After Earth

^{AFTER EARTH} Ghost Stories ATONEMENT

Cade Bellamy had it all planned out.

His men—Andropov’s, really—were posted throughout his warehouse as well as outside it, their pulsers set on an only slightly less than lethal level of force. His supply of stolen electronic components—also Andropov’s—had been extricated from ample stacks of legitimate goods and piled in the center of the floor for inspection. And his client, a manufacturer of vintage ground vehicles who loved the idea of paying less for parts, was due to arrive in a matter of minutes.

All set.

This was the first deal Cade had set up entirely on his own. But if all went well, it wouldn’t be the last. After all, Cade had his sights set on a black market operation of his own someday—one that would be even bigger than Andropov’s.

That was how the world worked, wasn’t it? You take care of yourself. He had learned that the day his mother died. You take care of yourself.

“All over but the accounting, eh?” said a voice behind him.

Cade looked back over his shoulder at the man to whom he owed most of the credits he had ever made. Andropov’s features were thick, blunt, as if someone had started to make his face out of putty and lost interest before he got around to finishing it. Andropov’s eyes, which were light colored, seemed alive only because the rest of his face looked so dead.

But he had been good to his protégé. Damned good. And his protégé, in exchange, had made him a pile of credits.

“The accounting is my favorite part,” Cade said.

“How well I know that,” Andropov said. “No doubt you’ve decided how you’ll spend your cut?”

“I think I’ll get me a new skipjack,” Cade said. He stroked his day’s worth of beard as he pictured it. “The latest model. Bright red. Hell, make that a fleet of skipjacks, one for each day of the week.”

“After this,” Andropov said, looking around the warehouse, “you’ll have earned a fleet of skipjacks.” He consulted his wrist chronometer. “You’re sure your client will be on time?”

“I’d bet my life on it,” Cade said.

Then he heard the shout from outside: “Rangers!”

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to him. After all, he had gone a long time without the Rangers catching him. Five years.

People who made their living on the black market generally figured they would last a year, maybe a year and a half, before the authorities caught up with them. Two years was almost unheard of—and Cade had lasted five.

So even though he had known the odds were stacked against him, he had begun to feel like he would never get caught, like his luck would never run out.

And now it had.

Cade would have reached for his hip pulser if it had just been a rival busting in on him. But the Rangers? There was no point. Not when they had those cutlasses in their hands. As good as he was with a pulser, he was no match for those things. They’d slice and dice him before he got a decent shot off.

So he followed plan B: He ran.

Not out of the warehouse, because Cade was sure the Rangers had blocked all the street exits. They were known for that. Instead, he resorted to a way out they didn’t know about: the trapdoor under a container in the corner that looked as heavy as all the others but was in fact completely and utterly empty.

Andropov, who was closer to it, was already moving the container aside. Even better, Cade thought.

Using the other containers for cover, Cade took two quick steps and dived full out across the room. He heard more shouting: the Rangers reacting to his attempt to escape. But none of them had a clear look at him or he would already have been pinned by someone’s cutlass.

He hit the floor, rolled, and dived again. Still nothing. I’m going to make it, he thought.

Another voice inside him, unbidden, said: Of course you are. You’re Cade Bellamy.

As he landed on the floor again, skidding forward on his belly, he saw that Andropov had already lifted the trapdoor and was slipping into the tunnel beneath it. But before Cade could join his mentor, Andropov closed the door.

Cade cursed—but not because he was disappointed in Andropov. Had their positions been reversed, Cade would have done the same thing, no question about it.

Scrambling over to the door, he tried to yank it open. But it wouldn’t budge. Andropov’s locked it from below—so the Rangers can’t follow him. Again, it was no less than what Cade would have expected.

He looked around for another option. He wasn’t going to let the Rangers catch him. No way. Another escape route would present itself somehow. He just had to be ready for it.

What he wasn’t ready for was for the wall beside him to implode.

The impact sent pieces of wall flying at him. Most of the pieces missed, but one caught him square in the temple.

Everything went red for a moment. A long moment. Then Cade’s vision started to clear, and he saw what had happened to the wall.

An Ursa had crashed into the warehouse like a transport cruising at full speed. The genetically engineered creatures were created by the Skrel, a hostile alien species. After a failed attempt to eradicate mankind centuries earlier, the Skrel introduced the human hunter-killers to Nova Prime in order to cleanse the planet of all human life.

He caught a glimpse of the thing’s black hole of a mouth, its alien weave of pale flesh and gray smart metal, its cruel curved talons. Then it was on top of one of the Rangers, pinning him to the ground, spewing globules of black venom on him. The Ranger screamed as the venom ate through his uniform and into his chest. A second later he stopped screaming, twitched a couple of times, and lay still, his insides hissing away.

Cade felt his gorge rise, battled it back down, and reached for his pulser. But it was gone. He looked around, couldn’t find it in the swirl of dust and debris. Obviously, it had fallen off his belt when the Ursa had burst into the building.

Sometimes a single kill was all the creature required. It would dig in and forget about its other potential victims. But not this time. The Ursa’s head swiveled around, its maw opening and closing, its jagged teeth clashing as if it craved something more. It had no eyes; Cade knew that in lieu of sight Ursa were able to detect pheromones secreted by fear and lock onto their victims.

And from all appearances, it seemed to settle on Cade.

The thing was only a couple of meters away from him—a pitifully short leap away. Too short for him to scramble for cover and have any hope of making it.

All he could do was steel himself, fully expecting the Ursa to grab him and dissolve his guts as it had dissolved the Ranger’s.

But for some reason, it didn’t. It lumbered past him as if he weren’t even there.

It’s not going after me, he thought wildly, scarcely able to believe his luck. It’s not going after me. Why isn’t it going after me?

It sprang at another Ranger instead. Her squad mates slashed at it with their cutlasses, keeping the thing at bay. But the Rangers’ defense wouldn’t last forever. Eventually, the creature would break through and dismember its prey.

As it always did.

And then what? Cade wondered.

How long would it be before the monster finished the Rangers and remembered the morsel it had left behind? It might not even wait that long.

Escape, he thought. There’s got to be a way out. And he had to find it now, while the Rangers were still distracting the creature.

But he was trapped in a corner of the warehouse, the Ursa blocking his way out. He couldn’t get to the front door, couldn’t get through the hole it had made in the wall, couldn’t even find the trapdoor under the wretched landscape of debris.

That was why he had to do something to the Ursa before it did something to him. But what?

