The Planet Thieves

by Dan Krokos

  “Not completely, sir,” Mason said.

  “The Egypt held the gate, but it also held the Lock.” Behind the vice admiral, the sparks still showered. Mason heard footsteps, and an alarm blared. The vice admiral was on the SS Russia, which was currently evacuating. “The Lock was the experimental counterpart to the gate. If the gate was ever stolen, the Lock could be used on a planet to freeze it in place. Who is your ship’s AI?”

  “Elizabeth, sir,” Elizabeth said.

  “Greetings, Elizabeth,” the vice admiral said coolly. “Give these cadets access to the Lock.”

  “Done.”

  “Plant the Lock on Nori-Blue’s surface,” he said. He was looking at his son now. “The Tremist will be able to home in on its signal eventually, but it will buy the time we need to move our entire fleet into the system.” He suddenly appeared doubtful. “Can you do this? Son?”

  “We can do it,” Mason and Tom said together.

  “You do your mother proud,” Bruce Renner said. “You do me proud. I am proud of all of you. You are no longer cadets, but among the ESC’s finest. Now go, before it’s too late—”

  His signal was suddenly cut off.

  “Elizabeth!” Tom shouted. “Where is the Russia?”

  She highlighted the vice admiral’s ship on the dome. “Intact, Ensign Renner, the broadcast was interrupted by—”

  Then she was cut off.

  The dome fuzzed once more, and then the Tremist King was onscreen, holding Susan Stark next to him with a handheld talon pressed against her temple.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  “Susan!” Mason cried out. He couldn’t help himself. Susan’s eyes were deep purple, and one was swollen shut. But she managed to smile at Mason. A normal smile, like she wasn’t currently held hostage by what was presumed to be the deadliest being in the galaxy.

  “Hey, little brother,” she said. And they were the sweetest words Mason ever heard. He promised himself to later promise to Susan he would never play a stupid mean trick again, not ever. Or against her, at least.

  The king’s dark oval of a face seemed to float next to hers, ready to suck her in like a black hole.

  “Mason Stark,” the king said, voice rasping through his mask, clear but metallic.

  “Yes,” Mason replied. He clasped his hands behind his back and squeezed them together; they were the only things that were shaking, for now. Susan was in danger, but Susan was alive, still breathing, her heart still pumping. At the moment, the crushing defeat was insignificant; Mason knew he shouldn’t feel that way, since an ESC soldier’s first duty was to the ESC, but he didn’t care.

  “I will make this simple and easy for you,” the king said. “You will deliver the girl Merrin Solace to me, or this will be the last time you see your sister alive.” He spoke like Merrin wasn’t sitting five feet in front of the screen, right where he could see her.

  Mason was about to answer—he wasn’t sure exactly what he would say, but he was going to say something—when Merrin turned slowly in her chair, away from the screen, and mouthed a word at Mason, slowly, so he could read her lips.…

  The word was hostage.

  “Please, don’t make me,” she said immediately after, out loud, creating a fake scared voice. It didn’t sound very fake, though.

  Hostage, she had mouthed. The king was going to great lengths to get his daughter back, so she obviously still meant something to him.

  “Where’s Earth?” Tom demanded.

  Mason felt a flush of embarrassment. Here he was worried about his sister’s life, when the whole planet was at stake. But he knew demanding the return of Earth wasn’t going to happen, so why bother demanding it? Even if the king was willing to return the planet for his daughter’s life, the giant cross gate was still contracting, and nowhere near wherever Earth had gone.

  Mason had to act fast, though, or the ruse would fail. He put a grim look on his face and marched to the pilot station, then grabbed Merrin by the neck and lifted her out of the chair. She went along with him, pretending to struggle in his grasp, but not really fighting it. Then, against all instinct, he put his P-cannon against Merrin’s head, and made himself a mirror of the king. His stomach flipped then flopped, and sweat broke all over him. He was definitely going to throw up this time.

