I took control of the lead Interceptor, and through its cameras I could see the Icebreaker closing in on the icy moon, surrounded by its escort of two dozen drone Interceptors. I knew that those ships were under the control of the best pilots the EDA had available, and that would almost certainly include Viper and Rostam, who were both listed above me in the Armada pilot rankings for a very good reason—they were better than me.
Even with three ships, there was no way I could take them all on at once, no matter how badly I wanted to. So instead, I did as my father had instructed. I sat tight, out of sight, and waited for him to even the odds.
When he reached Raven Rock, my father circled high over the base, waiting until the moment the enemy activated the Disrupter. He knew exactly when it happened, because the EDA fighters and drones protecting the installation down below deactivated instantaneously.
I also lost the audio and video feeds from inside his cockpit, but a few seconds later Lex executed some further computer wizardry, and a live video image of my father’s ship reappeared at the edge of my HUD. The feed appeared to be from one of the base’s external security cameras, fed back to us through the hardline intranet.
With the base’s defenses momentarily disabled, my father had turned his Interceptor into a steep dive, and now he appeared to be making a suicide run at the base’s armored blast doors, which were still very much closed.
As he raced toward the base, I realized he was aiming for one of the drone launch tunnels, just as I had earlier during my colossal screwup at Crystal Palace. But here, instead of being disguised as grain silos, the launch tunnel openings were camouflaged as rock formations embedded in the mountainside.
I sat in Starbase Ace, watching his progress over the base’s network of security cameras. Once his ship was inside the Raven Rock drone hangar, my father set it to hover on autopilot, then used his ship’s laser turret to cut a large hole in the ceiling. He raised his Interceptor up to the opening, opened his cockpit canopy, and jumped out, scrambling into the dust-filled level above the hangar ceiling.
Then he drew his sidearm and took off running, even deeper into the base.
I expected the corridors to be empty, or filled with inert drones. But when the Disrupter activated, some of the base’s internal hardwired defense turrets had remained operational, along with a few dozen tethered ATHIDs, all controlled by operators linked to them through the EDA’s hardline intranet. They were already converging on my father’s position, under orders to stop him at all costs.
If it hadn’t been for Lex and Ray, he wouldn’t have had a chance. Thankfully, Lex was already inside the EDA’s security firewall, so she was able to access the base security system to guide my father and use it to help him avoid or evade as many of the tethered ATHIDs as she could while throwing up blast doors around his route to keep defenders away. Meanwhile, Ray used his own hardline network access to seize control of the laser defense turrets positioned along my dad’s route and used them to blast a path through the drones stationed ahead of him.
But just when there seemed to be no stopping him—they stopped him. His luck ran out, and a pack of tethered ATHIDs got the jump on him. He managed to take them all out, but not before a stray plasma bolt hit him in the chest, and he went down.
I watched helplessly as he struggled to get back on his feet, but he couldn’t. So he began to crawl.
He pulled himself down the corridor, until he reached a charging dock where five dormant ATHIDs were stored. He opened up the maintenance access panels one at a time and entered a long code on each one, and then all four of them powered up. My father detached the tethered controllers from each drone and used them to command the four ATHIDs to lift his injured body off the ground. Then he had them interlace their eight arms and legs around his body, forming something that looked sort of like a walking spider tank. This contraption lifted him up and continued to carry him forward.
He rode inside as he blasted his way farther into the base, firing four sets of ATHID weapons as he came.
He also hijacked all of their external speakers, and then used them to play a song I recognized immediately from his old Raid the Arcade mix—“Run’s House” by Run-D.M.C.
“Archie really hates hip-hop,” we heard him say. “I bet this will throw him off balance. Like ‘Ride of the Valkyries’!”
He cranked the song up to an earsplitting volume. I could see him mouthing the lyrics as he continued to fight his way toward Vance, lumbering forward like a Terminator that was never going to stop until it had completed its final mission.
My father piloted his makeshift tank down one last corridor, then finally arrived at his destination—a pair of armored doors labeled raven rock drone operations command center.
Then, to my horror, I watched as he set the power cells on all four of his ATHIDs to manual overload. In a panic, I asked Lex to patch my voice through to him.
“I already did,” she said. “He can hear you right now.”
“Dad, what are you doing?” I screamed.