“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 the 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 racing to meet it.
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 rocket 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 of 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, 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.
Why would real aliens behave exactly like videogame simulations of themselves?
The question kept trying to worm its way into my thoughts, but I wouldn’t let it. I focused on the bliss of battle instead.
Our Interceptors were getting picked off fast, but the first of our reinforcement drones was already arriving. Each time one of our drones was destroyed, its operator took control of another Interceptor inside the reserve hangar at Moon Base Alpha and flew back to rejoin battle as quickly as they could. Thankfully the trip back to the battlefront was growing shorter every second, because the vanguard was still moving forward, still closing in on Earth. We were losing ships fast.
If it hadn’t been obvious before, it definitely was now—we were fighting a war of attrition. We weren’t going to be able to stop the vanguard. Not by a long shot. The vanguard was moving too fast, and it was mowing down everything we put in its path.
We were only going to make a small dent in their forces before they reached Earth—if that.
I took out seven enemy ships before my first drone got waxed.
The handful of minutes it took my second drone to get “back in the shit” seemed to stretch on for hours. Once I finally reached the enemy’s ever-encroaching front line and reengaged with the vanguard, I got nailed by an overloading Glaive reactor core on my way in and was blasted to bits once again—this time without scoring a single enemy kill.
As my third Interceptor rocketed out of the drone hangar, a warning began to flash on my HUD, informing me that the enemy was already closing in on the far side of the moon.
A second later, I saw them falling toward me, straight out of the black lunar sky above, thousands upon thousands of them, filling the horizon.
“The vanguard is splitting up!” my father said over the intercom. “Dividing itself in two. It looks like the half containing the Disrupter is headed for Earth.”
“And the other half is headed here,” Shin added.
I checked my tactical display—they were right. The vanguard had split itself in two, like an amoeba, creating two torpedo-shaped clusters of roughly equal size. One cluster had the Disrupter dodecahedron at its center. The other was closing in on us.
On my tactical display, the deluge of green triangles began to rain down on the base, like lava erupting from some Olympian volcano anchored in the stars above.
“Moon Base Alpha is under attack!” my computer helpfully informed me. “Warning!”
An ear-splitting klaxon began to wail over the base intercom.
“Knock, knock!” Graham shouted over the comm. “Our guests have arrived! And they never seemed this pissed off on any of their previous visits. Check the topside feeds!”
I flipped off my VR goggles for a moment and tapped a small security camera icon on my QComm. A dozen thumbnail windows filled its display, each showing a different camera feed from the base. The exterior of the base was crawling with enemy drones, so covered by attackers that it looked like some otherworldly anthill being invaded by a neighboring colony of metal insects. In the background, other drone dispersal dropships continued to make landfall, opening up like metal flowers as they hit the lunar surface, allowing thousands of Spider Fighters and Basilisks to pour out and join the swelling army of alien drones already descending on the base.
“Welcome Wagon activated!” my father announced. The base’s automated sentry guns sprang to life and began to unload a steady barrage at the hundreds of Glaive Fighters descending on the base like angry hornets.
The Fighters’ first volley of plasma bombs detonated against the base’s defense shields. The explosion erupted and crackled across the shield’s transparent surface as its energy was deflected back out into space, creating a dazzling light show across the display over our heads, briefly lighting up the darkened Thunderdome. The accompanying transfer of energy shook the entire base, and the lunar surface beneath it.
As the moonquake—my first—subsided, I had to resist a panicked urge to scramble up out of my control pod and run to safety—wherever the hell that might be.
Instead, I gripped my flight stick even more tightly, pulled my newly launched reserve Interceptor into a steep climb, and firewalled the throttle, blasting straight upward into the deluge of Glaive Fighters descending toward me. Other drones were launching and forming up below me, adding their fire to mine.
I took out five more enemy fighters. Then a sixth, and a seventh. My comrades were doing equally well. I heard Debbie mutter “Easy-as-can-beezy” to herself over the comm.
Then, just as I was swinging my crosshairs over my next target, a hail of enemy laser fire finally converged on my drone from several different angles, and it was blasted to smithereens.