Then he realized that the answer to his question had been a few strides away from him all along. He had just been too focused on the Ursa to know it. Just this side of the monster, lying on the floor next to the lifeless hand of the Ranger who had dropped it, lay a cutlass.

It was long, thin, gleaming in the harsh glare of the overhead lights. And it could kill an Ursa—Cade had seen it happen once, when he was little. He had seen a squad of Rangers fighting one of the creatures; one Ranger leaped onto the Ursa’s back and drove her cutlass into the thing’s soft spot. He had convinced himself that that is what real power was: forcing your opponent—be it life, some monster, or a client thirsty for stolen goods—into submission. Believe you cannot be touched, and you won’t.

Of course, he’d never used such a weapon in his life. But he knew the Rangers used finger pressure to change the thing’s shape. How hard could it be?

I just have to reach it before the Ursa sees me. He licked his lips, which suddenly felt very dry. Just… get to it.

Cade hadn’t lived his life making safe choices. He was a gambler. And to that point, he had always won. I’ll win this time, too, he assured himself. Watch me.

And he went for the cutlass.

Funny thing… even after Ursa imprinted on their intended victims, they were known to turn on would-be attackers. And in this case, Cade was a would-be attacker. But the thing didn’t seem to notice him.

Not when he grabbed the cutlass, not when he rolled, and not even when he popped to his feet within striking distance of the creature. As it turned out, he’d been wrong about the weapon’s controls; now that he saw them, he had no idea what to do with them. He let the cutlass remain in its spear form as he targeted the Ursa’s soft spot and stabbed at it from behind.

But what Cade hit wasn’t soft. It was hard enough to deflect his attack.

Bellowing with rage, the thing spun to strike back at him. Uh oh, he thought. Its maw dripped blood and gore as it opened to take a chunk out of him.

Except it didn’t. The Ursa just stood there, looking confused somehow.

Cade took a couple of steps back, but the Rangers behind the Ursa didn’t. They went after it from behind. And they, fortunately, seemed to know where it was vulnerable.

They didn’t all hit their target, but at least one of them did. A cutlass sticking out of its back, the monster reared and screamed.

Cade didn’t think; he just reacted, hauling back and throwing his cutlass with all his might. It skewered the Ursa through its throat or, rather, what looked like its throat. He wasn’t a scientist; he couldn’t say.

The thing staggered around, crashing into containers and ripping them open so that their contents went flying everywhere. Cade knew that if it hit him with one of its flailing limbs, he would be dead—no question. But he pressed his back as far into the wall as he could and stayed out of harm’s way.

Finally, the Ursa collapsed onto the warehouse floor, the silver shaft of Cade’s cutlass still protruding from its throat and the other end protruding from its back. But even then it wasn’t dead. It still thrashed a little every few seconds for what seemed like a long time. Finally, it seemed to lie still.

You’ve got to go, Cade told himself, even though he wanted to stay and revel in his victory.

There would be more Rangers descending on the place. He had to get out before they got there.

But even as he urged himself to run, he was wondering what had kept the Ursa from killing him, what had kept it—it seemed at the time—from even knowing he was there.

Stop wondering and go! he thought, his instinct of self-preservation overriding his curiosity.

He went.

But he hadn’t taken two steps before he found a Ranger barring his way.

She pointed the business end of her cutlass at him and said, “Freeze. You’re not going anywhere.”

Cade had never been in a jail cell before. He couldn’t say he especially liked the accommodations.

But then, he had always prized his freedom; that was one reason he’d avoided the constraints of a traditional job, traditional hours, even traditional people. But his cell, a small gray windowless space with a bed built into the wall, a ceramic sink, and a ceramic bowl, was about as constraining as it could get.

Of course, he wouldn’t be consigned to the place for any length of time until he’d had the benefit of a trial. Even black marketers got that. Not that it would matter in the long run.

After all, they caught me with stolen components. That shipment alone would be worth a few years. And they probably had evidence of other transactions he had made, or they wouldn’t have gone after him in the first place.

I’m screwed, he thought, plunking himself down on his bed just as the door to his cell whispered aside, revealing a tall, broad-shouldered figure standing in the corridor outside. The guy, whose face was half in shadow, was wearing a Ranger uniform.

But he wasn’t armed, and so he wasn’t Cade’s escort to the courtroom. Then who…?

The guy entered the cell, and the prisoner got a better look at him. A good enough look to get him wondering what the hell was going on.

It wasn’t every day Commander Rafe Velan of the United Ranger Corps paid a visit to a lowly black marketer.

“Bellamy,” Velan said, his voice deep and resonant. It echoed in the cell.

“That’s right,” Cade replied cautiously.

He had seen Velan on news broadcasts since he was a kid, it seemed. He felt like he knew the guy. But there was a world of difference between them.

Cade’s mind raced. Velan wasn’t there to shoot the breeze. He wants names, I bet. And he thinks I’ll be freer with them if it’s a commander doing the asking.

Except it wasn’t going to work. Cade was a lot of things, but a snitch wasn’t one of them.

“Listen,” he said, “thanks for the visit and all, but—”

“I’ll make this short,” Velan said, interrupting him without apology. “I’ve got a proposition for you. You can rot here in prison for the next eight years, which is the sentence you’ll likely receive, or you can do your colony a favor.”

Cade smiled. “A favor…?”

“Yes. You can help us eliminate the Ursa.”

It took Cade a moment to figure out why Velan would want his services in that regard. But before this went any further, he figured he ought to set the record straight. After all, Velan would find out on his own soon enough. “I haven’t exactly earned a reputation for honesty, but I should tell you that what I did in the warehouse—”

“Is exhibit a rare talent. Our psych people think you’ve lived on the edge for so long, fending for yourself, you just don’t react to danger the way other people do. Fear has been replaced with survival instinct. Whatever the reason, it’s a talent we need if we’re ever going to get rid of the Ursa.”

“What I meant to say,” Cade pressed, “is I don’t know how I did it. Or, for that matter, how to do it again.”

Velan shrugged. “We believe your lack of fear enabled you to remain invisible to the Ursa—to ghost. It’s possible it was a one-time thing, and equally possible that the next time you confront an Ursa, it will tear you apart. But it’s also possible that you’ll do exactly what you did before, with or without the knowledge of how it happened.”

“You really think so?”

“Would I be standing here if I didn’t?”

Cade considered the proposition. “So it’s a crap-shoot.”

“Ultimately, the question is whether you’ve got the stomach for a little gamble.”

