After Earth

i

The darkness inevitably gave way to light, and the sun began to rise above the horizon. Kitai was startled awake as he tried to move and felt constricted. He stretched and felt trapped under something. Panic forced his eyes open, and a ray of morning sunshine streaking through a gap in his binding nearly blinded him. He strained against whatever it was that confined him. Reduced to crawling, the teen moved toward the light and the promise of escape.

He was inside a leaf-covered ditch, piled high and thick, but still, he could escape. With both hands, he tugged at the leaves and tore through them, enlarging the gap, and finally crawled to his freedom. Regaining his footing, Kitai studied the sky for a moment, noting the thick clouds and brightening blue as the sun now was fully visible. He kept expecting a second sun to join it in the sky eventually, but that was back home and he was trapped here, on Earth.

He was distracted by watching his breathing condense into a mist, and he finally acknowledged how cool it was, although the sun was rapidly melting the thin coating of ice that covered everything. Slowly studying his surroundings, Kitai made a circle and was startled to see that atop the makeshift nest was the huge condor. This giant bird was now a friendly figure. He drew closer, tapping the still figure, and said, “Hey.”

He tapped the bird a second time, adding, “Thanks.” But she did not respond. In fact, she didn’t twitch in the cool air or appear to be breathing. With mounting horror, Kitai examined the protective bird and realized she had covered him in the nest and then kept him warm by sitting atop it, and rather than expose him to the elements, she’d sacrificed herself, freezing to death during the night.

Stunned, Kitai silently mourned her, appreciating the first act of kindness a resident of the planet had shown him. Although he wanted to say or do something to acknowledge her act, especially in the wake of her losing her chicks, he was at a loss for words. This was an entirely new experience atop all the others he’d had over the last few days. Worse, he didn’t have time to spare. He turned and moved solemnly into the jungle.

His mind was a jumble of thoughts, overwhelmed by the condor’s selfless act. His mind drifted to Senshi. He was helpless then, too, and someone died so that he could live. Maybe there was a difference between being a coward and being unafraid to accept help. Maybe there was strength in realizing and accepting that you’re not alone.

He was also concerned about the amount of time and distance left to accomplish his mission, which made him worry about his injured and possibly dying father. It was overwhelming, but his father’s image and stern countenance urged him to focus on the mission.

He studied the subtle trail and followed it, sweeping his eyes from side to side and making certain to keep his ears alert. The hunt continued as the sun rose higher, and he started to notice that his constant walking was beginning to take a toll on him. He could hear how labored his breathing was getting, but he was determined to go as far as possible before death could claim him. Soon the jungle thinned, and he was walking through grassland, squinting in the sunlight, wishing the lifesuit’s backpack came with sunglasses. He admired the surroundings and the scattering of animals that moved back and forth, continuing to ignore his presence, for which he remained grateful.

The warm air dried him out, and he tried to clear his throat, but instead, he coughed. First it was a slight irritation, but then it grew worse, and soon he was hacking and feeling like hell. The breathing gel had run its course, and his system was clearing out the last of it. The coughing fit continued, and he had trouble catching his breath, worsening his difficulty. He stood, hands on his knees, coughing and dreading his condition.

One final racking cough sent him to his knees.

While close to the grass, he looked down, trying to catch his breath. All he saw was dirt and tall grass, but then, in his peripheral vision, he finally spotted something shiny, reflecting the noonday sun. Unable to rise, he crawled toward the object, feeling less like a Ranger and more like a two-year-old with a new toy.

As he neared the object, Kitai saw that the jagged off-white item was metallic with numbers stenciled on it. Holding it gently in his left hand, he studied it and saw that the word Hesper was on the half-meter-long piece of the ship.

