Sterling Squadron (5 page)

The office had a mahogany desk and walls filled with bookshelves crammed with old army technical manuals, encyclopedias, atlases, the complete works of William Shakespeare, and a snow globe of Mount Fuji.

Three older officers stood around her desk and scrutinized yellowed paper maps. Even Dr. Irving was there, one wrinkled hand cupping his chin, deep in thought.

Ethan felt a surge of panic. Had the colonel assembled her officers for a quick court-martial?

But the adults ignored them.

Ethan caught snatches of their conversation—“dire situation” and “desperate measures” and “fallback contingencies”—before they looked up and fell silent.

He squinted and saw the map was of North America and covered with hundreds of red dots. Why use paper maps? They had access to super-high-tech 3-D displays and satellite images in the huge Resister Command and Control Center upstairs.

Unless this was a big secret …

“Gentlemen,” Colonel Winter said, addressing the adults, “I need the room for a moment.” Her tone was no-nonsense, cast-iron tough.

The officers nodded, quickly rolled up the maps, and withdrew.

Only Dr. Irving lingered. The old chief scientist of the Resisters took a last look at the now-rolled-up maps, and at Ethan, and then, raising a bushy white eyebrow, glanced at the colonel.

She shook her head at him as if to say,
Whatever you’re thinking, DON’T. Mr. Blackwood is about to be thrown in jail and the keys conveniently lost for the next fifty years
.

Dr. Irving sighed, flashed a consoling smile at Ethan, and then also left the room.

The doctor understood Ethan. He had answers for every question Ethan had asked. Ethan thought of him as the grandfather he’d never known.

And as Dr. Irving left the room, Ethan felt like his last hope to get out of this mess left with him.

Colonel Winter nodded to the guards, who shut the door behind them.

Ethan locked eyes with Felix, who stood next to him.

Felix was Colonel Winter’s son, raised to be a Resistance fighter and pilot, one of the best. On the walls of the office were dozens of framed photographs of Felix and Madison and many other kids standing proud next to their I.C.E. suits.

Felix smoothed a hand over his closely shorn head and swallowed hard. Paul looked respectful but also supremely confident (as if he got hauled into the colonel’s office every day).

Colonel Winter stood before the three boys.

They all straightened.

The colonel had no need for the guards. Just like Earth had a gravitational field, just like the sun emitted light and heat, Colonel Winter radiated cold, absolute authority.

A bead of sweat formed on Ethan’s temple, trickled down to his chin, his neck, and slowly wormed down the back of his flight suit.

It itched, but he didn’t dare break attention.

She stopped staring at them and consulted the data pad she held.

On the data pad’s screen were video clips from this morning’s flight simulation. He looked good tearing into those mosquitoes.

She tapped the pad, and the scene shifted to footage from his and Paul’s onboard flight recorders. They zoomed through Knucklebone Canyon.

Ethan’s pride over the earlier simulated run vanished.

Would she blame him for what had happened? The race had been Paul’s idea.

Ethan wasn’t sure. It’d been a stupid, reckless thing
to do. And the Resisters didn’t let stupid people become pilots. His mouth dried up, and he tried to swallow but couldn’t.

Felix (normally as pale as a ghost anyway) looked as if all the blood had just drained out of him.

Paul seemed most at ease, almost relaxed—the kind of coolness that was the sign of a great pilot.

And yet, who had lost his head out there today?

And who’d gone back to save Paul from those black widows?

On the data pad, Ethan saw the black widows move in for the kill. He heard Paul scream as he tried to escape their webs. Rocks fell from the sky, ripped the silk strands, and Ethan swooped in to carry him off.

The colonel nodded and set the pad down.

She crossed her arms over her chest. “Foolish. Arrogant. Criminal recklessness.”

Ethan wasn’t sure which description applied to him. It took all his strength to stay standing at attention, eyes ahead, because more than anything he wanted to drop his gaze to the floor in shame.

“You endangered the entire base with your performances today,” the colonel continued. “I am disappointed.”

That last word dropped onto Ethan, crushing him with guilt.

The colonel stepped closer to Felix. “Sergeant Winter. You were the deck NCO at the time this occurred, correct?”

NCO
was an abbreviation for “noncommissioned officer”—sergeants, staff sergeants—the guys and girls who led squads and got the officers’ (all adults as far as Ethan had seen) orders carried out.

“Yes, ma’am,” Felix said in a hoarse voice.

“While Staff Sergeant Hicks was responsible for instigating this so-called race,” she said, “you failed to report his breach of our standing policy to fly in groups of three or more and thereby endangered one of our best pilots and a promising trainee.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Felix repeated, now barely audible.

“You are hereby demoted to corporal. Your flight status is suspended for a month while you inventory every spare part in the refit bays as you consider where your loyalty lies: to your fellow pilots or to the Resistance.”

Felix remained at attention, but Ethan thought he detected a slight tremble in him. The big guy stood straight, though, and took the punishment, his eyes locked ahead.

The colonel moved to Ethan.

It was suddenly very cold in the room.

“Trainee Blackwood,” she said. Her voice was flat. Her eyes seemed to drill into his skin. “Simulator and flight recorder logs show impressive performance numbers. Our missions, however, are
not
simulations. The consequence of failure is
not
a bad score. It is death. Do you understand?”

Ethan wasn’t sure he should answer, but he did anyway.

“Yes, ma’am. Absolutely.”

