Read Online The Planet Thieves by Dan Krokos - Free Book Online Page B

many years ago.
    It was loud enough to make the Tremist standing guard on the platform turn around.

 
    Chapter Nine
    Mason didn’t hesitate. His training was far from complete, but one of the first things Academy I does is scrub the instinct to freeze out of a cadet. He burst from the tunnel while the Tremist was still turning around. Mason wasn’t small for his age, but the Tremist was somewhere around six feet.
    Which meant his center of gravity was higher than Mason’s.
    Mason hit the Tremist in the legs, running at a full charge. He didn’t know if he was trying to throw the Tremist over the railing or not; all he knew was that giving the Tremist time to point his talon would end things quickly. The Tremist stumbled away, arms flailing, but couldn’t catch his balance. He fell backward and his head cracked on the railing, hard enough to make the metal tubing hum. Then he collapsed in a heap and didn’t move.
    â€œDid you kill him?” Tom said, wide-eyed. It wasn’t clear if he was happy about it or horrified. Mason felt the same way: the rush of victory and the clench of regret, after doing an action that could never be reversed.
    Mason scanned the area quickly; they were alone. The level was lit with orangish light that reflected off the forest of tubing in front of them. He knelt next to the Tremist and felt his neck for a pulse, wondering if he’d find it in the same place as a human. He felt nothing through the suit, so he grabbed the bottom of the Tremist’s mask.
    â€œWait!” Tom said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI don’t know. You’re really going to pull his mask off?”
    â€œShould I not?”
    â€œWhat if it’s booby-trapped? What if it electrocutes you or releases poisonous gas or something?”
    Mason did his best to ignore the images those words provided. “Only one way to find out.”
    â€œThat’s stupid reasoning, even for you.”
    â€œMaybe.” Mason didn’t let the comment bother him; he counted himself lucky Tom hadn’t left him at the crossbar. “But we need to know if he’s alive. Do you have a better way to find out?”
    Tom didn’t say anything. Mason’s heart pounded. Sure, there were stories that the Tremist were lizards underneath, or pale-skinned space ghosts that filled the suits with their ectoplasmic energy, or even cyborg descendants from a long-dead alien race. A shivering cadet once told him the ESC’s scientists had discovered that Tremist teeth were as long as an index finger, and hollow, containing venom that made you pee before filling your lungs with blood. It was hard to know which of those would be worse: lizards, ghosts, or cyborgs. Space vampyres, some of the soldiers called them, but it was never clear if the name was just to frighten new cadets, or because the Tremist actually drank blood.
    Only one way to find out, Mason told himself again.
    He peeled the mask off.
    Mason’s breath caught in his throat. I don’t believe it .
    Next to him, Tom gasped and said, “How…?”
    The Tremist weren’t so different from humans. In fact, the face Mason saw was familiar. He didn’t dare let himself feel relief: it could be some kind of trick, some outer layer of skin that hid a monster underneath.
    The Tremist was gaunt, with hollow cheeks, almost like the skin was pasted onto the skull. But it was still a human face. Eyes, a nose, a mouth. Violet, flowing hair was tucked under the suit. And the skin, so pale. Eyes the same color as the hair, Mason saw when he pushed a lid up with his thumb. Purplish, violet, whatever you wanted to call it.
    Mason put his hand to the Tremist’s mouth and felt moist breaths against his palm. He touched the skin gingerly, feeling bones in the shape of a skull underneath, a solid forehead, cheekbones. He held his breath and pinched the Tremist’s lower lip. Peeled it down a little. Saw a normal-sized tooth