The Planet Thieves (14 page)

Mason knew what he had to do. The Rhadgast would either kill them or disarm them, and neither of those was an option.

What would Susan do? What did she do for us already?

“Be ready, Tom!” he said. He couldn't say more, lest the Rhadgast know Mason's plan. He just had to hope Tom was as quick as everyone thought. He didn't ask Merrin, because he knew she wouldn't do it. Not a chance.

Tom understood. There was new respect in his eyes, for Mason and the sacrifice he had to make. “Aye, Captain…” Tom said back.

“Hey!” Mason shouted.

The Rhadgast spun in space. Mason wondered if he had some kind of propulsion system layered into his robe, maybe a belt that allowed him to control gravity when there was none. Or maybe it was dark magic; maybe he was a ghost. The way his faceplate glowed like a supernova, the way his robe seemed alive, lashing like a tapestry of snakes, Mason feared it was the latter possibilities.

The Rhadgast's gloves buzzed with electricity, the same sound they made seconds before firing. Mason tucked, then pushed off hard with both legs, rising a level and avoiding a blast on the wall where he'd just been. He felt static wash over him from behind, tickling the skin under his armor.

His heart sang with the near miss, but he still had to keep the Rhadgast's attention. “Nice shot!” he yelled from his new spot on the opposite wall. Hey, there wasn't time to think of a proper comeback.

Mason was buying time, because it was too soon to do what he had to do. It hurt him, because he didn't want to leave anyone behind. But at the same time, maybe he would see Mom and Dad again, and they would remember him. Maybe he would see his sister. And no matter what, he would never have to be afraid again.

By now most of the cadets had found handholds on the wall. Only a few stragglers remained, but they'd be on the wall in a few seconds. His heart pounded so hard it hurt. If he could take out the Rhadgast, Tom and Merrin would be able to retake the bridge. He knew they would. They were brave, and they knew what was at stake. His death would be worth it.

The Rhadgast studied him now, like he was impressed Mason dodged one of his lightning attacks. Which was good. But Mason had to move
now
. He could only hope everyone had a good grip.

“What are you doing?” Merrin said. “Mason, no!”

He coiled his legs, then launched himself straight off the wall horizontally.

The Rhadgast was about to blast him, but had to raise his hands instead to catch Mason as they collided.

“Now, Tom!”

Tom knew what to do. The gravity came back, and they were no longer tumbling sideways, but falling, the same way the three Tremist had fallen. The Rhadgast growled and tried to peel Mason off, but Mason held on, squeezing his eyes shut. He hoped the ground wouldn't hurt much.

The air roared in his ears and he heard Merrin shout “Mason!” at the top of her lungs.

The Rhadgast began to shock him with both hands, and the current made Mason's jaw slam shut. His skin was alive, crawling with hot bees that buzzed in his skin and stung every inch of him. His tongue got in the way of his teeth, and his mouth filled with hot blood. Mustering all his strength, he rotated in the Rhadgast's grip until he could tuck his knees up against the Rhadgast's chest. The numbers on each level rushed by. He saw
6,
then
5
. Moments to live. Almost two seconds had passed, maybe more, but it felt like his whole life. The calm came over him as level 4 blurred past, and Mason rejected it. He didn't want to feel calm, in that instant. He didn't want to accept anything, and he didn't want to die in the enemy's grasp.

Mason screamed, pistoning off with his hands and knees, trying to leap off the Rhadgast's chest. He tore free, kicking at the same time, the way he would kick off the bottom of a pool to reach the surface. He was falling too fast to see numbers now, but level four seemed so long ago.

In the next instant, he heard the Rhadgast slam into the ground—

And gravity disappeared.

The ground still rushed at him, but Mason's legs were already pointed down. He fell to his knees hard and tumbled across the floor until his back banged into one of the magnetic forklifts. He drifted upward again, shaken and bruised, but the impact was only a fraction of if he'd hit full force.

“You're welcome!” someone called from high, high above.

Mason blinked rapidly, clearing his head, and looked up. Tom clung to the wall still, holding his dataslate high. He'd removed gravity as soon as the Rhadgast hit. A window of less than a second. Tom had saved him.

