Operation Inferno (8 page)

Ethan opened his mouth to say something, but no words came.

Pretending he was in charge?

That’s not what he was doing, was it?

The others believed in him. They took his orders. They’d followed him into the battle. He knew they trusted his judgment.

Ethan pursed his lips. How did Paul always get him to doubt himself? “I
am
in command here,” he said.

“Sure, you’re in command,” Paul said with a snort. “But is that the right thing? I mean, maybe, before, when you had Irving and Winter calling the strategic shots, you leading a squadron might have made sense. You’re pretty good, Blackwood. Maybe even as good as me.” Paul smirked, but it quickly vanished. “That’s not good enough anymore.”

Ethan flushed and felt like he was going to boil over. Maybe it was mentioning Dr. Irving and Colonel Winter so causally after they’d died to give this squadron
a chance to live. Maybe it was the fact that Paul Hicks was an idiot.

If Paul had been talking this way to Colonel Winter, she would have called the guards and had Paul thrown in the brig. Forever.

Ethan wasn’t the colonel, though. He didn’t have any guards. Or a brig.

He took a deep breath and cooled off. “You think someone else needs to lead? You, maybe?”

Paul held up his hands and laughed. “No way. What I’m saying is that maybe
none of us
should be leading.”

“Huh?”

“If the Resisters and Seed Bank were around,” Paul said, growing serious, “we wouldn’t be talking. But there’s no more lieutenants or colonels. There’s just a few kids trying to stay alive. We should
all
get a say in what we do next. And why not? Every decision could be life and death for all of us.”

Ethan blinked.

He hadn’t been expecting a rational suggestion from Paul. Another challenge, sure. Maybe even a few punches and some wrestling.

Ethan felt like he’d been punched anyway.

Paul had a point. A democracy made sense.

Who was he to lead them all? Colonel Winter and Dr. Irving had had decades of experience before they’d given orders that affected the fate of every free-willed human left on Earth.

Besides, was he doing such a great job? There was a new Ch’zar I.C.E. out there that had outflown them. There were robots on the loose, trying to disassemble the entire squadron limb from limb.

If they pooled their thinking, if they all had a vote, would they make better choices?

“Look,” Paul said. His gaze fell to the floor. “I know things haven’t been easy. I even appreciate the job you’ve done so far. You kept us alive. I’ll give you that. But things have changed, Ethan, and not for the better. You have to change, too, or you’re going to get us all killed.”

Killed
.

There it was. Plain and simple.

Was Ethan really arrogant enough to think he had all the answers? He was bound to make some wrong choices. What if that meant dooming the last survivors of the human race?

It was almost impossible to believe that he could do it alone.

He stopped. He’d almost let Paul make him think that.

But Ethan remembered what Dr. Irving had told him before Ethan had gone into battle—Dr. Irving, who had once commanded armies and been called the grand admiral of the air, the Storm Falcon. He’d asked Dr. Irving why he and the colonel had picked him to lead Sterling Squadron. Dr. Irving told Ethan he had “
an incredible aptitude for aerial combat, a strategic genius, and a certain disregard for authority
.”

And then there were Colonel Winter’s last orders to him: take the squadron, run, and hide. She told him the Resistance would live on through him.

So … regardless of what
he
thought about
himself
, the colonel and the doctor, with decades of command experience, had picked Ethan Blackwood to lead.

He hadn’t wanted this command. It had nonetheless been given to him.

It was his responsibility, and he wasn’t about to give it away.

“What you’re talking about won’t work,” Ethan told Paul. “Not in a crisis situation. Not when we’re at war.”

Paul looked up. His scowl was back, stretching the scars on his face into ugly white lines.

“Imagine Angel giving orders,” Ethan said. “Or some of the newer people who have never been in battle. That’s exactly why there is a chain of command in war, because tough, unpopular orders have to be made and carried out. Most times those orders have to be made quickly, without a lot of discussion. That’s how we’re going to survive. That’s how the human race is going to win.”

Paul opened his mouth to speak, but Ethan cut him off.

“That’s my final decision, Private Hicks. Thank you for your suggestions. You are dismissed.”

Ethan heard those words come from him, but they made it sound like it was Colonel Winter speaking.

Paul’s mouth shut with a clack of teeth. He turned and left.

Ethan exhaled. He felt like he had passed an important test. Not with flying colors, but something like a C minus.

Command of Titan Base was still his, though. He was going to make it count.

He grabbed his walkie-talkie. “Sergeant Winter,” he said. “I need you in my office.”

“I’m on my way,” Felix said, with a crackle of static.

While he waited for Felix, Ethan read over his last status report. He considered the list of names he was responsible for. It was a terrifyingly short number that made up the very last of the free humans on Earth. He noted (with some difficulty) that Paul’s name was there. Paul was Ethan’s responsibility, too.

He had to figure out a way to make their small numbers count and turn the situation around.

He couldn’t give up.

There came a polite knock at the door, and Felix entered. He must have been nearby to have gotten there so quick.

Felix scanned the empty office. “Hicks is gone?”

“He left. He’s one of the things I want to talk to you about, Sergeant. First, though, make sure all the tunnels below level three are sealed. We have the fewest entry points there. I want you to personally inspect every hatch, tunnel, and duct.”

“I’m on it,” Felix told him.

