Operation Inferno (19 page)

There had been
so
many maintenance robots in the lower levels. Ethan guessed that Titan Base, with miles and miles of passages and hundreds of rooms, had needed a literal army to keep it in running order.

At last count they had over seven thousand robots of various sizes and abilities now ready to fight for the Resistance.

It’d taken a day to round them up on the flight deck and start shipping them out to the staging area in Mexico.

Ethan tapped a red circle on the map. “We sure no Ch’zar are onto us?”

Madison touched her ear and listened to her radio link. “Latest report just coming from the staging area, sir. One of Rebecca’s people en route back to base. All robots on perimeter patrol detect no inbound Ch’zar. Half a dozen of Becka’s bees are in the tree canopy, camouflaged, and have eyes in the sky.” Madison refocused her green-eyed gaze on Ethan. “And we’re still getting images from the Ch’zar satellites overhead. I think we’re good.”

“Good,” Ethan said, careful to not let his anxiety be heard by the others. He had to lead them into this battle with confidence, even if he didn’t feel it.

“On-ground weapons status?” he asked Felix.

Felix consulted a data pad.

“Latest report shows all portable fusion reactors set up in the staging area,” he said. “We’ll have every weapon charged two hours before dawn.”

“Just in time,” Ethan said. “Good work.”

The fusion generator power was for the robots and their weapons.

At first, Ethan thought the odds were stacked against them. The robots’ weapons—chain saws and sledgehammers—would have been pitiful against Ch’zar I.C.E. armor. Dr. Irving, though, had rigged flamethrowers, rail-gun rifles, mortar launchers, sonic blasters, and a half dozen other nasty (and very cool) instruments of destruction.

On top of that, the robots had offered to help; otherwise it could have taken months to get the weapons made. A thousand robots had scavenged the base for parts, while another two thousand had formed a line to put all the weapons together.

It was like a self-assembling army.

That left one last thing to triple-check.

“The air-fuel bombs,” Ethan asked Emma. “What’s their status?”

“Dr. Irving said he was going over the wiring one last time,” Emma said, her voice deadly serious.

Dr. Irving had insisted that only he be allowed to assemble the bombs. One mishap, one of those things detonating inside Titan Base … and it’d put an end to this operation.

It’d most likely put an end to the Resistance.

On the far side of the flight bay the last of their I.C.E.s that hadn’t been dispatched were parked: Ethan’s gold-and-black wasp, Felix’s midnight-blue beetle, Emma’s ladybug (close to Felix’s I.C.E.), and Madison’s gleaming emerald dragonfly.

That’s where Dr. Irving had set up his work area. Inside a protective ring of I.C.E.s were empty spare fuel tanks, fuel trucks, and a dozen carts with tools, electronics, and moldable plastic explosives.

Dr. Irving had constructed five of what he called thermobaric devices. He also called them the biggest bombs this side of a nuke.

Someone on Sterling Squadron (Ethan suspected Angel) had secretly painted shark teeth and red eyes on the devices. Dr. Irving had approved.

Each bomb would explode twice. First, it blew up on contact, thanks to the small, precisely shaped charge
inside the tank. This vaporized the fuel and dispersed it over a huge area. A moment later, a second charge detonated to combust the fuel. The resulting explosive pressure wave from all the stuff burning at once would have enough force to flatten dozens of buildings.

It’d make the one Angel had dropped and lit with her laser seem like a firecracker in comparison.

Dr. Irving had taken Ethan aside the night before and cautioned him, “The lethal concussive radius of these bombs might exceed the top-exit velocity of the delivery I.C.E.”

Ethan got the message loud and clear: this might be a suicide run for whoever dropped the bombs.

He was still working out how to make that risk as small as possible, but for now the best bet was Felix and his beetle, with the heaviest armor in the squadron.

“We better load the last of the robots onto the Luna moths, grab the bombs with our I.C.E.s, and move out,” Ethan said. He took in a deep breath and added, “And I just wanted to say thanks to you guys. No matter what happens, humanity wouldn’t have had a chance without you. Neither would I.”

“No problem, little brother,” Emma said, and punched him hard on the shoulder. “All in a day’s work.”

“We’ve always believed in you, too,” Felix said.

“Yeah …,” Madison said. She looked at the floor, uncharacteristically shy. “Except maybe those first few days when you were screaming and hyperventilating every time you saw a bug.”

Ethan grinned at her. He wanted to tell Madison especially how he felt. That after this was all over—what? He wasn’t sure, but he had to tell her something before they left.

Boots echoed over the deck.

Ethan turned, recognizing the purposeful stride of Colonel Winter. Dr. Irving was with her, too. Neither adult looked happy.

Ethan and his crew saluted.

The colonel gave them a quick nod in return. “I’ll just cut to it, Lieutenant,” she said. There was something in her tone,
not
the usual steely chill, and it made Ethan worry.

“Yes, ma’am?”

It was one of the rare times that the colonel stopped and looked as if she was having a hard time speaking her mind.

“Please,” Dr. Irving said, “let me.”

“Very well, Doctor,” Colonel Winter replied. “This is after all your area of expertise.”

“Is something not working with the bombs?” Ethan asked, his worry turning into a stab of panic. “Have the Ch’zar found—”

Dr. Irving held up a slightly trembling hand. “Neither of those things, my boy. This concerns your preflight medical screenings. The results, which I tripled-checked, have come in. There is, I am afraid, an … irregularity.”

Ethan glanced at his friends.

Emma looked as clueless as he was about Dr. Irving’s words. But Felix and Madison looked as if they’d both just been punched in the gut.

