Armada: A Novel by the Author of Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

Author:Ernest Cline
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Thrillers, Thrillers & Suspense, Alien Invasion, Literature & Fiction, Fiction, Adventure, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction & Fantasy, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, First Contact, United States, Science Fiction, Space Opera, General
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-07-14T03:10:21+00:00

AS I APPROACHED the shuttle, I could hear several loud, overlapping voices coming through its open hatchway.

“Why does everyone always automatically assume that RedJive is a man?” a woman asked in a thick, Fargo-esque accent. “That’s pretty damn sexist, if you ask me.”

“Yeah,” a younger female voice chimed in. “The Red Baroness might be a better nickname—for her.”

Female laughter followed. I paused a few yards from the shuttle and crouched, pretending to adjust the Velcro straps of my new EDA sneakers so that I could continue to eavesdrop.

“People assume RedJive is a guy because Red Five was a guy,” a male voice replied. He had some sort of East Coast accent that sounded equally thick to my Pacific-Northwestern ears. “Hate to tell ya, but the Red Baron was a dude, too—just like Maverick, Goose, Iceman, and every other ace fighter pilot in history.”

“You’re aware that those are all fictional characters, right?” the younger woman asked, talking over the man’s chuckling. “For your information, there have been female fighter pilots for over a hundred years now. I wrote a report about it for school. A woman named Marie Marvingt flew combat missions over France way back in World War I, and the Russians used female fighter pilots in World War II. And the US military has had women fighter pilots since the seventies.”

After a pregnant pause, the male voice responded with an annoyed “Yeah, whatever.”

This was followed by another round of high-pitched laughter and some scattered applause. I took it as my cue and stood up, then mounted the shuttle’s small retractable staircase.

The laughter died out as soon as the cabin’s four occupants saw me appear in the open hatchway and turned to face me. I stood there for an awkward beat, letting them size me up, while I did the same to them.

They were all dressed in newly pressed EDA flight officer uniforms like mine. To my immediate left sat a pretty middle-aged woman with tanned skin and dark hair, and the name LT. WINN stitched onto her uniform. There was an empty seat to her right while on her left sat a heavyset guy with an unruly beard who seemed to be eying me suspiciously. Seated across from him was a teenaged African-American girl who looked like she probably wasn’t old enough to drive yet. A young Asian man sat beside her. He looked like he was in his early twenties, and there was a small Chinese flag beneath the EDA emblem on his uniform, instead of the tiny embroidered version of Old Glory that adorned everyone else’s uniform, and instead of the words Earth Defense Alliance there was a string of characters in Chinese.

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.

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