Mason was torn between wanting to cry and laugh. He was alive. He was still here, still able to fight. And so were the other cadets.

The pain from the drop was fading but left behind aches. He double-checked to make sure no bones had snapped. “Report…” he said groggily. This close to the bottom, Mason looked at the now four fallen Tremist stuck to the floor. Their masks caught the light strangely, but none of them so much as twitched. His plans for questioning one would have to wait. Hopefully they could retake the bridge without killing the rest. Mason found he had no satisfaction from it, just a grim coldness in his chest. A terrible voice that said
It was you or them
.

“The starboard side is now secure,” Elizabeth said, not seeming to notice how close he'd come to dying. “The eight Tremist on the bridge are now aware of your presence, but I predict they won't leave to pursue you, since the bridge is an excellent defensive position.”

High above, the cadets began to pull themselves down the wall. They knew better than to cheer and congratulate each other, since a Rhadgast cut their last victory dance short, but they did smile. And Mason smiled back at them. A tiny droplet of blood floated out of his mouth.

Tom reached him first, and actually held out his fist for Mason to hit. “Nice work, Stark,” he said. The cadets were on the ground now, so Tom reinstated gravity and removed the magnets under the Tremist. Mason dropped a few inches to his feet. The cadets the Rhadgast had electrified were shaken and upset, but not mortally wounded. It seemed the Rhadgast hadn't been shooting to kill, but to capture.

Merrin stalked over and shoved Mason hard, with both hands.

He stumbled back, banging his shoulder on a forklift. “Hey!”

“Don't you
ever
…” She didn't need to finish. She was shaking her head, lips pressed together.

“I'm sorry—” Mason began, but Merrin pulled him into a hug. Mason didn't have a chance to hug back before she pushed him away and joined the cadets crowded around the dead Rhadgast. Now that he wasn't flying around the room, the Rhadgast didn't look so scary. Just another Tremist in a dress. He had landed in the middle of the other Tremist, on his back. Another few fractions of a second, and Mason would've been among them.

“Now what, Captain?” Jeremy asked as he finished checking the talons: all of them appeared busted by the fall.

Mason was about to say,
Now we retake the bridge,
but the four Tremist on the ground began to stir.

 

Chapter Eighteen

“Uh, Captain?” one cadet said.

The Tremist were groaning, limbs twitching on the floor, as if waking from a particularly long slumber. Their armor scraped softly against the metal.

“Impossible…” Tom whispered.

The nearest Tremist grabbed Merrin's leg, and she shrieked, kicking it off.

The deep purple face of the Rhadgast began to glow brighter.

They had to move. Now.

Mason lunged for the Rhadgast and grabbed his right arm. The tingle of building static made his hands itch, but Mason worked hard to strip the glove. Tom saw what he was doing and got down beside him, working on the other hand. The Rhadgast tried to pull away, but he was still weak, and Mason and Tom had the strength of fear.

“Can you lock them in here?” Mason said to Tom.

“I can!” Jeremy said.

“Stun them!” Merrin commanded the cadets. A few fired their P-cannons at the Tremist, but it seemed to wake them up
faster
.

“Elizabeth, how are they still alive?” Mason asked, fighting to keep his hands steady. He almost had the glove off. It was thinner than he'd anticipated, soft. He ached all over, and the sudden burst of adrenaline made his bruises burn in new ways.

“I am unable to answer that question. Perhaps their armor has capabilities I am unaware of.”

“Perhaps!” Mason replied.

Jeremy was working at one of the terminals on the wall. “I can lock them in here, but once the Tremist gain full control of the bridge they'll be free!”

When both gloves were off, Mason and Tom stood up. The Rhadgast was fully awake now, and he grabbed Mason's ankle.

“Boy!”
he hissed.

Mason kicked him in the face.

“Let's go!” he shouted.

