Sterling Squadron by Eric Nylund Read Free Book Online Page A

“safe” Santa Blanca just hasn’t prepared him for this.
    Suggest he be reassessed after two weeks. Blackwood deserves a break.
    Madison’s extra comments didn’t make Ethan feel any better about the overall recommendation, though. FAIL.
    Was she right about that?
    In soccer, Ethan
had
to be the star because he was the youngest and came from the smallest family in Santa Blanca. He’d struggled to get good grades because he wanted to be an astronaut and because he thought he didn’t measure up to the other neighborhood kids.
    Maybe he was just trying to do his best again here. And maybe other people were just seeing that as showing off.
    Maybe.
    “Whatever,” he told her. His tone was icy.
    Madison sighed and looked like she wanted to say more.
    He turned away and tabbed ahead. “Let’s just find Paul’s record.”
    The next record had SEED BANK filled in for place of birth.
    “Oh, for crying out loud,” Madison said, and punched the FILE DOWN button a half-dozen times.
    Paul Hicks’s record sprang into view on-screen.
    The place of birth was blank.
    Ethan’s heart practically stopped beating as he read what had been written
under
it.
    “We have to talk to the colonel,” he whispered. “This is
exactly
what we’re looking for.”
    Under the empty place of birth entry was:
    LAST KNOWN RESIDENCE:
    STERLING REFORM SCHOOL

  8  
CLASS-A RESTRICTED
    ETHAN HIT THE ELEVATOR CALL BUTTON for the thirteenth time in the last half hour.
    Madison leaned against the corridor wall, her arms tightly crossed over her chest, and shifted from foot to foot. “This is moronic.”
    “We can’t just stroll into C and C and talk to Colonel Winter,” he told her. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m not on her ‘favorite person’ list lately.”
    “So we’re supposed to wait here and call
every
elevator coming down from the Command Center hoping she’ll be on one? We’ll be—”
    The elevator bell pinged. The doors opened.
    Colonel Winter stood inside. Alone.
    “Well?” She frowned at them. “Are you two getting on or not?”
    She looked distracted. Ethan didn’t think she even recognized him.
    “Yes, ma’am!” Ethan and Madison said together.
    They stepped into the elevator, and the doors closed.
    The
last
thing Ethan wanted to do was to talk to the colonel, but he had to. All their lives might depend on his plan.
    He opened his mouth to speak, but Colonel Winter took a good look at him and finally realized who he was.
    “Don’t you have duties, Mr. Blackwood?”
    “Yes, ma’am. Clogs in the semisolid waste facility. I was just on my way.”
    Technically this had been true—before he had made his discovery in Dr. Irving’s lab.
    “I was thinking, though, ma’am …”
    Colonel Winter raised one eyebrow at him as if to say “thinking” might be a new activity for Ethan.
    How did Felix stand that look? How hard was it for his friend to have the commander of a military base as a mother?
    Ethan pressed on. “I was thinking we could really use some new pilots.”
    “What makes you think that, Mr. Blackwood?”
    He had to be supercareful. Ethan couldn’t say that he had seen Dr. Irving’s dire Ch’zar population studies by hacking into a top-secret computer.
    “Replacement pilots,” Madison said, quickly covering for Ethan. “Because so many kids are out with the flu.”
    “I see …,” the colonel said.
    “Dr. Irving told me that no other neighborhood kids had ever piloted an I.C.E. suit,” Ethan said.
    The colonel exhaled. She glanced at the numbers over the elevator’s door, as if she was hoping this ride would soon end so she could get away from “troublemaker” Ethan Blackwood.
    “There is another place where the kids”—Ethan cleared his throat—“might have the independent streak to make a good connection with the insect fighting suits.”
    The colonel’s eyes locked on to Ethan.
    “Sterling Reform School,” he told her.
    She took a step closer to Ethan. “And what