Operation Inferno (17 page)

He turned to Dr. Irving, and the old scientist smiled at him. This was one place Ethan’s plan could fall apart. He hadn’t been able to consult with Dr. Irving ahead of time. Ethan just hoped he’d guessed right.

“Dr. Irving, you once told me that you were a general in the last great human war. Is that correct?”

Surprised whispers erupted from everyone in the Command Center, and all eyes turned to the doctor. Apparently this had been a secret. But it had to come out, if Ethan was going to make his plan work.

Dr. Irving’s bent frame straightened. His gentle smile faded, and he looked more confident (and scary) than Ethan had ever seen the man.

“Indeed, Lieutenant,” he said. “But I was not
a
general in the last great war. I was
the
general.”

“And you said this base, even though you never knew about it, used the same systems as the side you were on in that war? So it stands to reason it was under the same military command.”

Dr. Irving nodded as he mulled this over this. “Possibly …”

Ethan made a slow turn as he spoke so everyone could see his face. “When Sterling Squadron was in New Taos a few months ago, we ran into sentry robots similar to the maintenance bots here … except they were armed with plasma cannons.” He shuddered at the memory of nearly getting parboiled by those machines.

“There was one robot there that was different, though,” Ethan told them. “The librarian. When I asked
it if there was a way to stop the sentry robots from killing us, it told me it could cancel the defense protocol … if I had a level-three authorization code.”

Dr. Irving’s head jerked up, and a sly grin spread over his features as he understood where Ethan was going with this.

“Is there any chance,” Ethan asked him, “that you have a level-three security authorization code that might work here?”

Colonel Winter set a hand on Dr. Irving’s arm to get his attention, but he ignored her.

“Level three?” Dr. Irving said. “No … but I do have a level
-five
authorization code.”

“Great,” Ethan breathed as relief flooded through his body. He wanted to sit down, but there was more.

“There’s one more piece of the plan that I have to show everyone. Emma?”

He motioned for his sister to come forward. She did, giving a little wave to everyone, then sat at the computer by Ethan and started opening blueprint files of the base.

“The robots have severed the command circuits coming from this room to the lower levels,” Ethan said, “but my sister found an auxiliary robot control room.”

Emma projected a schematic of Titan Base on the wall—sprawling tunnels, reactors, and machine bays that went on for miles and miles, over fifty levels deep. The view zoomed into level thirty-seven.

“The command circuits appear to be intact,” Ethan said, “but we’re going to have to get down there and manually input the security authorization code.”

He let that sink in a moment. Everyone looked like they got it, but there were some shaking heads and narrowed glances.

“Remember why we’re doing this, though,” he said. “If we blow up the beanstalk elevator, that’ll give the two weaker Ch’zar sides a chance to fight the larger, winning side in space. It’ll do more damage to the aliens than anything the human Resistance could do to them in a
hundred
years. Maybe save not only us, but the next race the Ch’zar tries to enslave.”

Ethan was out of breath.

Everyone in the Command Center was utterly silent. All eyes turned to Colonel Winter.

“The Ch’zar fighting each other, yes,” she whispered, and her gaze defocused. “I see the strategic brilliance of that.” She tapped her lower lip, thinking. “A bomb run with air-fuel devices—risky, but not without
precedence in the scope of previous Sterling Squadron missions …”

Her focus returned and her gaze fixed on Ethan. “But the robot part of your plan, Lieutenant. There are so many unknowns. Can we get to the auxiliary robot controls? Can they be reprogramed? How many of these units are there? Will they successfully engage with the Ch’zar so your people can advance to the orbital elevator?”

“I know …,” Ethan admitted.

He started to feel the room spin. He leaned against the computer station and took a deep breath.

Emma reached out to steady him, but he gave her a quick shake of his head. He couldn’t look weak in front of the others, not now.

The colonel could shut down Ethan’s plan.

He’d promised her that he would abide by her decision.

Would the others in his squadron go along? Was this the start of the riskiest Resister operation ever? Or the flashpoint of a full-blown mutiny, kids versus the adults? Or would they all just sit here, safe, but let the Ch’zar win?

The colonel shifted her focus to the schematic of
the base projected on the wall. She lifted a finger and traced one particular path.

“I think I can help with this last part of our plan,” Colonel Winter said, and the slightest smile flickered over her pale lips. “After all, I have
some
expertise in operational strategy as well.”

Our
plan? Did Ethan hear right?

“Assemble your strike team, Lieutenant,” she said, and stood. “I suggest three to five. Excellent rope skills are required. Having passed the basic firefighting course will also be mandatory.”

Ethan blinked. “So … we’re going to do it?”

The colonel looked at Ethan for a long time. She then saluted him. “Absolutely. Why wouldn’t we?”

Ethan suppressed a wild grin. He turned to glance at his squadron, then turned back to the colonel and snapped off a crisp salute. Behind him he heard the entire squadron repeat the gesture of respect.

They were going to do this. They were going to fight.

Why then, all of a sudden, did Ethan feel like his crazy plan just might have been an
impossible
plan?

   20   
FIRE IN THE HOLE

E
THAN LEANED OVER AND PEERED DOWN THE
maintenance shaft. He gulped. It was a straight fall thirty-four levels through darkness. Certain death if their rope or rappelling gear failed.

