Titan Base (21 page)

STERLING SQUADRON MOVED AWAY FROM THE
mountain battlegrounds and climbed to twenty thousand feet. Becka’s bumblebee bombers were going to join them up there, but the heavy bomber units were slower to climb.

Ethan couldn’t help but watch the carnage unfold below as army ants tunneled into the mountainside and artillery pounded the slopes. A quarter of the solid rock mountaintop had been sheared off. How much more pounding could the Resisters inside take?

Every second that ticked away was one less second the Seed Bank had left.

His throat tightened as he thought about Dr. Irving, his mentor, the scientist who had seen Earth invaded by the Ch’zar and the military strategist “storm falcon” who had survived the previous world war. He was Madison’s grandfather, too. Ethan had to make sure Dr. Irving was safe. He was too important to the Resistance, and too important to Ethan, to have any harm come to him.

He set those feelings aside. They weren’t helping up here.

Ethan did a quick systems check of the Sterling I.C.E.s.

All green—although Emma’s and Kristov’s units had an overall yellow flight rating with leaking hydraulics and compromised exoskeletons.

It’d have to be good enough.

He reviewed Rebecca’s proposed flight plan. First, a parabolic dive to gain speed. If her numbers were right, they’d skim the ground only a dozen feet over the rocks.

Second, they’d pull up at maximum velocity and appear directly under where the first Ch’zar carrier would be a minute from now.

Third, her bombers would release their payload underneath the carrier, with a flick of their bodies for that last extra push. The bombs’ momentum would carry them the rest of the way to their target.

Fourth, the Resister I.C.E.s would scatter … and hope.

They’d have to get lucky to crack the heavy armor on the underside of the carrier, to have it catch fire and then explode and set the other nearby carriers on fire, too.

It was a wild, crazy plan, a plan that Ethan might have come up with himself. That didn’t stop his fears from bubbling up inside him, though.

Rebecca and her bumblebees finished their climb and hovered alongside Sterling Squadron. The bees were a matte black and golden yellow. Their undersides were sky blue and white. There were only ten left in her squadron, and many leaked oil or had legs missing. Each, though, gripped a half-ton bomb that was composed of high explosives, fuel, and ceramic carbide shrapnel spikes designed to penetrate armor.

It just
had
to be enough firepower to take down one of the Ch’zar command carriers.

“Are we good, Blackwood?” Rebecca asked on the private commander channel.

Ethan wanted to add something to her plan. Wasn’t that what lieutenants were supposed to do?

He stopped himself, though. Rebecca had been making bombing runs for years. She knew the capabilities of her equipment and people far better than he did.

In other words, he should let Becka’s Bombers do their part, and Sterling would do theirs. He was realizing that
was part of command, too: knowing to keep your mouth shut when you couldn’t add to the solution.

“It’s a solid plan,” he told her. “Sterling has you covered.”

He looked to either side and saw his people arranged in a wedge. Felix and Emma flanked him, Madison and Oliver were directly behind, Paul and Kristov were on his starboard wing, and Angel and Lee were on his port wing.

Ethan had point on this one.

Their mission was to clear a path and take on all enemies that could interfere with the bombers’ run.

“Follow me in,” Ethan told Sterling Squadron.

He dove, leading the way. Ethan let the wasp fly on the preprogrammed route. He focused on firing his stinger laser, blasting a score of escort mosquitoes that darted in from the port side.

Emma and Felix poured on the heat with their particle beams, and together they left a trail of melted mosquito shrapnel in their wake.

At the bottom of their dive, a full squadron of locusts leaped into the air and intercepted them. Ethan fired and caught the lead enemy bug between its open jaws. It tumbled off course and crashed into a cluster of army ants on the ground, squashing six of them.

Felix and Emma kept firing, clearing the way. Paul
grabbed on to a locust that got through their particle beams and tore it apart. Lee’s housefly flashed quick laser bursts and blinded another, and sent it groping and crashing into a bank of hillside ant lion artillery.

Trees, rocks, and the snaking form of a huge centipede filled Ethan’s screens as Sterling Squadron pulled up from the dive.

He felt his skin and muscles strain against crushing acceleration. The g-forces were too much to take. The edges of his vision danced with black stars.