With renewed energy, he stood, holding the debris that had given him hope. His efforts had not been wasted and he was nearing the mission’s goal, and so he began to walk, then trot back toward the jungle. It wasn’t long before he noted that his dwindling oxygen boost was costing him energy. He had little choice but to keep moving, but then he spotted another piece of the ship. Despite his lungs now feeling as if they were constricted, wrapped in plastic, he forged ahead with determination. His body, though, repeatedly signaled its distress by making him cough again and again. It was as if he were issuing a homing signal to predators: Come and get me.

Yet with each newly discovered piece of wreckage, he ignored it all and kept moving. The frequency of discovery increased, and he continued forward, each step and piece of debris punctuated with fresh coughing.

Pausing to catch his breath, which now hurt with each shallow lungful of air, he saw a wiry, strange-looking tree. Gnarled and old, the bark was flaking in spots where animals might have butted it to sharpen their antlers. It stretched in many directions and grew very tall indeed. Encouraged, Kitai leaped to the first limb and then scrambled aggressively up the branches until he was high enough to look over the dense jungle shrubbery. It hurt and he wanted to rest, but images of his dying father propelled him forward.

As he stopped his climb, he saw in the distance, atop a hill, the enormous tail of the ship. The once-proud ship now reflected the sunshine, a beacon of hope. Between it and Kitai, there was a scorched area of open flat terrain, a path to salvation. He grinned. Then he coughed, a reminder that time was running out.

Kitai lowered himself quickly, dropping the last few meters, and then, without pause, began jogging toward the path.

Each step was accompanied by a cough, and soon the movements were joined by a wheeze that hurt. He couldn’t control it, and the sound grated against his ears. He felt like a sickly boy despite being in peak physical condition. Well, he had been that before the ship crashed. Now he felt like anything but a Ranger. What kept him moving was that every step brought him closer to the Hesper and its precious contents.

Working his way up the hill sapped the last of his energy reserves, reminding him of how hungry he had grown, and the wheezing made him thirsty. He wanted to rest but knew he dared not stop. He kept walking, and as he drew within a hundred meters of the wreckage, he stumbled. Falling to the ground, he began the worst bout of coughing yet. Kitai couldn’t breathe, couldn’t catch his breath, and if it hurt before, it was excruciating now. Hands clutched his chest, unable to open the lifesuit, rip through skin and bone, to help his lungs find fresh air.

Choking, he steeled himself and reached down deep. He filled his mind with determination and raised his head, focusing only on the Hesper. One arm covering his mouth, he rose once more to his feet and stood. Certain he would not topple over, Kitai resumed his pilgrimage.

The ship loomed large in his vision, but Kitai had grown dizzy, his breath coming in torn strips. He felt hot without sweating, and his chest was heaving. He was out of options, out of luck, and so close to his target that he felt cheated of his victory.

On his knees, he moved among the debris, eyes desperately scanning for salvation. He grew desperate, hands getting cut on the sharp edges of torn, twisted metal. He needed one thing to survive, and it was proving elusive. The dizziness was affecting his vision, and he was certain he would pass out in moments. Light and dark merged, blurring his ability to see, and he found it difficult to remain steady. Thoughts of simply surrendering to the inevitable fought with his instinct for survival, but willpower could fight his body’s physical needs for only so long.

As Kitai was about to topple over, his vision cleared enough to spot a damaged, shredded med-kit. Going more by touch than by sight, he rummaged through the remains of the kit until his fingers grazed a familiar object: an entire pack of the breathing gel. A final surge of adrenaline allowed him to open the packaging, although his fingers fumbled badly. Awkwardly, he grabbed the inhaler and placed it over his lips.

Almost instantly, his lungs stopped aching. He could draw a breath without pain or wheezing. It felt terrific.

As his body adjusted to being normal once more, he ingested a second dose. Too exhausted to do much more than breathe, Kitai fell onto his back, taking in deep lungfuls of air, enjoying every one of them. And then, like a chill in winter, it dawned on him: He was sitting in the spot the Ursa pod once had occupied.

