The Planet Thieves

by Dan Krokos

  “She’s right,” Tom said, zipping past them over a tangle of metal and under a rising arm. “We have—” Tom was cut off as a pole swung up suddenly, batting him into space much like the first Rhadgast. The blow to his chest knocked the wind out of him, the explosion of breath making Mason’s ears ring. Tom spun through space, thrusters trying to compensate for his crazy trajectory. “Just do it!” Tom gasped. “Plant them, Stark! I can regain control!”

  So Mason did. He slowed himself, and spun hard, extending his hand and firing his glove at the two pursuing Rhadgast. The Tremist wizards were ready, though, and met him with their own volley, as Merrin joined in. Purple lightning danced over the surface of the cube, rising and falling, curling, thick violet veins that writhed in silence. The tendrils met and wound against each other and built a kind of wall between them, blocking the Rhadgast from view behind a web of bright light.

  Mason slammed the bomb down and pressed the button to make it stick, all while keeping his glove up. Heat began to build in his hand, and he saw Merrin next to him, half-crouched, braced against the lightning. Mason reached down to arm the bomb—it was only a single button he had to press, helpfully labeled ARM—but as he did, the piece of cube he’d adhered it to shot away into the darkness, taking the bomb with it.

  It was gone.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  There was nothing to do now but fight. Mason and Merrin continued to trade lightning with the two Rhadgast, who were coming closer all the while. The floor continued to sink, until it was thin enough to see over the edge, to see how flat it had become. Soon there’d be nothing to stand on, and the cube would be a circle.

  The forest of metal was nearly gone, too, as the poles found the places they were supposed to go, and went there. The gate stretched and curved up to either side of them; many of the Tremist ships were now inside the enormous hoop.

  Mason sweated inside his suit, not wanting to give up. But there wasn’t much time left. Soon the Rhadgast would overpower them, and the fight would be done. The pieces slid under his feet, again and again, until they were standing on a thin, flat square. Soon that broke apart too before the Rhadgast could reach them; it split in half, throwing the combatants in opposite directions. The wall of lightning sputtered and broke, the remnants crawling over Mason’s suit. He tumbled away, grabbing for Merrin’s arm, the big blue Earth flipping again and again past his vision.

  “Gotcha!” Merrin said this time, grabbing on to Mason’s arm with both hands. The Rhadgast floated in the distance. Halfway between them, the gate finished sliding together, becoming thinner and thinner as the pieces telescoped out. Now it was just a flat line, much too large to even see the curve to it, though Mason knew it was there. The gate was now a hoop as big as a planet. Mason watched it complete itself and finally stop moving.

  They drifted in space; the Rhadgast didn’t seem interested in them now that the gate was safe. The two wizards swooped away to collect their fallen comrades. Mason and Merrin passed through the shield again—that stepping through a wall of water feeling—and into open space.

  “It’s okay,” Merrin said, tears in her voice. “We tried.”

  Mason couldn’t look at her. Trying wasn’t enough. Nobody rewarded you for trying, only winning. They had failed, and now billions would pay.

  “It’s okay…” Merrin said again, more to herself, it seemed.

  Tom jetted over from above, having regained control. Together, the three of them held on to each other and didn’t speak. After a minute or so, the Hawk returned, hovering over them, and Mason knew they would soon be captured—they would become the prisoners of war he once meant to free. Maybe Susan was still on the Hawk, alive and waiting for him.

  The gate began to spin, slowly at first, almost too thin to see, as if someone had drawn it with an ancient graphite pencil. It gave off a faint, white-blue glow. And it wasn’t just spinning, Mason noticed; it was moving, drifting almost, toward Earth.

  The Hawk was going to pick them up, but Mason wondered if running out of air was preferable. Then he saw that neither thing was likely to happen, at least not right away.

  As he watched the moon, it suddenly took on a strange texture—black specks against the ashy gray surface. A moment later he realized what he was looking at.

  The ESC had crossed into Earthspace simultaneously. Half a hundred ships, with engines and weapons bristling bright.