Fortunately his wasp was tougher and held the flight path, not easing up until they were almost vertical.

The pressure then subsided a little and Ethan’s senses came back to him.

Overhead was the huge underbelly of the Ch’zar command carrier. It looked like the biggest thunderhead cloud he’d ever seen. Bristling from its side were cannons, missile ports, and I.C.E. launch bays.

A swarm of yellow jackets poured from the enemy zeppelin.

Ethan lasered the lead fighter and it crashed into its wingmate. Emma and Felix launched bomblets and shattered the shells of the next half dozen.

Bug parts rained onto the battlefield below. The way was clear for Becka’s Bombers.

Ethan glanced at his aft camera. He counted nine bumblebees rising through the smoke.

They’d lost one.

He gritted his teeth and wished he could have saved that person. He’d done his best, though. He just hoped it was enough.

“Scatter,” he ordered Sterling. “Pattern omega.”

His wasp veered to starboard and rolled, dodging a stream of automatic gunfire from the lower curve of the carrier as anti-aircraft guns popped out.

Ethan switched his aft camera to the central display.

The bumblebees rose to the apex of their climb in a disorganized pack. Some flared their wings to slow, while others lit afterburners, and the group tightened into a single wall of I.C.E.s that perfectly mirrored the shape of the carrier’s underside.

Ethan marveled at the precision flying.

The bees opened the claws that clamped the bombs. Each bomb was the size of a car and strangely floated alongside the bees for a split second—then the I.C.E.s flicked their bodies and propelled their payloads up, at the same time giving themselves a big push away from the carrier.

The bombs flew in a perfect dotted line.

They hit.

Nine lightning-bright flashes went off together, blossoming
into white flowers of death, expanding into boiling clouds of burning fuel that dulled to amber and then hellish red, enveloping the carrier from underneath.

A shock wave rippled up through the superstructure. It bent the frame, ripped the skin, and undulated to the top, where it shattered the outer shell and sent the ant lion artillery stationed there flying.

Meanwhile, the undercarriage caught fire. Flames licked at the sides and sent tendrils of oily smoke curling into the air.

They’d done it!

Swarms of enemy I.C.E.s dropped from the undamaged carriers and rushed to their sister ship. They sprayed foam down the sides. The substance stopped the fire from spreading higher, but it evaporated and couldn’t dribble down to the flames underneath.

At the aft end of the burning carrier, a huge valve dilated open and expelled a whoosh of gas.

The carrier immediately sank toward the ground, using its huge tail fin to steer toward the forest and a stream below.

It pulled up at the last moment, skidding and crashing through the trees and plowing through the river.

Water and earth smothered the flames. Before it could reignite, enemy I.C.E.s were on the craft, spraying it down
with fire-suppressant foam. Clouds of steam and smoke billowed into the air.

That was smart. The Ch’zar had saved one of their command carriers … but it was definitely out of the fight. Good.

Ethan’s happiness vanished, though, when he turned his attention to the
rest
of the Ch’zar fleet.

The remaining three command carriers were surrounded by clouds of defending I.C.E.s. There’d be no way to make another bombing run—even if they had more bombs.

The initial bombing run had been textbook perfect, but the Ch’zar had put out the fire before the first carrier had exploded and there was no chance now to stop those other carriers.

The Ch’zar had learned so many new tactics since they’d last engaged the Resisters.

And that was Ethan’s doing. He’d fooled them too many times and taught them to be tricky … just like him.

The three Ch’zar command carriers continued their slow approach toward the mountain and the Seed Bank.

Ethan’s mind raced through the possibilities. Should he try to launch Emma and Felix again, maybe
all of them
, at the nose of the carriers and hope they could blast through the new defenses? That seemed like the only way
to take them out. Or was he missing something obvious? Some
new
way to trick the Ch’zar and win?

He
had
to figure out something.

They’d made him a lieutenant, put him in charge—it was
his
responsibility.

“Blackwood.” Colonel Winter’s voice broke through on a private radio channel. She sounded in control and irritated, like the enemy finding the Seed Bank and blowing it off the map was a minor inconvenience that she’d get fixed in a second.

