On the view screen, the emerald green Disrupter began to generate a transparent sphere of red energy that enveloped the entire planet Earth, along with its entire atmosphere—causing the EDA’s drones to fall out of the sky. But the moon was outside of the Disrupter’s range—as was the secret EDA defense base on its far side.
“The quantum-disruption effect only works if the transmitting and receiving ends of a link are both contained inside its spherical field,” the General said. “If either the drone or its operator are located outside of the disruption field, the quantum link is completely unaffected and remains intact. If the enemy manages to couple their Disrupter to the Earth, only the EDA personnel stationed up here on the moon—that’s us—will still be able to control the drones we have stockpiled back on Earth, and vice versa.”
My father flipped away from the wire-frame animation and back to the footage of the enemy fighters, revealing a large, onyx-colored dodecahedron—a dark, multifaceted jewel spinning in their midst. The object pulsed rapidly in color from jet black to molten red along its illuminated angular seams.
“Just before the Europans attacked this base during the last Opposition, they activated the Disrupter, coupling it to the moon’s magnetic field, which is relatively weak compared to that of Earth.”
As he spoke, the pulsing dodecahedron fired a red beam of energy into the moon’s core. It began to generate a spherical field of energy around itself, which increased rapidly in diameter until it completely covered Moon Base Alpha, along with large patches of the moon’s surface, which I knew from our briefing was in a pattern that matched the moon’s inherent magnetic field.
“When the Disrupter switched on, it knocked out our ability to control drones from here inside the base,” my father explained. “But all of the EDA drone pilots located back on Earth were unaffected, because they were outside the disruption field.”
Shin pulled a different graphic up on the screen, showing Earth and its nearby moon, the far side of which was covered by the Disrupter’s transparent field, which was enormous, but not large enough to envelop both the moon and Earth at the same time.
“The enemy’s drones continued to function for the same reason,” my father said. “Their operators were back on Europa, hundreds of thousands of miles outside the disruption field.”
Shin nodded. “This base has a backup hard-line intranet,” he said. “So we were still able to defend the base using the surface guns, and with tethered backup drones, which were all hardwired and thus unaffected by the Disrupter.”
On the screen, footage showed sentry guns all over the exterior of the base powering on and returning fire as the enemy Glaive and Wyvern Fighters kept right on attacking, raining down a steady barrage of laser fire and plasma bolts on the base defenses. Down on the surface, a few dozen tethered ATHIDs and Warmechs also continued to defend the base, unspooling their fiber-optic tether cables behind them, which drastically limited their mobility, effectiveness, and range.
“The EDA sent several squadrons of reinforcement Interceptors up here from Earth,” he explained. “And with their help, we were eventually able to destroy the Disrupter. But the base was badly damaged, and we barely survived the attack.”
“Is a real Disrupter as difficult to destroy as the ones in the game?” Chén asked via his QComm.
Shin, Graham, and my father all nodded.
“Then how did you guys manage to take it down?” I asked.
Shin and Graham both grinned, as if they’d been waiting for this question.
“ ‘It takes two, to make a thing go right,’ ” Shin recited, smiling cryptically.
Graham nodded, then added, “ ‘It takes two to make it out of sight.’ ”
They looked as if they were about to recite more of the song’s lyrics, but my father shook his head slightly and they both fell silent, waiting for him to continue.
“Some people think we got lucky,” my father said, glancing at Shin. “Personally, I think the Europans allowed us to destroy it.”
“Why would they do that?” Debbie asked.
“Good question,” my father said. “Here, watch the footage and decide for yourself.”
He tapped his QComm again, and another grainy video clip began to play on the view screen.
“This footage was shot from one of Moon Base Alpha’s surface surveillance cameras,” Shin said. “Approximately twenty-three minutes into their attack. All quantum and radio communication is still being jammed by the Disrupter. Most of the base, and nearly all of its surface defenses, have been destroyed by this point.”