If the Ursa wasn’t here… where was it?

ii

Cypher Raige had had better days. Slumped in his chair, he dimly recognized that he was delirious. Images of his career played before his mind like an entertainment vid. Great battles, tremendous loss, and everywhere he looked, the Ursa were scuttling across his planet. No matter how many he killed, there were more. They were shredding Rangers, crawling through his family’s windows. One killed his daughter. There was blood everywhere.

He continued to feel helpless and alone, uncertain if Kitai was alive or dead. He desperately wanted to believe the boy was still on the mission, but the odds were stacked high against them both.

What Raige could not see was the medical screen’s readouts indicating how much blood he had lost. A red warning light indicated that blood transfusions were needed. Another readout showed that his potassium, creatinine, blood urea nitrogen, and myoglobin levels were off the normal charts. Warning lights flashed, summoning medical assistance that was not forthcoming.

Yet another screen Cypher could not see indicated that the arterial shunt had failed completely. The computer offered one final option: IMMEDIATE MEDICAL TRANSPORT.

With half-open eyes, Cypher roused himself from the images of war at home to see the battle his body was waging—and losing—against death. He saw the alert for transport and thought that was a lovely idea. Completely impossible but a nice idea nonetheless.

His only hope remained in the hands of his teenage son, far from him on the quarantined planet Earth, searching for the proverbial needle in a haystack. Cypher found himself drifting, remembering Kitai as a boy.

Suddenly, Cypher was in the old apartment again. Three-year-old Kitai was marching around in his pajamas and his father’s huge boots, struggling to hold Cypher’s cutlass.

“Those lines are tight, son,” Cypher said approvingly.

Kitai beamed with pride. As Faia captured the scene with her camera, Kitai hugged his father.

Cypher hugged him back. “And now it’s time for one junior officer to head off to bed.”

“Noooo—” Kitai protested.

“That’s a direct order from a superior officer, son,” Cypher told him.

The little boy straightened up and gave him a salute. Cypher leaned down and talked seriously to his son.

“We never disobey an order,” he told Kitai. “Not at home, not when deployed.”

“Yes, sir!” Kitai snapped.

“And give your mother a kiss, tell her you love her.” He cast a glance at his wife. “One day I’m just going to be ‘Kitai’s dad.’”

One day, Cypher thought as he sat there in the cockpit of a ruined ship and watched his son suffocate in the oxygen-poor air. His son was a Raige. Possibly the last in the family line, but he was a Raige. And a Raige never gave up.

So he would not—could not—give up on Kitai.

iii

Refreshed but still hungry, Kitai rose to his feet and continued his search through the wreckage to find the homing beacon that would summon help and save his father’s life. His father had explained exactly where to look and there were pictograms on the sides of various stations, and so he knew the exact size and shape of the space where the homing beacon should be. But there was so much twisted, torn metal and material that he began to doubt anything was where it should be.

Moving around, he allowed himself to take in the remains, missing the crew members who had plunged to their deaths. Against a far wall, he spotted a set of cutlasses, the C-40 model that he coveted using.

The one he had taken from the forward portion of the crippled ship, his father’s own weapon, was gone. Either lost in the stampede or jarred lose as the condorlike creature dragged him to safety. But that speculation didn’t matter now. Kitai grabbed a fresh weapon, checked it for damage, and affixed it to his backpack.

Having the weapon reminded him that it had been created to deal with the Ursa and that he had yet to verify what had become of the one the ship had been carrying.

He walked with purpose toward chunks of debris farther from the tail and soon found the pod that once had fascinated him in the cargo hold. Resting on its side, it sat crushing large fronded plants.

He snapped the cutlass to life, and it extended to its three-meter length, a soft hum filling the quiet, cooling air. The yellowish pod that had once contained the captured Ursa that the security chief had named Viper was shattered. The gel that inhibited the Ursa’s pheromone-locking ability was splashed everywhere. Pieces of the organic shell were strewn about, as were the binding straps, which lay on the ground.