Cade chuckled to himself. A gamble? “Now you’re talking my language.”

Cade had barely sat down on his bunk in the cadet barracks before he found a woman looming over him, a rawboned woman with dark skin and thick copper-colored hair. He gathered from her rust-brown uniform and the insignia on her shoulder that she was a squad leader. His squad leader if the way she was glowering at him was any indication.

He got to his feet. That was how they did it in the Rangers, wasn’t it? They stood whenever a superior office was in the room.

“You’re Bellamy,” she said in a voice like iron. It wasn’t a question.

Nonetheless, he said, “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m Tolentino. You’re mine now.”

Cade couldn’t help smiling a little.

“Something funny?” she asked.

He shrugged. “Was just thinking that this gig might not be too bad, after all—”

“Get dressed,” she said, obviously not amused. “We’re training at the ravine in twelve minutes. Past the command center, on the left. If you’re late, you’ll be cleaning boots the rest of the day. And just so you know, those boots can get pretty rank.” She seemed to enjoy telling him that. “By the way, the ravine’s a good ten minutes away. I’d get started if I were you.”

Then she left him sitting there.

Screw her, he thought, watching her go. He glanced at the neatly folded uniform on the bunk beside him. She thinks I’m going to jump just because she’s got more muscles than I do?

Really?

Of course, there was the little matter of jail time.

As it turned out, it didn’t take long to pull on a uniform and a pair of boots. Not long at all.

Cade stood on the dusty red dirt flat, shaded his eyes from the glare of Nova Prime’s twin suns, and considered the shiny metal structure bridging the ravine up ahead of him. It was like a child’s set of monkey bars except that the bars, which were held in place by magnetic forces, could reconfigure at any moment.

As he had learned moments earlier, they could rotate, pivot, elevate, or descend. They could cluster together or spread apart. And there was no way for Cade to know in advance which position they would take.

The ravine was ten meters wide and six meters deep, which meant a drop would be painful if not quite deadly. To get through the monkey bars and reach the flat beyond it, Cade would have to adapt. He wasn’t worried. He’d been adapting all his life.

“Ready?” Tolentino asked.

She held up a slim black personal access device. With it, she could stop the bars from moving if safety demanded. But from what Cade had heard about the exercise, safety never demanded.

“Ready,” said Cade, his voice all but lost among six other responses. His fellow cadets were lined up on either side of him, crouching to get a better jump.

After all, the first three to get over the ravine would watch the other four try a second time in the rising desert heat. And the last two in that second group would spend the afternoon cleaning everyone else’s ordnance. So there was an incentive to do well.

Not that Cade needed one. He liked challenges, always had. And this was an opportunity to show the cadets he was as good as they were even though they had been training far longer than he had.

“Go!” Tolentino barked.

The seven cadets took off as one, pelting across the few dozen meters that separated them from the ravine. It took Cade only a couple of seconds to find out he was the fastest of them.

But then, he’d spent his life running from the law.

As he approached the ravine, he lifted his knees and expanded his stride. If he didn’t leave the ground until he absolutely had to, he would minimize the amount of time he spent among the monkey bars.

Three, two, one, he thought. Now jump!

By waiting as long as he had, Cade was able to bypass the first rank of bars. But as he reached between them for a bar in the second rank, it rotated from horizontal to vertical. He managed to grab it anyway, but it slipped through his fingers.

No! he thought as he began to plummet into the ravine.

Fortunately, there was another layer of bars below the first one. Throwing a hand out, Cade hooked one with the tips of his outstretched fingers. And somehow he held on, wrenching his shoulder as he swung back and forth like a pendulum.

His fellow cadets, who had been more conservative in their approach to the ravine, blotted out the suns as they swung from bar to bar overhead. Bitterly, Cade acknowledged that he had outsmarted himself.

Twisting about, he latched on to a bar that put him back on the right path. Then he began handing himself across the ravine, his arms straining hard with the effort.

But as the wall of the ravine loomed ahead, he confronted the fact that he still had to climb back to the top layer. His first impulse was to try to swing himself up and hook a bar with his foot, but he was no trapeze artist. Then another tactic occurred to him.

He waited until he reached the wall. Then he kicked hard, hit the inclined surface, and sprang back as hard as he could. The angle of the wall and the force he exerted propelled him high enough to grab a bar in the upper layer.

From there he swung back and forth and finally, pushing himself to his limits, wrestled himself over the lip of the ravine.

As he got his feet beneath him, he saw that a few of the cadets had already begun sprinting for the finish line. Ignoring the fire in his arms and legs, Cade took off after them.

Two of them beat him. He edged the third one by half a stride.

Didn’t win… but I didn’t lose, either, he quipped to himself.

As the rest of the pack caught up, Cade drank in a deep breath, pointed to the two who had finished ahead of him, and said, “Nice run.”

They glanced his way but didn’t say anything in return. Cade wondered why.

“You trying to make me look bad?” someone asked from behind him.

Cade turned and saw the cadet he had edged out.

She had dirty blond hair and almond-shaped eyes, in fact, the nicest eyes he’d seen in a long time. And a thin white thread of scar that ran from the corner of her mouth to her jawline.

“Ericcson,” she said, using the back of her hand to wipe the sweat from her forehead. “Nava Ericcson.”

“Cade—”

“Yeah, I know. The Ghost in training.”

He smiled. “I guess my rep’s preceded me.”

From the other side of the ravine, Tolentino called out the names of the first three finishers, Cade among them. “Everyone else will be crossing over again in five,” she said.

Nava turned to Cade. “So can you do it?”

“What? Ghost?” He shrugged. “I did it once.”

“That’s once more than anyone else I know.”

The two cadets who had finished ahead of them walked by. They didn’t say anything. They just looked at Cade.

“What’s with them?” he asked.

“They resent you,” Nava said.

“Resent me? For what?”

They were the ones who had grown up with mothers and fathers, for God’s sake. They were the ones who’d had it easy in life.

“They’ve wanted to be Rangers since they were old enough to crawl. They dedicated themselves to that idea. They studied. They trained. And they dealt with the anxiety of knowing that despite all their studies and their training, they still might not make it.

“But you didn’t have to worry about any of that. Velan just waved his magic wand and fast-tracked you through Ranger training. At least, that’s how it looks to them.”

“Is that how it looks to you?”

“I don’t want to join the Rangers so I can strut around in a uniform the color of month-old pumpkin pie. I want to join so I can fight Ursa. Maybe even, in my craziest dreams, end the threat of them altogether. If you can help us do that, I don’t care how you wound up here.”

