Read After Earth: A Perfect Beast for Free Online

intellect. In fact, instinct was the number one quality that made someone a good Ranger.
    Whether the Prime Commander thought so or not.
    “With that in mind,” Wilkins said, “I would like you to write a formal battle plan that tells me precisely what you did to Red Squad and how you did it, step by step by step. And I would like you to turn it in to me by noon tomorrow. Is that clear?”
    Conner thought she was kidding. He
hoped
she waskidding. But the longer she looked at him, the more certain he was that she was dead serious.
    “Yes, ma’am,” he said a third time.
    But in his mind, he was reeling.
A formal battle plan? By noon? Is she out of her mind?
    “Good,” said Wilkins. “And by the way … I know your family’s a distinguished one. But we have to make our own legacies in life. Yes?”
    “Yes,” Conner said, though that sounded even
harder
than living up to his family name.
    “You’re dismissed, Cadet Raige.”
    “Thank you, ma’am.”
    As Conner left the command center, he was already wrapping his head around the magnitude of the task.
If I stay up all night, I can finish it on time. At least I think I can
.
    He would have loved to get a decent night’s sleep after spending most of the day broiling in the desert.
Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen
, he thought bitterly.
    Worse, he had a feeling that Wilkins was setting a precedent. Was he going to have to write a battle plan every time he led a team? That would be hell. What he had always liked about the Rangers was having a chance to act
without
thinking.
    “Hey, Raige!”
    Conner turned and shaded his eyes against the brazen sunlight. His pal Blodge was jogging his way, raising little puffs of dust from the red ground.
    “Hey,” Conner said in return.
    Blodge, whose real name was Raul Blodgett, was a big guy with a round face and a brush of red hair. He had signed on as a cadet the same day Conner had, had gone through all the exercises Conner had. Except Blodge was one of the more popular guys in his barracks. People just naturally warmed to him the same way they didn’t just naturally warm to Conner.
    “Everything all right?” Blodge asked. “I mean, you won the exercise, right? At least that’s how it looked tous poor jerks on the Blue team. Looking at that face, I’d think you were the one who lost.”
    Conner grunted. “That all depends on how you look at it.”
    “You kicked Red’s butts, right? And Kincaid’s butt in particular. How else
can
you look at it?”
    “Wilkins wants me to write a detailed battle plan explaining how we did it.”
    Blodge’s face puckered with sympathy. “Ouch. Sorry about that.”
    “Yeah,” said Conner, “so am I.”
    The day Frank Raige flew his first Kelsey flier was the day he found out who he was.
    On the ground, he had always been a little impatient with himself, a little fidgety. As hard as he worked, he always felt he could work harder, make himself into something better.
    In the air, he
was
something better.
    “How’s she feel, Captain?” his flier technician, Smitty, asked over the craft’s intercom.
    Like the wind
, Frank thought. The flier, a long black dart, was running perfectly. But what he said was, “Like she’s going to fall apart any minute. You get rid of those mechanics of yours and tell them it was my idea.”
    “Meaning: They’re doing a great job, keep up the good work,” said Smitty, who had become familiar with Frank’s antics over the decade they had worked together. “Got it, sir.”
    Frank looked down at the desert below him. It sprawled, all gold and rust glinting in the light of first sun. To his left, hundreds and hundreds of kilometers to the north, the land rose and took on a coat of rich green fir forest. To his right, it stretched south to the unseen Thermopoulos Sea. It was a beautiful world. At times like these, he was grateful to the pioneers who hadsteered humanity to Nova Prime instead of somewhere else.
    “Planning on getting