Then there were the robots. He heard a distant mechanical echo. Deep in the darkness, there was a spark.

They were down there. Waiting … watching … planning, he bet, for some stupid kid to come wandering down there.

Like him.

Emma handed Ethan a silvered helmet.

This was the other complication to their descent: thermal heat suits used to fight fires on the flight deck. You could stand in burning jet fuel for three minutes in one of these things. They were sealed head to toe with their own internal air supply. Really, they were more like space suits.

“Ready?” Ethan asked.

Emma and Oliver wore the same silvery suits. They both nodded.

“Weapons check,” Emma said.

Ethan made sure he had his gear. They all had handheld plasma welding torches, a rivet gun, and a canister contraption engineered by Dr. Irving. He had called it an electromagnetic grenade and guaranteed it would scramble the electronic brains of any robot they detonated it near. He had warned them
not
to use it near the auxiliary robot control room, or they’d fry the computers there and the entire operation would be wasted.

Ethan pulled his helmet on snug. His heart raced. There was no going back now.

“Felix,” he said over his helmet’s radio. “You and Big Blue ready?”

“As ready as we’ll ever be,” Felix replied.

His rhinoceros beetle lumbered down the B-4
corridor of level three. The huge I.C.E. didn’t fit in here. It had, however,
made
itself fit by pushing and shoving on the walls, ceiling, and floor deck like the steel was tinfoil. Pipes and electrical conduits cracked and burst as the bug pushed up to the maintenance shaft. It stuck its horned head into the open space, cratering the wall as it did so.

“You guys better back up,” Felix said. “There’s ventilation up and down this shaft, but some plasma is bound to splash out our way.”

“Roger that,” Ethan said. The three silver-clad Resisters jogged back and around a corner.

He had thought
his
plan was crazy—but the colonel’s plan to get them down to level thirty-seven was a doozy!

The problem was this: Security cameras showed that all the elevators, elevator shafts, and stairs to the lower levels were guarded by ’bot patrols. No one was getting down there without a
major
battle.

There was this one maintenance shaft, though, that had no visible robot guardian. It went straight to level thirty-seven. The one catch? It was only two and a half feet wide. The colonel had also told him there was
likely to be at least one small robot guard watching the access point.

That’s where Ethan and his small strike team came in. That’s where Felix and his beetle I.C.E. came in as well.

First, the I.C.E. would muscle its way in there and then let loose a blast of plasma from its class-C particle cannon. That would eliminate any robotic threat in or near the shaft. It would also heat the metal to almost the melting point!

Not as big as the adult Resisters, Ethan and his team would fit in the space and be able to rappel down the red-hot pipe.

From the exit point on level thirty-seven, it was then a short three-hundred-foot stroll to the robot control room.

Simple.

… And in a million ways, deadly.

The rhinoceros beetle’s horns flared white-hot. The air between them sparked and glowed like the aurora borealis. A wash of superheated plasma shot down the shaft, and then almost immediately backwashed—boiling down the rumpled corridor toward Ethan.

He ducked around the corner just before he got roasted (firefighting suit or not!).

The beetle backed away from the glowing semi-molten hole crushed in around the maintenance shaft. “You guys are up,” Felix said.

Ethan, Emma, and Oliver trotted to the hole. Ethan clipped his steel line to a sturdy I beam and tossed the long coil down the shaft. He threaded his rappelling rack to the line and clamped tight, then eased his body out over the hole.

Air rushed up, a blast of furnace heat around him. If he hadn’t had the silver suit on, he’d have been toast.

The edges of the maintenance shaft flickered a faint red all the way down. The air wavered with heat like a desert mirage.

Was he
really
going to do this?

He had to. It was only a matter of time before the robots figured out what was going on. The clock was ticking.

“Good lu—” Felix started to say.

But Ethan had already pushed off and zipped down the line.

He bounced off the side. Even in the silver heat-resistant suit the wall was still blazing hot. Ethan instinctively
straightened his body, wrapping his legs around the line, and like an arrow, plummeted down faster.

His pulse thundered in his chest and ears, and he felt squeezed on every side. Sweat fogged up his faceplate. This must be how a steamed dumpling felt.

He spotted a robot that had been inside the shaft—just a flash and a blur, but enough of a glimpse to see it was cat-sized and half melted and plastered to the side of the tube, its limbs struggling to pull itself free.

Ethan’s line counter beeped. He was getting close to level thirty-seven.

He squeezed the rappelling rack’s brake and sparks showered up around him … but he slowed … and then stopped, dangling before an access hatch.

Ethan turned the wheel on the small round door and climbed out of the shaft and into a pitch-black corridor.

At least it was cooler. He waited for the others, panting, sweat dripping into his ears and eyes. He didn’t need his helmet anymore, so he pulled it off, and sucked in cold air.

What a relief!

Ethan didn’t need the helmet anymore because
there was
no
way he was going to climb up that maintenance shaft. He’d find a different route back.

There was a
twang
on the steel line, a
whoosh
of hot air from the open hatch, and then sparks.

Emma appeared, bobbling on the line. Ethan helped her out into the tunnel.

Oliver came down a split second later. He climbed out fast by himself, ripping off his helmet. His glasses were bent and completely fogged. He gasped in huge gulps of air.