I glanced around the cabin. Everyone was staring at me in wide-eyed surprise.
“That was you?” Milo said, laughing. “You’re the kamikaze dumbass who chased that Glaive Fighter into the hangar before it went kaboom?”
I nodded.
Everyone stared at me for an awkward beat; then Arbogast clapped his hands.
“Well—I know you’re about to depart for MBA, so I don’t want to hold you up,” he said. “I just wanted to thank each of you, and commend you on your bravery—”
“Excuse me, sir,” Milo said, in his thick Philly accent. “But where the hell is RedJive? You know, The Red Baron? He’s the top-ranked Armada pilot in the world, right? So why ain’t he here? Aren’t you gonna recruit him, too?”
Arbogast shot a glance at me, then looked back at Milo.
“RedJive was recruited decades ago,” he said. “He’s our most decorated pilot.”
Arbogast studied my reaction while the others exchanged looks of surprise.
“But who the hell is he?” Milo asked. “Or she?” He gave Whoadie and Debbie a placating smile.
Arbogast nodded. “RedJive is the call sign used by General Xavier Lightman.”
One at a time, the others each turned to look at the name patch sewn onto my uniform. Then they all stared at me for a few seconds. When I failed to say anything, Debbie finally broke the silence.
“Any relation, Zack?” she asked quietly.
I looked at Arbogast. He seemed interested in hearing how I would answer, too.
“He’s my father,” I said. “But I never knew him. I grew up believing he died when I was still just a baby. I just found out the EDA faked his death when they recruited him.”
They all stared back at me in silence, taking this in—except for Chén, who had to read the translation off his QComm before he understood what I’d just said. When he looked up from its display a few seconds later, he let out a long low whistle.
“And now you’re on your way to the moon to meet him for the first time?” Debbie said.
I nodded.
“Jesus, kid!” Milo said, shaking his head. “And I thought my day was turning out weird.”
I turned back to Arbogast. “Do you know him?”
“A little,” he said. “I had the honor of working with General Lightman briefly a few years ago. He was one of our primary military consultants on Armada.” He studied my face for a second, then shook his head. “You look just like him.”
I nodded. “Yeah, so I keep hearing.”
We heard a low whine as the shuttle engines began to power up. Arbogast stood up straight and snapped us all a clumsy salute.
“Thank you again for your service,” he said. “And good luck up there!”
Then he exited the shuttle before anyone could even return his salute. After he left, the ATHID Meadows was controlling turned to slap a large red button on the bulkhead. The shuttle’s doors slid closed with a pressurized hiss, barely audible over the growing roar of the engines.
“Strap in, recruits,” Meadows told us over his comm. “We’re cleared for departure.”
I pulled on my safety harness and fumbled with the buckle until it finally clicked into place; then I pulled the straps tight against my chest. Once everyone was properly buckled in, Meadows’ ATHID gave us all a robotic thumbs-up.
“The journey to Moon Base Alpha should only take about forty minutes,” he said. “Once we clear the Earth’s atmosphere, we’ll be moving extremely fast. If we run into any hostiles along the way, you’ll each be able to use your QComms to control one of the omnidirectional laser turrets mounted on the underside of the hull. But our scopes are clear right now, so it should be smooth sailing. Just sit back and try to enjoy the ride.”
The drone returned to the cockpit, and I saw it dock with its charging station just before the hatch closed. When I glanced around the cabin, I found that my companions were once again staring at me. Debbie and Whoadie quickly averted their eyes, but Milo and Chén both just kept right on staring, as if a sparkly horn had suddenly sprouted from my forehead. I ignored them as long as I could; then I slowly mimed cranking up the middle finger of my right hand. When it reached full mast, they both finally seemed to get the hint and looked away.
I took out my QComm and tried punching my mother’s mobile number into the keypad, but the call didn’t go through, and a notice popped up informing me that access to the civilian phone system was still restricted.
I sighed and snapped the QComm back onto my wrist.