The gravity disappeared once again, and Mason jumped off the floor as hard as he could. The cadets rose alongside him, drifting toward the ceiling. Mason removed the armor plates from his right hand and arm, then worked the glove on in their place. He felt it shifting the way the Tremist uniform had, shrinking until it was the perfect size for his hand. It covered from his fingertips all the way to the top of his arm, sealing against the armor on his shoulder. In the next second, he felt the glove link to his brain in some way he didn't fully understand. It was like a second layer of skin now. He didn't test it, but the electricity felt just within his reach, waiting for a command.

Tom, rising next to Mason, had handed his own glove to Merrin. She was putting it on her left hand, since Mason had the right.

“She's the warrior,” Tom said, grinning.

Below, the Tremist had almost gathered their wits. One had even pushed off in pursuit. Mason could hardly believe it: how had the fall only knocked the Tremist unconscious? The armor must've been more extraordinary than he first thought. Or they really were shapeshifting werewolf space vampyre ghost zombies.

At the top, the cadets flew side by side through the door and into the corridor above, where they promptly fell to the floor. The dead crew were still in place on the ceiling, and Mason hated to leave them there, but respects could be paid later, once they were finally safe. The crew would've agreed.

Mason locked the door shut behind them and asked Merrin to drop the pursuing Tremist again. She did.

*   *   *

With two Rhadgast gloves, Mason hoped it would be easier to retake the bridge, but knew the odds were still stacked against them. The Tremist had the defensive position, and there was no way the cadets could use gravity against them this time. Not to mention they were up against eight Tremist this time, not three. It seemed hopeless. He should save the others, order them to take escape shuttles, then blow up the ship. If they didn't, and the Tremist gained control, it would not only mean
their
end, but the end of countless others. It would be so easy for the enemy to fly the Egypt into ESC territory, ignore a few hails while they got close enough, then unleash a surprise attack on an unsuspecting base. Or even Olympus.

But the massive cross gate was still in Tremist hands, and no one knew it.

Giving up wasn't an option.

“If we fail…” Mason whispered to Tom during the walk. He was hoping Tom would have a similar thought. And he did.

“The Tremist won't have the ship for long,” he whispered back, holding up his dataslate. Mason saw a self-destruct countdown on the screen, set for nineteen minutes. By then the Egypt would explode, or they would have control of the ship.

Mason nodded at him, unable to speak. Nineteen minutes, and they might all be particle dust drifting through space. The thought chilled him so much it actually steeled his resolve. That was no way for a soldier to die, vaporized by his own ship. So his mind turned to getting the job done.

It still amazed him that the electricity came from the gloves, and not the Rhadgast themselves. They weren't wizards after all, just a different kind of Tremist, with different weapons. Mason suspected there was more to them, though, otherwise their legend wouldn't be so terrifying and widespread. They would be men, not myths. He wondered what would've happened had the Rhadgast chanced across them on solid ground, where the cadets would've had nowhere to run and no tricks to pull.

Along the way, Merrin and Mason went over a plan. They stopped in the brig and picked up locking bracelets, to immobilize the Tremist after knocking them down.

Mason touched under his ear. “You figure out how the Tremist survived that fall?”

“Uncertain,” Elizabeth replied. “The moment before, all vitals were gone. I noticed an energy surge around their armor. Sir, I posit their armor is responsible for bringing them back. The energy field may have restarted their hearts and bolstered their central nervous systems.”

Mason shivered.
Hopefully I don't have to test that function on myself.

“They're still in the gravity-free bay?” Mason asked.

“Affirmative.”

“Good. Keep turning gravity on and off in case they get any ideas about crawling out of there.”

“Will do, sir.”

Mason smiled. “What would I do without you, Liz?”

“You would be at a disadvantage, sir.”

“A big one. Is the bridge aware that their friends are neutralized?”

“I put up a communication barrier between starboard and the bridge. No transmissions got through. They may be on alert because of this, but they don't know what happened.”

They reached the stairwell that would take them up one level, right outside the bridge. Mason went over the plan one more time. Willa, a wiry fifth year, began rubbing her eyes and yawning to get them to tear up. Her right eye was blue, the other green.

“I'm ready,” she said, tangling up her strawberry hair with her fingers.