The Planet Thieves (15 page)

“The bridge is still locked,” Elizabeth said in his ear. “All eight Tremist are accounted for.”

“Perfect,” Mason said. They walked up the stairs slowly, but their footsteps still rang softly on the metal steps. At the top, Mason opened the door and stuck his head out, just to be sure: it was clear, an equal stretch of hallway to both sides, punctuated by doors and lifts that ran to different places. The hallway was starkly lit in white. Just across the hall was one of the bridge entrances—a wide, automatic door that split down the middle.

Mason stepped out, P-cannon in his left hand, Rhadgast glove on his right. The doorway to the left of the bridge led to someone's office, and it was indented enough to provide cover. He pressed himself there and waved out Merrin and Willa. Merrin squeezed in next to him and said, “Hi,” softly.

“Do you forgive me?” Mason whispered.

“Eventually,” Merrin replied with a smile. Which was good enough for him.

Mason nodded to Willa, who sat down right in the middle of the hallway, grabbed her ankle …

And began to scream at the top of her lungs.

 

Chapter Nineteen

Long, wailing screams that rattled Mason's eardrums. Real tears welled and spilled from her eyes, and she rocked side to side, shaking her head all around. “My leg!” she screamed. “MY LEG! HEEEELLP!”

It took ten seconds, but the door to the bridge hissed open. Two Tremist marched out with talons. Mason ducked back into the doorway, then peeked around the corner with one eye.

“Quiet!” one shouted. “Quiet or I'll blast you!”

Willa stopped screaming and rolled onto her side. “It hurts! They left me they left me!”

“Where are the others?” one said.

Mason wanted to yell, “Right here!” but they were facing away from him at the moment, and throwing away that advantage would be foolish. So he just stepped out from behind cover, raised his hands, and fired off a volley from both weapons. The glove only required a thought and the P-cannon a squeeze of his finger. Merrin was right beside him, doing the same thing. Violet lightning crackled down the hallway, narrow and precise, until the Tremist were on the ground, convulsing next to Willa.

“Now!” Mason said.

Willa sprang upright, and behind her the thirteen other cadets burst through the doorway, P-cannons at the ready. Mason led the charge into the bridge, where the six Tremist remained. They froze. Mason wanted to laugh. The sight of that many ESC cadets pouring into the room, automatically using the various consoles for cover, had to be startling. In four seconds the cadets were well covered, with sixteen guns pointed at the Tremist, not counting the two Rhadgast gloves.

Not a weapon was fired. The Tremist didn't raise their talons with that much firepower pointed at them, and the cadets didn't want to risk damaging the equipment. Mason could tell the Tremist feared the Rhadgast gloves from the subtle way they shifted and stared. The talons were superior to P-cannons, sure, but the cadets already had line of sight. Outside the dome, space crawled by, the black punctuated with dazzling white pinpricks. The Coffey system's sun glowed like a hot marble millions of miles away, and the large green planet of Nori-Blue dominated the front view. It was so beautiful, Mason had to work hard not to look, to keep his eyes on the targets.

“Hands where I can see them,” Mason said, trying to keep the grin out of his voice; it wasn't too difficult when he remembered the hard part was just beginning.

He and Merrin kept their gloved palms pointed toward the Tremist as the cadets slowly circled around from behind. Mason watched carefully, tense, as the cadets slapped locking bracelets on all the Tremist, then forced them into kneeling positions.

Willa and another fifth year, Terrence, went to rip their helmets off, but Mason said, “No,” and they stopped. He didn't want the crew to see their purple hair and too-pale skin. Merrin didn't deserve their suspicion, and it would only make their jobs harder. She seemed to recognize the danger of being revealed and bit her lower lip. She mouthed the word
thanks
at Mason, and he nodded discreetly.

“All Tremist neutralized for at least the next three hours,” Elizabeth said through external speakers.

A deafening cheer went up on the bridge. The cadets pumped their weapons in the air, jumping up and down. Mason was glad for it; they would need that feeling to get them through. He wanted them to hold on to it, wear it like armor.

One of the Tremist began to laugh. A long, cackling laugh that Mason knew was forced.

“What you laughing at?” Jeremy said, moving to kick the Tremist in the chest.

Mason stopped him with a hand and stepped forward. He held out his glove and let electricity crawl over it.

“Tell me the joke, so that I might laugh with you,” he said.

The Tremist shook his head and got himself under control. “I'm just imagining how the king will peel the flesh from your bones … when he finds out you still have his daughter.”

 

Chapter Twenty

Luckily, only Tom and Merrin got it. The other cadets had no idea what the Tremist was talking about. So Mason had Stellan and Jeremy and Tom, and four fifth years, stand the group of Tremist up and march them off the bridge before anyone could ask questions. Merrin went with them, since the threat of her glove would go a long way to keeping the Tremist in line.

“Keep your distance,” Mason called after them. Their hands might be bound, but their feet were not.

The fifth years half dragged, half carried the two unconscious Tremist behind them.

Mason approached a curly-haired cadet named Andrew, who was dragging a Tremist by the leg. “After you're done, relieve the two cadets in sick bay and report on Commander Lockwood's condition.”

Andrew dropped the Tremist's leg, and was clearly about to complain, but Mason just raised an eyebrow.

“Sir, I'd prefer not to,” Andrew said anyway.

Mason lowered his voice. “I can see the burn on your neck. Get it taken care of.”

Andrew tried to pull his collar over the burn, which made him wince. “I'm functional,” he said.

“I know that. Let's make sure you stay that way.”

Andrew nodded somewhere between reluctantly and thankfully. Mason clapped him on the arm, then reentered the bridge.

