Elementis 1: The Heir to the Stone Read Free

the way it was. He had accepted that by now.
    Jonas followed Hok inside, dropping down into the pitch-black warehouse. The blueprints and data which Ell had studied for the cargo-ship had told them that this was where they would find the main warehouse and perhaps as much as twenty units of blackfire stored amongst the thousands of neatly shelved metal boxes.
    Hok had already disappeared somewhere inside the warehouse to start searching. The lad didn't want to give his brother another excuse for being his usual argumentative self.
    Jonas let his eyes adjust to the darkness before turning his torchlight to the labels on the boxes in front of him. He moved his torchlight from one package to the next. The freighters were used to spider break-ins from time to time, going to some lengths to disguise their cargo with coded labels but always left to wonder how the ship-spiders managed to figure out the constantly changing codes. Every man has his price, from a ships captain to the warehouse boys. It wasn't all that hard to get the codes for precious cargo with the resources the spiders had under their control. A little threat here and a little threat there from one of the more persuasive of the crew and someone would always cave.
    Jonas called out, "Any luck over there?" he said, loud enough for Hok to hear and quiet enough not to attract any unwanted attention. He waited for a response—none came. "Hok?" he called again. The air was silent.
    Jonas flicked off his torch and crept to the end of the row he was searching. Peering around the corner into the darkness of the storage room he couldn't see Hok's torchlight. He saw only a small red light, hovering in mid air. Then another and another, and twenty or so more red lights turned on. Jonas shone his torch towards them, and catching the sight of white armoured legs he swiftly pulled his torch down, stepping back to hide.
    "Oh shit," he said quietly to himself, taking a deep breath and freezing where he stood.
    He heard Hok begging. Jonas peered back round. Hok's faintly lit frame was standing in front of a squadron of Red-Badge organoids. Each one of the law keepers now aimed their guns at Hok with white laser sights spreading all over the boys body, lighting him up like a garden statue in the night.
    "Wait! Please!" Hok urged, his voice trembling with innocence as he tried to calm the gunmen in the darkness.
    Jonas watched on through the dim light in the hope that the Red-Badges would arrest Hok, then maybe he and Ell could at least rescue the boy from the prison hold and forget all about this job. It wasn't worth getting killed over.
    Jonas activated his communication sleeve, keeping his eyes fixed on Hok. "Ell, get down here. RBs have your brother," he whispered into his arm.
    As soon as Hok finished pleading with the RB officers, their un-emotive programming unleashed a show of rapid lasers as Hok's body spasmed in the flashing lights of more than twenty firing guns. He fell to the ground, the laser sights followed him down. His face was bloodied, lying still against the metal floor, a stiff look of pain etched across his rough wooden face.
    Back onboard the cruiser, Ell had heard the panic in Jonas's voice followed by the shots of the firing squad. "Sounds like it's time to leave!" Ell said back to Jonas. "Good luck humanoid!" he taunted with a cackle, wasting no time in activating the vacuum chamber controls from the cockpit to seal both ships and get out of there.
    Jonas looked up to the ceiling. His escape hole resealed with a clunk. The lights of the warehouse roof flashed on. Jonas drew his blaster, closed his eyes, took a deep breath and burst into the open, spraying laser fire into the semi-organic skin of the Red-Badges. Some fell to the ground, others returned fire missing their moving target. Jonas ploughed into the middle of the RBs, pulling two at a time up into the air and smashing them into the ground. He twisted and ripped off metal limbs, fracturing their