Anstractor (The New Phase Book 1) Read Online Free PDF Page A

which helped them swim the lakes of their planet; and scaly skin, which looked to be rough to the touch.
    When he had dropped payload on them via the simulator, Rafian had never imagined that he would ever see Geralos up close. He was now looking at them as they lived out their lives very much like human beings, and it dawned on him that the Geralos were people and not the monsters that he always thought of them to be. He imagined the soldiers who had chased his mother down and the death they had dealt his father. However, the rage he wanted those thoughts to stir within him didn’t happen. He figured his parents were a casualty of war and raiding, and he would soon be doing the same to some baby Geralos’s family once he completed his mission and proved himself worthy of becoming a marine.
    His joints were on fire from the position in which he lay in the tree high above the ground. There was heavy traffic below him now, and he was forced to stay in the tree for a couple of days until it was safe to climb down.
    In terms of waste, the suit was wonderful and efficient, as there was no cause to take it off. He needed only to urinate or defecate as usual, and the suit would filter the waste into a reservoir. As soon as things settled down, he could empty it at any time. The reservoir could hold five bowel movements and a gallon of urine, but he was hoping that he wouldn’t have to accumulate anywhere near that amount before he could leave.
    As he continued to spy on the city, one of the more exciting happenings of his day was when a hunter brought out the head of the dhulon for the other hunters to inspect. They stood around it for a long time, possibly wondering how it had gotten decapitated so cleanly. The head seemed to tell them a lot, as uniformed officers got involved and began making a lot of ruckus. Rafian realized that his time on Geral would end up being much less than a week because he would have to get out of there fast or be found and consumed.
    When it got darker and the streets of the city thinned out, a team of Geralos assembled with intent to search the jungle from where the head had been discovered. One of them seemed to be a tracker. Rafian hoped he would not start tracking until they were much deeper in, since it would mean he would be discovered. He concentrated on the task at hand, which was to get into the city and commandeer a space ship fast. The other dilemma he faced was that the battery on his cloaking device was charging, and he was at the moment very much in the open and visible.
    The hunting party was about two hundred yards from where he was perching, and if any of them thought to scan the trees, he would be discovered within the minute. There was a path that led from the city into the forest, and it cut through a large expanse of tall grass and flowers.
    Rafian slid down the tree to the forest floor and then sneaked through the grass, angling away from the approaching hunting party. When he reached the city wall, he climbed it effortlessly using the suction technology of his suit’s gloves and boots.
    Once atop the walls and crouched low, Rafian descended the other side into what appeared to be a market. He then thought what his next move should be.
    The city was a small one and appeared to be shaped like a circle, surrounded by a thick metal wall. A few sentries were patrolling the wall, and Rafian felt extremely lucky, since a more high-tech city would have an installed dome camera tracking every single thing that moved. As he thought about his strategy, an older Geralos began shouting at him. He had discovered the stranger’s movement as he tore down his stall for the day.
    The language was foreign, but Rafian didn’t need to understand. His discovery would mean the end of a career, so the cadet rushed the old man and then bound and gagged him within minutes. Next he found the rooftops and began dashing along them recklessly in search of a ship or some sort of vessel to help him escape