Read Online After Earth: A Perfect Beast by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger - Free Book Online Page B

the Skrel—you can bet your last credit on it.”
    Finally, Conner couldn’t take it anymore. “You sound like Vander Meer,” he called out, his voice ringing throughout the barracks.
    In its wake, there was silence. Then Lucas turned to him and said, “What?”
    “You heard me,” Conner said.
    Lucas walked over, his boot heels clacking on the barracks’ wooden floor, until he was looking down at Conner. “First of all,” he said, “I wasn’t talking to you. Second, I don’t appreciate being compared to a muckraker like Vander Meer.”
    Conner looked up. “Then don’t spout the kind of garbage Vander Meer spouts. That talk about not seeing the Skrel for hundreds of years—what is that? You think we’re safe here? You think Nova Prime doesn’t need the Rangers anymore?”
    Lucas bent down, planted his hands on his knees, and smiled an oily smile. “I’ll tell you what, Raige. When I want your input, I’ll ask for it. Till then, shut your mouth.”
    Conner felt his face grow hot as he returned Lucas’s scrutiny. “Or what?”
    “Or I’ll shut it for you. Understand?”
    Suddenly Conner was on his feet, a clump of Lucas’s uniform in each fist, shoving the other cadet backward step by step. Lucas slammed into the bunk behind him—hard. Then he recovered and shoved Conner back.
    “You want a piece of me?” Lucas snarled between clenched teeth. “Any time, Raige! Any time and any place!”
    “How about here and now?” Conner asked.
    Before he knew it, Lucas had accepted his invitationby taking a swing at him. Conner was ready for it. He knew it was coming. But Lucas was so fast, he still got in a glancing blow to Conner’s jaw. It stunned him for a moment. But it was just one shot. Conner wasn’t going to go down so easy.
    As Lucas tried to follow his first punch with another one, Conner ducked out of harm’s way. Then he hit Lucas with an uppercut that snapped his head back. Stunned, Lucas couldn’t avoid Conner’s next blow or the one after that. Lucas reeled backward, looking helpless. Conner went after him, all his frustration and self-doubt coming to a boil.
    Maybe he wasn’t the best Ranger candidate who had ever come down the road. Maybe he wasn’t what everybody had expected from a Raige. Maybe he’d find he wasn’t even Ranger material. But he was better than Lucas Kincaid and his stupid traitorous remarks, and he was going to prove it once and for all. One more punch would do it.
    But as Conner threw it, his target disappeared. Without an impact to stop Conner’s momentum, it carried him forward, leaving him defenseless against the left hook that hit him in the side of the head and sent him staggering or the right hand that rattled his jaw, flooding his mouth with the metallic taste of blood. He got his hands up and retreated a couple of steps and would have retreated one more if he hadn’t felt a bunk behind him. Almost too late, he saw Lucas go for him with another right.
    He twisted to avoid it and then got in a shot underneath Lucas’s eye. It seemed to blind Lucas for a moment, which was all the opening Conner needed. Putting everything he had behind his next punch, he sent Lucas sprawling. Before Lucas could get up, Conner was on top of him, pinning him to the floor with his knees.
    He pulled his fist back, aiming to end the fight then and there. But before he could do so, he felt someone clamp on to his wrist.
    Who?!
he thought. Which one of his fellow cadets?
    But it wasn’t a cadet, he realized. It was Tariq Lennon, the swarthy, square-jawed officer in charge of cadet training.
    “Atten-shun!” someone bellowed.
    As one, the cadets stiffened to attention, hands at their sides. Conner and Lucas, still facing each other, dropped their fists and did the same.
    Without a word, he looked the combatants up and down. There was quite a bit of blood on them, and he didn’t seem to miss any of it.
    “Well, now,” he said at last, “here’s something interesting. I thought