I laughed out loud, and for several more seconds I couldn’t stop laughing. I’d only just learned the term “gallows humor” a few months earlier, from a book we’d been assigned in American Literature about the Civil War. At the time, it wasn’t a type of humor I thought I would ever be in a position to experience. But now, as hearing Chén belt out Roddy Piper’s battle cry from They Live in Chinese struck me as one of the funniest things I’d ever heard in my life, I understood the concept perfectly
“All drones cleared for launch!” the general announced. “Let’s go get ’em.”
The eight of us launched our Interceptors, joining the steady stream of drones already pouring out of the hangar, under the control of pilots located back on Earth.
Together, we flew out to meet the alien invaders.
Our Interceptors met the Europan vanguard halfway between Earth and the edge of asteroid belt, just within the orbital path of Mars. On my tactical display, the cascade of dark green triangles that represented the enemy vanguard began to slow its speed as it closed in on our forces, represented by an arrowhead-shaped mass of white triangles.
There were a great deal more green triangles than white ones.
But with the fearlessness of drone pilots, we continued to charge forward, straight toward our advancing enemy, until we were just within visual contact. Then, at my father’s order, we all slammed on our brakes, and our wing came to a collective, drifting stop. “Bad guys at twelve o’clock,” my father announced over the comm. “Fangs out. Prepare to engage, as soon as we’re within range. You can bet they will.”
A collective reply of “Weapons hot!” echoed over the comm channel.
There they were: an impossibly vast swarm of Glaive Fighters, arrayed in a protective grid-like shield around the massive Dreadnaught Sphere gleaming in their midst, the warped reflection of the starfield streaking across its chromed surface as they hurtled toward us. The Disrupter had yet to be deployed—it was still concealed inside the armored skin of the Dreadnaught Sphere, along with hundreds of thousands of troopships, carrying millions of ground-force drones.
“Well, hello there!” I heard my father say over the comm. “This is General Xavier Lightman of the Earth Defense Alliance. Where do you assholes think you’re headed?” After a pause, he added: “Klaatu barada nikto, fellas.”
Then, perhaps taking his own stab at some gallows humor, he whistled the five-note message used to communicate with the friendly ETs in Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The same tones that bookended each of the Europans’ montage transmissions.
The only response to my father’s whistled entreaty came a few tense heartbeats later, when the spearhead of Glaive Fighters leading the vanguard finally came within range of our ships and opened fire on us.
The black void around us erupted in a deluge of crisscrossing blue plasma bolts and streaks of red laser fire as ships on both sides broke formation to attack.
Our Interceptors returned fire, and then ships began exploding above and below me, to port and starboard, aft and stern, lighting up the mirror surface of my Interceptor in a horrific light show. A similar cascade of contained atomic explosions began to light up the enemy ranks out in front of me, like tangled chains of Christmas tree lights being switched on, only to short out a second later.
I aimed my eighty-eight right into the torrent of enemy fighters and fanned the trigger on my flight stick to fire off a rapid volley of plasma bolts. The Glaives were packed so tightly in front me that it seemed difficult to miss, and for a few seconds I felt invincible and unstoppable, like I was using the Force.
But then I was passing through the cloud of arcing, swooping Glaive Fighters, evading their laser and plasma fire, which I did reflexively, almost without thinking—and I smiled because everything had become clear once again, now that I was finally facing off against my true enemy. The doubt and uncertainty my father had planted in my mind were gone. So was the lead ball of fear in my gut. Now, all that remained was primal, territorial rage, and the clear sense of purpose that came with it.
Kill or be killed. Conquer or be conquered. Survive or go extinct.
These were not difficult decisions. In fact, the answers were hardwired into the human brain. The only thing I could think was: Now for wrath, now for ruin and a red nightfall!
I continued slicing my Interceptor through the enemy’s ranks at sharp right angles, firing first, then moving, then always moving and always firing, firing at the shifting pattern of targets cascading across my HUD, overlaying the folding formations of Glaive Fighters in front of my ship, which moved just like they had always moved in our old Armada and Terra Firma missions.
I began to slip into the zone—the old familiar rhythm I would sometimes fall into when I played Armada, where everything just seemed to click. With the help of the music in my headphones, I’d locked into the enemy’s patterns of movement, their little digital idiosyncrasies that allowed me to anticipate their attacks and evasive maneuvers. I was on fire. I couldn’t seem to miss, while at the same time, nothing could seem to hit me.
For a few seconds, it felt just like playing Armada back home.