His gaze drifted back up to the countdown clock mounted on the wall above his desk, and mine followed: 7 hours 02 minutes and 11 seconds remaining. I glanced down at my QComm and saw the countdown mirrored there. It was hard to believe the attack and subsequent battle had all occurred in less than an hour. I watched the seconds tick off.
“But this was your first and only warning,” the admiral said. “You screw up like this again … you’ll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.”
I stared at him in surprise. He glared back at me for several seconds, then gave me an almost imperceptible smile. I suddenly realized who I was talking to—Admiral Vance was also Viper, the Armada pilot currently ranked in fourth place, just above Rostam. Viper was also the name of a character in Top Gun, the film he’d just quoted.
Until now, I hadn’t known that Viper and Admiral Vance were the same guy. This little detail had yet to be revealed in Armada’s ongoing storyline—which now seemed to have spilled over into reality.
The admiral was still staring at me, waiting for a response. His grin was gone.
“Do we understand each other, son?”
I winced at the admiral’s choice of words.
“Yes sir,” I said through clenched teeth. “But I’m not your son.”
He stared at me for a moment; then he smiled and nodded.
“I know,” he said. “You’re Xavier Lightman’s kid.”
We locked eyes.
“You look just like him,” the admiral said, matter-of-factly. “You fly like him, too.”
The office seemed to be spinning now, whirling around me with increasing velocity.
“You knew my father?” I finally managed to ask.
“I still know him,” he said. He pointed to his QComm. “I just spoke with General Lightman before you arrived in my office. We talked about you, naturally.”
The words fell on me like an avalanche.
Since I was a boy, I had imagined countless absurd scenarios in which my father had somehow faked his own death, or lost his memory, or been kidnapped by the CIA and brainwashed into becoming an assassin like Jason Bourne. But the fantasies had been just that—fantasies. I’d never really doubted that he was dead. Not until this moment.
“My father is dead,” I said hollowly. “He didn’t live to see my first birthday.”
“Your father is alive,” the admiral said. He reached up to touch the jagged scar on his right cheek. “And I owe him my life. We all do.”
My mind kept rejecting that any of this was even possible. That any of this was really happening. My father wasn’t just alive, but a general in the Earth Defense Alliance? A war hero, tasked with saving the world?
I opened my mouth, but Vance seemed to anticipate my next question before I asked it.
“The EDA faked your father’s death when he was first recruited. All our early recruits were forced to cut off all contact with their old lives. In return, the EDA promised to take measures to help support each of their families financially, while they were off saving the world.”
So my father had knowingly and willingly deceived and abandoned us? How could he have—
Admiral Vance cut into my thoughts again. “Try not to be angry at your father. He did it to protect you. To protect the world. And don’t feel too sorry for yourself, either. Your family wasn’t the only one that had to make sacrifices.” He glanced down at the wedding ring on his left hand. “Trust me, Zack. Your father never forgot about you. He was actually kind of a crybaby over how much he missed you, to be honest.” He studied me. “And even though you weren’t aware of it, he actually reentered your life several years ago, albeit in a very limited way.
“General Lightman has been supervising your training ever since the Armada simulation first went online,” Vance said. “He took part in nearly all of your training missions. He also happens to be Armada’s highest-ranking pilot. His call sign—”
“RedJive!” I blurted out. “My father is The Red Baron?”
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 contained 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. A digital copy has also been sent to your QComm.”
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.