The Planet Thieves

by Dan Krokos

  “Are we ready?” Merrin said, hand on the throttle lever.

  Were they?

  Mason didn’t know.

  But it didn’t matter, because it was time to fight back.

  “Take us through,” he said.

  Chapter Twenty-three

  They all felt the weird tingly static as they passed through the gate. In one second they were 302 light years away, and in the next, they were in Earthspace. A very crowded space, at the moment.

  So it was best not to dawdle.

  “We are fully armed,” Tom said, hunched over his display. “At maximum range for particle beams.”

  “Target the bulk of the cube,” Mason said. More than half of it had deployed into superlong tendrils, but the other half was still solid, closer to cube form. It was a metallic ball of yarn with hundreds of strings pulled off it, all knitted together to resemble layers of spiderwebs.

  “Targeted!” Tom said.

  “Fire all standard particle beams.”

  Four thin beams of white light shot out from the Egypt, two from the front of each forward prong. They reached the cube instantly, four parallel lines that stretched thousands of miles. In the distance, the cube seemed to drink in the light, glowing a soft bluish-green.

  “It’s shielded,” one cadet replied behind him.

  “Ineffective,” Tom said, voice dropping.

  “Add electron beams!” Mason said. Two more superthin lines of light shot out, these a yellowish color, not truly lasers since they were comprised of matter, not light. The cube glowed brighter for a moment.

  “The Tremist are now aware of us,” Elizabeth said calmly, as if this was news. “Moving to intercept.”

  Tom spun in his chair again. “We don’t have the power to get through the cube’s shields. It’s time to go.”

  “Wait,” Mason said.

  “I gave you your shot,” Tom said.

  “Just wait,” Mason barked. The bridge quieted. In the far distance, a few of the ships began to glow with bright blues and violets and reds, as their engines engaged and they began heading toward the Egypt.

  “Stellan,” Mason said.

  “Yes, Captain,” he replied, behind Mason’s right side. Stellan had taken a special course in ESC shielding tactics, since his major field of study was going to be engineering.

  “Can you scan the shield and tell me if slow-moving objects can get through? Objects of higher mass, but very slow moving.” Like a person, he didn’t say, not yet.

  A moment passed. “Yes … yes, they will.”

  Mason breathed a sigh of relief, which he almost found funny, considering how many enemy ships were flying toward them at that exact moment.

  “Good,” Mason said. “I need volunteers.”

  Chapter Twenty-four

  “Jeremy, you’re in command,” Mason said.

  Mason had been thinking about it in the back of his mind, and Jeremy would be the one to make the hard decisions. Better than Mason could, probably. Stellan was on the Academy path to becoming a captain, but there was still fear in him that just wasn’t present in Jeremy. Mason thought of the time Jeremy had knocked his head against Tom’s just to get them to stop acting like idiots. Jeremy was the one, even though Mason knew without a doubt that Jer would rather be fighting alongside them instead of giving orders.

  Jeremy seemed to turn a shade of pale green, but he nodded. “Aye.”

  If Stellan felt slighted, he didn’t show it. Mason figured Stellan knew his own limitations, and therefore knew he wasn’t ready for the job yet. He wouldn’t let his ego get in the way.

  Mason addressed the bridge: “I have a mind to land on that cube and destroy it before it steals our home. If anyone wants to—”

  “I do,” Merrin said, raising her hand.

  “I’m going,” Tom said. He gave the ghost of a grin. “If only because I don’t trust you to get the job done yourself.”

  Mason nodded at both of them. He hoped they knew it was highly unlikely they’d return from the mission. They had to know that.

  Jeremy stepped up to the captain’s chair. “Three orders,” Mason said to him. “Drop us on the cube, then get out of here before the Tremist destroy you.”

  “What’s the third?” Jeremy said.

  “If you can come back and get us, that’d be great.” Mason almost grinned.

  Jeremy nodded. “Consider it done.”

  “Not yet, Mr. Optimism,” Tom said. “There are klicks to go before we sleep.”

