It was completely humiliating. A week ago he’d been learning to fly and fight with the best pilots on earth. Now he was a waste management tech, second class. He’d missed out on an important mission. Jack Figgin and his squadron took a group of trainees out, crushed a Ch’zar security patrol, and hacked into an electronic relay in the enemy’s satellite dish on Mount Rushmore. That gave the Resistance a new set of “eyes” in the air from Seattle to Chicago. And what had Ethan been doing while all the excitement had been going on? Important things like mopping, learning to read plumbing blueprints, cleaning porcelain, and pushing his utility cart from toilet to toilet. He hadn’t realized that while being a pilot trainee was a tough job, it got him out of a lot of work the other Seed Bank kids did day after day. There were a hundred technical apprentices, maintenance workers, and agricultural engineers. Everyone over the age of eight had a job. Sure, there were fun things to do, too: the game rooms, basketball tournaments, virtual tours of places aboveground, a huge library, and, of course, school.