“Ma’am, I think I could stop—”

“There’s no more time for plans,” Colonel Winter told him. “I have new orders for you. These will be my last, so listen carefully for once.”

“Colonel,” Ethan said, and tried to figure out how to tell her there
was
a way to win. Sure, a stupid and likely-to-get-them-killed way, but hadn’t he always found a way to survive his crazy schemes?

Before his thoughts could form into words, though, Colonel Winter continued. “You are to evacuate,” she said. “Take Sterling and hide.”

“I don’t understand, ma’am.”

“Run, Blackwood. Far away. As fast as you can go. Once the enemy is done here, they’re going to hunt you personally, I think.”

Ethan couldn’t believe he was hearing this from the colonel. She never gave up.

“I’m sending similar orders to Rebecca to go, but
not
with you. This will maximize your chances for survival.” Colonel Winter’s voice, usually full of steel and authority, wavered. “Tell Felix,” she whispered, “tell him I love him … that I wish I could have shown it more. Tell him he is to carry out Special Order Eighty-Eight. And tell him … his father would’ve been proud of him, too.”

The cockpit swam around Ethan. He couldn’t believe this was happening.

It had to be some new Ch’zar ploy. They were using the colonel’s voice to trick him.

“I won’t run, ma’am,” Ethan told her. “I can’t leave you and Dr. Irving behind.”

“I understand,” she said, shocking Ethan that she wasn’t yelling at him. “In a few moments, though, there’s going to be nothing left behind for you to save. You have your orders, Lieutenant. I know you’ll find a way to make it. The Resistance will live on through you.”

She took a deep breath and when she spoke next, all the steel had returned to her voice: “This is Colonel Amanda Winter, signing off.”

The radio channel went dead.

Ethan stared at the speaker, stunned.

“Ethan!” Felix shouted through the speaker, snapping Ethan out of his daze. “The Ch’zar are approaching the Seed Bank. What are your orders?”

Ethan couldn’t give up. He had to fight.

But he had the most horrible feeling about what the colonel had just said:
“In a few moments, though, there’s going to be nothing left behind for you to save.”

Ethan knew under no circumstances would she let the Ch’zar capture them. With her and the other adult Resisters’ minds added to the Collective, the enemy would know every secret and weakness of the Resistance. And if that happened, Sterling Squadron, her son Felix, none of them would have a chance.

He decided.

Orders and responsibility had their place. That wasn’t now.

“Line up on me,” Ethan told the squadron. “We’re making another combat run at those carriers.”

“Wait,” Emma whispered. “You’ve seen the carriers’ new defenses. I don’t think we can make it this time. And with all those I.C.E.s defending, I don’t think we’ll even get close.”

“Just do it—or don’t!” he shouted at his sister. “We’ve got to help.” Tears blurred his vision and he rapidly blinked them away. “We’ve got to …”

The words faded from his lips as the lead Ch’zar command carrier rose a thousand feet over the mountain. Along its belly, doors parted. Hundreds of bombs tumbled out, each looking like a spiked seedpod, each the size of a house.

The bombs hit the mountain and exploded. So many of them went off at once that the entire mountain looked like it was on fire. It became a volcano with plumes and geysers of earth.

Shock waves blasted Ethan’s wasp even though it was a mile away in the air.

He felt like he was dying.

Dr. Irving was in there. All of the adult Resisters. Even little kids not old enough to fly sorties.

And they were all getting killed.

Some dust cleared, revealing angled steel struts, the outer layers of the underground base. The Ch’zar were breaking through.

How long until the enemy’s mind control got to the colonel and the others?

The next Ch’zar command carrier moved over the mountain and dropped its bombs.

“Stop it!” Ethan screamed.

The detonations heated steel walls, leaving pockmarks and molten craters and gaping holes.

“This is Colonel Winter.” A ragged voice came over an open radio channel. “I am the leader of the Resisters and speak for all free humans. You will
not
take us alive.”

“Mom, no!” Felix cried over the radio. “Ethan, quick, we’ve got to get away!”

Ethan couldn’t respond. He couldn’t even move.

“Everyone!” Felix shouted over the squadron radio channel. “Follow me. Fast!”