Sword of Dreams (The Reforged Trilogy) Read Online Free

days.
    The large 9 beside the lift door lit up and the speakers chimed, announcing their arrival. When the doors opened, Maeve followed the rest of the Blue Phoenix crew out into the streets of Level Nine. A gang of young men with shaven heads piled into the vacated lift. Glowing lines of color pulsed beneath their skin. Xia's eyes shone a faint red color, full of disgust. The glowing subdermal implants were almost as disfiguring as cybernetics, at least in the compound eyes of the purist Ixthians. One of the rough-looking males stuck his surgically lengthened tongue out at Xia just before the lift hissed shut again.
    Tiberius and his crew walked close together along the dirty road. Vehicles here rode low on poorly maintained null-inertia fields, rumbling past and kicking up clouds of shredded plastic and crumpled mycofoam. Lumapaint tags marked each corner as the territory of one gang or another. The lights shining down from Level Nine's ceiling flickered fitfully and left entire city blocks steeped in darkness.
    "You know, considering what we did in Gharib, we should get to land up in the nice fields on Level One," Duaal complained. "Even Logan got to put his ship up on the surface!"
    "God damn that bounty hunter!" Tiberius grunted, but offered nothing more.
    "Maybe we can fix this someday," Gripper suggested hesitantly. "You know, clear our names."
    "As far as Axis Control knows, we're char," said Duaal. "We tricked them. They're not going to be happy if the Blue Phoenix shows up on their boards."
    They stopped at a tall black wall that blocked off half of the road. Tiberius pressed a button on the bottom of a control box welded to the gate. It buzzed and then a voice crackled over the speaker. "Who is it?"
    "It's Captain Myles, Blake. We're ready to get out of here."
    "Surely, captain. By the way, your supplies arrived. They're waiting at your berth."
    "They better not be light, Blake."
    "I didn't take any of your stuff, you old coot. If your crates are light, it's not my fault."
    The gate lock thunked and Gripper pulled it open. Beyond was a pitted expanse of engine-burned blastphalt that probably used to be a factory before someone leveled it to make way for Blake's illegal landing field. The remains of huge ducts and shafts hung down from the level's ceiling. Long ago, they vented air and waste gasses up to Axis' surface, but now they provided discrete entry and exit for ships small and desperate enough to fly through them.
    The Blue Phoenix crouched among a pack of other grounded ships. It was clumsy-looking and covered in bristling sensor spars like a grumpy metal hedgehog. A stack of crates sat behind the Blue Phoenix, just beside the closed loading ramp. Duaal tapped the security code into a keypad. The airlock cycled and hissed, then the ramp lowered and clanked on the ground.
    "Maeve, Gripper, get everything loaded and tied down," Tiberius ordered. "Xia, make sure nothing's missing. Blake's a bastard and a criminal. I wouldn't put it past him to steal from his own clients. Duaal, give him our vector and let him know when we're ready to get out into the black."
    "Which is? Where are we going?" asked Duaal.
    "Tynerion. We'll go take your teacher's work, Xia."
    "Great. Hey, captain? Can I fly us out of here?" Duaal asked. The copilot pointed up at the massive, corroded old ducting. "It's going to be a sharp ride."
    "Maybe next time," Tiberius said. He made his way up the ramp and into his ship, patting the wall of the airlock as he passed.
    Duaal jogged after him. "That's what you said last time!"
    Shaking her head, Xia followed the two human men. Gripper pushed a loading jack down the ramp and helped Maeve lift the crates of food, water and filters. When it was full, he activated the NI field and the jack floated up off the uneven ground, light as a balloon. Gripper guided it back into the ship's cargo bay.
    Inside, he turned off the null-inertia projector and the jack thumped heavily to the Blue Phoenix's