If, he thought. That was the question, wasn’t it?

In the heat of the afternoon weeks later, Cade’s squad had to respond to a simulated Ursa attack.

The idea was Prime Commander Cypher Raige’s, according to Nava. He had set up a couple of city streets out in the desert, or at least what looked like city streets. The buildings were real but empty and unpopulated.

And as a squad patrolled them, a mechanical construct would be released from an unannounced point of entry.

The construct was designed to resemble an Ursa, move like an Ursa, react to counterattacks like an Ursa. Except, of course, it spewed black dye instead of venom, left red marks instead of wounds where it struck with its talons, and didn’t eat its prey on those occasions when it won the encounter.

Tolentino led the squad down the street as she had done in the past. But now Cade was part of it. He had graduated from his accelerated training program, one of eight Rangers moving slowly and deliberately, four on one side of the street and four on the other, cutlasses in hand.

He eyed the windows on either side of him, the doors, the intersection up ahead. Others were keeping an eye on the street behind him. That was the way it worked. They were a team.

Cade had never depended on others to do his work for him, but he cooperated. He wasn’t in the black market anymore, after all. He was a Ranger, as hard as that was to believe.

As luck would have it, he was the one who saw the thing first. It was on the rooftop across the street, hardly visible from his angle on the ground. But he had spotted his share of Rangers over the years, and they weren’t nearly as big as a mock Ursa.

Exactly as Cade had been instructed, he touched the navi-band on his arm to alert the others. But as he did so, the simulated creature leaped. A moment later, it landed in the middle of the street.

Dutifully, Cade awaited Tolentino’s orders. “Surround it,” she barked. “Don’t let it get away.”

Standard procedure. Cade took up his position. His squad mates took up theirs. The beast focused on one of them—a stocky guy named Smithee—and went after him.

Cade was on the opposite side of the circle. Seeing his chance, he broke into a run. When he reached the construct, he leaped up onto its back and drove his cutlass into its soft spot.

He saw the spot light up in red even before he fell to the ground. Construct killed, he thought. Mission accomplished.

As he got to his feet and dusted himself off, he was pretty pleased with himself. Nava smiled at him and shook her head, no doubt more than a little impressed.

But truthfully, it had been easy.

Easier, in fact, than climbing up the construct’s back to retrieve his cutlass. The first time he did it, he slipped and fell back and landed on his butt.

Everybody laughed. That was all right. Let them. They know who put away the Ursa.

He tried again. This time he recovered his cutlass. Then he fell on his butt.

Tolentino hadn’t said anything to Cade about his “kill” as the squad awaited transportation back to the Ranger barracks. But as the ocher-colored transport appeared over the desert, the squad leader tapped Cade on the shoulder and said, “Join me.”

Cade walked with her, grinning, pleased with the fact that he’d distinguished himself on day 1. No doubt, Tolentino wanted to compliment him on the work he’d put in.

And who was he to argue with her? I’ve been busting my butt. I deserve some recognition.

When they were a few dozen meters apart from the rest of the squad, Tolentino stopped and turned to him. “At ease,” she said.

Cade stood at ease.

“You know why I singled you out?” she asked. “Why we’re talking here, apart from the others?”

He didn’t want to seem immodest. “No, ma’am.”

“It’s because I’m disappointed in your performance.”

Disappointed…? It took a moment for the word to sink in. “What are you talking about?” he asked. “I’ve done everything you wanted from me—done it better than anyone in the squad.”

Tolentino’s gaze was hard, unyielding. “Not the way I look at it. I gave you an order to surround the Ursa. You diverged from that order.”

“I saw an opportunity,” he argued. “I took advantage of it.”

“And put the rest of your team in danger. No one got killed this time, but next time it won’t be an exercise. It’ll be real.”

“I thought the whole point of my being a Ghost—”

“You ghosted,” said Tolentino. “I know. Once. But neither one of us is a hundred percent sure you can do it again. Right?”

He clenched his teeth, refusing to give Tolentino the satisfaction of a reply.

Her eyes narrowed. “I asked you a question, Ranger.”

Crap. “Right.”

“And until we know for sure that you can do the things the rest of us can’t, let’s focus on teaching you to do the things we can—like staying alive, and making sure the others in your squad do the same.”

Cade resented the remark. Was it his job to worry about his squad mates or to kill the construct?

“And by the way,” Tolentino added, “when you made a fool of yourself climbing up to get your cutlass back? Your squad mates weren’t laughing with you. They were laughing at you.”

That stung. No doubt, she had meant it to. Cade wanted to hurt her back but he couldn’t—not if he wanted to stay out of jail.

“Got it?” Tolentino asked.

He nodded coldly. “Got it.”

“Got it, what?”

“Got it, ma’am.”

“You’d better,” she said. “Because I’m not clearing you for field duty until you do.”

If Cade’s first day was bad, his second was worse.

Tolentino put him through one grueling drill after another, matching him up against his squad mates singly and in pairs. His speed and agility were second to nobody’s, so he didn’t have a problem keeping up physically. But when it came to things like strategy and teamwork, it was clear he had a lot to learn.

Even to him.

In one exercise, Tolentino drew a circle in the dirt with her cutlass. Then her Rangers had to stand inside it and, using their own cutlasses as quarterstaffs, knock their opponents out of the circle. They were given padding for their heads, ankles, and hands, but not enough to keep a solid whack from drawing blood.

In round 1, Cade beat a fair-haired woman named Bentzen, sweeping her legs out from under her. In round 2, he drove the end of his cutlass into the chest of a guy named Zabaldo.

That put him in the final round. He would face Kayembe, a monster of a man with a weightlifter’s chest and thighs the size of Cade’s torso. Kayembe had reached the final by besting Tolentino in the second round, so he wasn’t just big—he was crafty.

Kayembe smiled when Cade stepped into the circle against him. “Looks like you and me, Ghost Man.”

“Figure that out all by yourself?” Cade asked.

His opponent’s smile faded. “I was going to go easy on you. Now…” His voice trailed off suggestively.

“Don’t do me any favors.”

“Commander Velan did you the favor,” Kayembe said. “It’s up to me to show him how wrong he was.”

“Assuming you can,” said Cade.

If he hadn’t backed down in the back alleys of Nova City, he wasn’t going to do so for the likes of Kayembe. Not even if he was one of the biggest human beings he had ever seen.

