After the five of us had stared at each other in silence for what I felt was a sufficient length of time, I stowed my pack in the overhead compartment and took the empty seat next to the older woman, because she was the only one who had smiled at me.
“Hi,” I said, offering her my hand. “I’m Zack Lightman. From Portland, Oregon.” As dazed as I was, I still remembered to say I was from Portland instead of Beaverton, to avoid sounding like a hick—or having to endure any beaver-related attempts at humor.
“Welcome aboard, Zack,” she said, squeezing my hand between both of her own. “I’m Debbie Winn.” Something about her demeanor and tone made me guess that she was a schoolteacher.
“It’s nice to meet you, Debbie.”
“It’s nice to meet you—even under such terrifying circumstances.” She laughed and gave me an anxious smile. I returned it with one of my own.
“That’s Milo,” she said, gesturing to the bear-like man to her left, who was still staring at me with open hostility. The name patch on his uniform identified him as LT. DOBSON.
“Hi there, Milo,” I said, reaching over to offer him my hand. “How goes it?”
He just stared at my hand without replying, until I finally shrugged and lowered it.
“Oh, ignore him—he’s from Philly,” Debbie said, as if that explained his rude behavior. Then she nodded at the young woman across from her. “Zack, that’s Lila. Lila, meet Zack.”
“Nobody actually calls me that,” the girl said. “Everyone calls me by my nickname, Whoadie. That’s my Armada call sign, too.”
We shook hands, and I was about to tell her that I recognized her call sign, but then the young man beside her cleared his throat. The name LT. CHÉN was stitched onto his uniform.
“This is Jiang Chén—better known as CrazyJi,” Whoadie said. “He’s Chinese, and doesn’t speak much English.”
Chén smiled and shook my hand. He had spiky red hair that obscured the right half of his face, but the look seemed to work for him. Chén glanced down at the QComm strapped to his right wrist, where a string of Mandarin characters was appearing on his display. It must’ve been translating what Whoadie had said, because after Chén read over them, he looked up and gave me an exhausted smile.
“Hell-oh,” he said with a thick accent. “It goo to mee you.”
“It’s good to meet you, too,” I replied slowly. “I know your call sign well, CrazyJi. Yours too, Whoadie. We’ve flown lots of missions together. It’s an honor to finally meet you in person.” I stood up and held out my hand. “I’m Zack—also known as IronBeagle.”
As soon as they heard my call sign, the tension in the tiny cabin evaporated, and all four of my new companions visibly relaxed—especially Milo, who actually smiled in my direction for the first time since I’d stepped aboard.
“The Beagle!” Whoadie repeated, smiling with recognition. “Good to finally meet you. You’re a fucking legend, man!”
I saw Debbie wince when Whoadie dropped her F-bomb.
“IronBeagle?” Chén repeated with raised eyebrows, in what sounded like perfect English.
When I nodded, he lunged out of his seat to shake my hand, talking excitedly in Chinese. An English translation appeared on my QComm—a garbled string of compliments, for which I thanked him profusely. Once he finally calmed down and let go of me, we both retook our seats.
“What’s your call sign, Debbie?” I asked, even though I already had a good guess, just due to the process of elimination.
She laid a hand on her chest and bowed her head. “AtomicMom, at your service.” She smiled nervously. “You know, like ‘Atomic Bomb’?”
“Yeah, lady, we get it,” Milo said, rolling his bloodshot eyes.
“Let me guess,” I said, leveling a finger at him. “You’re Kushmaster5000, right?”
He smiled, looking immensely pleased. “The one and only.”
The Kushmaster, also known as “KM5K” to his many detractors, was a pilot known for his incessant (and often unintentionally hilarious) boasting and trash talk on the Chaos Terrain player forums, where he used a prismatic cannabis leaf for his avatar. He also loved to do a running voice commentary of the battles over the public comm channel, like Jack Burton broadcasting on his CB. I usually muted him, but I still recognized his Philly accent, and the cocky attitude that seemed to come along with it. I wasn’t sure I liked him, and he seemed to like it that way.