  “Drop another gate for an in-system jump,” Mason told the bridge. “When the Tremist get too close, fly through. Once we’re clear, move out.”

  Then Mason left with Merrin and Tom at his side.

  * * *

  The three donned spacesuits in a room on the two lowest levels of the crossbar, directly under the bridge, where the shuttle bays were all in a row. It was a room specifically designed to allow easy access to outer space. Behind clear walls to the left and right, the Egypt’s small collection of shuttles waited in their separate bays, shiny under the overhead lights.

  The spacesuits they wore were similar to the Tremist armor, in a way, close to the same color—jet-black, so as to blend in with space. They were the same size and shape as his stolen armor, too, but with ultralight jetpacks on the back to allow easy maneuvering through space. Mason and the others had logged a hundred hours with them during their second and fifth years at Academy I. Mason was loath to take off the Tremist suit, but there was no time to try and rig a jetpack to it. He left it buried under some clothes in one of the lockers.

  He was very hot inside the suit, until the internal atmosphere kicked in and began to regulate his temperature. He worked the Rhadgast gauntlet over his already-gloved hand and felt it reestablish the connection. Good. Mason had been worried the gauntlet needed direct contact with skin to operate.

  Beside him, Merrin and Tom finished suiting up. They put their helmets on at the same time. The helmets were snug, with clear faceplates from their foreheads to their chins. The suits hissed as they sealed. Merrin gave a thumbs-up, and so did Tom.

  All that was left was the bomb. It was located in the sub-armory in the wall, behind a panel. Elizabeth had to unlock it for them. It looked like two short cylinders glued together and was magnetic, so Mason could stick it to his suit. They played rock-paper-scissors to see who would hold it, and Mason won, partly because he threw his hand a tenth of a second late, and knew they were both going for scissors. His rock meant he would carry the bomb. He stuck it to the side of his leg. It ran from his hip to his knee.

  Mason studied the seam under his feet, where the floor would split apart on outer space, and the two halves would curl up into the clear walls.

  “Remove gravity,” he said.

  The lightness returned to his stomach, and he pushed off gingerly and floated toward the ceiling.

  “Why did I sign up for this?” Tom muttered, coming through clearly in Mason’s helmet speakers.

  “Because you’re brave,” Mason replied.

  “Oh, right, that.”

  “We’ve done this before,” Merrin said. “No big deal at all. Just this time it’s…”

  “Real space,” Tom said. “Which is infinite, most likely. That means forever.”

  “Thanks, Thomas,” Merrin said. They were holding on to handles in the ceiling, appearing to hang from them.

  Jeremy came through the com: “Prepare to drop. We’re moving through the gate now.”

  Twenty seconds passed where all Mason could hear was his breath.

  “What’s the plan?” Tom finally asked.

  “We blow up the gate,” Mason said.

  “Ten seconds,” Jeremy said. “It’s hot out there, guys!”

  Mason’s heart began to pound. His heart monitor buzzed against his arm, helpfully asking him to calm down. It almost made him laugh. He shared a look with Merrin and Tom, and they nodded at him.

  “Five, four…” Jeremy said.

  In th
e floor, the locking mechanism clunked as it opened. Mason felt his jetpack humming against him, softly, a gentle vibration.

  “Three, two…”

  Mason tucked his legs under him so he was effectively standing on the ceiling, coiled into a ball, ready to spring out; Merrin and Tom did the same.

  Then the seam zipped open, the two halves retracting into the walls too fast to follow, and for the briefest moment, before they were ejected from the Egypt, Mason could see everything. The vast inky space around him, so huge it was hard to think about. Impossibly huge, beyond comprehension. And there in the middle glowed the blue-white ball of Earth, and in front of that, the machine humans had created, which could now be their undoing. The size of it was incomprehensible, the time and effort required to create it incalcuable.

  The Tremist ships were so close. Silent hulks in space. The clouds on Earth were full of soundless explosions, as shuttles were destroyed before they could leave the atmosphere. It was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. In that moment, Mason knew that everything was counting on them, and at that point, there was nothing he could do but try his best.

