The Planet Thieves

by Dan Krokos

  In the next moment, they knew it all.

  Humans and Tremist weren’t alien to each other. They didn’t evolve on separate planets.

  They both came from Nori-Blue.

  They were both children of the People.

  At the height of the People’s civilization, war broke out, as wars tend to do. By this time, the People had technology that even the Tremist would not be able to understand. They had thrived for so long that, over fifty thousand years earlier, they had actually evolved into two different species. The new species were known as the Fangborn, beastly creatures that were all cunning and strength. It was like some of the People had peaked through evolution, then began reverting back to animal form. The unaffected People lived on to become the Adams, who were the same as they’d always been, physically weaker than the Fangborn, but more intelligent.

  As the Fangborn overwhelmed their former brothers, a large group of Adams escaped Nori-Blue in two ships.

  They split up to ensure their survival. One ship went to what was now called Earth, and the other went to the Tremist homeworld.

  That was a few million years ago, give or take thirty-four thousand.

  But the Fangborn, they’re very much alive.

  Waiting under the surface of Nori-Blue.

  Waiting for the Adams to come home, so that they might have something new to feast upon.

  * * *

  To Mason, the Fangborn sounded more like monsters than people.

  But Child’s story made sense. Or at least it explained how the Tremist and humans appeared so similar. Take away the violet eyes and hair, the nearly translucent skin, and Merrin was a human. And their similarities weren’t just physical, either. Both races had ruined their planets. Both were greedy for another to ruin. That’s what this whole mess was about.

  “Are there any Adams left?” Mason asked, breaking the silence.

  “Only their children. Only you. The pure bloodline is gone. But listen carefully.” An exclamation point, glowing in green, appeared on the sphere. “As last sentinel of the People, I have been tasked with preserving their history, so that whoever might return to Nori-Blue would know the truth, and be able to share it. I’ve created a book that contains everything.”

  The sphere was now an image of gnashing teeth and frantic, violent images too quick for Mason to process. “The Fangborn have been waiting impatiently, trapped underground in an extremely powerful stasis field created by the Adams. They’ve built their cities in enormous caves, hidden from both Tremist and human. And they’ve been watching. They know you’re here. And while they can’t hurt me directly, they know you three are in a position to bring this truth to both sides. If the Fangborn are revealed before the planet is colonized by either side, they will be at a disadvantage. They’re counting on people becoming comfortable before they attack. They will eat this truth, if they can.”

  Mason shivered. Eat.

  “Wait,” Merrin said. “Why don’t you just keep them underground?”

  “Ahhh,” Child said. The sphere began spinning lazily.

  “What is it?” Mason said. “Tell us!”

  “Well. I brought you three here because I believe in you. But also because I’m running out of energy and will no longer be able to maintain the field. I’ve been doing it for a very long time, you know.”

  “How much time do we have?” Mason said, his heart beating faster.

  “Nineteen minutes. Actually, eighteen minutes and forty-seven seconds.”

  Mason didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. He just stood there, feeling like he’d been slapped.

  “You idiot!” Tom said. “You brought us here and now you’re saying they’re after us, when they weren’t just … what, a half hour ago? And they’re about to be freed for the first time in millions of years?”

  “Exactly,” Child replied, with no hint of remorse.

  “Oh,” Tom said. “Well, you shouldn’t have done that.”

  “I did not say it would be easy,” Child said, pulsing with a heart again. “But I know bravery is strong in all of you. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. Dig deep and find it.”

  Easier said than done, Mason thought.

  “Now come,” Child said. “Before it’s too late.”

  Chapter Thirty-eight

  Child floated off his pillar and began to drift away.

  Merrin started forward, but Tom said, “I don’t know about this. And I’m not saying that because I’m scared. I mean, I am, because I’m smart, but that’s not why.”

  Mason didn’t know about this either, but he knew when there was a choice, and when there wasn’t. This time there was no choice. It was too incredible to be a trick, and he couldn’t figure out the angle if it was one. Which meant it was probably the truth, and both races were counting on them.