WE LIFTED OFF a few minutes later. As before, the ride remained perfectly smooth, even as the shuttle climbed through the atmosphere and accelerated to escape velocity—and the sky outside our windows gradually began to turn from light blue to pitch black.
And this time, when we reached the edge of all that blackness, the shuttle didn’t turn around and begin to fall back to Earth. We kept right on going, out into space. As on my first shuttle trip, the gravity inside the cabin never wavered, and when I closed my eyes, it felt as if we were motionless, even though we were moving so fast that within just a few minutes, we’d already traveled far enough away from Earth for me to be able to see the entire planet all at once, something I’d dreamed of doing for as long as I could remember.
I stared down at the radiant blue-white sphere that was home to everything and everyone I loved and scanned the gaps in the swirling cloud layer until I located the western coastline of North America, then followed it until I spotted the familiar inlet of Portland, just barely visible. I realized then just how far away I already was from home. And it was getting farther and farther away every second.
That’s what we’re fighting for, I thought. That’s what they’re trying to take from us.
I pressed my face against the window beside me, craning my neck to see as far ahead of us as possible. And there it was: a radiant gray-white bulb, shining in the darkness far ahead of us. I’d spent my entire life believing that no human being had set foot on its surface since the last Apollo mission in 1972. Now I was headed there myself, aboard a spacecraft that incorporated reverse-engineered alien technology, to meet the father I had never known. What was he like now? What would he say when he saw me? How would I react?
Across from me, I noticed that Debbie had her head down, and her hands were clasped together in her lap. Her eyes were closed, and she was moving her lips in silence.
“What are you doing?” Milo asked, sounding genuinely curious.
Debbie silently whispered “Amen” to herself, then opened her eyes and looked over at him.
“I was obviously trying to pray, Milo,” she said.
“You were praying?” he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “To who?”
Debbie stared at him in disbelief. “To Jesus, Our Lord and Savior, of course.”
“Oh, yeah, of course,” Milo said, chuckling. “Just one question, church lady—in what part of the Bible did Jesus warn us about this alien invasion?” He glanced around the cabin at the rest of us for support. “Because I must have missed that verse!”
Debbie stared back at him, instantly livid. She opened her mouth, but his question seemed to have her so flustered that she didn’t know how to respond.
Whoadie did, though.
“ ‘And the fifth angel sounded,’ ” she recited, locking eyes with Milo, “ ‘and I saw a star fall from heaven unto the earth: and to him was given the key of the bottomless pit. And he opened the bottomless pit; and there arose a smoke out of the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace.… And the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.’ ”
“What pit?” Milo asked. His smile was gone. “What are you talking about, kid?”
I’d been raised to believe there was no real difference between religion and mythology, but Whoadie’s words spooked me nevertheless. The verse she quoted conjured up a vivid memory of the cataclysmic fire and smoke roiling off the Crystal Palace blast doors as they buckled and warped under a hail of alien laser fire.
“ ‘And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast,’ ” she said, “ ‘and they worshipped the beast, saying, who is like unto the beast? Who is able to make war with him?’ ”
When she finished, everyone just stared at her for a moment. Then Debbie began to applaud, and Chén and I joined in. Whoadie blushed and looked down at her feet.
“My uncle Franklin loves to quote Scripture,” she said, shrugging. “I been hearing him recite Revelations since before I could walk.”
“Well, I vote for no more Bible verses,” Milo said, raising his right hand. “That seriously creeped me out.”
Debbie nodded. “Quoting Revelations is probably a bad idea right now,” she said. “I think we’re all terrified enough already.”
Whoadie gave Milo and Debbie a look of disappointment before she replied.
“ ‘He which hath no stomach to this fight, let him depart,’ ” she recited, still glaring at the two adults. “ ‘His passport shall be made, and crowns for convoy put into his purse—we would not die in that man’s company, that fears his fellowship to die with us.’ ”