Tolentino held her hand up between them. “Ready?”

Cade and his adversary said “Ready” at the same time.

“Go,” Tolentino said, dropping her hand.

Kayembe began by striking at Cade’s feet. Not a bad approach, Cade had to concede. Even if he kept himself from falling, he would be off balance when he came down.

Unless, of course, Cade had paid attention when Kayembe had tried the same opening gambit on Nava, on whom it had worked. Anticipating it, Cade jumped high enough to avoid the stroke but not as high as Kayembe might have expected.

Then he planted the end of his cutlass in the ground and, using the weapon like a vaulting pole, kicked Kayembe in the face.

The big man staggered, but not far enough to step out of the circle—which was why Cade bent, thrust his cutlass between Kayembe’s legs, and pushed. Already off balance, Cade’s adversary couldn’t stay upright. He toppled like a tree, raising a cloud of dust where he landed.

But he didn’t stay down for long. In a heartbeat, he was back up, reaching for Cade’s throat. It took Nava and two other members of the squad to hold Kayembe back, and it looked like even that wouldn’t be enough until Tolentino intervened.

“Atten-shun!” she snapped.

The squad straightened, though Kayembe still glared at Cade as if he wanted to kill him.

Tolentino eyed Cade, then Kayembe, then Cade again. “Kayembe,” she said, “do I need to remind you of the punishment for Rangers who go after their squad mates?”

Kayembe’s mouth twisted. “No, ma’am.”

“Good.” Her gaze hardened. “Not that I entirely blame you. I distinctly said no one was to strike an opponent other than with a cutlass. Did you hear me say that, Zabaldo?”

“Yes, ma’am,” came the reply.

“How about you, Ericcson?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Nava.

“And yet Bellamy seems to have missed that instruction. Pity. It’s costing him the championship of our little tournament—and a couple of hours of his free time this afternoon, which he’ll spend doing everyone’s laundry.”

Cade was going to protest. After all, the Ursa didn’t play by the rules. Why should I?

But in the end, he thought better of it. He wasn’t going to change Tolentino’s mind, so what was the point?

Later on, Cade had the mess hall all to himself. But then, no one else had spent a couple of hours doing his squad’s laundry.

He was just lifting the first bite to his mouth when he heard someone come in. Casting a glance over his shoulder, he saw that it was Nava.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked.

“Hope you like the smell of laundry detergent,” he said, glad for the company though he wouldn’t have admitted it.

Nava sat down across the table from him. “Very inventive, what you did this morning.”

Cade shrugged. “Tolentino didn’t seem to think so.”

“She did say no body-to-body contact.”

“That’s not the way it works in the real world.” He gestured expansively, including the entire mess hall. “Only in this one.”

“But this is where you’re training. And if we maim each other here, there won’t be anybody left to protect the colony.”

“I come from a different place, that’s all. You said it yourself. I didn’t aspire to be a Ranger all my life.”

Nava nodded. “I heard you were involved with the black market.”

“I had to be involved with something. I had to survive.”

“What about your family? They thought that was all right?”

“I didn’t have a family. My mother died when I was five. My father… I never had the pleasure.”

Nava’s expression softened. “How did you live?”

“After Mom’s death, I started running errands. Guys would pay me to take messages back and forth for them. They figured the Rangers wouldn’t arrest a kid. As I got older, they gave me more to do. Things just evolved from there.”

“Must have been rough.”

“I didn’t look at it that way. I mean, I had nothing to compare it to. I figured everybody had to look out for themselves, not just me.”

“No one gave you a hand? Ever?” Nava sounded incredulous.

“People offered me help now and then, sure, but they always had an angle. They were really trying to help themselves. And if I trusted them, if I did the things they suggested… let’s just say I wouldn’t have lasted very long.”

“You’re a Ranger now. You can put that behind you.”

Cade shook his head. “It’s not that easy. I’m not used to trusting people, doing what they say just because they’ve got an officer’s insignia on their shoulder.”

“So following orders isn’t your strong suit.”

He chuckled. “Like you didn’t come to that conclusion on your own.”

“People change, Cade.”

“Not everybody.”

She put her hand on top of his, but only for a moment. “We need you too much—need your talent too much—for me to let you talk that way. You’re a gift. And we’ll do whatever we can to hang on to it.”

He looked Nava in the eye. As much as he wanted to trust her, he couldn’t help wondering if she had an angle, too. “Nobody’s ever called me a gift before.”

Nava smiled. “There’s a first time for everything.”

On Cade’s fifth day of training, he ran afoul of his pal Kayembe again. It wasn’t as if he intended to tick the guy off. It just happened.

Their squad was up in the San Francisco mountain range on maneuvers. After all, Ursa liked to hole up in remote places sometimes, especially the mountainous kind. And when they did, it was up to the Rangers to flush them out.

Cade and Kayembe were paired off, searching a high canyon, moving from strong sunlight to shadow and back again. They were supposed to rendezvous with the rest of their squad at a specified point.

Unless they found something. But they wouldn’t. It was just a maneuver. A hike, really. Just so they would know their places in case they did have to hunt down an Ursa someday.

Kayembe didn’t talk. Not to Cade at least. If the big man had been paired with someone else, it would have been different. But he had nothing to say to Cade.

After twenty kliks or so, Cade noticed something shiny in the wall of the canyon. Squinting at it, he saw that it was a plaque. Out here? In the mountains?

He moved closer to get a better look at it, stood there, and shaded his eyes. “In commemoration of Conner Raige’s victory over the Ursa known as Gash,” it said.

“Who’s Conner Raige?” he asked Kayembe.

The big man glanced at him, narrow-eyed. “Prime Commander. Long time ago. Let’s move.”

But Cade wasn’t ready yet. He looked around at the red-clay mountains, trying to imagine somebody—some Raige—slashing away at an Ursa in the narrow confines of the canyon.

“I said let’s move,” Kayembe insisted.

Cade ignored his partner. After all, this was Ranger stuff. Ranger history. Maybe if he knew more about it, more about Conner Raige, he could figure out what he himself was missing.

“Must have been a big deal,” he thought out loud, “if the guy got himself a plaque for killing a—”

Suddenly, Cade noticed a point of bright red light on the chest of Kayembe’s uniform. At the same time, the big man cursed and pointed to Cade. Following the gesture, Cade realized there was a point of red light on his chest as well.

“What the hell…?” he said.

Kayembe spit out a curse, his eyes full of anger. “We’ve been tagged, you idiot.”

