Operation Inferno (7 page)

Bobby stabbed the top button marked with a star. Angel punched the
DOOR CLOSE
button.

At the far end of their light, Ethan could make out a monstrous shadow pulling its way toward them with long arms. It looked like it barely fit.

Angel punched the
DOOR CLOSE
button with her fist hard enough to dent the panel.

The elevator doors started to ease together … slowly … squealing and wailing.

The robot must have seen, because it pulled its way faster up the passage, wrecking the shelves, crushing crystal books under its wheel.

The doors shut.

The elevator car jerked up.

Ethan stood motionless. Not yet quite believing he was alive. Heart pounding.

“Emma? Ethan? Come in,” Felix’s voice came over
the radio. “Breaking radio silence as ordered, sir. We found them.”

Ethan could move again. He grabbed the radio and clicked open the channel. “We’re here,” he breathed out with a huge sigh. “Report, Felix.”

“We’ve got Lee and Oliver, sir. They’re alive.”

“Good,” Ethan said. “Everyone—get back up to the command center ASAP. Secure all doors behind you. Then weld them shut.”

“Sir?” Felix asked.

“We found things, too,” Ethan murmured. “And they’re also alive.”

   8   
THEY ALMOST GOT US

E
THAN WATCHED
S
ARA TEND TO
B
OBBY
’
S ARM
.

Bobby, Sara, Ethan, Madison, Lee, and Oliver were in one of the many rooms in the hospital wing of the base. The room had white and blue tiles on the walls and floor. Warm light glowed from fixtures in the corners.

Sara sat next to Bobby on one of the three beds in the room.

Her mother had been a doctor in Santa Blanca, and Sara had volunteered at the hospital after school. Of all of them, she had the only medical training.

Ethan sat on the bed facing Sara and Bobby. Madison
sat on the bed next to him. Not too close. Not too far away either.

Lee and Oliver had parked on the far bed, waiting to be debriefed.

The rest of Sterling Squadron was busy elsewhere. After Ethan described their narrow escape from the robots, they’d all grabbed portable welders and run off to seal every subbasement entrance.

Except Emma—she was in the Command Center to monitor the still-functioning security cameras on base. They had to track those renegade robots.

Bobby winced and cried out as Sara straightened his arm, pulling it from the shoulder joint.

“Hey!” he said.

“You dislocated it,” she said. “I had to correctly reposition the bone in the socket. Sorry.”

Ethan rubbed his arm in sympathetic pain.

He remembered how Bobby had held on to the chain as he threw it at the robot. When it wrapped about the axle, he’d held on a split second too long and it’d jerked his arm. He was lucky his arm hadn’t gotten yanked right
off
his shoulder.

“There,” Sara told him as she applied a pain pad on Bobby’s shoulder. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Yeah, actually, it was,” Bobby said. He smiled, though. “Thanks, Sara.”

Bobby and Sara had gone through a lot in Santa Blanca. They found out how the real world worked. Alien invaders. That their parents really didn’t love them. They’d formed their own small resistance. They’d survived. And they’d grown close because of it. Ethan could see it in the caring way they looked at each other.

He glanced sideways at Madison.

She caught the look. The corner of her crooked smile quirked at him, but then quickly faded.

What was it that he felt for Madison? They were friends. Wingmates. He trusted her with his life. There was more than that, though.

What had that kiss been all about back in Santa Blanca when she thought she might not ever see him again? Neither of them had mentioned it since they’d been at Titan Base. In fact, Ethan hadn’t seen Madison much in the last week. Had they both been too busy? Had she been avoiding him? Or was he avoiding her?

It would have to wait. There were life-and-death serious things that needed Ethan’s immediate attention.

“So what happened?” Ethan finally asked Oliver and Lee.

Oliver swallowed hard and backed up on the bed. “Okay,” he said. He removed his glasses and closed his eyes. “It started when we left the satellite relay room.”

“We’d made the connection and repairs that Emma wanted,” Lee added, shaking his head. “It was weird, because as soon as we got the power hooked up down there, all sorts of electrical relays started clicking on … by themselves.”

“It was like the base had been waiting to wake up or something,” Oliver whispered.

The door to the hospital room swished open. Paul and Felix entered.

“Sorry to interrupt, Lieutenant,” Felix said. “Paul and I finished sealing section three, and he insisted that we come here.”

Paul crossed his arms over his chest. “I want to hear what they have to say, too,” he said. “I have a right to know what’s going on. It involves us all.”

At least Paul was talking to him now. That was progress.

Ethan examined Paul. From Paul’s scowling face, Ethan guessed information wasn’t the only thing he wanted here. He wanted a showdown.

