“Say what you will, but you’re never prepared for the surprise attack.” - Sarah Dessen

The Tactical Avionics Computer (TCA) was real too. Zach in order it to fly to allow him to shoot.

He was able to crazy maneuvers to make their ships to be caught in their own crossfire for a few seconds. They had a system where it would prevent a friendly fire if they knew it.

Zach was very confused about how Chaos Terrain was able to code the alien’s predictions with such a high level of precision and accuracy. He figure that they must be controlled with artificial intelligence and not pilot by aliens like in the game. Zach was able to predict how the Glaive Fighters flew, and it feels so natural/familiar.

In just seventy-three seconds, he was able to kill seventeen fighters. As the battle progressed, the fighters got harder and harder. At one point, Zach was hit behind too many times where his shields failed completely. Luckily he able to get backup from the EDA surface-to-air cannons. One of the displays shows a two-dimensional view, which reminds him about Missile Command.

The main door started to turn red and began to buckle. Some of them started to do kamikaze dives. Then five of Glaives Fighters combined to create a single giant humanoid robot, which was about the same size of Sentinels. This never happened in the either game before. Zach guesses that the game developers didn’t know that this was possible. After a few attacks, the five-Glaive exploded.

Then there were five Glavies. They each started heading to Silos, where tunnels where the drones come out. Zach was able to get all of them but one. Zach was ordered to come back to base and ignore it. In the video games, it rewarded obedience, but Zach thought it wasn’t a game, it was war. He follows it down the tunnels, which leads to the hanger of drones. The Glaive did a self-destruct sequence. Time seem to stop, and then the screen went black. He felt the atomic boom of the power core. The whole hangar with all the new drones was destroyed.

After that, he left the cockpit. His QComm was flashing red to report to Admiral Vance in the command center. It was then ordered over the intercoms. Lex was waiting outside his cockpit and said, “You’re in trouble,” in a childish tone.