There was no sign of the Ursa’s corpse.

That was very bad, and Kitai backed away from the damaged pod, weighing his options. First was the original mission target: the homing beacon.

It took time, and he felt each passing minute weigh on him, but he was methodical in working deeper into the remains of the Hesper and was rewarded with the section of hull where the beacon was stored. Surprisingly, it was intact in its cubby, unlike its twin, and he snapped it free. To be certain it would work, he backed out of the ship and into the clear space the crash had created. As he moved, he thumbed it to life and was delighted to hear the whir of the beacon cycling to life.

Cypher was nodding his head, his mind filled with images of home. He was there, out of uniform and in casual clothes he didn’t recognize. He and Kitai were sitting at the table, the remains of a meal between them. Faia was nowhere to be seen, but he missed her; that he was sure of.

The two obviously had been talking for some time, and he watched himself lean forward, a comforting hand coming down atop Kitai’s right forearm.

“Now listen to me,” he told his son.

Kitai stared at him blankly.

“Are you listening to me?” he asked in a tone he didn’t like hearing. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke again, it was low and forceful, making it clear that his meaning was unambiguous.

“You are not responsible when your father is not home.”

He nodded to himself because Kitai was not arguing but listening intently.

“You may have felt like I was angry at you, and maybe I was. But that was wrong.”

He nodded once more. Cypher was getting through to the boy.

“You were a child. I should have been there. You were right. I was a coward for being away from you guys for so long.”

Kitai finally opened his mouth to reply, but rather than words, he emitted a beep.

His son didn’t beep.

What was happening?

Forcing open his eyes, which were stinging from salty sweat, Raige noticed the secondary screen that was monitoring Kitai’s vitals. A steady beep was a welcome sound and gave the gravely ill man a point of focus. The peaks and valleys of a steady, healthy heartbeat were reason to remain hopeful.

Somehow, Kitai was still alive!

Then, from the speaker nearby: “Dad… are you there?”

It sounded like Kitai, but Cypher was having trouble focusing. He felt like he could not take a deep breath, just shallow, rapid ones. That wasn’t good. Shaking it off, he looked at the monitors and then spotted a grainy image of his son’s face flickering on the screen. That’s odd, he thought. The signal should be clear. The shaking stopped as his son steadied the backpack’s built-in camera. It was Kitai for certain.

“Dad?”

Cypher didn’t respond, couldn’t respond. He lacked the strength. But his hearing was working just fine, and his son’s voice was most welcome.

“Dad, I made it to the tail. Over.”

The tail? Kitai made it to the tail? Was this more of the hallucination? He blinked. His son’s grainy face remained in place. The expression had gone from happy to serious as no response was forthcoming. Clearing his throat took an effort, but finally Raige said, “Are… are you okay? Over.”

“Dad? Are you there? Over.”

That was odd. He had heard his own words; why hadn’t Kitai?

“Kitai?”

“Dad, I made it to the tail. Are you there?”

Of course he was. Where else would he be without both legs in working order? “I’m here!” he said.

“Dad, please copy.”

Cypher tried one more time: “I copy.”

That seemed to work, and Kitai’s face looked relieved. “It’s Kitai. I made it.”

The exchange seemed to recharge Raige somewhat, chasing away the nightmare images. “There’s something wrong with the signal, Kitai.”

“… Dad.” Yes, the static was going to make this conversation nearly impossible. “Dad, you’re still there, right? Can you hear me? Over.” His son was looking on the verge of panic, and that would not do.

Raising his voice, hoping he could punch through the static by sheer will, Cypher said, “Kitai! I swear to you I’m here!”

His will failed him as Kitai repeated, “Dad, please. The Ursa is not contained. Do you copy?”

Cypher realized that while he could hear his son, Kitai was effectively deaf to his words. There was no way he could guide and assist the teen, which anguished the general.