  The whole fleet was here, and ready for battle.

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  The blackness of space lit up with the sizzling light of hundreds of particle beams, all of them centered on the bottom of the spinning cross gate. But the ESC had created it well—they’d clearly learned from the last time the Tremist blew up a gate, so many years ago. It was the most powerful shield Mason had ever seen, or heard of. Yet the ships were manned by soldiers, and soldiers didn’t give up—they kept their beams burning, probably well past the point hundreds of alarms would be screaming inside the ships. Warning, warning, overheating may lead to a hull breach, which could result in loss of life.

  Long seconds passed, and the shield sputtered and sparked, but held. It was so bright Mason had to look away. Whatever fail-safes the ESC had built into the shield had been stripped; they should’ve been able to turn it off with a command, but the gate seemed to fully belong to the Tremist now.

  And as the three stranded cadets watched, the first of the ESC ships was destroyed in a puff of blue-white light. It was a country-class vessel like the Egypt. Then another ship was destroyed, this one a spark of orange-yellow light, with a fireball that lingered despite the lack of oxygen. Still the ESC focused their particle beams on the gate, ignoring the Tremist ships that swarmed around them like bees. No, like sharks—with pairs of giant jaws clamping shut from top and bottom.

  Mason watched it dispassionately, the weight of the outcome crushing his feelings until he was just … switched off. The ESC would either win out, or they wouldn’t, and there was not a Zeus-banished thing he could do about it.

  From the cluster of ESC ships, he saw the SS Egypt break away and swoop toward them. Jeremy must’ve locked on to their signal; he’d come back for them.

  Tom gave a victory cry, but it sounded halfhearted. The gate still held. There would be no victory until it floated in pieces, spiraling apart in random trajectories.

  “Will they break through?” Merrin asked. Though she wasn’t really asking.

  “I don’t know,” Mason replied automatically.

  The Egypt dodged a few Hawks that gave up their pursuit when they realized the Egypt wasn’t a direct threat to the gate. Soon the ship that had been their home the last two weeks hovered above them. The same door opened in the bottom, and they used their remaining thrusters to fly inside. Once gravity and atmosphere returned, Mason hurried to the bridge with Tom and Merrin, putting on his stolen armor along the way.

  When they entered the bridge again, the gate was still whole.

  Chapter Thirty

  Mason retook command of the Egypt in time to see the end of the world.

  He stood on the bridge with what was probably the first crew of cadets to ever see battle, to ever run their own ship. If it happened before, it wasn’t in any of the lore books at Academy I.

  The spinning gate wasn’t just drifting now, it was moving with purpose.

  Toward Earth.

  The com station was a constant crackle of chatter—orders given, orders received. They were mandatory, so they filled the Egypt’s bridge with their noise. Most of the ESC particle beams had overheated, and the gate was no longer under assault, aside from the occasional blast from a ship that had played their beams smart.

  “What do we do, Captain?” more than one cadet asked him.

  Watch, he wanted to say. Watch our failure. Watch the end. Because what did it really matter?

  The gate would not be destroyed, that much was clear. So there was nothing to do but watch.

  The warrior in him balked at that—the par
t of him he wanted to grow as he got older. You weren’t supposed to just watch, you were supposed to fight. To the bitter end, like the soldiers in the old stories. That was what a real soldier did.

  Sad, then, that Mason only felt like lying down. Maybe falling asleep, right there on the bridge.

  “Mason,” Jeremy whispered. He was right beside him. Tom was watching him too, and Merrin. They were probably watching him so they didn’t have to watch the gate.

  Mason shook himself from his trance, only because the others were still counting on him. He wouldn’t have done it for himself.

  Still the gate moved: a spinning hoop they only saw because the Egypt so helpfully highlighted it for them. The nonsentient computer on the bridge painted the gate a brilliant red color, not unlike fresh blood. According to the numbers scrolling on the dome, the gate was thinner than a strand of hair.

  Engage, engage, voices on the com yelled. Do something, fire, fire everything, fire what you have: the orders from the com had devolved into pleas. Please help us, they said.

