Sterling Squadron (25 page)

“Go on,” she said.

The missiles roared toward the Resisters. The one Ethan painted in his sights exploded. Then another prematurely blasted to bits. And another.

The last one, though, corkscrewed, and no one had a target lock on the thing as it closed in on them.

“They’ve finally learned to
learn from us
,” Ethan whispered. “They’re not taking the bait this time. In fact, they’re moving
away
from the selected bombing target.”

Toward
the Seed Bank.

He didn’t say this, but it had to be.

Colonel Winter would have only picked a target that drew the enemy farther from the base. The Ch’zar had guessed the Resisters’ misdirection ploy … and so concentrated their search efforts in the opposite direction.

“Understood,” the colonel said. “We’re formulating a new plan. In the meantime, Lieutenant, take care of them. Command out.”

The channel went dead.

Take care of them
?

Did she mean “take care of them” as in take the Ch’zar out?

Or did she mean “take care of them” as in the pilots? As in retreat and live to fight another day?

That last corkscrewing missile loomed large on his view screens.

It blasted through their formation and exploded in their midst.

Ethan slammed into the side of his cockpit. Sparks shot from control panels, black stars filled his head, and every monitor blanked … and then flickered back on.

A bronze hornet and cobalt-blue wasp spiraled from their ranks toward the ground, leaking hydraulic fluid and smoking. The hornet’s pilot ejected and a parachute popped open. The I.C.E. wasp fluttered its wings and made it to the ground. Those were Jack Figgin’s people.

“Units three and five on my wing,” Jack shouted over the radio. “We’re going down to get them.”

“Belay that order,” Ethan said. (
Belay
was the military term that meant “stop.”) “We need to stay up here, all of us, or we’ll get picked apart.”

Two pilots on the ground. Ethan shuddered. He wouldn’t wish that on anyone with the earth literally crawling with thousands of Ch’zar infantry units. Those downed pilots would be killed—or worse, captured.

Another volley of missiles erupted from the Ch’zar carrier. The enemy I.C.E. units hung back and didn’t engage, letting the hive blast Ethan’s forces to bits.

“What do we do?” Paul screamed. “We can’t just stay and take this punishment!”

There was an edge of mutiny in Paul’s voice.

Ethan didn’t blame him. He was blowing it. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and the Ch’zar had adapted to his tactics.

Ethan had to come up with
new
tactics, ones that
no
one would predict. Easier said than done. How did you fool someone who’d learned all your tricks?

The answer came to him in a flash. It was so simple.

You fooled someone who’d learned all your tricks by
not
tricking them.

If, for example, this were a soccer game, he would turn around and try to make a straight rush for the goal. The Ch’zar wouldn’t be expecting
that
because it was totally nuts, but Ethan would have one last trick up his sleeve for them.

His excitement faded, though, as he realized what that last trick was going to cost him.

“Stand by,” Ethan told them in a steady voice. “I have to plan.”

Rebecca from the bomber squadron broke through. “We’re about to descend to the reload point, Lieutenant. Do we abort and get back there?”

“Negative,” Ethan told her. “Continue with the original orders. Reload as fast as you can. We’re going to need those bombs.”

Ethan’s voice rose in pitch with panic. He cleared his throat. He couldn’t fall apart now, not when his people needed him the most.

He stared at the incoming missiles. They
all
had corkscrew trajectories this time.

So the Ch’zar
had
learned to learn.

“Break formation on my mark,” Ethan told his pilots. “Scatter pattern omega.”

The missiles tore through the air, getting nearer, so close now Ethan saw organic vein patterns along their sleek bodies.

“Break!” he shouted.

The I.C.E. suits in formation jetted off in a dozen directions.

The missiles veered back and forth, trying to track them all.

Two missiles bumped together, tumbled, detonated, and spilled a chain of fire across the air.

The other missiles piled into those explosions and blasted themselves into bits of metal.

“Form strike teams,” Ethan said. “Clear the airspace of straggler enemies, and then close on the units near that carrier.”

The Resister pilots broke and engaged enemy locusts, wasps, and beetles that hadn’t joined the rest of the Ch’zar fleet and had been hovering just out of effective weapons range.

To the Ch’zar, this would look like a desperate attempt from the Resisters to win … or set up some sort of trick.

Which is exactly what it was—only this time, a misdirection of Ethan’s
true
misdirection.

“Felix, Emma, and Madison,” Ethan said. “I need you with me. Fall back.”

“But I can fight,” Emma protested. “Don’t you dare keep me out just because I’m your sister!”

Ethan admired her courage. If only he
could
keep her safe …

An enemy hornet flashed right in front of Ethan—with amber-and-black exoskeleton plates and an armor-piercing stinger.

His wasp barrel-rolled out of a fatal collision at the last second and then gave chase, jets firing to catch the hornet without Ethan even giving the command.

Ethan pulsed his laser and shot the insect at point-blank range—through and through, tail to head.

“I’m not taking
anyone
out of this fight,” Ethan shouted back to his sister. “Madison, climb to forty thousand feet, scan everything and give team leaders updates every thirty seconds.”

“Roger,” Madison replied.

Ethan watched her dragonfly blast into a steep, graceful ascent. He hoped it wasn’t the last time he saw her, but it very well might be.

“Emma,” Ethan said, “you and Felix move with me fifteen miles west and climb to thirty thousand.”

