The Resisters (19 page)

Ethan’s wasp crawled out of the rubble.

The soccer field, crumpled and destroyed before, was now a smoldering, half-molten titanium crater.

The rest of his school was leveled. The classrooms, the chemistry lab, and even the cafeteria had been knocked down and were on fire.

A giant midnight blue rhinoceros beetle landed next to Ethan with a thud. Plasma wisps flickered between its horns.

It had better be friendly … because Ethan didn’t feel like he had any fight left in him.

Felix’s voice came over the radio: “You okay in there? Your suit looks bad.”

Inside the cockpit all the indicator lights winked angry red. On the last working monitor he saw that every inch of the wasp’s armor had been dented, scratched, punctured, or charred. Ichor and hydraulic fluid leaked from the joints.

“I … I think I’m okay. I’m not so sure about my wasp.”
My
wasp.

Ethan felt every cell in the insect, bruised and battered, as if their bodies were one. He mentally detached himself from the insect … while he still could.

“Stand by, Ethan,” Felix ordered. “Madison, you’re a go to launch your attack.”

“Roger that,” Madison replied. Her voice was tight with tension and excitement.

Her dragonfly’s afterburners flared, and she streaked across the night.

Ethan’s view screen zoomed in and highlighted a sleek winged torpedo clutched in her dragonfly’s front pincers.

She accelerated straight toward the zeppelin and released the torpedo.

It hit the silver prow of the airship.

Fire blossomed and shot inside, curled and boiled along its length, blew out its sides, and left a flaming aluminum rib cage that rose into the air for a second … and then fell to the ground in a smoldering heap.

Ethan felt the fire burning inside him for an instant.

“Emma!” he cried. He started toward the wreckage.

He had to pull her out … even if it killed him.

Felix’s beetle held him back.

“No, Ethan,” he said. “Your sister wasn’t on
that
ship. No one was … except maybe about a hundred artillery ant lions camouflaged on top.”

Ethan slumped to the ground. He was weak. He could literally feel the life seeping out of him.

“Listen to me.” Felix gently shook him. “You’re leaking hydraulic fluid from your primary reserve. There’s a shut-off valve under the main display. Twist it off. Quick!”

Ethan fumbled under the main monitor and found the valve. He twisted it shut.

At once his and the wasp’s dizziness cleared.

He and the wasp got up—wobbled, but stayed up.

The other zeppelin turned and rose above the flames.

“We’ve got to go after them,” Ethan said.

“Inbound enemy targets on-screen,” Madison reported. “Tracking
three hundred
. We’ve got to fall back.”

“You heard her,” Felix whispered. “You tried. We fought, and we won this battle—using
your
plan, Ethan, the one you outlined to Colonel Winter … and we did it without losing a single pilot.”

Ethan shook his head. He wasn’t giving up.

“But if we stay and fight any more,” Felix continued, “we’ll lose everything, including your sister. You have to come with us. Think, Ethan.”

Ethan couldn’t answer him.

He
would
do whatever it took to save his sister. He watched the airship as it rose higher and its silver surface glimmered and faded so it looked like a ghost.

Ethan couldn’t rescue her while she was on that zeppelin, though. It was too well guarded … and far too fragile.

He’d have to find another way.

So had this battle been for nothing? He’d risked his life, Emma’s, and those of the Resister pilots who’d come to his rescue. For what?

What had they accomplished?

He looked around. His school and Main Street were in ruins. Fire trucks screamed around the corner. Crowds gathered and watched and pointed.

Those people were adults … but there were a few children, too, huddled protectively together. Parents tried to shield their kids, but they couldn’t stop them
all
from seeing.

One day Santa Blanca had been normal and perfect—and then tonight their world had been invaded by titanic robots and giant bugs fighting a war in the middle of their neighborhood.

Everyone had seen them.

They’d ask questions.

The Ch’zar couldn’t cover it up with convenient lies.

Some of those kids would learn the truth. Some might fight.

One day dozens or hundreds might join the Resisters and win freedom for everyone.

Felix had said something about thinking this through.

And the Ch’zar—through Coach—had themselves taught Ethan:
Superior long-range strategy always wins over superior immediate tactics
.

This might be the key to the strategy he needed—not just for saving Emma or winning any battle, but for the entire war.

“Incoming locust formation at twenty-five miles and closing fast,” Madison reported.

Ethan took a last look at the zeppelin. A flicker of reflected fire shone on its silver skin, and then its outline faded into the darkness.

He’d rescue Emma. One day.

But tonight, the strategic and smart thing to do was survive and live to fight tomorrow.

He unfurled his wasp wings and gave them an experimental buzz to see if they still worked. They did, and he rose into the air.

Felix and Madison joined him. A dozen wasps, rhinoceros beetles, and dragonflies gathered in a V formation.

They dropped into stealth mode … and became as dark and silent as the night.

ETHAN GOT PULLED OUT OF THE COCKPIT
by four adult technicians in white coveralls. One checked him for serious injuries and tried to make him lie down on a cot. Ethan refused.

The other technicians swarmed over his I.C.E. wasp suit, taping flat caterpillar bandages over its punctures, spraying sealant foam onto the leaking joints, and attaching leads to medical monitors that flashed with erratic vital signs.

On the deck of the hangar, beetle and wasp and dragonfly fighting suits steamed from their still-red-hot jets.