“No,” escaped from Cypher’s lips. It’s hunting him. Frustration energized him, and a flat hand slammed the console, the age-old remedy for balky equipment. Nothing changed.

By the time Kitai made his way outside toward the already setting sun, the homing beacon signaled that it was ready for use. Even if he couldn’t talk to his dad, he could save him. He was still alive, and now he had the beacon. Help would be coming. Of course, there was some thirty-two parsecs separating Nova Prime from Earth, but still, help would save his father.

There was no use sitting in the tail section futilely trying to converse with his injured father. Instead, he clicked off the naviband he had retrieved from a fallen Ranger half-buried in the wreckage and put on his backpack. The clouds were thick, obscuring some of the sunlight, but clouds meant nothing to the homing beacon that would traverse the stars. Standing away from the wreckage, he held the beacon high over his head and activated the device. The rounded upper section rose from the base and winked to life. The horseshoe-shaped display indicated it was fully charged and ready to transmit.

Kitai took a deep breath—which still felt great—and fired the device.

He waited for confirmation that the signal had been sent but was greeted with silence. Lowering his arm, he studied the device, and right above the red light in the center were the words signal interference.

Within the forward section of the Hesper, Cypher watched the readouts and was disheartened to see the words signal interference flash repeatedly. He was frustrated and angered that this was happening, but while he had the energy and focus, he would be damned if he’d just sit there doing nothing to help. His fingers stabbed at the command controls near him, and a holographic map appeared. The dozens of flying probes continued to transmit signals that the computer assembled into a three-dimensional relief map of the topography where Kitai stood. He narrowed the focus and spotted a mountain shape just past the blinking dot that represented his last best hope.

Another adjustment was made, and the image was now that of his son. Kitai looked fit and whole, which pleased Cypher, but then he saw the boy throw his backpack away from him. He moved about, arms flailing and mouth wide open, screaming words Cypher could not hear. If anything, it reminded him of the temper tantrums Kitai had had when he was a toddler. Cypher knew he couldn’t stop the useless behavior even if he understood it, but he still whispered, “Take a knee, cadet.”

The words were not heard, and now Kitai was swinging the fully extended cutlass without grace. It was just blind rage and anger fueling him as he cut away pieces of the tail section. He whipped the weapon about his body and let it cut deeply into a panel that still had power, emitting a shower of sparks. He moved away and continued to shout and smack the ship and breathe hard until the rage that roiled within him had been exhausted.

Kitai lowered the weapon. Cypher watched in fascination as his son expelled the last of the frustration and, on his own, took a knee. Nodding to himself, the general was pleased. Wiping away the tears that stained his cheeks, Kitai needed a new plan. Something was preventing the homing beacon from working, and every minute wasted meant the sun was lowering, the Ursa was prowling, and his father was dying. He didn’t have time for such outbursts and felt bad about his behavior, thankful his father wasn’t there to witness it.

Satisfied that his son had regained control, Cypher focused on the problem at hand. The computer’s diagnostics confirmed his fears, and he said aloud to himself, “There is an ionic layer in the atmosphere above your current position. It creates electrical interference. That’s why the beacon isn’t firing.

“You must be above the ionic layer before you fire the beacon, Kitai.” Cypher knew his son couldn’t hear him, but he kept talking anyway.

Cypher watched helplessly as Kitai once more studied the homing beacon. The teen then looked upward, studying his surroundings, including the thick clouds.

“That’s it. You got it,” he said to the holographic image of his son.

“You should see a black mountain in the distance, directly to the north. The mountain’s peak is above the ionic layer. Fire the emergency beacon there.

“Please see it… the top of the mountain… to your north.”

Cypher stopped talking, exhausted. He silently watched the image, mentally urging his son to succeed. Slowly, Kitai continued to turn in a complete circle, examining the situation and forming a plan. Then he spotted the mountain, studying it for a long beat before rising and moving toward it.

Cypher felt tears welling up and blinked them away. “Good boy… Good boy…”