But in a strange way, learning their call signs suddenly made me feel as though I was among old friends—or at least familiar allies. AtomicMom, Whoadie, CrazyJi, and Kushmaster5000 were all names that I’d been seeing daily for the past year, because they were four of the call signs always listed among the top ten Armada pilot rankings—at first above, and then eventually below, my own. When I’d checked the rankings last night, Whoadie’s call sign had been listed right after mine in seventh place, followed by CrazyJi in eighth, AtomicMom in ninth, and Kushmaster5000 in tenth.
“Sorry if I acted like a prick before,” Milo said, solemnly offering me his fist to bump, which I did. “I thought you might be RedJive, or one of those other elitist dicks in the top five.”
Chén read the translation, then whispered a response into his QComm in Chinese. The device instantly translated his words and repeated them in English.
“I was thinking the same thing,” the computer said, in a synthesized male voice that sounded exactly like the one used by Stephen Hawking.
I suddenly found myself wondering if Hawking had been a part of the EDA’s big cover-up, too. And what about Neil deGrasse Tyson? If Carl Sagan had been let in on the secret, it seemed possible that other prominent scientists had, too. I added this to the list of unanswered questions whirling around inside my head, which seemed to only be growing longer as this insane day progressed.
“I am not liking RedJive also,” Chén’s translator went on to declare loudly in its uninflected monotone. “He is an asshole total!”
Whoadie laughed and mimicked the translator’s voice while she made stiff robotic motions with her arms. “Yes!” she intoned. “The Baron is complete face-fuck!”
The others laughed, but I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. Luckily, my dad’s impromptu roast was interrupted a second later, when the hatchway leading to the cockpit slid open and an ATHID clanked through it on metal feet. The drone’s head split open and extended a small flatscreen telepresence monitor that displayed a live video image of the drone’s operator, a middle-aged EDA officer with an impressive Sam Elliott–gauge mustache.
“Welcome aboard,” he said. “I’ll be your shuttle pilot today: Captain Meadows.”
The second he finished introducing himself, he was bombarded with questions from all sides, in a variety of accents, and in at least two languages. I wanted to ask him a few thousand of my own, but he was already holding up one of his drone’s clawed hands, motioning for silence. It took a minute.
“I’m not authorized to answer your questions,” he said. “Your new commanding officer will brief you as soon as we arrive at the moon base. If you have any other questions and the answers aren’t classified, you can find them using the EDA Recruit Orientation Manual app on your QComm. Understood?”
Everyone nodded and glanced down at their QComms.
“Outstanding,” the captain said in response to our silent compliance. “We’ll depart in just a few minutes. But before we leave, I’m told there’s someone who wants to see you off.”
He motioned to the open hatchway just as a familiar-looking middle-aged man with red hair stepped through it, leaning into the shuttle’s crowded cabin. He greeted everyone with a gleaming, press-photo-friendly smile.
“Finn Arbogast?” several of us said in unison.
“Guilty as charged,” he said, grinning and slightly out of breath. “I ran all the way down here from the Op Center so I wouldn’t miss my chance to finally meet all of you.” He went around the cabin, giving each of us a firm handshake in turn. “You five people have been the pride and joy of the Chaos Terrain project for a long time now. In fact, your talent and dedication were what helped us convince the higher-ups that our civilian simulator training initiative could actually work on a global scale, so thank you!”
I’d seen plenty of photos and video interviews with Chaos Terrain’s founder, but in person he was shorter than I expected. He shook my hand last, and when our eyes met, he cocked his head at me sideways.
“You’re Zack Lightman, aren’t you?” he said, shaking his head as he studied my face. “The famous IronBeagle?”
I nodded. He glanced around at the others, then gave me a sheepish grin.
“Listen, Lieutenant,” Arbogast said. “I hope Admiral Vance wasn’t too hard on you earlier. There was no way you could have known about the security blockade doors on those drone launch tunnels. No enemy ship ever attempted that maneuver during any of their attacks against our moon base, so we never included it as a possibility in any of your Armada training missions.” He shrugged. “Live and learn, I guess.”