  So they followed Child at a distance. The sphere floated to the back of the tower, and a hand appeared on the surface every so often, beckoning them forward. At the back was a winding tunnel that curled to the left, descending in a helix. The way was lit, but Mason couldn’t see how—the lighting was ambient, with no obvious source.

  “A little quicker, please,” Child urged, picking up his pace. The cadets broke into a jog, spinning down and down, first ten complete spirals, then twenty. Mason had no idea how far underground they were.

  After somewhere between thirty and forty spirals, the tunnel ended in a huge cavern. It reminded Mason of an indoor stadium on Earth, but with rough rock walls. In the center of the cavern was a pillar similar to Child’s.

  But on this one rested a book.

  “Go to it!” Child said.

  Mason ran toward the pillar, and out of the gloom at the other end of the cavern, he saw something. An opening to another tunnel.

  He slowed.

  “They can’t get in!” Child said. “Hur—”

  A deep roar cut the sphere off. Two more followed, louder than before. Then Mason heard the scraping sounds of claws on rock and the gnashing and grinding of teeth. All coming from the darkness at the other end of the tunnel.

  Tom stopped completely, and Merrin slowed. Mason sped up, because he knew getting to the book sooner meant leaving sooner.

  “The Fangborn try, but they can’t,” Child said. “I promise. They just like to try. The People made sure I could protect their knowledge, and I do. For another few minutes, at least!”

  Mason was at the book. It rested open, flat on its spine. It was huge, bigger than any book Mason had ever seen. In fact, carrying it out of there was going to be a problem. It looked as if it was bound in gold.

  “Touch it,” Child said.

  Mason did.

  And then everything changed.

  Chapter Thirty-nine

  In the span of a few seconds, the book transferred the entire history of the People to Mason. He could feel it in his brain like a weight. Right now it was a locked box, near to bursting, so heavy his head swam and his eyes blurred with tears. He felt a strange buzz inside his skull, similar to the electricity he felt in his gloves, but more distracting.

  “Easy, easy,” Child said. “Don’t try to look.”

  There was simply too much knowledge. Mason didn’t want to open the door to that knowledge, because it felt like it would all collapse on him.

  “Just carry it. You can share it with others. But don’t try to look until you’re somewhere safe. Somewhere you can sleep.”

  Mason nodded.

  “What did you do to him?” Merrin demanded.

  From the tunnel, the howls increased. Howls and roars and strange chuffing sounds. Mason could hear the Fangborn breathing.

  “Mason Stark is now the living conduit of the book, the messenger who will bring peace to the Adams’ children.”

  “Oh,” Tom said. “Is that all?”

  “The book must remain here in case you fail.”

  By now Mason’s head was clearing, but he felt the knowledge dwelling inside him. He understood what Child meant by fail. He meant
if Mason died, and another conduit was needed.

  “Go now,” Child said. “Back up the tunnel, back to your ship, back to your fleet. Make the truth known before there is nothing left to save. Go!”

  They went.

  Up the tunnel, as fast as they could. As the cries of the Fangborn dwindled, Mason could hear the blood pounding in his ears. The return trip went too fast—he didn’t want to be topside just yet, where they would have to keep running and fighting. All Mason could think about was the wealth of information in his head, the insane truth that could change everything. Suddenly he was afraid for his life for a totally different reason.

  They sprinted across the main floor, past Child’s pillar, and through the doorway into murky daylight. Just then the com clicked in Mason’s ear, and by Merrin’s and Tom’s reactions, he knew they heard it too.

  “This is Vice Admiral Renner broadcasting across all frequencies. The Tremist force is in system now. Do not fire heavy weapons. The Tremist have stationed themselves low in the atmosphere, betting we won’t use heavies against them at the risk of contaminating the planet below. The gate—”

  There was a bright spark in the sky, and the vice admiral’s voice crackled briefly with static, then he coughed wetly. The word gate sent a chill across Mason’s shoulders.