  The crew was murmuring quietly now, clearly confused but not sure what to do about it. Tom was staring at Mason out of the corner of his eye, but didn’t seem surprised; he’d probably seen Merrin mouth the word from his angle.

  The king’s faceplate meant Mason had no idea what his reaction was. Susan had the same expression as before, mainly because her face was too swollen to change—only her lips parted slightly.

  Mason spoke first: “No one will lay a hand on Captain Stark again,” he said. It was strange to call her that; he supposed he was also Captain Stark, kind of. “As you can see, I have something to trade for her life.” The words sounded funny in his mouth, like he was trying too hard to sound like a grown-up. But he needed to show the king he was serious.

  “You would threaten one of your own?” the king said, after what felt like a minute.

  “I believe I just did,” Mason replied.

  “Please…” Merrin half whispered, writhing a little in Mason’s grasp. He wanted to say he was sorry, even though it was her idea. It felt so wrong. He had to press the P-cannon to her temple to keep it from visibly shaking. He would apologize after. It was an act, but all it would take was a simple press of a button to end Merrin’s life. Mason wanted to throw the cannon across the room. He’d rather hold a burning coal.

  “A trade, then,” the king said.

  Susan shook her head, just slightly. Of course she’d be against the cadets coming in contact with the king or any of his crew. But Mason wouldn’t just leave her behind. He wouldn’t just say goodbye and turn the dome screen off.

  “On neutral ground,” Mason added quickly. He wasn’t about to step onto the king’s Hawk and just hope they’d let him leave. Not a chance.

  The king cocked his head, just slightly, like he was studying Mason through the screen. Mason held his posture, ignoring the sweat. The wait for his answer felt like forever. No one on the bridge made a sound.

  “On the surface of Nori-Blue,” Mason said.

  The only neutral ground that ever existed, Mason figured.

  The exchange would be their cover: if the Egypt was going there for a prisoner trade, no one would suspect the Lock. They’d just have to plant it before the Hawk arrived.

  “Agreed,” the king said.

  Susan’s head drooped. “Mason, don’t go,” she said.

  The king ignored her and said, “If you betray me, young captain, I will make her death a million times worse. I will make it take years.”

  Mason tasted metal at the back of his throat.

  “I won’t,” he said.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  The dome screen snapped off, revealing the black of space again, and the drifting hulks of charred and twisted metal, some of which still smoldered despite the absence of oxygen. The Tremist fleet was disappearing, making the jumps to light speed and beyond, using a technology the ESC engineers were still trying to replicate. They looked like shooting stars, bright white lines that faded as quickly as they came. In the distance, the computer tagged the king’s Hawk; it was banking away and powering up for faster-than-light travel.

  The cross gate would buy them some time on Nori-Blue, but the Hawk wouldn’t be far behind.

  Mason took his hand off Merrin’s neck and she rubbed it. He felt his cheeks burn, feeling ashamed even though it was an act. She only punched him lightly on the shoulder. “Well done. I was hoping you weren’t going to muck that up.”

  Mason cracked a smile, then gave a full-on laugh. It exploded out of him, made of equal parts stress and relief.

  He stopped laughing when a third year at the perimeter console to his right asked, “What in Zeus’s good mountain was that all about?” He was a boy n
amed Kale, if Mason remembered right. His mind was a little mushy at the moment.

  And another said, “Yeah, seriously. What’s going on?”

  Mason wasn’t about to tell them, Oh, yeah, the girl piloting our ship? She’s not just a Tremist, but the king’s daughter. But you should still trust her! Instead he said, “It’s need to know, crew. Stay focused.”

  “What about Earth?” Kale asked.

  The answer came to him then.

  “The Tremist are smart,” Mason said. “Smarter than us, supposedly. Which means they wouldn’t just destroy our planet. That would guarantee we retaliate with everything we’ve got. If we ever found the Tremist homeworld, they know we could contaminate it with just a few cores from our ships’ engines. So what would they do?”

  It was Tom who answered, his voice clear and strong. “They would hold it hostage. They would use it, not destroy it. There isn’t a greater bargaining chip in the entire galaxy, I’d bet.”