  The atmosphere in the room exploded into space, and the three cadets launched themselves off the ceiling and out of the ship.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Space opened up around them as they cleared the Egypt, and Mason realized how wrong it was. Humans didn’t belong in outer space, inside little people-shaped suits that held in some air and heat. The sensation was like nothing else. There was literally light years of nothingness in almost every direction.

  But none of that mattered, because the gate was in front of him. It blocked out most of the Earth now, still growing. The three of them were heading right for it. Mason risked a look behind and saw the Egypt powering through the black, its blue engine glowing bright, with Tremist in pursuit. The pursuers were too far away, though, and the Egypt was already heading for the gate that would take it to Saturn.

  In his helmet, Merrin gasped as they got closer, and Tom said, quite calmly, “I can’t believe we’re doing this.…”

  More limbs unfolded from the gate; it was not really a shape, but a geometric pattern. They flew toward it, and their reverse thrusters began to compensate, to prevent them from turning into paste upon the gate’s surface.

  The Tremist ships all around didn’t seem to notice them. They floated lazily, like boats in a harbor, waiting for anyone foolish enough to mess with their stolen gate. They glowed in the yellow-orange light of the sun, which was a hot, too-bright ball ninety-three million miles away. Mason grinned behind his faceplate; the Tremist were in for a surprise.

  “WHOOOOOOOOO!” Tom screamed suddenly, and Mason felt giddiness rising up inside him, too. They were on target, the gate still growing so that Mason had to turn his head 180 degrees to take in the whole thing from left to right. What remained of the cube was just ahead, a few kilometers out now. They were going to land on the side: the top part was a tangle of telescoping limbs and unfolding metal, slowly whittling down to the bottom. Mason tried to judge how much time they’d have once on the cube, but it was impossible—he was too amped up with adrenaline. His breath rasped loudly in his ears, and he realized that, despite the intense speed with which he was moving, it felt completely normal. He could’ve been floating in the gravity-free bay, or drifting in a pool. The suits seemed to compensate for any g-forces he’d be feeling.

  They were going to do it.

  They were going to land on the cube, easy as pie, and plant the explosives. Then they’d take off and wait for a pickup. The ruined gate would surely scatter the Tremist from Earthspace. Mason was already grinning, his fear forgotten.

  Until he realized the jetpacks weren’t slowing them enough. The gate was growing much too fast now.

  “Manual override!” Mason screamed. “Slow down!” He squeezed his fists and pumped his arms back, like he was elbowing someone behind him, and felt himself slow a little more. The gate was just in front of them, the surface shimmering weirdly. He felt the shield as they passed through: there was resistance, like stepping into a vertical wall of water, and then they were inside. Stellan had been right.

  “I can’t slow down!” Merrin yelled. She was pumping her arms back, but the jetpack wasn’t responding, not like Mason’s and Tom’s.

  Mason was still a hundred feet from the cube when Merrin hit the surface. Her pack gave a bright burst of reddish light, and she spun sideways, cartwheeling off the cube and into space.

  Chapter Twenty-six

  “No!” Tom screamed.

  “Hold on, Merrin!” Mason said as he touched down feetfirst. He felt the power in the cube under his feet, the deep vibrations as the thousands of moving parts did what they were designed to do.

  Merrin didn’t cry out, didn’t scream, she just tumbled, her thrusters firing wildly, pushing her up the side of the cube, into the moving forest of metal. At any moment, a piece could swing up and bat her into space, or split her suit wide open, or just kill her through blunt force trauma.

  Mason pushed off the cube vertically, following her.

  Tom called after him, “Let me! You have to plant the bomb!”

  But there was no time. Mason saw how fast she was moving, and knew he could catch her, but only now, only if he went at this exact moment. Tom groaned in frustration, and Mason knew he was following hard on his heels.

  “Just get it done!” Merrin told them both. A piece of the gate sprouted under her, tossing her sideways, and she bounced across the top of the cube, where so many parts were extending and flipping upward.