  He could see the gate now, unfolding low in the atmosphere. It was just a tiny speck at this distance, a shiny dust mote. The Tremist were already in the process of stealing their second planet of the day.

  “We need to stop the gate,” the vice admiral said, sounding defeated already, with just a hint of steel left in his voice. “The Olympus is on its way. We hope it will scatter them like—” He cut out again.

  The gate was growing, looking again like a spider with a thousand unfurling legs. If the Tremist took Nori-Blue, that was it. There would be no home for humans. And the Tremist would definitely be at risk if they settled down on Nori-Blue: the Fangborn would devour them, and possibly use their technology to spread throughout the galaxy.

  His ear clicked twice more, which Mason knew meant the speaker was only speaking to him. “Stark,” the vice admiral said. “Did you get the Lock in place?”

  “It’s done, sir,” Mason replied. Tom looked at him quizzically.

  “Good.” That was all he said.

  “We have to stop this,” Mason said, hearing the frustration in his voice. Frustration he saw on Merrin’s face and in Tom’s eyes.

  But it wasn’t enough that the odds were already impossible. Right as they were about to run for the shuttle, the king’s Hawk crested the trees behind it, its weapon clusters bristling with green light.

  Chapter Forty

  They ran anyway. Mason ran as fast as he ever had before, ignoring the way the soft ground sucked at his feet with each step, how the tall grasses tangled around his ankles, threatening to trip him, as if the whole planet was aligned with the Fangborn. As if it too was saying, You don’t belong here. Be gone. Or more likely: You don’t belong here, but you’re never going to leave.

  They never had a chance. Mason screamed when he saw the Hawk fire the first thick green laser from under its belly. He could see Stellan in the window, waving them forward. He could hear the shuttle itself powering up, now that Child wanted them to flee. But the Hawk didn’t shoot to kill, only maim. The rear engines on the shuttle exploded in a geyser of blue and silver flames. One of the underside engines gave a high-pitched whine—errrrrreiiiiiiiii—and then it exploded too, shoving the rear of the shuttle upward and almost sending it into a somersault. The shuttle slammed back down, smoking and crackling, completely useless. Stellan popped up in the window a few seconds later, seemingly okay.

  They were stranded now, on a planet full of monsters that wanted to kill them. Monsters underground and now monsters in the air. Mason wanted to scream again, in frustration this time. The heroes in the stories always had something go right for them, there was always a bit of luck. No matter what the odds were, they found a way. He wondered how many would-be heroes didn’t get that sliver of luck, and were never mentioned again.

  Not only were they stranded, with the king’s Hawk closing in, but the Lock was only a few hundred feet away in the shallow woods. If the Tremist had any way to track the Lock, it would be destroyed sooner than Mason had hoped.

  The Hawk hovered over the clearing, taking its time like a slow predator stalking its prey. This close to the ground, Mason saw it was truly massive, taking up over half of the clearing, casting a long, wide shadow on the ground.

  “C’mon, we have to make a stand,” Mason said. The others nodded—no question, because they were the best the ESC had to offer—and they took off again for the shuttle. The wiser plan would’ve been to try to lose them in the forest, to try and force a pursuit, since Merrin was what the king was really after, but none of them were about to leave Stellan behind. That option had only crossed Mason’s mind for a single instant, and the very idea disgusted him.

  When they got there, Tremist were rappelling down from the sides of the Hawk, enough to kill all of them. Mason reminded himself he had the Rhadgast gloves and was not completely helpless just yet.

  Stellan was waiting for them at the rear door, which was smoking and barely wedged open. Mason held his breath as they wiggled through, not wanting to inhale the sharp and hot gases coming off the wrecked engines. Together, Mason and Tom wedged the door shut, not quite sealing them in. If they were about to become POWs, they would make the Tremist earn it. And maybe, if they were a good enough distraction, the Lock would survive a little longer.