  “So would I,” Mason said, smiling at him.

  He had to believe it. Earth was safe. Or else what were they fighting for?

  “Stay focused,” Mason said again, putting all the authority he could muster into his voice.

  The cadets were ESC after all, so after some grumbling, they got back to work.

  * * *

  Merrin moved the ship farther away from what used to be Earthspace, then Mason asked for a cross gate. Only a few were left on board, since there had been no time to collect the ones they had used. Which meant they had to make each jump count. One to get to Nori-Blue, and one to hopefully get out. Plus a few extras in case they had to do some jumping around to avoid the Tremist.

  While the gate was expanding, Mason asked Elizabeth where the Lock was located. It was housed in a small storage area on crewside. Tricky. Mason would’ve expected it to be starboard, on the engineering side, where stuff like that was kept. Had the cadets failed in taking back the ship, it would’ve taken the Tremist much longer to find the Lock.

  Mason took Tom, Stellan, and Jeremy with him, after Elizabeth recommended four cadets to carry the Lock.

  “Take a right here, Captain,” Elizabeth said, as the four of them marched down a corridor. Mason was once again struck by how empty the ship felt. They took an elevator two levels down, then Elizabeth had them stop at what appeared to be a regular old door to a regular old room—an office maybe, or an officer’s personal quarters.

  The door was locked, though, and Elizabeth took ten full seconds to open it.

  “There have to be several locks stacked on top of each other,” Tom said quietly, more to himself.

  When the door finally slid open, Mason could see it was nearly a foot thick. Not your regular office door.

  The room was small and cubelike. Mason had had enough of cubes. To the left and right, the walls were lined with heavy-duty personal lockers, eight to each side. On the opposite wall, four large hunter-green backpacks hung on hooks. And in the very middle of the floor was the Lock.

  Now Mason understood why four were needed to carry it. The Lock was four separate pieces. Four cylinders stood on their ends, forming the corners of an imaginary square. Like the points on an ancient compass. They were each two feet tall, and just thick enough that one could easily carry it like a football, hugging it to their chest. Each was just the right size for the backpacks.

  “Let’s pack it up,” Mason said, and the four of them did, picking up the cylinders and zipping them safely into backpacks. Each cylinder was very heavy, very dense, and Mason knew carrying them for long would be a problem. His back seemed to groan when he slung the pack over his shoulders.

  “How do we turn it on, Elizabeth?” Tom asked.

  “Arrange the cylinders in the same position,” Elizabeth replied. “It should activate on its own, once the Lock senses it’s on Nori-Blue.”

  “Should?” Stellan said. He was visibly nervous, sweaty and pale. Probably because he was smart enough to know that Mason would choose him for the ground team, to help plant the Lock.

  “As you know,” Elizabeth replied airily, “the Lock is highly classified, and I am only vaguely aware of its operational details.”

  “Brilliant,” Mason muttered, and the four of them carried their heavy packs back to the bridge.

  Once there, Mason gave command back to Jeremy.

  Jeremy almost made a pouty face with his lips—almost. Mason knew he’d rather be on the ground with them, in the thick of it, but if everything went right, there wouldn’t be much action. Mason needed him on the ship, even though he would’ve been glad to have Jeremy watching his back.

  “I get it,” Jeremy said quietly. “I’ll take care of things.”

  Mason nodded to Merrin, and she joined the group, making it four again, counting Tom and Stellan.

  Merrin made a sound as she shouldered the backpack. “Ugh. What’s in this thing, osmium?”

  She didn’t seem all that upset by the turn of events. Or she was terrific at faking calm. Of course Mason wouldn’t trade her back to her father, and of course she knew that, but she’d still be close to the king and his Rhadgast again.

  While Tom and Stellan made sure their stations were covered, Mason pulled Merrin aside.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  She raised a violet eyebrow, then shrugged. “Don’t I look okay?”

