“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.”