Read Online Titan Base by Eric Nylund - Free Book Online

shoulder. “Tell me again why we didn’t bring Felix?” she asked.
    Ethan shook his head, wondering if Emma had a crush on the big guy. She was a year older than him, one year closer to puberty … and a year closer to the end of her aboveground activities.
    “Felix and Paul know the cleaning protocols for theI.C.E. suits,” he said. “They need to direct the others. It’s a huge job, and they’re the only ones able to pull off that part of the mission tonight.”
    Ethan missed having Felix around. He knew he could always depend on him.
    Which is exactly why he’d put him in charge of that part of the plan—Ethan’s “brilliant” plan that he’d dreamed up on the flight into Santa Blanca.
    He shifted in the tattered seat, uncomfortable about how much was at risk.
    They’d flown straight for Santa Blanca and landed near the dump far from the city. Ethan wasn’t sure how well the Ch’zar could track their radiation-contaminated suits, so they had to move fast. Sterling Squadron had then “liberated” a few trash trucks. They’d loaded the I.C.E.s inside the cavernous metal bellies of the vehicles. That would hide most of the radiation on the suits.
    He hoped.
    “I get that we need some antiradiation treatment,” Emma whispered, “but was
this
the only place? I mean, won’t they know us in Santa Blanca?”
    “Ch’zar-controlled adults would recognize us
anywhere
,” Ethan told her. He suppressed a shudder just thinking about this. “If one of them here sees our faces, theentire alien hive mind will remember us and respond. They’ll send everyone in the city after us. We’ll have to be supercareful.”
    “Getting our I.C.E.s back to Santa Blanca is our only choice,” Madison said, and looked over at Emma instead of watching the road, which drove Ethan crazy every time she did it. “If your brother is right and there are antiradiation chemicals here, Felix and Paul can get the suits cleaned, and the squadron will be back in business.”
    “The chemicals are here,” Ethan assured them. “Along with showers to clean up malfunctioning athletic suits. Our I.C.E.s are bigger, but it’ll work.”
    That’s what Ethan had been trying to remember before. Earlier this year, an athletic suit had had a reactor breach. The hazardous materials team from the fire department came and set up huge showers and doused the suit with chemicals. Coach Norman told him the hazmat team had special rinses that captured and washed off radioactive particles.
    Felix and Paul and the rest of Sterling Squadron were driving their commandeered trash trucks right now to the Santa Blanca firehouse to find a way to secretly “borrow” those showers and chemicals. At least, that was the plan.
    “I’m worried about the radiation on our suits,” Emmasaid, irritation creeping into her tone. “But I’m more worried about finding a treatment for
Angel
.”
    “Oh … her,” Madison replied, and looked back at the road.
    Of course, Angel … Ethan was so worried for her.
    “This is the best chance we have to save Angel,” he said, keeping his voice steady, although he felt a choking in his throat, remembering how she had been so limp and lifeless after her wasp had spit her out.
    “The Resisters and the Ch’zar have similar technologies, but they’re not identical,” Ethan went on. “Dr. Irving said he borrowed a lot of their tech to make our I.C.E.s. We use old human technology, though, especially in our medicine. The Ch’zar might have another way to deal with radiation. They’ve collected science from a dozen other species in the galaxy.”
    “So we’re going to just sneak into Santa Blanca General Hospital and hope we find something,” Madison murmured, unconvinced.
    “You have a better plan?” Ethan asked.
    She shrugged. “It’ll work, Lieutenant. Piece of cake. Angel gets her skinny little neck saved and the Resistance gets more effective antiradiation medicine—what’s not to like?”
    Madison