top, along with my senior yearbook photo and a lot of densely packed text—all of my private information, including my school records. Before I’d walked into his office, the admiral had been skimming my entire life story—and he’d made no effort to conceal this from me.
“You had quite a first day, Mr. Lightman,” he said. “You’re going to be the first recruit in EDA history to be court-martialed less than an hour after they enlisted.” He smiled. “You might make The Guinness Book of World Records, provided it still exists after tomorrow.”
“Admiral, sir—I’m still not even sure what it was I did wrong,” I said, and that was mostly true. “I was trying to stop that ship from getting inside the base before it self-destructed! What did you expect me to do?”
“To follow orders, Lieutenant,” the admiral said, and I thought I finally detected a hint of anger in his voice. He tapped a key on his computer, and his display screen lit up. He clicked his mouse a few times and my Interceptor appeared on the monitor, turning into a steep dive to pursue the last remaining Glaive Fighter as it streaked down into the open mouth of the drone launch tunnel while the admiral shouted over the comlink: “Disengage and cease fire! Do not attempt to pursue that ship into the launch tunnels! I repeat, disengage and cease fire!” “Hey, you skipped right over all the footage of me kicking ass,” I protested. “Can’t we watch a little of that? You know, for context?”
The admiral ignored me. The clip cut to another camera angle, which showed the last Glaive Fighter as it emerged from the opposite end of the drone launch tunnel and entered the hangar, with my ship close on its tail, still firing at it. The admiral paused the footage again.
“I issued that order for a good reason, Lieutenant,” he said calmly. “If you’d followed it and broken off your pursuit, an armored safety blockade would have locked into place over that launch tunnel at both ends, preventing the enemy ship from flying into it. Like this—see?”
On another monitor, the admiral pointed to an animated wire-frame graphic that showed a Glaive Fighter approaching the launch tunnel’s open mouth. But just before it got there, a thick circular disc slammed into place, covering the launch tunnel’s entrance. A second later the enemy ship crashed into it and exploded in a simulated fireball.
“But that’s not what happened, is it?” the admiral said. “Because you ignored my order and continued to pursue the enemy ship at close range, the transponder inside your Interceptor disabled the tunnel’s safety blockades to allow it safe passage. Unfortunately, this also allowed the Glaive Fighter you were chasing to do the very same thing. Thanks to you, it was able to breach our defenses and enter our drone hangar, where it promptly detonated its reactor core.”
He hit Play on the footage again, and I watched in silence as the Glaive Fighter completed its self-destruct sequence and detonated.
“Bravo, IronBeagle,” the admiral said, giving me a sarcastic round of applause. “By some miracle no personnel were killed in that explosion,” he said. “But we lost over five hundred brand-new ADI-88 Interceptors.”
I winced. That was a lot.
“I did shoot down more enemy fighters than any of the other pilots,” I said.
“True,” he replied. “But your little screwup did more damage to this base than the enemy’s sneak attack managed to.” He frowned at me. “Whose side are you on?”
I didn’t have a response for that. The even-tempered disappointment in his voice was somehow far worse than the Full Metal Jacket–style bawling-out I’d expected. “Those drones took years to build, at a cost of millions,” he said. “But that’s just money. To humanity, they were priceless, since we’ve run out of time to build any more of them.”
“But, sir—how was I supposed to know about those automatic security blockades?” I said. “That was never a part of the game. In Armada, the Sobrukai never tried to fly one of their fighters into an EDA base through its drone launch tunnels.”
“That’s because we didn’t think there was any way for the enemy’s fighters to get past the launch tunnel security blockades.” He sighed. “Apparently, no one believed one of our own pilots would be dumb enough to tail an enemy ship making a suicide run into our drone hangar.”
“It’s not fair to pin that on me,” I shot back. “I’ve never even been in combat before—and I never wanted to be! You brought me here and told me we were being invaded by aliens about ten minutes before they attacked this fucking place! I’m a high school kid! I’m supposed to be in school right now!”
The admiral nodded, raising both hands in a calming gesture.
“You’re right,” he said. “I apologize. This isn’t your fault.” He smirked. “Not entirely.”
His answer threw me. I didn’t respond.
“The EDA always knew the risks of using a videogame simulation as the sole method of training civilian recruits,” he said. “But under the circumstances there was no other option. It was the only way to locate and train millions of average people to operate combat drones in a short period of time without anyone knowing it. Your act of insubordination today—and its disastrous aftermath—are inevitable results of putting an unstable, undisciplined civilian like you on the front lines. But you’re one of our most gifted pilots, so in your case, I was told the benefits would outweigh the risks.” He let out a weary sigh. “Obviously, that turned out not to be the case.”
He paused, giving me another chance to speak up in my own defense. I didn’t take it.
“If you act without thinking in an Armada dogfight, there are no real consequences,” he went on. “Your player ranking drops a few places and the game gives you a canned cut-scene lecture that you promptly ignore.” He leaned forward. “But things have changed. This isn’t a game anymore. We can’t afford any more mistakes like the one you just made. Understood?”
“So does this mean you’re not going to court-martial me?”
“Of course not,” Vance said. “We need you, Lieutenant. Once the Europan armada begins to arrive, we’re going to need every able-bodied human being on Earth to take up arms and help us fight them off. And that may still not be enough.”