“There are no enemies there,” Felix said, confused.

“I know,” Ethan said. “Trust me.”

A lump wedged in Ethan’s throat. He’d just gotten his sister back. The thought of losing Emma again paralyzed him.

He couldn’t do this.

But he couldn’t
not
do it either, because if they lost this battle, he’d lose Emma anyway.

Ethan had to order his sister and his best friend on a suicide mission.

“I’m sending you both in,” he said, “to destroy that Ch’zar hive.”

  31  

ETHAN, EMMA, AND FELIX HOVERED ON
the sidelines of the battle. Felix’s rhinoceros beetle and Emma’s killer ladybug had such powerful wingbeats to keep their heavy units aloft that the turbulence buffeted Ethan’s light (just three tons) wasp like a feather.

They waited and watched.

It drove Ethan nuts. He felt like a fake—like people thought he was out here doing nothing because he didn’t know what to do.

The other Resister pilots had got drawn in closer to
the Ch’zar command hive. They dove and rolled and fought the Ch’zar units that protectively encircled it.

The enemy hadn’t fired more big missiles. Maybe the Resister pilots were too close to the hive and the Ch’zar would risk damaging themselves.

A lucky break.

From fifteen miles out, all Ethan could see were tiny puffs of plasma and bursts of fire and laser light. He heard his pilots, though, like they were right next to him. Over the open radio channel, a flood of voices shouted,
“Watch out!… Roll to port.… Three on your tail!… Yeah, got one! No, pull back!… Starboard wing is shredded.”

His pilots were the best fliers, but they couldn’t last much longer.

They had to, though—long enough to make the Ch’zar think this was their real, crazy plan.

Not the
other
crazy plan Ethan had up his sleeve.

“Station-keeping formation,” Ethan told Felix and Emma.

The rhinoceros beetle and ladybug hovered closer to his wasp. Sunlight glinted off their shells, midnight blue and ruby red. Ethan flashed a tiny laser beam to them. It was a secure command channel. No one else could eavesdrop.

“What are we doing out here?” Emma shouted. “What did you mean we have to take out that command hive?”

“Everything depends on surprise,” Ethan told her. “Colonel Winter said the Ch’zar need that command hive to keep their collective intelligence working with so many units out here. If we destroy it, I think the enemy I.C.E. units will revert to their native insect intelligence. They’ll still be deadly, but then we can at least outthink them.”

“Sure,” Emma said. “We’ll just fly up to their hive, knock on their front door, and ask them to fly it into a volcano.”

“Sarcasm aside,” Felix added, “your sister has a point. That thing is too big and has too much armor for our weapons to do any real damage.”

“It’s not armored on the
inside
,” Ethan told them.

“Of course not,” Emma said. “But how does
that
help?”

Ethan looked up. The three of them were lined up and staring straight down the front of the Ch’zar command hive.

“We’re going to make a run at the nose,” Ethan told them. “We’ll link up and use our jets to build velocity fast. I’ll go in partway and use all my fuel to boost you two.”

“Why us?” Emma asked, now suddenly deadly serious … and scared.

“You two have the heaviest armor in our group,” Ethan explained. “You have the best chance to puncture the outer skin.”

“
If
we don’t splatter on their armor first, and
if
we get in,” Felix said with growing enthusiasm as he caught on to Ethan’s insane scheme, “our suits have full racks of missiles and heavy particle beams. We’ll be able to do some
real
damage to that thing!”

“And then die?” Emma whispered.

“Not necessarily.” Ethan’s heart felt ready to burst, but he went on, managing to sound halfway in control of his fear. “I’m going to order the Resisters to hit the hive’s nose and tail, soften it up at the last moment. Hopefully those parts will be damaged enough so you and Felix can punch inside, unload your missiles, and have enough momentum to punch back out.”

Even to Ethan this sounded far-fetched.

“There’s one thing that’ll help,” he continued. “Dr. Irving told me that the Ch’zar technology we borrow for our I.C.E. suits flexes the molecular structure of their outer surfaces. It momentarily makes them superstrong. You’re going to need to keep your minds focused on the leading edges of your bugs. You can make them tougher than titanium—harder than diamond.”

“I don’t know …,” Felix whispered.

Ethan had sympathy for his sister and his friend.

But they couldn’t afford doubt.

“There’s nothing
to
know,” Ethan said to Felix. “It’s our only chance. And it’s an order.”

There was silence from Emma and Felix.

Emma finally replied, “The colonel said you were in charge, Ethan, but that doesn’t matter to me. What matters is that you came back to Santa Blanca to rescue me. You came to Sterling to rescue us all. I know you wouldn’t do this unless we needed to. And you wouldn’t do it unless we had at least a chance of surviving.” Her voice hitched in her throat. “I trust you.”

“So do I,” Felix added apologetically. “You’ve been right so far. Even about the
crazy
stuff.”

Ethan was dying inside because he didn’t believe in himself half as much as they did, but he kept all the doubts and fears to himself. Like Dr. Irving had told him,
Make sure that the men and women who follow you see that you’re confident, because strategy rarely survives without inspiration
.

Ethan
had
to be strong. For Emma. For Felix. For everyone.

Paul shouted over the radio, “Ethan? We’re getting creamed out here. Do something!”

Ethan switched to the normal channel. “Resisters, stand by for new orders in approximately one minute.”