“I wonder if you do. Your flight training is suspended until further notice. You are assigned to sewer maintenance duty until I see fit to review your case.”

Ethan lost the ability to speak. He somehow managed a simple nod.

He’d known he’d get
some
punishment, but no flying? Maybe forever?

The last few weeks, he’d soared through the clouds, skimmed mountaintops, and felt a pure freedom he’d never experienced before. Flying had become part of him.

This wasn’t fair. He wanted to say something, but he instinctively knew that keeping his mouth shut (no matter how hard it was) would be the best way to help his case.

Colonel Winter stepped up to Paul.

“Permission to speak in my defense,” Paul said.

“Denied,” she told him.

Paul’s lips compressed as if he were physically restraining the words.

“Let’s see if I have this right,” the colonel said. “You were bested in the flight simulator by Trainee Blackwood. You violated our three-or-none fly policy, then initiated an illegal race and were ambushed by Ch’zar ninja-class arachnid units. Mr. Blackwood saved your life. And for his trouble, because of your wounded pride, you assaulted him in front of a landing bay full of witnesses. Is that correct?”

Paul looked unconcerned by her accusations, and the faintest tremor of a smile flickered in the scarred corner of his mouth. “Yes, ma’am, those are the facts.”

Ethan couldn’t believe it.

Paul acted like all he had to do was explain himself and Colonel Winter would understand—and pat him on the back!

But before Paul could say anything, she leaned closer and whispered, “Do you know what your worst mistake was, Hicks?”

The word
mistake
stumped Paul.

It was like she spoke a different language. He had no answer.

“Your first duty was to the trainees. You should’ve
admitted your loss in the simulator and showed the others how Mr. Blackwood had won.”

At this, Ethan’s chest puffed with pride.

“And,” Colonel Winter continued, “showed them how that would have gotten him killed in the real world. You, Blackwood,
everyone
would have learned a valuable lesson.”

Ethan deflated.

Paul’s gaze dropped to the floor and strands of sandy hair fell into his face.

“You are my greatest disappointment, Mr. Hicks.” She stepped back from him, shaking her head. “I thought we could forge you into something better. Maybe they were right to put you where we found you.”

Ethan didn’t understand. Where had they “found” him? The colonel couldn’t mean
outside
the Seed Bank base. Dr. Irving had said Ethan had been the only neighborhood-raised kid to successfully fly an I.C.E. suit.

“I’m going to save this base the trauma of general court-martial,” Colonel Winter whispered. “You would certainly be found guilty, and I cannot bring myself to think of what punishment a jury of officers would hand down.”

For a moment she looked as if she wanted to give Paul a consoling hug … but then she took a deep breath,
straightened her uniform, and the microscopic hint of warmth was gone.

“My summary judgment is this,” she said. “You, Paul Hicks, are hereby stripped of your flight status and rank. I sentence you to two years in the brig. Perhaps when you are released, you will be an asset to the Resistance. For now, however, you are a danger to yourself and to everyone here.”

Paul staggered back as if she’d hit him. The scars on his face drew tight and turned bone white.

In two years Paul would be an adult. He’d never be able to leave the base again—never fly again.

Despite everything that had happened, Ethan felt sorry for him.

Colonel Winter opened her office door. She pointed at Paul and told the two guards, “Take this prisoner to the brig.”

The military police escorted Paul out, his head hung low.

He stopped, turned, and glared directly at Ethan.

It was a look of pure, laser-beam-focused hatred.

Even though it wasn’t his fault, even though an hour ago he’d saved Paul’s life, Ethan knew that he had just made an enemy forever.

  6  

ETHAN PUMPED A PLUNGER AGAIN INTO THE
sink. There was a clog in the drain.

It was his new duty to conquer and destroy all fluid-blocking obstacles. He’d gone from a promising pilot trainee, soaring through the clouds, to a technician in charge of extracting the most stinky stuff in the known universe from sinks, urinals, and toilets.

What made it even worse was the other kids.

When he pushed his maintenance cart down the base’s halls, they wouldn’t meet his eyes or talk to him. They blamed
him
for Paul.

He got it. Paul was the superstar pilot.

If not for Ethan (even though everyone knew it
wasn’t
his fault), Paul would still be training pilots and fighting for the Resistance.

Ethan gave his plunger an extra-hard shove, pretending the clog was Paul’s face, and with a long sucking noise, a hairy ball of mucus came loose.

This was
so
gross.

He stood up, rubbed the kink in his back, and looked around.

Under other circumstances, he would’ve loved to have been here.

This was the Insect Research and Development Lab. It was where Dr. Irving and his staff cut and pasted insect DNA and Ch’zar technology together to breed new hybrid fighting suits.

The lab had huge three-dimensional displays that showed rotating strands of DNA and floating math equations. There were computer terminals, electron microscopes, and machines with glowing ultraviolet tubes that focused pinpoints of light and had micromechanical pincers.

Dr. Irving had a dozen lab assistants, but tonight, he worked alone, tapping away on his computer. He stopped, turned, and smiled. “Done?” he asked Ethan.

The doctor was the oldest person Ethan had ever met, maybe eighty-five years old. There were no old people in the Ch’zar neighborhood where Ethan had grown up, so it’d taken Ethan a little getting used to. Dr. Irving’s wrinkles had wrinkles! However, his eyes glittered with intelligence and kindness, and he seemed to like Ethan.