“Tagged?” Cade asked.

He had no idea what his partner was talking about. But Kayembe’s expression told him it wasn’t good.

It was Tolentino who had tagged them, it turned out—with a laser beam from a vantage point higher up the mountain. Rangers weren’t supposed to stop and read plaques, apparently.

“You lose focus, you die,” Tolentino told Cade and Kayembe afterward, when the squad had reassembled. “How does it feel being dead, gentlemen?”

The penalty? A two-hour run in the desert the next morning. Full packs, no stopping, not even for a drink. Cade wasn’t happy about it. Kayembe was even less so.

When they got back to the barracks, the others were waiting for them, smiles on their faces and taunts on their tongues. They seemed to think it was funny. Despite all the pain he had been in that morning, Cade might have found some humor in the situation as well.

But Kayembe felt otherwise. Pointing a long, thick finger at Cade, he growled, “I don’t care if you can ghost. I’d rather have somebody else—anybody else—watching my back than a screw-up like you.”

Cade could feel the others’ eyes on him. They didn’t say anything, but they didn’t have to. They felt the same way Kayembe did.

A screw-up.

It hurt—more than Cade wanted to admit, even to himself. After all, he wanted to show them he could be a Ranger, too. But he wasn’t going to say anything in his defense.

Why should he? They had all had it in for him from the beginning. Even Tolentino.

I’m a screw-up? he thought, glaring back at Kayembe. Well, screw you.

But he didn’t say it out loud—not when he had so much to lose. He just kept his mouth shut and walked out.

It was raining when Cade got to the place on D’Agostino Road.

He stood across the street from it, his hands shoved into the pockets of his jacket, his collar turned up against the weather. He could see an orange light through the dirty windows, feel the beat of music in his bones if he concentrated hard enough.

The place was called Regina’s. No one knew why. If it had been owned by a woman named Regina at one time, she had faded from memory long ago.

Cade remembered the first time he’d been inside. He had been twelve. He had walked in with guys he worked for, guys who were regulars in the place. Nobody questioned his being there, not even when he ordered a drink he clearly couldn’t handle or when they had to throw him on a cot in the back because he’d passed out.

He thought he heard a peal of laughter across the street, muted by walls and distance. It didn’t take much for people to laugh in Regina’s, he recalled. Pretty much anything got them going.

Of course, it could have changed since he’d been there last. But he doubted it. It had been only a few weeks—the night before the Rangers arrested him, in fact.

Cade knew everybody in Regina’s, knew every face. He’d had good times with them. He wanted to have those times again.

But he hadn’t made the trip just to join the party. He had received a request on his personal comm unit from an unidentified friend. Except he knew from the choice of words who the friend was. The only thing he didn’t know was why that friend had asked Cade to meet him at Regina’s.

But he would find out soon enough.

Regina’s was exactly how Cade remembered it—loud and crowded, redolent with alcohol and sweat, and something sweet he had never been able to identify. He found Andropov sitting at a table in the back, flanked by a couple of his men. New ones, of course, to replace the ones Andropov had lost in the raid on the warehouse.

“I’m pleased you could make it, my friend,” Andropov said. He got up and extended his hand, which was large and meaty.

Cade clasped it. “I wish I could say it was easy. The Rangers are everywhere.” And though Velan hadn’t given Cade any formal restrictions, he might not have taken kindly to the idea of Cade visiting one of his old haunts.

He sat down opposite his mentor. Andropov looked the same. But then he had gotten away that day in the warehouse. He hadn’t been running in the desert with a full pack on his back.

“Drink?” asked Andropov.

Cade shook his head. “No thanks.” The last thing he wanted to do was return to his barracks with liquor on his breath.

Andropov grunted. “You’re not holding it against me, I hope, that I escaped the Rangers without you?”

Cade shook his head. “Not at all. It was every man for himself.”

“I’m glad you understand.”

“You said you had something to discuss with me.”

Andropov nodded. “So I do. Something that I discovered. Because, as you know, I have contacts in the courts.”

Cade knew, all right. When he was a boy, he had delivered things to people. One of them had been a court clerk.

“It’s good news,” Andropov continued. He put his elbows on the table and learned forward. “A week from now, the charges against you will all have been dropped.”

Dropped? Cade thought.

“You look surprised,” said Andropov. “Me, too. I figured you would have to prove yourself as a Ranger first. But your superiors appear to be a trusting lot. They began petitioning the court to clear your record the day you joined them.”

Dropped, Cade repeated inwardly.

“So you don’t have to stay with them,” Andropov told him. “You can leave a week from now, free and clear. Which brings me to my proposal…”

Andropov described a shipment for which he needed a customer. But Cade wasn’t listening to the details. All he could think about was that he could leave the Rangers in a week, and how sweet that would be.

“What do you think?” Andropov asked.

“I’m in,” Cade told him. After all, he would need some credits when he got out.

“Excellent,” Andropov said. “You were lucky for me, my friend. I think you can be lucky that way again.”

Maybe the man was right. Maybe my luck is coming back.

Cade got back to his barracks an hour and a half after he had left, flushed with the prospect of getting his old life back. Who needs the Rangers? he asked himself.

They had been on his case since the minute he showed up. Tolentino especially. He’d seen it at the ravine that first day. He’d seen it after he disabled the construct. He’d seen it after he beat Kayembe in the tournament, and again in the San Franciscos when he saw the plaque.

They hadn’t given him an inch. And he had taken whatever abuse they wanted to throw at him because he didn’t want to go to prison. But soon he wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Cade imagined himself walking up to Tolentino and shoving his uniform in her face. Maybe even decking Kayembe before he left. Yeah. He would do all that and more.

He was thinking about that, thinking hard, when he heard yelling from inside the barracks. One of the voices was Nava’s.

A real Ranger would probably have entered the barracks without a second thought. But Cade wasn’t a real Ranger. He was a street kid at heart, a criminal, so he didn’t walk in. He went to a place where the fabric walls of the barracks came together and peeked inside.

Just in time to see Nava kick Kayembe’s cutlass, which had been propped against his bunk, halfway across the barracks.

Kayembe glared at her. “Are you nuts?”

“Cut him a break,” Nava snapped. She turned to Zabaldo. “You, too.”

“I haven’t said a thing to him,” Zabaldo protested.

“That’s the problem. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”

“What’s it to you?” Bentzen asked.

“He’s a Ranger,” Nava said.

Kayembe sneered bitterly. “Not a real Ranger.”