  Mason flew around the top corner of the cube, controlling his thrusters with as much focus as he could muster. It was a nightmare: thin poles swung back and forth, shooting out, making connections. Merrin bounced off many of them, but none could catch her, or slow her down much. Mason gave another burst of speed by extending his hands, and skimmed over the top, praying the moving ground under him wouldn’t suddenly spring up and out. It was like swimming above a thousand sharks, waiting for one to bite you in half at any moment. He reached Merrin halfway across the top, grabbing her wrist, where her suit was thinnest and easiest to hold on to.

  “Gotcha!” he cried, then felt a little silly. Merrin was giggling, though. The girl was laughing with the maze of flying metal all around them, like it was some kind of game, or just training.

  “Well, you took your time,” she said flatly.

  “I got held up,” Mason replied.

  Tom zoomed up behind them and eased to a stop, ducking his head under a moving piece of gate. Mason couldn’t see the circumference of the gate now. It curved up and out of sight in both directions, hundreds of miles across now, maybe thousands. But the dozens of Tremist ships around them were plainly visible, close enough to see lights behind their windows; if the three cadets had been noticed, Mason figured they were safe here: firing upon them now would risk damage to the gate, assuming Tremist weapons could even get through the shield.

  Tom grabbed on to Merrin so Mason could set the bomb. He pulled it off his thigh and knelt on the gate. Up here he’d have to work fast: the pieces were moving so quickly it’d be hard to arm the bomb before it moved away. Even now, as Mason stood atop the cube, he felt himself dropping inches, as pieces slid out from under his feet. The cube was shrinking rapidly.

  “Hurry!” Tom urged. His voice was giddy with the same thing Mason felt: the nearness of victory. They could plant the bomb and the entire Earth would be saved. Yeah, they’d be getting medals for this mission.

  Mason was on his knees, about to secure the bomb, but movement caught his eye. Above them, a Hawk was coasting toward them, just one hundred meters away, now fifty. It came to a stop, blocking out half the sun. It was the king’s Hawk, no doubt. Mason’s blood would’ve frozen if not for the temperature regulator inside his suit.

  “Um, how much longer?” Tom said.

  “Don’t mean to rush you!” Merrin added with a shaky laugh.

 
Mason gave a snarl of frustration and prepared to remagnetize the bomb.

  But then a door opened in the bottom of the Hawk, and four Rhadgast dropped through the bottom like falling stars.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  The three cadets were now deer in an earthen forest, running from wolves. Mason held Merrin’s hand tightly, too tightly maybe, but he couldn’t risk letting her go, not with her ruined thrusters.

  “I’m dead weight, let me go!” Merrin said, voice harsh in his helmet. “They won’t hurt me!”

  “Yeah, that’s gonna happen,” Tom replied.

  “They do seem friendly,” Mason added.

  All around them, purple bolts of lightning crackled across the surface of the cube, chasing them. For a brief moment, Mason hoped they would short out the gate, but then realized the ESC engineers would’ve accounted for something as simple as an electrical strike.

  The bolts hit Mason too, but his suit was insulated. He still felt the heat from each blast, and the hairs on his body standing up. A temperature warning in his helmet began to beep, and sweat dripped onto his faceplate. He swam left and right, over and under poles, as the floor shrank away beneath them. They had two gloves themselves, but what chance did they have against four Rhadgast?

  Merrin tugged at Mason’s arm, her ruined thrusters making it harder to pull her along.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “I can’t control it!”

  Mason risked a glance behind and was rewarded: as he watched, a Rhadgast was batted into space by a pole across the back of the legs. It sent him spinning away, executing backflip after backflip. Then another was pinned between two moving poles. It was perfectly silent, but Mason could imagine the scream as the Rhadgast arched its back unnaturally, arms flying out. The poles separated, and the Rhadgast floated like dead space junk.

  That left two, which was two too many.

  They were nearing the end of the cube now, on the other side. Nowhere else to go. “Just plant it!” Merrin said. “I’ll try to hold them off.”