The Planet Thieves by Dan Krokos Read Free Book Online

Tremist held their weapons, how, in the next second, each beam would slice through them at the breastbone.
    The door sealed; Mason dragged Merrin and Tom to the floor as the talons’ green beams crisscrossed through the door and heated the air above them until it was crackling. Then the car descended, giving the illusion of the beams rising up through the door until they disappeared through the ceiling.
    The air was hot and baked and smelled like electricity.
    The door opened on the next level down, into a corridor identical to the one they just left. Tom had his dataslate plugged into a port on the elevator. “Erasing our destination level … now! Bought us a few minutes.”
    Merrin took the pad out of his hand. Her fingers danced over the screen until it flashed red. “There—the elevator is frozen.”
    Tom scrunched his nose. “How did you…?”
    Mason was already out of the elevator, straining to hear anything over the background noise. It was quiet, and the ship didn’t feel like it was moving anymore. They walked down the hall and passed through a doorway on the right, to a parallel corridor that would take them to one of the armories. Mason hoped his weapons training would serve him: Weapons and Tactics was one of his best classes. It was time to see how all that practice translated in a real live combat situation. A simple instruction came to his mind: Relax, breathe, aim.
    The whole left side of the ship was made up of these corridors stacked atop each other, with rooms crammed in between them. A number on the wall showed this was level six. Level two held the theater. Levels four and five held the gym. Most of it was crew quarters, though: the Egypt was equipped for battle, but it was also the ship you took when you wanted to move a lot of ESC troops from one place to another. Though she was only packed with a couple hundred crew at the moment, the Egypt had room for two thousand.
    They passed an adjacent, empty corridor, and Mason heard the faraway buzz of talons. Orders were being shouted. The battle was on. Once he had a gun, he could fight his way to the bridge and … Susan was still alive. She had to be, and he’d save her.
    The armory was up ahead; the door was open. Crisp white light flickered from within.
    It was quiet and still. Mason held up a hand, and they slowed their approach, making their footsteps silent on the carpet. He smelled burnt metal and something that reminded him of Steak Tuesday in the galley. The smell of charred meat. His stomach churned.
    Tom was too dazed for caution, and he muscled past Mason’s outstretched arm and stepped inside, no hesitation, almost like he didn’t care about whatever danger lay within. So of course Mason and Merrin were right behind him.
    The armory was destroyed. The walls, floor, and ceiling were once panels that gave off soft white light. Now they were cracked and sputtering. Now ESC soldiers littered the floor, eight of them, just lying there, smoke still rising from their uniforms. The walls, once lined with weapons of every kind, were mostly bare. The weapons were scattered over the floor, destroyed.
    Tom spit on the ground and bent over, like he was about to throw up. Merrin put her hands over her mouth. Mason wanted to do the same things they were doing, but he recalled his sister’s voice as it was cut off, and he didn’t. Instead, he crouched and began going through the weapons, looking for one that was functional. They couldn’t all be broken. The nearest armories were sub-armories—small caches hidden in the walls—and Mason doubted even Tom could access them.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” a man said behind them, softly. Mason spun around, almost tripping over one of the bodies.
    Ensign Michael, a portly recruit not much older than twenty, stood in the doorway, frowning at them. Mason remembered him from the crew meet-and-greet when the Egypt left port two weeks