They’re talking about me, Cade realized.

“Says who?” Nava demanded. “You?”

“He didn’t earn it,” Kayembe said. “You know that.”

“Since when do they ask you to decide who’s earned what?”

Kayembe poked himself in the chest with his thumb. “I went through the selection process. I busted my hump.” He looked around. “We all did.”

“That’s great,” Nava said. “And why did you do it?”

Kayembe looked confused. “To become a Ranger.”

“To fight Ursa,” Bentzen said, who seemed to have a better grasp of where Nava was going with this.

“To fight Ursa? Well,” Nava said, “that’s a coincidence, because that’s why Bellamy’s here, too. He wants to fight Ursa as much as we do. He wants to make a difference. Who are we to tell him he can’t?

“Especially if he can ghost. You know what that would mean to us? How many Ursa we’ll be able to take off the board with a guy like that? Or do you like losing your friends and having not a damned thing to show for it?”

That seemed to shut them up.

“If they’re right about Cade,” Nava continued, “the Ursa can’t see him. But we can. So stop pretending he’s not here, because he’s one of us. One of us.”

No one objected. Not because they had gained respect for Cade, because as far as he could tell, they didn’t have any to begin with. It was because of how they felt about Nava.

And how Nava felt about him.

Cade was touched. Hell, no one had ever stood up for him that way before.

But what if his ghosting turned out to be a fluke—a one-time thing, as Velan had put it? What if he wasn’t the difference maker Nava hoped he was?

How hard would she fight for him then?

That night, Cade’s squad was assigned crowd-control duty at the East Side Arena, a huge, ivory-colored amphitheater open to the stars.

The occasion was a concert for kids who had lost loved ones to the Ursa. Cade had never heard of the performers, but they were loud and quirky and perfectly suited to their youthful audience if the applause they got was any indication.

Cade and Nava had been stationed on the curved walkway just behind the nosebleed seats. In the Arena’s early days, a couple of mischievous spectators had gone over the rail and tried to climb down the facade, only to fall to their deaths. Since then, it had become the Rangers’ job to watch the walkway.

Nava smiled. “If I’d known they used Rangers here,” she said, “I’d have tried out even earlier.”

“We’re not just here to enjoy the music,” Cade reminded her.

Tolentino had made him paranoid. He was sure that if he lost focus for even a second, she would find out about it.

Nava shrugged. “Who’s enjoying the music?”

“Then what?” Cade asked.

Nava looked around. “The way the place lights up the night. The way the air smells, like some kind of perfume. It’s nice.”

He slid her a look. “Really?”

“Uh huh. And it’s even nicer being up here rather than down there.”

“If you say so,” he said.

Suddenly, he realized that her eyes had locked with his. What’s more, he found it hard to turn away.

Cade had thought Nava was nice-looking from the moment he met her. But now that he saw her with the stars in her eyes, she looked absolutely beautiful. And her scar only made her more so, somehow.

Before he knew it, she was leaning closer to him, bringing her mouth up to meet his.

“Don’t,” he said suddenly, surprising himself. Am I crazy? A pretty girl is trying to kiss me and I’m turning her down?

Still, he couldn’t do it. Nava thought he was going to be a Ranger for the long haul, and he wasn’t. In no time at all he would be free of the Corps, doing what he did best—working the black market.

She was the one person in his life who had stood up for him. He wasn’t going to let her get hurt.

“Why not?” Nava asked. “No one’s looking.”

“Because we’re Rangers,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“And Rangers can’t have love affairs?” She made a face. “Is that a rule or something? Because if it is, I’ve never heard of it.”

“I don’t know if it’s a rule, but it’s still a lousy idea.” His mind raced. “What if we wind up fighting an Ursa side by side? How are you going to survive if you’re worrying about me? How am I going to survive if I’m worrying about you?”

“I’d be worrying about you anyway. You’re a member of my squad.”

“I mean me in particular. There are a million things to think about out there. You don’t want to add one more.”

Nava shrugged. “Then I’ll ask for a transfer to another squad.”

“Squads work together sometimes. They get mixed and matched. We can’t take that chance.”

“You don’t think this is stupid?” she asked. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

Cade could see only part of her face, but she looked like she was in pain. “This is hard enough,” he said. “Don’t make it harder.”

Nava eyed him a moment longer. Then she said, “All right,” with only a faint note of bitterness in her voice and moved farther down the walkway. “If that’s the way you want it.”

It wasn’t. But he wasn’t going to put Nava in a position to hurt herself. Anyone else, but not her.

As the days passed, Cade became more and more certain that he had done the right thing back on the walkway.

Nava didn’t speak to him much, but that was all right. She was better off this way.

It occurred to him that they could get together after he left the Rangers, but he didn’t think she would want that. She was a Ranger. He was going back to the black market. Not exactly a match made in heaven, was it?

Meanwhile, something funny happened. The less Cade gave a crap about impressing Tolentino and the others, the better he seemed to do his job, at least in everyone else’s minds. And the more he did that job, the more easily he was accepted.

Even by Kayembe. At least a little bit.

Go figure, Cade thought.

Then, the day before Cade’s charges were supposed to be dropped, he and his teammates got the news from Tolentino: They would be engaging in an Ursa hunt, Cade’s first. To his surprise, he was excited about it. But then he would have a chance to ghost again.

Or fall flat on his face.

But at least he would know.

They were dispatched by mag-lev transport to Old Town, the original settlement from which Nova City had grown. Old Town, as Cade remembered it, was a place full of narrow streets and alleys, any of which might afford an Ursa a place to hide.

When he got there, he saw that the streets were even narrower than he had recalled. It wasn’t a plus from a strategic point of view. Rangers had always done better when they had a chance to surround the beasts.

Still, Tolentino put half of them on one side of the street and half on the other. They stopped at each intersection, knowing that any Ursa they encountered probably would be camouflaged but might betray its presence with a set of tracks in the soft red dirt underfoot. When they didn’t see anything, they moved on.

Suddenly the monster appeared—out of nowhere, it seemed—a sinewy six-legged mass of pale flesh and blue-gray smart metal with a huge black maw and razor-sharp talons.

Tolentino called out an order that sent Kayembe and Bentzen at the thing from different sides. Cade could see that the Ursa was confused—so much so that it didn’t know which of them to imprint on first.

Then it made a choice—and it was Kayembe. It took a swipe at him with one of its paws and nearly got him, but he managed to scramble backward in time. Seeing that the creature had picked its prey, the other Rangers knew they had to distract it or see Kayembe sliced to ribbons.

