Operation Inferno by Eric Nylund Read Free Book Online Page B

They took his orders. They’d followed him into the battle. He knew they trusted his judgment.
    Ethan pursed his lips. How did Paul always get him to doubt himself? “I
am
in command here,” he said.
    “Sure, you’re in command,” Paul said with a snort. “But is that the right thing? I mean, maybe, before, when you had Irving and Winter calling the strategic shots, you leading a squadron might have made sense. You’re pretty good, Blackwood. Maybe even as good as me.” Paul smirked, but it quickly vanished. “That’s not good enough anymore.”
    Ethan flushed and felt like he was going to boil over. Maybe it was mentioning Dr. Irving and Colonel Winter so causally after they’d died to give this squadrona chance to live. Maybe it was the fact that Paul Hicks was an idiot.
    If Paul had been talking this way to Colonel Winter, she would have called the guards and had Paul thrown in the brig. Forever.
    Ethan wasn’t the colonel, though. He didn’t have any guards. Or a brig.
    He took a deep breath and cooled off. “You think someone else needs to lead? You, maybe?”
    Paul held up his hands and laughed. “No way. What I’m saying is that maybe
none of us
should be leading.”
    “Huh?”
    “If the Resisters and Seed Bank were around,” Paul said, growing serious, “we wouldn’t be talking. But there’s no more lieutenants or colonels. There’s just a few kids trying to stay alive. We should
all
get a say in what we do next. And why not? Every decision could be life and death for all of us.”
    Ethan blinked.
    He hadn’t been expecting a rational suggestion from Paul. Another challenge, sure. Maybe even a few punches and some wrestling.
    Ethan felt like he’d been punched anyway.
    Paul had a point. A democracy made sense.
    Who was he to lead them all? Colonel Winter and Dr. Irving had had decades of experience before they’d given orders that affected the fate of every free-willed human left on Earth.
    Besides, was he doing such a great job? There was a new Ch’zar I.C.E. out there that had outflown them. There were robots on the loose, trying to disassemble the entire squadron limb from limb.
    If they pooled their thinking, if they all had a vote, would they make better choices?
    “Look,” Paul said. His gaze fell to the floor. “I know things haven’t been easy. I even appreciate the job you’ve done so far. You kept us alive. I’ll give you that. But things have changed, Ethan, and not for the better. You have to change, too, or you’re going to get us all killed.”
    Killed
.
    There it was. Plain and simple.
    Was Ethan really arrogant enough to think he had all the answers? He was bound to make some wrong choices. What if that meant dooming the last survivors of the human race?
    It was almost impossible to believe that he could do it alone.
    He stopped. He’d almost let Paul make him think that.
    But Ethan remembered what Dr. Irving had told him before Ethan had gone into battle—Dr. Irving, who had once commanded armies and been called the grand admiral of the air, the Storm Falcon. He’d asked Dr. Irving why he and the colonel had picked him to lead Sterling Squadron. Dr. Irving told Ethan he had “
an incredible aptitude for aerial combat, a strategic genius, and a certain disregard for authority
.”
    And then there were Colonel Winter’s last orders to him: take the squadron, run, and hide. She told him the Resistance would live on through him.
    So … regardless of what
he
thought about
himself
, the colonel and the doctor, with decades of command experience, had picked Ethan Blackwood to lead.
    He hadn’t wanted this command. It had nonetheless been given to him.
    It was his responsibility, and he wasn’t about to give it away.
    “What you’re talking about won’t work,” Ethan told Paul. “Not in a crisis situation. Not when we’re at war.”
    Paul looked up. His scowl was back, stretching the scars on his face into ugly white lines.
    “Imagine Angel giving orders,”