“Afterward, gather everyone and meet Emma and me in the Command Center. We’ll take a long look at what the Ch’zar are up to. Then we’ll figure out their plans and throw a few dozen monkey wrenches into them.”

“Yes, sir.” That got a grin out of Felix. “Now we’re talking.”

He started to leave.

“Felix,” Ethan said. “About Paul …”

Felix turned around, and his expression darkened. “He’s a great pilot, Ethan. I wish he wasn’t such a handful.”

“I want you to assign someone we count on to watch him.”

Sterling Squadron had enemies coming at them from below. They had enemies above in the Ch’zar—and now the squadron just might have had a third enemy, this time among them.

“I don’t trust Paul Hicks anymore,” Ethan whispered.

   10   
INNER TURMOIL

E
THAN LOOKED ACROSS THE CAVERNOUS
C
OMMAND
Center. His attention was not on the dazzling array of 360-degree wall screens, but rather on the people on the raised stage.

The kids rescued from Santa Blanca clustered together, staring and pointing at the eastern coast of North America. They’d come so far in the last week—adjusting to a horrible reality that had nearly driven Ethan over the edge.

Felix stood close to Emma as she adjusted the display controls. Their arms occasionally brushed against
each other. They looked like a couple at a school dance. He was happy for them. (Although in the back of his mind, Ethan was worried that this potential romance might mean puberty was not far off for those two, which was a
big
problem.)

And speaking of romances …

Madison sat on a railing a short way off. She held a digital clipboard and made notes as she squinted at a map sector near Chicago. She puffed the spike of hair that hovered over her face. Today her hair was the color of polished walnut. Ethan suspected this was her real color, and he liked it.

Right now, though, they couldn’t be more than friends. He had to give her orders. She was in his squadron, fighting by his side. Complicating that with any boyfriend-girlfriend stuff wouldn’t be smart.

The escapees from Sterling Reform School were scattered about the central stage, a little less in awe of the gigantic real-time world maps.

Kristov wasn’t there, though.

Felix had ordered him to shadow Paul, who also wasn’t there.

Motion in his peripheral vision caught Ethan’s attention.

An image of Paul passed in front of a security camera. He was down one level, headed east. Those camera feeds were displayed on the stations near Emma to track any robotic intruders.

A minute later, Kristov showed up in the same passage, far enough behind Paul so he wouldn’t be seen.

Ethan sighed, wondering what Paul was up to now. However, he had to focus on the rest of his team.

He clapped his hands together. “Okay, people!” Ethan shouted. “Here’s the plan.”

Everyone stopped what they were doing and faced Ethan. He felt the mantle of command settle on his shoulders.

“Like Emma said before,” Ethan told them, “we need to each take a section of the map and figure out what the Ch’zar are up to. Madison and Angel saw a lot of ground activity in the central part of North America. And we saw those weird bees in the American Southwest. There are none of the usual aerial combat patrols—so the enemy has to be up to
something
. We need to know what, so we can plan our next move.”

Lee raised a hand. “What about the robots?” he asked, and pointed at the floor.

“All entrances to the subbasement are sealed,” Ethan
said. “We’re monitoring all access points on the security feeds. If they try to break through, I’ll take an I.C.E. and destroy that section of the base if need be.” He smacked his fist into his hand for emphasis.

Lee and Oliver nodded, appreciating the finality of this option as a solution to the robot problem.

“Okay, Emma,” Ethan said. “Show us what to do.”

Emma took over then. She gave them a tutorial on how to use gestures to zoom in and pull out the satellite’s view on sections of the map, how to shift to infrared and ultraviolet spectrums, and how to label objects and even track them over time.

The team drifted to different parts of the huge walls. Ethan gravitated to an isolated spot—the Yucatán Peninsula. Back in his Northside Elementary geography class, he’d learned this was a jungle-covered part of Mexico near the equator.

Madison settled near the wall by Ethan, scanning Mexico City.

He glanced over and saw it wasn’t one of the most populated cities in the world as he had been taught, but just a small town, almost identical to Santa Blanca.

How else had the Ch’zar changed the world since they took over?

He returned to his section of the wall, the Yucatán Peninsula. As he’d expected, it was jagged coastlines, sandy beaches, and lush tropical rain forests—that unexpectedly shifted from wilderness to a smoke-belching factory.

He pulled the view back out and found it wasn’t a single factory either. Or even a complex of factories. This was an industrial landscape … five hundred square miles of toxic lakes, red-hot furnaces, conveyor belts, and oil refineries.

Metal and plastic parts, even disassembled organic I.C.E. limbs, rolled out to freeway-sized conveyor belts and onto trucks with segmented beds and sixteen wheels. A steady stream of these vehicles carted it all off to the south.

“What the heck is this?” he whispered.

Ethan had known the Ch’zar were using Earth’s resources to build more spaceships and seed distant worlds, but he had no idea just how big their operation was.

“Here,” Madison said. “I’ve spotted enemy combat I.C.E. locusts. Heading your way.”

Ethan reached over and slid the tracking icon she’d attached to the moving unit. He tapped on it and the view zoomed in.

These Shiva-class locust I.C.E.s had mottled purple-and-black exoskeletons, barbed forelimbs, extra heavy armor, hind-leg grenade launchers, and jaws strong enough to rip through steel like papier-mâché.