It’d been a long flight, and they’d used up most of their fuel on afterburners to outmaneuver enemy patrols that were everywhere.

The Ch’zar had been desperate to find and destroy them.

Cockpit hatches opened and pilots spilled out of the
suits. Felix, Madison, and the other Resister pilots gathered around Ethan. They all watched the technicians work on his wasp.

Despite the technicians’ efforts, the insect curled up into a ball on the hangar floor.

“Will it live?” Felix asked.

A technician shook his head. “We’ll know more in a few hours.”

Ethan felt sick. He’d messed everything up. If the wasp died because of him …

His mind recoiled at the possibility.

He wanted to go over and touch the insect, comfort it somehow, but he knew it had wanted to fight. Ethan sensed satisfaction and pride within the creature. It had battled an enemy force of superior strength and numbers, won, and managed to limp home.

If it died now … it would die happy.

Colonel Winter and Dr. Irving and three other adults in military uniforms entered the hangar.

The technicians ignored them and kept working. The pilots snapped to attention.

Ethan stood with the pilots to face the colonel.

Judging by the way she clenched her jaw and looked like she wanted to make good on her threat to march Ethan before a firing squad, he knew this wouldn’t end well.

Colonel Winter asked Felix, “All I.C.E.s accounted for, Sergeant?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Felix replied.

“Casualties?” the colonel asked.

“We all made it back,” Felix replied. “But two pilots and six suits injured … one Infiltrator wasp in critical condition.”

“Acceptable.” She looked over the assembled pilots. “Well fought, all of you.”

Her gaze sharpened to a razor-edged glare as she took in Ethan. “I now convene a general court-martial to determine the fate of Mr. Blackwood. Stand to and witness.”

The assembled pilots, who’d been at attention before, snapped to an even more rigid, eyes-forward stance.

The strength drained from Ethan and he felt like sitting down, but knew he’d better stay standing. Wasn’t a court-martial a military trial of some sort?

He was about to ask, but he saw Felix shake his head slightly.

Even Madison looked scared.

Not one of the other pilots looked at Ethan.

Colonel Winter consulted the tablet computer in her hand. “This military tribunal for a general court-martial is hereby called to order,” she said. “Mr. Blackwood is charged with three counts of disobeying orders and disregard of numerous flight regulations, reckless endangerment of military equipment and personnel … and
treason.
”

Treason?
Ethan wanted to protest that he was no traitor—not for the Ch’zar!

He swallowed, though, and kept his mouth shut.

Technically that charge might be true. He
had
endangered the Resistance effort by letting the wasp I.C.E. technology fall into enemy hands.

“How do you plead?” the colonel asked.

There was no denying that he had snuck out and stolen the wasp. It didn’t matter
why
he’d done it. It didn’t matter that they’d all made it back, either. If Felix and Madison and the other pilots hadn’t risked their lives to save his … this could have turned out a lot different.

“Guilty, I guess,” Ethan whispered.

Felix cleared his throat.

“You have something to say on behalf of the accused, Sergeant?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Felix replied. Beads of sweat glistened on his forehead, but his voice never wavered. “The charges are correct—for a pilot in the Resistance. Mr. Blackwood is a civilian, though, and not subject to military regulations. He’s not sworn our oath of allegiance. And he was brought in without his consent.”

“A technicality,” the colonel replied, glaring at Felix. “He never gave us his consent because he was brought in wounded and unconscious and would’ve
died
without our assistance.”

“And yet,” Dr. Irving interrupted, “the sergeant’s facts are correct. Mr. Blackwood’s legal status is undetermined. We can’t court-martial a civilian who is neither part of our organization nor the enemy’s Collective.”

“Are you a lawyer now, Doctor?”

Dr. Irving raised one eyebrow. “I would stand as legal counsel for Mr. Blackwood,” he told her, “
should
the need arise.”

The two adults stared at each other.

Madison cleared her throat, and when they ignored her, she cleared it again, louder.

“You obviously have an opinion, Corporal,” the colonel said without looking at her. “By all means …”

Madison stood straighter and said, “Ethan’s the most reckless pilot I’ve ever seen, ma’am, but he also has skills that I’ve never seen before. No one in a wasp suit takes on an ant lion and wins! And not even I can coax an I.C.E. suit into active stealth for hours at a time! We
need
flyers like him.”

Her face burned bright red, but she went on, “Just think what he could do for us if he was
really
trained. Or if some sense got slapped into his thick skull.”

“Hey!” Ethan whispered.

Madison glanced at him and mouthed,
“What?”

“That is enough,” the colonel snapped. She looked once more at Dr. Irving, who shrugged back at her. “Very well,” she said. “I shall consider the relevant facts.”

The colonel nodded at the head technician tending to Ethan’s wasp. He tapped a button on the medical monitor. Colonel Winter then consulted her tablet as new data flashed on the screen. “And I shall review Mr. Blackwood’s flight record and see his performance for myself.”

The colonel motioned at the guards. “Pilots, dismissed,”
she said. “Guards, escort Mr. Blackwood to his quarters. There’ll be no further contact between the prisoner and our pilots until his status is determined.”

Ethan thought the colonel calling him a prisoner pretty much settled his status.

He looked at Felix and Madison. He nodded his thanks to them … and wished he could say more.

They look worried—very worried.

The guards marched Ethan through the hangar and back to his room … which he guessed was his cell now, because they locked the door behind him.