Operation Inferno Read Online Free

his seat.
    The flight computer projected it would take only a few minutes to intercept the targets.
    He double-checked the wasp’s laser stinger. It held a 90 percent charge. Not perfect, but good enough.
    He cycled through the hydraulic system on his status board. He didn’t want any surprises if he went hand-to-hand combat. All green.
    Ethan’s hand hovered of its own accord over a small hexagonal panel. It was covered with Ch’zar icons that glowed brighter the closer he came to them.
    He and Emma had somehow gotten the ability to decipher Ch’zar icons. The weird alien dot-and-dash hieroglyphics and geometric shapes just suddenly clicked in their minds.
    His finger itched to press one icon. It translated loosely as
Exoskeleton Destiny Overdrive
.
    Dr. Irving had once told Ethan that the Ch’zar had the technology to make the molecules in I.C.E. armor superdense. It might make the wasp invincible in a fight. He bet it’d cost lots of energy, though.
    Odd that the Resister techs or trainers had never mentioned the feature. Maybe it didn’t work. Or maybe they didn’t understand it completely.
    Ethan decided not to mess with it now.
    He checked the squadron’s status once more. Green across the board.
    He smiled.
    Four veteran Resister pilots who’d kicked the Ch’zar Collective’s butts versus just a few units—what looked like
unarmed
Ch’zar units, no less.
    This wasn’t even going to be a contest.
    Still, if they were so helpless, why was the enemy dead set on an intercept course with Angel and Madison?
    Something didn’t add up.
    He glanced at his navigation screen. Seven minutes to contact.
    A big cumulonimbus cloud loomed ahead. It looked like a black anvil floating in the sky. There was no time to go around.
    Ethan led the way. He plowed straight inside. His cameras went gray. His radar started bouncing mirror images all over his screens.
    Must have been the static charge inside the cloud.
    He and his wingmates emerged in a clear space—
    And ran smack into the middle of the enemy squadron of bees.
    Flashes and blurred colors made a jumble of hisdisplays, disorienting Ethan for a split second as he fumbled at the controls.
    A bee clipped him and sent the wasp spinning.
    Those bees hadn’t gone after Angel and Madison. Somehow they’d fooled Ethan’s sensors.
    This ambush was for them!

   4   

BIGGEST THREAT
    E THAN WRESTLED WITH THE CONTROLS TO HALT the gut-jarring tumble. He did it. Then he blinked, trying to stop his head from spinning, too … and trying to find a target to blast.
    His computer displays were full of bees—appearing and vanishing in iron-gray cloud cover. The enemy seemed to be everywhere at once, way more than the original seven he’d seen on the satellite image back at base.
    How was that possible?
    It didn’t matter. He had to start fighting before it was over for him.
    He moved toward the closest bee, laser-firing rings locking on his combat screen.
    A proximity warning blared.
    Ethan instinctively pulled back on the controls.
    A three-ton bee flashed right where he would have been a microsecond later.
    The cloud moved. Dense mist surrounded him. His visuals were down to a hundred feet.
    His heart pounded so hard he thought it’d jump out of his chest.
    Why would seven unarmed bees take on four combat I.C.E.s? It was suicide.
    Not that the Ch’zar cared about individual deaths. Maybe they were there to slow the Resisters down while reinforcements showed up.
    Or there could be more. Lots more.
    Ethan decided to blow them all to smithereens. Get within short-range radio distance of Angel and Madison—and get them all out of there, fast. They could figure it all out later.
    “Engage at will!” Ethan shouted over the squad channel. “Just be careful because—”
    His wasp got slammed from the underside. Ethan’s teeth clacked shut.
    The wasp had grabbed at something, but it bounced off and was already out of reach.
    Another bee rocketed at him out of the