  “Orders?” Tom finally said.

  Merrin had been waiting at the pilot station the whole time, hands wrapped around both control sticks. She was half turned in her chair, waiting for an order, eyes narrowed. Fierce in a way Mason envied.

  She gave him the smallest nod. He knew it meant I’m with you.

  “Wait,” Mason said. He felt pressure behind his eyes, and not for the first time. The words came automatically. “We’re separate from the fleet. If we attack the gate, we’ll be destroyed. Wait.”

  No one argued.

  Maybe it was a coward’s move, but it was smart. The gate would not be destroyed, and as captain, Mason would not turn his crew over to certain doom unless there was a chance, however small. That was his responsibility.

  He told himself that.

  * * *

  When the gate finally reached Earth, their view of the blue planet disappeared from one instant to the next. The gate spun faster, the computer told them, faster and faster, and then it folded space, and through the hoop they saw new stars. Stars the computer didn’t recognize. There was a sun blazing inside the hoop now, a smallish yellow thing that didn’t look too different from the sun in the center of Mason’s solar system.

  The gate moved over the Earth faster than he thought possible. Absurdly, it made him think of something he saw once, something terrible, when he was watching an Earth lore video about the twentieth century. It was about a phenomenon called bullfighting. Men would taunt bulls with colorful blankets. The bulls would run at the blankets instead of the men, and the men would sweep them over their faces, quickly, and then reset as the bulls turned around. It was quick. That’s how quick the gate was now. The gate swept over the Earth, spinning faster than ever, and then it powered down, and the stars he knew returned, but the Earth was gone.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  The com was silent now. No more chatter. And the Tremist had even stopped their attack. Both fleets hung separately in the black that was no longer Earthspace. It was just regular old outer space, plain and featureless.

  “There was a sun…” Tom said slowly. “Through the gate.”

  No one said anything. Merrin took her hands off the control sticks and let them fall to her sides.

  “There was a sun,” Tom said again. “Wherever they took Earth, there was a sun. They didn’t just drop them into the cold black.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Stellan said, sniffling. “The calculations needed are too precise. They could never position a planet in the exact right space to keep conditions on the surface the same.”

  “That’s exactly what we wanted to do,” Jeremy said, “with Nori-Blue.”

  “It’s different,” Merrin said. “Nori-Blue isn’t full of sentient beings. If the ESC messed up, they could reposition it. Even if there were adverse weather changes on the surface, it would’ve been worth the price of stealing it.”

  Mason felt weary, hearing them talk. What did it matter if there was a sun? It was almost like they were in shock, or hadn’t truly registered what had happened yet. Earth was no longer in the solar system, and they had no idea where it was.

  The gate began to contract, a slow reversal of the unfolding process they’d tried so desperately to stop.

  The fighting resumed. One moment, space was dead and still with the stationary hulks of hundreds of spacecraft, some whole, some in pieces, some scored black. The next, the void was alive with fire of all colors. Beams and balls of light exchanging in space that was no longer Earth’s.

  The ESC ships were named with little transparent tags the computer pasted onto the dome. Mason and the others were able to watch as the SS Kenya exploded in the middle of two other ships—the SS Paraguay and New Zealand, which both drifted away, wounded, venting white geysers of atmosphere. From this far away, Mason couldn’t see the bodies tumble into space from the torn-apart crafts, but he knew they were there.

  But the Tremist were taking hits too. An Isolator’s side thrusters malfunctioned, and the gigantic ship veered sideways into two diving Hawks, which promptly exploded with puffs of green fire, impaling the Isolator at the same time.

  “Captain,” a cadet breathed behind him. Mason didn’t know who. He needed to make a choice, or they’d be next. He needed to get his crew to safety. There was no honor in suicide, and no honor lost in living to fight another day.

  In the next second, he learned he wouldn’t have to run against orders after all, because the command to retreat was given. The message came as a scrolling green text along the bottom of the dome:

  ALL SHIPS REPORT TO OLYMPUS.

