Armada Chapter 13:
After ignoring orders and completely fucking things up on the battlefield, Zack goes to meet with Admiral Vance. I was worried that he was going to immediately congratulate Zack on his skills and promote him, but he reasonably (and pretty politely) points out that Zack was an idiot:
“I issued that order for a good reason, Lieutenant,” he said calmly. “If you’d followed it and broken off your pursuit, an armored safety blockade would have locked into place over that launch tunnel at both ends, preventing the enemy ship from flying into it. Like this— see?”
[…]
“Because you ignored my order and continued to pursue the enemy ship at close range, the transponder inside your Interceptor disabled the tunnel’s safety blockades to allow it safe passage. Unfortunately, this also allowed the Glaive Fighter you were chasing to do the very same thing. Thanks to you, it was able to breach our defenses and enter our drone hangar, where it promptly detonated its reactor core.”
I’m shocked, but that actually makes sense. Zack will be the death of us all!
In fact, Zack did more damage to the base than the enemy did. If the government did fake this fight in order to get everyone on board to fight the aliens, that’s pretty hilarious. Maybe Zack will be our redemption instead!
The admiral points out that Zack caused millions in damages and destroyed equipment they don’t have time to rebuild in time for the big battle. Whoops!
“But, sir— how was I supposed to know about those automatic security blockades?” I said. “That was never a part of the game. In Armada, the Sobrukai never tried to fly one of their fighters into an EDA base through its drone launch tunnels.”
“That’s because we didn’t think there was any way for the enemy’s fighters to get past the launch tunnel security blockades.” He sighed. “Apparently, no one believed one of our own pilots would be dumb enough to tail an enemy ship making a suicide run into our drone hangar.”
“It’s not fair to pin that on me,” I shot back. “I’ve never even been in combat before— and I never wanted to be! You brought me here and told me we were being invaded by aliens about ten minutes before they attacked this fucking place! I’m a high school kid! I’m supposed to be in school right now!”
Yeah, but like follow the fucking orders in that case, Zack.
But also cover your bases, military. You put all this effort into making these elaborately boring and detailed games, so add this detail in too.
Admiral Vance explains that Zack will face no real consequences because they need him, damn it!
“But this was your first and only warning,” the admiral said. “You screw up like this again … you’ll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong.”
I stared at him in surprise. He glared back at me for several seconds, then gave me an almost imperceptible smile. I suddenly realized who I was talking to— Admiral Vance was also Viper, the Armada pilot currently ranked in fourth place, just above Rostam. Viper was also the name of a character in Top Gun, the film he’d just quoted.
OH MA GERD THE QUOTE WAS FROM A FILM AND ONE OF DA PILOTS IN DA GAME HAD THE NAME OF A FILM AND TWIST IT WUZ HIM TALKIN 2 MEHHHHHH!!!1111!!! I fucking hate this book.
In an even stupider turn of events, they start talking about his dad.
“Do we understand each other, son?” I winced at the admiral’s choice of words.
“Yes sir,” I said through clenched teeth. “But I’m not your son.”
He stared at me for a moment; then he smiled and nodded. “I know,” he said. “You’re Xavier Lightman’s kid.”
We locked eyes.
“You look just like him,” the admiral said, matter-of-factly. “You fly like him, too.”
Ugggggggg. Why not just have the admiral be like, “By the way you fly just like your father”? The transition into this portion of the conversation was actually embarrassing to read.
The office seemed to be spinning now, whirling around me with increasing velocity.
“You knew my father?” I finally managed to ask.
“I still know him,” he said. He pointed to his QComm. “I just spoke with General Lightman before you arrived in my office. We talked about you, naturally.”
…Surprise, I guess?
I shudder to think how long it would have taken Zack to find out the truth if he hadn’t happened to be like, “You’re not my dad, Sir!”
The Admiral reveals Zack’s father is a hero! And also reveals fucking everything. So that was easy.
“The EDA faked your father’s death when he was first recruited. All our early recruits were forced to cut off all contact with their old lives. In return, the EDA promised to take measures to help support each of their families financially, while they were off saving the world.”
I’m not saying teens shouldn’t have jobs even if they are financially taken care of, but I’m still surprised it sounded like Zack was working because a single-parent household can use the extra help sometimes.
Also, does anyone else hope Zack’s dad is that player that’s always like, “You’re welcome”? Or did we already find out who that was during the recruitment bit? I am a bad payer of attention.
Zack is pissed his dad abandoned him, but the Admiral assures him that his dad was a “crybaby” over Zack and that he actually has kind of been in his life!
“He took part in nearly all of your training missions. He also happens to be Armada’s highest-ranking pilot. His call sign—”
“RedJive!” I blurted out. “My father is The Red Baron?”
Is that ‘You’re welcome’ dude? My Kindle doesn’t let me navigate to specific chapters, only each ‘section’ of the book, so I’m definitely not flipping around to check if that was his handle.
Zack’s father isn’t stationed at this base, but soon Zack won’t be either. He’s being sent to the moon instead. His dad is going to be his new commanding officer. Do you think that Zack’s dad is going to wind up being super evil and Zack is going to make a million Darth Vadar references? Is that what we are headed towards? I’m scared.
“Give your old man my best when you get to the far side of the moon,” Admiral Vance said, in a voice that suddenly sounded light-years away. “And tell him we’re even.”
Fucking tell him yourself, you asshole. YOU WERE JUST TALKING TO HIM FIVE MINUTES AGO! Zack hasn’t seen his dad in years, and you’re like, ‘Send him a cryptic message for me that is clearly only to pique your interest. I just got off the phone with him, but you do it.’
Zack runs into Lex and they flirt a bit, and he doesn’t tell her any of the stuff about his dad, just where he’ll be stationed. She’s going to a different base, but she totes gives Zack her QComm number 😉
She also “jailbreaks” Zack’s QComm so he can hack other people’s QComms with admin privileges. This will surely be a plot point worth mentioning, so I’m a good payer of attention again.
They make out and then say goodbye. And Zack heads to the moon, as you do.