But I stopped just shy of the exit, and turned back to take another look at the thousands of Interceptors racked into the curved dome wall around me, and at the automated drone-assembly plants at its far end, their matter compilers and nanobots working even now to construct more ADI-88s—which they would probably never have time to finish, if what Vance had told me about the aliens’ speed was true. I winced as another wave of shame washed over me at the memory of my colossal screwup at Crystal Palace, and the hangar full of drones it had cost us.
But then I recalled one of the final images from the EDA briefing film, of the Europan armada, a massive deadly ring of warships encircling the icy moon, all now headed toward Earth.
Those drones we lost at Crystal Palace wouldn’t have made any difference. Nor would all of the drones here, or those stockpiled back on Earth.
My father saw me lingering inside the hangar and ran back to fetch me. “What’s wrong, Zack?”
I laughed out loud at the absurdity of his question.
“What’s wrong?” I repeated. “Gee, let me think now …”
“We need to get moving, Lieutenant,” he said. “There isn’t much time.”
But I didn’t move. My father waited.
I turned to study his face, then asked him the question I needed to ask: “How badly outnumbered are we going to be? Once the entire armada arrives?”
“So badly it’s not really even worth thinking about,” he said immediately, without even pausing to consider his answer. And the lack of concern in his tone pissed me off all over again.
“Then why the hell did you bring me up here?” I asked. “So that you could have a quick father-son playdate before we both die horribly?” I jerked a thumb at the shuttle. “If we’re doomed, just tell me right now. I’d rather fly that thing back home and die with my mother. She’s all alone now, you realize?”
My father looked as if I’d just gutted him, and I felt a pang of regret—but it was mingled with a twisted sense of satisfaction. It felt good to hurt his feelings—it was payback for the way his choices had irrevocably damaged my own.
It took my father a moment to respond. When he did, his tone of voice had hardened.
“I didn’t ‘bring’ you up here, Lieutenant. You voluntarily enlisted as a solider in the Earth Defense Alliance. You don’t get to run home now just because you’re scared. Trust me.”
“I’m not scared,” I said, lying right through my teeth.
“If that’s true, then you’re a fucking idiot,” he said matter-of-factly. “But I know that’s not the case.” He looked me in the eyes. “I’ve been fighting this war for half my life now, Zack, and I’m terrified. You don’t know how long I’ve lived in fear of this day, and now it’s here.”
“You’re not making me feel any better right now,” I told him.
“I know that, Lieutenant,” he said. “I also know how hopeless our chances must seem, given what you’ve been told and the images you’ve been shown. But believe me, Son, there are a lot of things about our situation—and our enemy—that you still don’t know.”
He cast a glance back over his shoulder, toward a large security camera mounted above the nearest exit, sweeping its lens slowly back and forth. Then he turned back to me, and I think that was when I caught my first glimpse of something truly unsettling in my father’s eyes. A hint of the very madness that I’d always feared I might have inherited from him.
“We can’t talk now, or here,” he said, lowering his voice to a whisper. “But things aren’t nearly as hopeless as they seem, Zack. I promise you.” He gave me a hopeful smile. “That’s why I’m so thankful you’re here now. I’m going to need your help.”
Despite my better judgment, I went ahead and asked, “With what?”
“With saving the world, Son,” my father said. “You think you’re up for that?”
I straightened my posture, and for the first time I noticed we were now the same height.
“Yes, sir, General, sir,” I replied. “Most definitely.”
There was no mistaking the look of pride on my father’s face. It was intoxicating.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said, patting me on the back. “Follow me.”
He turned and began to jog back out through the hangar’s exit.
I cast another furtive glance back over my shoulder at the gleaming fighter ships stockpiled around me. Then I turned and ran after my father—even though I still wasn’t quite sure exactly where he was leading me.
As General Lightman led me through the dimly lit carpeted corridors of Moon Base Alpha, I kept biting the inner wall of my cheek every few minutes, because each subsequent flash of pain was proof that I was wide awake, and that this was all really happening.
As we took a circuitous route down to the Operations level, I marveled at how strangely familiar my new surroundings were, and at how perfectly Armada’s simulated version of the moon base matched the real thing.