Well, it was long overdue.

“Fine,” Ethan said. He shot Felix a cautioning look. Felix nodded back.

“Go on,” Ethan told Lee. “What happened next?”

“We saw something moving in one of those high-voltage electromagnetic relays,” Lee said, and his face scrunched up as he forced himself to remember. “It was the size of a mouse. A tiny robot. It sparked and started moving like it had just come to life after being dead for however long this place has been here.”

“It repaired the relay,” Oliver said.

“After we got over the surprise,” Lee said, “we figured it was supposed to be there. Part of the automatic maintenance—”

“Anyway,” Oliver interrupted, “we heard you guys over the radio talking about the sortie to help Madison and Angel. We just wanted to get back as fast as we could and help.”

Madison blushed at this—embarrassed, angry, or both, Ethan couldn’t tell. Ethan knew she’d hated that she and Angel had almost been ambushed by the strange bees and that she hadn’t even known they were there.

“So we jogged back,” Lee went on, “and that’s when we noticed more and more of those little robot guys all over the place.”

“Some rolled on one wheel,” Oliver added. “Some had four wheels. One was the size of a cat.”

“And then,” Lee said, “we didn’t see any of them for a long time.”

“Just two miles of those dark tunnels,” Oliver whispered, then shuddered. “Way too creepy.”

Everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably, remembering the subbasements. Ethan, too. He could practically smell the rust and feel the smothering press of the stale air and shadows around him.

“Go on,” Ethan prompted the boys.

“That’s when we heard the big ones,” Lee said.

Oliver nodded. “We didn’t know exactly what the sounds were. Hammering. Electronic buzzing. Metal being torn. We thought it was more machinery coming on.”

“That’s when we got back on the radio,” Lee said. “When you returned from your fight with the bees.”

“And that’s when we stumbled into them,” Oliver murmured. His dark skin paled.

“We came around a corner into a wide intersection,” Lee whispered. “There must’ve been fifty of the big ones.”

“Fifty?” Ethan asked.

Lee and Oliver nodded together.

Bobby had gotten superlucky when he’d dropped
one
(and he’d nearly lost his arm in the process). One intact robot was probably a match for five of them with their improvised weapons.

Fifty? It’d be no contest. The robots would wipe out the entire squadron if they got up there.

“Just like the robots you guys fought in New Taos,” Lee said. “Minus the antenna in their hands and the plasma emitters in their heads. They had weapons, though. Crowbars, welders, sonic disruptors, claws.”

“They jammed our radio and came straight for us,” Oliver said, wringing his hands. “We knew exactly what they wanted to do: tear us apart.”

“So we ran,” Lee said. He was so agitated now he stood up from the bed. “We zipped into an open area, found an air duct, got in, and crawled away as fast as we could.”

“But that didn’t stop them,” Oliver told them, panic starting to strangle his voice. “They ripped into the ductwork to make it big enough for them to follow!”

“They almost got us, but we jumped across a chasm and got away.”

Oliver took a deep breath. “That’s it. We found
Felix and Paul”—he gestured at the two boys—“and we got back up here.”

Ethan let their story sink in a moment. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks. This gives me a lot to think about.”

Paul uncrossed his arms. He hesitated, as if he were working up his courage to say something, which was odd, because he’d never had a problem saying what was on his mind before. He exhaled and finally said, “Could I talk to you, Ethan … Lieutenant … in private?”

He’d tried to make that sound polite—but it still came out sounding like a threat to Ethan.

Of course, it wasn’t enough that the Ch’zar were trying to blast him out of the air, and killer robots were on the loose trying to murder him and his squadron … now he had to deal with Paul Hicks.

Madison set her hand on Ethan’s arm and gave him a tiny warning shake of her head.

Ethan ignored her.

“Let’s do this,” Ethan said. He stood and motioned for Paul to follow him. “Just you and me. My office.”

   9   
TEST OF COMMAND

E
THAN PUSHED ASIDE THE PAPERWORK ON HIS
desk and sat on the edge.

Paul followed him into his office. He shut the door behind him. He didn’t come any farther. Instead, he leaned against the closed door, almost as if to hold it shut, so no one else could get in.

“Well?” Ethan demanded.

“Look,” Paul said with an apologetic shrug. “I know we’ve never gotten along. I thought there was a time when, well, never mind. That’s not important. We can’t do this anymore.”

“Do what? Insubordination? Inciting to mutiny?”

“See?” Paul said, and pointed at Ethan. “That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You keep
pretending
you’re in charge.”