Operation Inferno Read Online Free Page A

swirling clouds, afterburners blazing.
    Ethan cut his own afterburners.
    The bee missed and vanished into the mist.
    If Ethan hadn’t stopped, that thing would have collided with him. And at those speeds it would’ve ripped his wings off.
    These guys were crazy. And good.
    Meanwhile, Felix blasted every bee within range. His plasma vaporized clouds around him in a quarter-mile swath—but he still kept missing!
    Ethan couldn’t believe it. Sure, Felix had missed before. But never multiple targets clustered at this short of a range.
    The bees moved like they could defy the laws of physics. They jinked back and forth and barrel-rolled to one side a split second before the class-C particle emitter antennae of the rhinoceros beetle ignited the air.
    Paul’s Crusher praying mantis chased after the color-speckled bees, desperately trying to snatch oneout of the air. He was running one down, getting closer and closer … but also getting farther from the rest of the squadron.
    “Paul, break, and get back here,” Ethan ordered. “They’re setting you up.”
    The praying mantis hovered.
    Paul probably chewed back some insult, but he must have realized that Ethan was right—that he was headed into a trap—because he circled back.
    Ethan upped his estimation of the bees.
    With a chill, he realized that luring the Resisters’ I.C.E.s away from one another in this cloud cover was what
he
would have done.
    Emma’s ladybug let loose a salvo of rocket-propelled grenades. They
whoosh
ed at a bee harassing her I.C.E.
    The bee hit its afterburners trying to outpace the explosives.
Good luck
, Ethan thought.
    Flashes erupted from the bee’s hind legs, where pollen sacks would have normally been.
    They were decoy flares. Dr. Irving had explained them once to Ethan. He’d said he’d been experimenting with
old
technologies for Resister I.C.E.s. The heat from the burning magnesium confused targeting sensors.
    Every rocket-propelled grenade exploded harmlessly in the air.
    The bee got away clean.
    Ethan didn’t want to think what this meant, but he couldn’t help it. Did the Ch’zar have Dr. Irving?
    No. He refused to believe it.
    Dr. Irving died at the Seed Bank.
    But how else to explain the Ch’zar’s new tactics?
    “Group on me,” Ethan ordered. “Full defensive posture.”
    Paul’s mantis, Felix’s rhinoceros beetle, and Emma’s ladybug moved to Ethan and hovered in a tight wedge, each facing a different direction.
    The bees were still out of visual range, hiding in the churning clouds, where Ethan’s radar was bouncing back a few dozen images all over the place. Without visuals, he had to depend on his instruments … which couldn’t be trusted.
    “What are we doing here?” Paul growled. “We’re sitting ducks.”
    “Madison and Angel,” Ethan told him. “We need to keep these bees distracted and off them until they’re safe.”
    “I’m more worried about
us
being safe,” Paul muttered.
    “What the heck
are
those things?” Felix asked. The beetle’s huge wings were a blur of thunder and turbulence. “One bounced off your wasp, Ethan. Not a scratch on its shell.”
    “Not
what
,” Emma said. “
Who
. They’re not fighting like Ch’zar. They’re erratic, fighting like, well, humans.”
    “If they are humans, uncontrolled humans,” Paul said, “then why are they trying to kill us?”
    “Cut the chatter,” Ethan said. “I have to figure this out.”
    He scanned the billowing vapors surrounding them. Inside the cloud, tendrils of mist swirled. Ethan found it hypnotic.
    There could have been any number of bees waiting for them to break their defensive formation.
    “If we run,” Ethan murmured to himself, “then they’ll pick us off. We won’t even see them coming.”
    “So remove the clouds,” Emma said.
    From her impatient tone, Ethan could almost hear the “duh” she left out of her statement.
    Emma’s ladybug launched two salvos of rocket-propelledgrenades. The air flashed and