Armada by Ernest Cline Page A

latest Kidz Bop compilation instead?”
    â€œPerhaps I will,” he replied. “They’re unappreciated musical geniuses, you know.”
    The two drones Cruz and Diehl were controlling launched out of the hangar just ahead of me, each labeled with their call sign on my HUD.
    â€œAttention, your drone is next in the launch queue!” my AVA computer announced, with far too much enthusiasm. “Prepare to engage the enemy!”
    The belt cycled forward again, feeding my drone into the launch tunnel and then blasting it out in space.
    And then it was on like Red Dawn.
    The first wave of responding enemy ships was already pouring out of the bottom of the nearest Dreadnaught Sphere like hornets from a metal hive and streaking down on us out of the blackness, approaching fast along our twelve o’clock.
    A split second later, the space in front of my drone was filled with hundreds of Sobrukai Glaive Fighters, along with dozens of dragon-like Wyverns uncoiling and snaking through their swarming ranks, all of them moving in unison as they moved to attack the Icebreaker. I held my breath as I targeted one of the lead Glaives. I felt like I had a grudge to settle with the damn thing, for escaping from my fantasy life to invade my reality—and for making me question my own sanity in the process.
    My three-dimensional tactical display flashed, warning me of a reactor detonation directly behind me, and I accelerated just in time to escape being caught in the blast.
    Lasting longer than a few minutes in a battle of this size wasn’t easy. Evading enemy fire required lightning-fast reflexes, wicked spatial awareness, and a gift for pattern recognition. You had to learn how to find the best route to cut through the enemy’s ranks, retreating and attacking simultaneously.
    Once I’d spent enough hours studying how the Sobrukai ships moved and attacked as a group, I gradually began to see the patterns hidden in all that chaos. Sometimes they moved like a flock of birds, chasing its own tail as it circled for a landing. Other times, they made sharp turns in the sky, like a school of predatory fish. But there was always a pattern to it, and recognizing it allowed me to anticipate the enemy’s movements and reactions, and that made it relatively easy for me to get them in my sights—as long as I was listening to the right music. Music was key. The old rock songs on my father’s old mixtapes were perfect, because they had a steady, hard-driving beat that served as my mental combat metronome.
    I cut my engines and fired my retro-thrusters, swinging my ship around 180 degrees without altering or slowing my forward momentum. Then I opened fire on the swarm of Glaives converging on the Icebreaker’s tail with a series of bursts from my sun guns.
    When I hit my first target, it imploded into collapsing fireballs of superheated plasma in front of me, and a message flashed on my HUD informing me I’d made the first kill of the engagement.
    â€œOne down, a few million to go,” I announced over the comm, already buzzing with adrenaline. Killing videogame aliens had always been an outlet for my adolescent frustrations—but tonight it felt as though I was venting compressed rage each time I pulled the trigger.
    It didn’t matter that the Sobrukai were fictional—I still wanted to kill every last one of them.
    â€œGuys, I’ve got two Glaives on my tail,” Diehl announced. “Any help?”
    â€œHelp yourself, pal!” I heard Cruz say. “We’re all getting our asses handed to us!”
    â€œNot me,” I replied. “I am officially in the zone.”
    I scanned my scopes, but neither Kvothe nor Dealio were currently visible, because the Icebreaker was now directly between us. I fired my lateral thrusters and did a series of diving barrel roles to evade the incoming barrage of plasma bolts streaking past me on all sides. I also teased the throttle to