Sterling Squadron (24 page)

IT WAS JUST BEFORE DAWN. THE EASTERN
edge of the world was red and jagged from the outline of the Appalachian Mountains.

They flew in formation—a huge wedge, all thirty-three Resister I.C.E.s, with Becka’s Bumblebee Bombers protected in the center. The pilots cut through the air at a hundred miles an hour, each multiton insect a scant three yards from its wingmates.

Colonel Winter had ordered them to use only wing power at first to conserve jet fuel.

The air, churned by dozens of diamond-membrane
wings, sounded like the biggest thunderstorm in history rolling across the sky—so much power it rattled Ethan’s bones even inside his cockpit.

Ethan felt powerful, in control, and like nothing could stop them.

It was great, but he figured it wouldn’t last, so he savored the moment.

On long-range radar, he picked up scattered signals … everywhere.

Ch’zar aerial strike teams patrolled the mountain ridges. On the ground, centipede armor and army ant mobile infantry clear-cut forests and literally overturned every boulder searching for any trace of the human Resisters.

“You won’t have to look for us much longer,” Ethan whispered to the enemy.

He felt like he was about to play the biggest soccer match of his life. He felt like the entire human race watched him, cheered him on. He also felt like he could lose big-time.

“Incoming patrol,” Madison said over the radio on a private channel. “Three mosquito scouts.”

Ethan told the other squad leaders, and then said, “Take care of it.”

He didn’t want to give specific orders unless he absolutely
had to. Better to let the squad leaders and NCOs deal with stuff like this. They had more experience at it than he did.

Ethan sensed he had to save his authority to spend at the right time … that, or he was just too chicken to give real orders to Resister pilots. He wasn’t sure.

“I got them,” said Jack Figgin of the Black and Blue Hawks.

Jack’s wasps and hornets broke formation and angled toward the three scouts.

The mosquitoes must’ve realized that the huge shape on their radar wasn’t a cloud. They banked and dove.

The Hawks filled the air with laser and particle beams, vaporizing the tiny, half-ton units. All that remained was a cloud of sparks and falling wreckage.

It was a textbook-perfect execution.

Madison broke in over the radio. “Getting readings now all over the place.
Everything
is moving.”

Ethan had expected that. Three deaths in the Ch’zar collective intelligence wouldn’t go unnoticed.

He wondered if there had been mind-controlled humans piloting those scouts. Maybe.

It made him queasy. He bet there’d be people in the smarter, leader-type enemy I.C.E. units. But, as much as he wanted to, Ethan couldn’t let that stop him. If he
hesitated, or tried to just wing the enemy, they’d use that advantage to blast the Resisters out of the air.

He didn’t want to fight other humans. There was no choice, though.

If he was ever captured and absorbed into the Collective, he’d want the Resisters to keep fighting … even if that meant shooting
him
down.

Small comfort.

“Are they moving
toward
us?” he asked Madison.

“A few outliers veering our way,” she said. “Thunderbolt locusts and some firefly sensor units. There are so many in the air, though, that could just be coincidence.”

Ethan clicked on a channel to everyone. “Heat up your jets,” he ordered. “Accelerate to two hundred miles an hour over the next fifteen seconds. Let’s get to the Phase-One target before the enemy figures this out.”

Squadron and strike team leaders acknowledged his order.

Resister I.C.E. engines flared with fire. The formation increased velocity.

Ethan had to resist the urge to pour on the speed. The heavily armored beetles would never keep up and then they’d be the ones strung out and vulnerable.

He had to think of everyone now under his command. It was nerve-racking.

Their wedge shape elongated a bit but held together as they blasted through the clouds and left swirling contrails in their thundering wake.

Ethan found he was holding his breath and forced himself to exhale. That’s all he needed was to sound like a panicky little hyperventilating kid over the radio.

Angel’s black wasp crept forward out of formation.

She was eager to fight. Too much so.

Ethan was about to tell her to cool it, but Felix maneuvered next to her, his rhinoceros beetle flying closer to her than was technically safe.

Her shadowy wasp slipped back into place, casually, like no one had seen her. Even always-ready-to-brawl Angel wasn’t stupid enough to play bumper cars with a beetle three times her weight class.

Ethan was glad Felix had taken care of that. He could depend on his NCO.

Dead ahead was the Cumberland River Valley. Wisps of early morning fog clung to the ground. Treetops poked out and looked like a magical forest in the clouds.

His wasp’s air-to-surface radar detected a thousand ant lion units on the riverbanks—some dug in, others reloading from massive earthworm armored supply crawlers.

Not that he
needed
radar to see them. There were so many ant lions that the valley glittered like it was covered
with tinfoil, what they called a target-rich environment in flight school.

Ethan opened a radio channel. “Becka, it’s your show,” he said. “Carry out Phase One when you’re ready. Jack, take your squadron. Follow and cover them. The rest of us will maintain this altitude and intercept anything that comes our way.”

“Roger that,” Becka replied. “Bombers line up on my vector. Ant lion artillery has a long effective vertical range, so set your drop velocity to maximum. We won’t give them anything but our exhaust to shoot at.”

Her squadron dropped away and their jets flared white-hot. Each bumblebee clutched a large bomb in its forelimbs. Each also had bomb racks where the pollen sacs would be on a normal bumblebee.

