Free Sterling Squadron by Eric Nylund

smoldering and wings singed.
    She left the bees struggling to stay airborne in her turbulence.
    They turned and pursued … or tried to.
    Madison’s dragonfly was the fastest thing in the air.
    “Go now!” Ethan shouted to Paul and Felix. “Hit them with everything you’ve got while they’re separated.”
    Ethan had almost forgotten about the luna moth assault carrier! He looked for it on his radar. He didn’t find it, but he
did
see the three bees chasing after
something
.
    The assault carrier’s shadowy stealth surfaces prevented radar lock-ons, but its autopilot was limited. It was only programmed to fly straight away from danger.
    The bees must have a visual on it.
    Meanwhile, Felix’s rhinoceros beetle fired its heavyparticle beam—a lightning-bright white-blue bolt of energy that blasted bees into smoldering bits of shrapnel. Paul’s praying mantis grabbed one straggler bee and then another, and smashed them together, and in a show of unnecessary violence, the mantis bit off one bee’s head.
    Ethan rocketed after the vulnerable luna moth.
    He closed and fired his laser at the nearest bee. The beam sliced through where the wing joined the carapace. It tumbled out of control and plummeted to the ground.
    The other two bees slowed, turned, and fired at him.
    A particle beam splashed over his chest.
    The cockpit got hot. It was hard to breathe. Air vents screamed and tried to cool the interior. A hydraulic pressure gauge exploded and showered the cockpit with metal and glass bits, cutting Ethan’s cheek.
    He couldn’t stop. Ethan couldn’t let them get to the moth. That was the only way they were going to rescue the Sterling kids.
    He tapped his afterburners and crashed into one of the bees.
    His wasp wrestled with the bee. Ton for ton, it was a match for him—and just as ferocious.
    The second bee latched on to him. It grabbed one of his wings.
    That was bad.
    If they tore a wing off, there was nothing he could do to stay in the air.
    The wasp slashed out with its barbed forelegs. Its laser shot uselessly into the air. Nothing worked! The bees were just out of reach.
    Ethan rolled and wobbled but couldn’t shake them.
    This wasn’t like any simulation he’d run in the last few weeks. Ethan felt panic rise through his chest. He wanted to scream.
    A ghostly translucent green covered one camera.
    It was Paul.
    His praying mantis repositioned, grabbed one of the bees with its hooked forelimbs, and tore the bee in half.
    The last bee flew off.
    Felix instantly blasted it into smoldering blobs of molten metal. He’d lined up the perfect shot with his heavy particle beam.
    The praying mantis clung to the back of Ethan’s wasp.
    “Now we’re even, Blackwood,” Paul said over the radio, and shoved the wasp away.
    The wasp’s instinct to engage the praying mantis and fight it to the death flooded Ethan’s mind.
    He took a deep breath and forced that urge into the dark recesses of the insect’s mind.
    At least, he hoped it was
just
the wasp’s mind and not his.
    Ethan wiped the blood off his face with a shaking hand. He took a second to regain his bearings and fly level.
    There was a weird shudder in the wasp’s right wing. He didn’t like that.
    Madison whispered over the radio, “Long-range radar picking up more enemy patrols. I’ve never seen so many, so close.”
    “Go terrain-level flight,” Felix said in his no-nonsense command voice. “Exit the region. Something probably saw the explosions. Maintain radio silence until further notice.”
    The five I.C.E. units dove in formation and accelerated over the treetops.
    The shudder in Ethan’s wing settled into a minor but persistent rattle.
    Of course, at five hundred miles an hour, a little rattle could end up ripping his hull into confetti.
    He kept quiet.
    Stopping for repairs would put the entire team, and the mission, at risk.
    There was no stopping now. There was no going back.

  12  
CODE RED
    THEY FLEW DOWN FROM THE APPALACHIAN