  Followed by:

  GUARD YOUR GATES. DO NOT ENGAGE THE TREMIST.

  “Finally,” Tom said, but he sounded stunned, or slowed. Like he was very cold, or had just woken up from a deep sleep. “We should definitely go to Olympus. Olympus will protect us.” It was very possible he was in shock. Was Mason in shock? He might’ve been. He wasn’t sure how to tell. Nothing felt real, that’s all he knew. His hands were a little numb.

  In unison, the remnants of the ESC fleet began to drop cross gates. But the technology was too slow. The Tremist were able to laser the gates into spiraling pieces that glowed like embers, leaving the ships stranded until they could deploy another. As Mason watched (that seemed like all he had been doing for the last thousand years—watching), a huge Isolator flew in tight above the SS Japan and sucked the whole ship up into its open cargo area, leaving the Japan’s cross gate to spin unattended.

  “Captain,” Merrin said calmly, jarring him back to reality.

  Mason nodded; the fight was lost here, and they had their orders. “Drop another gate,” he said. “Rendezvous with the fleet at Olympus.”

  A few of the cadets let out grateful sighs and focused again on their stations.

  Until the dome’s surface blurred slightly, and Tom’s dad, Vice Admiral Bruce Renner, appeared on the screen.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  The vice admiral didn’t look well. “Thank God you’re all right,” he said immediately. He had the same features as Tom—dark hair and eyes—with a short silvery beard. A beard that was gelled with drying blood from a gash above his right eyebrow. His nose was broken too, purple and crooked. Behind him, something showered orange-white sparks in a brilliant arc.

  “Where’s your mother?” he said, looking down at Tom, who sat behind the weapons console. “What are you…?”

  It didn’t take long for him to realize. Bruce Renner’s lower lip quivered, and then his jaw clenched. And then he nodded.

  Tom’s head hung, and he was completely still.

  The vice admiral looked at Mason now. “Are you in charge?” Voice like steel, just like Tom’s mother’s had been.

  “Yes, sir,” Mason replied.

  “And there are no ranking officers on the craft?”

  “Just Commander Lockwood,” Tom said suddenly, in a normal voice, “but he’s injured. Gravely.”

&nbs
p; The vice admiral took two seconds to consider this, blank-faced. Through the dome, Mason watched the battle rage on. Silent explosions, in every color imaginable. But more and more of the ESC craft were escaping. It wouldn’t be long before the Tremist recognized the Egypt on the fringes of the battlefield.

  “We were boarded, Dad,” Tom said. “The Tremist took everyone, or killed them, and we hid.”

  “We took back the ship, sir,” Merrin said.

  “I see that,” the vice admiral replied. “Well done. But I don’t want you to rendezvous with the fleet at Olympus. You are ordered to cross to a remote base and settle down there. Somewhere small enough the Tremist won’t know where you are. Understood?”

  The huge gate was halfway back to its cube form, curling inward like a dying spider. It wouldn’t be long before it was ready for transport.

  “Negative, sir,” Mason said without thinking. A few cadets gasped, but what was the vice admiral going to do, throw Mason in the brig? “Regrouping at Olympus is a mistake. The Tremist will just take the gate to Nori-Blue and steal it too. We have to stop them.”

  Instead of reprimanding him, the vice admiral went blank-faced again. He looked very tired. His eyes were slick with tears that weren’t quite ready to fall.

  After what seemed like an eternity, the vice admiral nodded. “The order to regroup came from Grand Admiral Shahbazian himself. I can’t ignore it.”

  “We can’t let them take both planets,” Mason said, suddenly lightheaded. A cadet did not disobey an order. A cadet did not disobey an order from the grand admiral.

  The Egypt’s crew gave up a murmur of agreement; the other cadets were on board. It was strange: seeing Earth disappear should’ve crippled their resolve, but it seemed to make them stronger. They had nothing to lose. Mason was ready to fight for what was left of humanity, for the billions out there who were lost, possibly freezing to death at this very moment. Mason was ready.

  “Are you aware of the Egypt’s mission?” the vice admiral said, using his admiral voice again.