  “You look great. I mean, you seem fine. But I just want to make sure. I can’t imagine how … so if you want to talk … or you need to talk…”

  “I don’t really care about my past right now.” He might’ve imagined it, but Mason thought her voice quavered.

  “I just want to make sure you’re okay,” he said. “That’s it. We can talk about whatever you want to.”

  “You know me,” she said. “I’m a good soldier.”

  Which wasn’t really an answer, but Mason knew she would keep it together. The part of him that was just Merrin’s friend, not her captain, ached. Her father is the king of our enemy. He thought the words in his head and still found them hard to believe. Her father is why your parents are dead.

  Mason would die before he let that become an issue between them. She was not responsible. Not even a little bit.

  Merrin squeezed his shoulder before he could say more, then checked on Willa, who was taking over the pilot console.

  Twenty seconds later, the four were jogging as quickly as they could back to the shuttle bays. They stopped briefly in one of the smaller galleys, to rehydrate and cram a few protein bars down their throats. There wasn’t time for a nap, but the food would give them a bit of energy. It felt like they’d been fighting for weeks, when really not even a full day had passed.

  “I wish the cook was still here,” Stellan grumbled.

  “You don’t like cardboard?” Tom said. “Hundreds of years of human engineering, and these things still taste awful.”

  “At least they get the water right,” Mason added, cracking open the last bottle.

  Then they were off again.

  Mason was glad the bays were close, because carrying his portion of the Lock made his shoulders feel like they were crawling with fire ants. No one spoke along the way, saving their breath. Mason and Tom chewed on an extra bar and split the last bottle of water.

  It wasn’t until they reached the outer door to the nearest shuttle bay that Mason turned around and said, “I need all of you. You’re the best. But if you’d rather stay here, this is your last chance. I don’t know how things will go down on the surface, or if the Egypt will be able to stick around long enough to pick us up.”

  Mason imagined them living out their years on the surface, building tree houses and learning to hunt the game that populated the forests. Finding an abandoned Tremist or ESC base they could use for shelter, if they were lucky.

  Stellan raised his hand. “I would like to…” he trailed off.

  “Please,” Merrin said, tossing her hair over her shoulder indignantly. “Like I would miss this.” Maybe pretending she wasn’t
afraid was her way of coping, much like how Mason had pretended to be brave.

  Tom didn’t say anything, but he didn’t have to. The order had come from his father, and Mason figured he couldn’t stop Tom from going if he tried. Not that he would. Tom had lost his mother, just hours ago, really, but he was standing strong. If Mason had seen Susan fall from that catwalk, would he be as functional? Would he still be doing his duty? I don’t know, he thought.

  Stellan lowered his hand and sighed. “All right … I’m in.”

  Mason typed in the code to open the bay door. Through the clear wall to the left, Mason saw the empty room and remembered the moment right after the floor split apart. Right then he had known that all he could do was try his best. And so he would try again.

  The shuttle was a Dragon-class transport model, the Dragon part meaning it was fast. It looked like someone had taken two huge triangles and glued them atop each other, then blown air into them, expanding the triangles into convex shapes, connected at all three corners. Like a semi-inflated balloon. It was waiting for them right in the middle of the bay.

  Mason lowered the rear hatch, and the four walked into the small cargo compartment, which was really just two benches that faced each other, with various equipment one might need to traverse a strange new world. Mason went to the pilot chair, which looked out through a narrow strip of window that curved around the entire top half of the shuttle, giving a view of 360 degrees.

  Tom fired up the systems, set the engines to warm. Stellan secured the packs holding the Lock. Merrin came into the cockpit, which was open to the aft section, and peeled off her Rhadgast glove.

  “I don’t want this,” she said, handing it back to Mason.

  Mason took it from her, accidentally brushing the back of her hand, which was warm and dry. She was chewing on her lower lip. “Why?” he said.

  “I prefer a P-cannon. The glove doesn’t feel right. It feels like it—” She stopped abruptly.

  “Like it what?” Mason said. He could smell a strange perfume in her violet hair, something he’d never noticed before.