He was left with seven cadets staring up at him. He stood on top of the slightly raised platform in the middle, where the captain's chair was, but had not yet taken the seat. It felt wrong. The bridge was shaped like a circle with an
X
in the middle. In the center of the
X
was the captain's chair. Forward and to the left was the pilot console. Forward and to the right, weapons. In rear left was communications. Rear right was the link to engineering, where Susan usually sat.

Surrounding the perimeter of the circle were long, low consoles that monitored every other function on the ship. A station for life support, for the synthetic gravity, for controlling cross gates.

“I'll be back,” he said. “Find a station you think you can handle. No fighting. If you don't feel comfortable on the bridge, I could use someone in the engine room, and in life support. There are enough of us to fill all the spots.”

They stared at him.

“Get to it,” he said.

They did.

Mason watched for a moment, then left the bridge and moved down the crossbar until he caught up with the others.

“She's one of us, you know,” the lead Tremist was telling Stellan and Jeremy. “Don't trust her. Just take off my helmet and see for yourself.”

Mason brushed him with the glove, letting electricity come to the surface. The Tremist yelped and jumped off the floor. “Stop talking,” Mason said.

Once they reached the brig, Mason gave each Tremist a cell and had Tom turn on the audio-dampener so they couldn't talk to each other. Then he sent the fifth years back to the bridge, minus Andrew. Only Stellan and Jeremy, the two who didn't know Merrin's secret, remained.

Mason stepped into the first cell and pulled the leader's helmet off with one smooth motion. His violet hair was plastered flat under his suit, and his violet eyes were narrowed in disgust, studying the cadets before him.

Until they settled on Merrin.

“As you can see, Merrin has some resemblance to the Tremist. We don't know what that means, but we know it doesn't matter. Merrin is one of us. For right now, it doesn't leave this room. If that is a problem, let me know and I'll put you in one of the cells.” Since there were only six cells, all full, Mason hoped that didn't seem like a fun option.

“Understood,” Stellan and Jeremy said together.

Merrin was staring at the Tremist with her lips parted, shaking her head so slightly it seemed like a tremor. “No…”

“We don't know what it means,” Mason was quick to say.
And it doesn't matter anyway.

“But the resemblance is there,” Tom added.

“It's hair and eye color, so what?” Jeremy said.

“It could be a trick,” Stellan said. “They're rumored to be shapeshifters. Remember how they just
reanimated
in the gravity-free bay? There is not enough data to make a conclusion.” Mason appreciated Stellan's logical take at the moment. Thank Zeus no one was making a big fuss.

Merrin was looking at the floor now; the Tremist was staring her down, sneering really, like,
Ha ha, got you in trouble
. Mason was tempted to black out the cell, so no one could see in or out, but he didn't want to make it seem like Merrin couldn't handle it.

“You okay?” Mason asked, because he had to.

Merrin nodded after a moment. “Thanks. I just … I want to know what it means.”

“We'll find out,” Tom said plainly, as if it would be the easiest thing in the galaxy.

“The girl isn't just one of us,” the lead Tremist said. “She's a princess. Stolen from her parents by human scum.” Merrin stood tall now under his gaze. “Remember your old life, princess? Your father misses you.”

Mason didn't want to believe it, but then he remembered the cold recognition the king had on the bridge. If Merrin truly was a princess, Mason had a feeling they would see the king and his Hawk again. Which might work in their favor, if they were smart about it. He tried to imagine his best friend as alien royalty and just … couldn't. Not that she wasn't regal—there was definitely something about her, something he hadn't quite figured out yet. But it was just too crazy of an idea.

Merrin clenched her jaw. “I just saw my father two weeks ago. Save your lies.” With that, she turned on the full audio-dampener. Behind the plastic, the Tremist laughed silently. Almost as an afterthought, Mason blacked out the cells.
Let them sit in the dark.

The five of them walked to the bridge in silence. Mason was ready for a hot meal and bed, but those seemed further away than ever. He passed the corridor that would take them to sick bay: Mason wanted desperately to talk to Commander Lockwood, to relay all that had happened, but that would be wasted time. They needed to cross to Earth, to make sure it was safe, then cross to Olympus, where the call would be put out to every ship in the galaxy. No planet was safe as long as the Tremist possessed the gate. It was as simple as that. They were finally in a position to sound the alarm. And maybe, if things were safe, they could pursue the king's Hawk and recover the crew.

And his sister.

Mason returned to the bridge to find it … running.

The perimeter positions were filled, and the cadets were communicating with each other, updating the status of the ship, sending information to scroll along the clear dome, bright numbers and letters against black space.

Tom took weapons control in the front right, and Stellan drifted to the engineering station in the rear right. Jeremy took communications behind Mason's left. Merrin sat down in the pilot's chair to the front left, disengaging autopilot and letting the Egypt drift through space under her residual momentum. Mason knew each of them had specialized in these stations during battle simulations. Now they would be put to the test.

“Ready for systems check, Captain,” Elizabeth said.

One by one the stations sounded off. Each seated cadet turned, announced their station—gravity, atmosphere, life support, scanners, shields, radiation—and said, “Ready.” He listened, but didn't see. His eyes were for Nori-Blue straight ahead, a world so similar to his own, green and alive against the night. It was outlined on the dome's heads-up display, in case he missed it.

He took a slow breath. In, then out.

It was either too late to warn his people, or it wasn't. His hunch was correct, or it wasn't. They would win the day, or they wouldn't. Mason was prepared, he thought. In a place he didn't belong, afraid in ways he didn't know he could be afraid, but ready to do his duty the best he could. Susan would expect nothing less. So would his parents.