  Through the front part of the curved windshield, they watched the Hawk settle into the clearing, touching down on the pieces of broken skyscraper. The segments collapsed like rotten tree trunks, crumbling into puffs of silvery dust.

  Help us, Child, Mason thought. But there was no answer.

  At the edge of his hearing, Mason heard a low rumble coming from somewhere. Underneath his feet, maybe. It was probably just vibrations from the Hawk traveling through the ground. How much time had passed since Child had warned them about the stasis field? Ten minutes? Fifteen? Mason had no idea.

  “We have to do something!” Tom said.

  “What defenses does the shuttle have?” Merrin said coolly. Stellan was sweating over the controls, hands shaking.

  Tom opened a panel in the floor and pulled out fresh handheld P-cannons. He pressed one into Stellan’s hand and held it there until Stellan took a breath and closed his fingers around it.

  Suddenly, Mason heard a voice:

  You are a Rhadgast now.

  It was Child’s voice. In his head.

  You are a Rhadgast, so clap your hands.

  Clap your hands?

  Whatever. Mason was ready to try anything at this point.

  So he clapped his hands.

  And the gloves sparked with purple light. In the next instant, Mason was holding a crackling sword forged entirely from lightning the color of Merrin’s eyes.

  Chapter Forty-one

  The others froze.

  The blade felt solid under his hands. If he closed his eyes, it would’ve felt like he was holding some kind of ultra-light pole. But Mason could smell the heated air and hear the buzzing. He swung the blade sideways and it still felt solid.

  He took his left hand away, and the blade remained. He opened his right hand, and the blade snapped out of existence, just a wisp of smoke to prove it ever existed in the first place.

  “Cool,” Tom said.

  “How—” Stellan said.

  Merrin was just smiling at him, a slight upward curve to her lips. The sword wouldn’t get them out of trouble, Mason knew, but it might be that sliver of luck he thought about before. It might make the odds tip in their favor.

  He was trembling with the new possibilities. Through the windshield they could see the king walking toward them, flanked by a small guard of mirror-mask Tremist. The king’s black oval of a mask seemed to eat the light around him, making shadow
s from nothing.

  “Make it come back,” Tom said.

  Mason clapped his hands again, and the blade returned. He could feel the power coursing up and down his arms, as if the gloves gave him some kind of new strength that didn’t fully belong to him.

  The rumbling sound under them increased, which didn’t make sense. The Hawk should have been powering down, not up. Maybe they thought it wouldn’t take too long to recover Merrin, and weren’t planning to stay on the surface.

  “Here they come,” Stellan said, helpfully.

  Through the 360-degree view, Mason watched way too many Tremist line up at the rear door. He had a brief vision of cutting through all of them with his lightning sword, but knew it would never happen. It was the fantasy of a kid, not a soldier. Still, if someone tried to take Merrin, they’d be losing an arm one way or another.

  The breach was quick. Four Tremist cut a hole through the door with their talon beams, reducing it to saggy, melted metal in a matter of seconds. Before the smoke cleared, the king stepped inside, boots the color of dried blood stamping down the smoldering metal. Smoke curled around his passing, rising from him as if he was some demon just come out of hell.

  Mason held his sword high.

  “Impressive,” the king said.

  Then reached out, grabbed the sword, and squeezed.

  The sword extinguished, snapping out of existence.

  “But not impressive enough,” the king said.

  Tom fired his P-cannon next, but the king only absorbed the blow with his impossible armor, and then kicked Tom’s legs out from under him. He hit the deck hard, breath gone.

  Mason clapped his hands together, but just as the blade sprang back to life, the king punched him hard in the chest, and Mason fell next to Tom. The king put his boot on Mason’s chest, and that was it. Mason couldn’t breathe, not an atom of air, and he knew he was going to suffocate. There was no way around it. He could feel the blood thumping behind his eyes, felt his lungs spasm as there was absolutely no room to inflate.