“One pilot has elevated testosterone levels and other chemical markers that we know are precursors to …”

Then Ethan got it.

“Puberty,” Ethan said, and his brain felt like it’d been hit with a hammer.

Dr. Irving and Colonel Winter were there to tell him he was going to hit puberty and he couldn’t fly the most critical mission of his life.

There was no way anyone about to hit puberty could leave the underground base. Once out there, if
the Ch’zar Collective got into their mind, the enemy would know the entire plan. They’d pull their forces in around the elevator and Sterling Squadron would never get a shot at it. Worse, the Ch’zar would learn the location of Titan Base.

Ethan took a step forward, shoulders back, sad, but proud. “I understand,” he said. “And I’ll do the right thing.”

Dr. Irving held a data pad, numbers and graphs flashing over its screen.

Ethan went to grab it, but the doctor took another step—and handed it to Felix.

Felix read the test results, his face flushed, and he inhaled sharply.

“I thought this might be happening,” he whispered to Ethan. “I … I’m so sorry.”

Felix? Puberty? Ethan understood it, but he couldn’t quite believe it.

And how could Ethan go into combat without his best friend? The anchor of the squadron?

Another part of his mind clicked on, and Ethan worried about the tactical considerations of his operation. He’d been counting on the massive rhinoceros beetle to carry three bombs. Emma’s ladybug might be able to
carry one or two more. Those two I.C.E.s were the only ones with that amount of lifting capacity.

“Are you absolutely sure?” Ethan asked Dr. Irving, almost pleading.

“As I told you,” he replied with an apologetic shrug, “the lab results were triple-checked.”

“It’s okay, Ethan,” Felix said, his voice suddenly as strong as it’d always been. “I had a great run as a Resistance pilot. Now I have to stay behind and help as best I can in the Command Center. We all grow up knowing it’s got to happen eventually.”

Felix and Emma then shared a long, meaningful look.

Ethan shook his head, still not accepting this.

“Emma can take my beetle,” Felix told him. “The controls are a near match to her ladybug.”

“I volunteer,” Emma said, and held her chin high. She moved to Felix’s side, wrapped an arm around him, and gave him a big squeeze.

Ethan felt numb and unable to decide what to do.

“Lieutenant,” Colonel Winter said. “You need to issue new orders and shape your squad. We have a mission to run.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Ethan choked back his sadness. “Sergeant, I’m sorry, but you’re benched. Emma will take
Big Blue and grab three bombs. My wasp and another I.C.E. will grab one more apiece. We should be able to hit a hundred and fifty miles an hour with that load, which still has us on time for predawn strike.”

He looked at Felix, tears prickling his eyes, saluted, and then turned to Madison and Emma. “Get ready,” he said. “We move out in five minutes.”

Ethan then took Madison aside. “And about Paul,” he whispered. “Tell him he’s got his wings back.”

Madison’s eyes widened. “Are you sure? That guy is mental.”

“Minus Felix, we’re down one combat vet. I need Paul in his mantis with us on this one. Give Kristov the heads-up and tell him to talk to me if he has a problem.”

“Okay,” Madison said, shaking her head. “It’s your call.” She jogged off.

Ethan understood what Paul had tried to do the other day. He was just trying to get some “airtime” to figure things out. Ethan might’ve done the same thing (minus punching Kristov, though).

But was he going to regret trusting volatile Paul Hicks? With his life? And with the lives of the entire squadron.

   23   
OPERATION INFERNO

E
THAN KNEW THAT DANGER WAS ALL AROUND
him, despite the oddly quiet jungle. There were no giant enemy ants crashing through the trees or buzzing locust I.C.E.s flying overhead. There were no birdcalls either. It was as if the native wildlife knew something big was coming here.

Here
was a five-acre clearing in the jungle a few miles from the Yucatán Industrial Sector. It was fifteen minutes before sunrise, and the sky was gray and blue and streaked with cloud-lit orange.

Standing motionlessly, taking up most of the space
in the clearing, were nearly seventeen thousand maintenance robots. They were in a square formation one hundred twenty-five units to a side. There were a few other robots on the perimeter, antennae in hand, listening for the enemy.

The noisiest creatures there were the Resisters.

Kristov was by his locust, making last-minute adjustments to its wing hydraulics with a wrench, cursing at a stuck fitting. Grease smeared his big arms up to the elbows.

Lee was on the radio with Rebecca’s bee squad, who were in the trees and in the air being the Resisters’ eyes in the sky.

Oliver sat cross-legged on the grass, eating a Titan Base preheated meal of macaroni and cheese that he’d taken a liking to (despite the food probably being a decade or two old). He made the worst smacking noises as he devoured the pasta.

Angel and Madison were having a heated but, so far, nonviolent debate about overcharging the robots’ energy weapons for extra damage.

Paul polished the eyes of his Crusher mantis. He looked perfectly as ease, like he was washing the family car, not like he was about to go into battle.

Rebecca gave orders to one robot, who was translating those last-minute updates to its subcaptains throughout the robotic ranks. She looked comfortable giving orders, and Ethan thought one day she could be the next colonel.

Emma had the rhinoceros beetle’s cockpit open and ran through its operation manual one last time. She’d said she had it down pat, but she wasn’t leaving any details to chance this time.

And oddly the one who
wasn’t
here took up most of Ethan’s thinking.

Felix … How was he going to pull this off without him? Benching him had been the right call. If Felix had turned into part of the Ch’zar Collective out there … Ethan shuddered. That would’ve been a disaster they wouldn’t have recovered from.