The bees fell, gaining speed—then their wings flared, they arced up, and they released their payloads.

The gazillion ant lions in the valley fired straight up.

The sky filled with billowing smoke and a drumroll of concussive force, but the artillery shells failed to track the near supersonic bumblebees, and the enemy projectiles all missed and dropped back to the earth.

Meanwhile, tiny wings popped from the released bombs. They swooped right and left, dodging the shells as they zeroed in on their targets.

Rows of fire erupted in the valley, like strings of firecrackers
rat-a-tat-tatting
. Red and orange flowers of flame blossomed over the ground, columns of earth exploded skyward, and a haze of silver armor shrapnel sparkled and then vanished in a blanket of boiling black smoke.

Every Resister pilot gave a victory scream and cheered.

They’d creamed them!

“Regroup on me,” Ethan said in a calm, authoritative voice.

He raced ahead to where Becka’s Bombers would climb back to their altitude.

“Madison” he said, “situation report.”

“
That
got their attention!” she told him. “Tracking over a hundred fast-attack hornets angling toward us. Their command hive is turning, too.”

Excitement made her words quaver. Or was that tension and fear?

Ethan couldn’t let
his
fear get the better of him. They’d all pick up on it.

But that wasn’t easy.

Ethan watched as vast numbers of Ch’zar air units pulled together like a huge storm cloud. From this darkening thunderhead, a line streamed toward them, hundreds of crazed bugs intent on ripping them to pieces.

Now the
real
fight began.

Ethan had to time it just right, waiting until the faster enemies spread out, but not before the slower moving reinforcements could catch up or before the artillery on that floating hive got them in range and zeroed in on their position.

“Jack, take your Hawks and form on Sterling’s port side,” Ethan ordered. “Strike teams Comet and Scimitar, on our starboard edge. We’ll throttle up and burn a path through the forward enemy units. All other teams will take out stragglers—except Team Lancelot. I want you to escort the bombers while they reload.”

The channels were silent.

There wasn’t a single complaint or questioning of his orders.

Ethan was in control. For the first time today, he thought maybe they could win this.

The line of attacking Ch’zar units slowed.

Something was off.

“Stand by,” Ethan told his pilots.

He felt the same “offness” he’d experienced when the colonel had briefed them on her plan.

This should’ve worked. These were tried-and-true, familiar tactics.

But for some reason
that
bothered Ethan, too.

The Ch’zar fast-attack hornets curved and banked
back to their command hive. The balance of the enemy’s slower I.C.E. suits formed up—but
not
to engage the Resisters.

They instead spread in a fan shape, dove ground side, in the
other
direction.

“What’s going on?” Felix whispered to Ethan on a private channel.

“Just a second,” Ethan whispered back. “Don’t let anyone break formation. This might be a trick.…” His voice trailed off and his brain went into overdrive trying to figure this out.

What were they doing?

Not
attacking. Obviously.

But why?

The Resister bombing run should’ve gotten their attention. The tactic had worked a bunch of times before. Hadn’t Madison and Felix told him that once the Ch’zar’s collective intelligence made up its mind, they almost never changed it?

Come to think of it, this diversion-and-draw-out tactic was the same one Ethan had used at Sterling. He’d done something to get their attention and then done the opposite of what they’d expected—the initial Ward Zero escape, the school riot, and then going
back
to rescue Felix.

It then clicked into place in his brain.

Ethan knew exactly what was going on … exactly what was wrong.

The adrenaline in his blood cooled and felt like ice crackling up his veins, half paralyzing him with fear.

Colonel Winter broke in over his radio’s command channel. “Blackwood! What are you waiting for? Engage the enemy. Take out their lead attack units.”

“There won’t be lead attack units,” Ethan told her. “They’re circling back. The plan won’t work.”

They were going to lose this battle.

The Ch’zar would find the Seed Bank.

If they didn’t die today, every Resister would lose their minds to the alien Collective.

And Ethan knew it was his fault.

  30  

FOUR LARGE MISSILES LAUNCHED FROM THE
floating Ch’zar command hive. They billowed smoke and rocketed toward the Resisters.

“Orders?” Felix asked Ethan over the radio, his voice crackling with tension.

“Hold this course,” Ethan told him. “Everyone target the incoming projectiles and fire from here.”

“That’s a tough shot,” Paul said. “Those missiles are moving at Mach speeds.”

“I know,” Ethan replied. “Just hit them.”

“Roger that.”

They held position and their weapons made the air waver from the energy buildup.

They fired.

The air lit with near-parallel brilliant red and dazzling blue beams.

Sweat trickled down Ethan’s back. He gripped his controls tighter. He got his target lock rings to overlap on-screen on one incoming missile. He fired his wasp’s laser. The tip of the enemy missile heated to dull red.

“Lieutenant, report!” Colonel Winter shouted.

“Hang on,” Ethan told her, and double-checked the encryption on his radio channel. He didn’t trust that the Ch’zar weren’t listening in.

Still guiding his laser at the incoming missile, Ethan said to the colonel, “This is my fault. I fooled the Ch’zar in Santa Blanca and at Sterling and so many other times. Now they’ve made up their collective mind to
expect
a trick!”

There was silence on the channel as the colonel considered this.