Zabaldo was the first to take a serious hack at the Ursa. Nava followed suit. Cade caught himself watching her every move and forced his eyes to avert. Focus, he reprimanded himself.

With each Ranger attack, the monster whirled and roared, but it didn’t go after its tormentor. Having imprinted on Kayembe, it wouldn’t go after anyone else until it had ripped the big man apart.

Cade knew he was leaving. He didn’t have to risk his life to save Kayembe’s. But if he hung back, he might never know if he could ghost again as he had done in the warehouse.

Was it worth sacrificing himself to find out? Hell no. But he wouldn’t have to. All he had to do was keep his cutlass at the ready. If it looked to him like the Ursa was going to attack him, he could defend himself.

Was there a risk? Sure. But Cade was a gambler. He liked the idea of a little risk. All he had to do was get between Kayembe and the creature, where it would perceive him as an obstacle if it perceived him at all—and remove him as only an Ursa could.

Here goes, he thought, allowing the others to continue the fight as he sprinted past Kayembe and took a position behind him. That was where Tolentino had told him to go in an encounter. “Behind whoever the Ursa imprints on,” she had said.

This Ursa was noticeably bigger than the creature Cade had encountered back in the warehouse. Bigger and faster.

He remembered the way that other Ursa had gone by him as if he weren’t there. At the time, he hadn’t even realized what was going on. But this time he knew exactly.

But what if what had happened in the warehouse was a fluke? What if it was only that first Ursa he could hide from and no others?

Then Kayembe won’t be the only casualty today.

As the big man retreated past Cade, the Ursa followed. And Cade stood there, counting on the luck that had always seen him through, no matter how tough the situation.

The creature opened its maw and shrieked. Cade could see its teeth, a jagged circle of death. He could smell its breath, rank with the shreds of its last human meal.

He waited until he was sure it would try to rake him with its claws or spew its venom at him. And then he waited some more. But the Ursa didn’t go after him.

At the last possible moment, he threw himself out of harm’s way, and the thing went past him.

I’m invisible to it! he thought. I’m goddamned invisible!

But Kayembe was still at risk. Nava and Bentzen closed with the Ursa to try to slow it down and give Kayembe a chance. But there was only one guy who could save the big man, and that was Cade.

The Ghost.

He didn’t owe Kayembe a thing. But he owed himself something. He owed himself the look on his teammates’ faces when they saw what he could do, and maybe regretted the way they had treated him.

He still wasn’t an expert with his cutlass, but he was good enough. The Ursa had two soft spots. One was underneath, a big target but difficult to reach. The other was on its back.

With that in mind, Cade configured his cutlass into a spear, got a running start, and leaped onto the beast’s back. Then, before it could shake him off, he drove the point of his weapon into the Ursa’s soft spot.

Or at least what he thought was its soft spot.

It was hard to aim with the thing moving so quickly beneath him, and hard to know whether he had hit the right spot. But his luck held. The spear didn’t hit a piece of smart metal.

It dug in a good half meter, as far as he could have hoped.

Then the Ursa shook him off.

But it didn’t matter. By the time Cade stopped rolling, he could see that the creature had begun to stagger, his cutlass sticking up out of its back like a toothpick in a big ugly hors d’oeuvre.

Fall, he thought.

It fell. And shuddered. And then stopped moving altogether.

Cade grinned as he got to his feet. And he continued to grin as he climbed up onto the Ursa and pulled his cutlass out of it. It came loose with a soft, slithering sound.

He wiped the cutlass clean on the Ursa’s dark, gloopy hide. Then he climbed down and returned the weapon to its cylindrical, undifferentiated shape.

Luck is on my side again, he thought. He could do anything he wanted. He could bait an Ursa, for God’s sake, and get away unscathed.

Cade stood over the monster and pounded himself on the chest with his fist. Who’s the man now?

And the irony was that he hadn’t broken a single rule. He had done exactly what Tolentino had asked him to do.

But even as he congratulated himself on his victory, he saw that his fellow Rangers were gathering farther down the street. Why? he wondered. The Ursa is over here.

Then he saw that someone was lying on the ground, and he ran over to join them. Not Kayembe, he thought. The thing never caught up to Kayembe; Cade had seen to that.

Then who…?

He didn’t see her until he had joined the knot of Rangers, didn’t see that it was Nava stretched out on the ground. She was lying face up, eyes closed, one arm twisted behind her back. Caught by the dying Ursa’s flailing claws.

No…

Cade’s knees got weak. His cutlass fell from his fingers. He pushed his way past the others and dropped to his knees beside her.

“Nava?” he moaned.

There was blood on her face. Lots of blood. He grabbed her shoulder and shook her. “Nava!”

Somebody pulled him back, but he slipped free and fell to Nava’s side again. Bentzen ran a mag-scan the length of her body.

“She’s alive!” Cade growled. “She’s got to be!”

Then he saw Bentzen shoot Tolentino a glance and shake her head. Cade’s throat closed with grief. Tears squeezed out of his eyes.

“No!” he screamed, his voice cracking. “No!”

But he couldn’t deny it enough to make Nava breathe, to make her live again, to make her open her eyes. Nobody could.

Cade didn’t sleep that night. He kept thinking about Nava lying there in the street in Old Town, her face covered with blood. Her eyes—those beautiful eyes—closed forever.

Because of him.

He had finally begun to drowse off when he felt someone shaking him. It was Tolentino.

“Commander Velan wants to speak with you,” she said.

Velan? Cade got out of his bunk and pulled on his uniform, all the while wondering what the commander wanted with him.

First sun was just creeping over the horizon when Cade entered Velan’s office. Velan’s adjutant waved him in.

“Bellamy,” Velan, said as Cade entered. “Close the door.”

Cade did as he was told. Then he stood at attention.

“You’re probably wondering why I called you here,” Velan said. “The answer’s a simple one. I wanted to know when you’re planning to leave.”

Cade swallowed. “Sir?”

“We’re not idiots, Bellamy. There’s a leak every now and then, which is what allowed your friend Andropov to find out when the charges against you would be dropped. But we’ve got informants as well, which is why we were able to arrest Andropov last night—and, incidentally, find out what he had told you.

“Mind you, it wasn’t a secret that we’d be dropping the charges. I would have told you that myself if you’d asked me.” Velan sat back in his chair. “You’re a free man, Bellamy. There’s no prison sentence hanging over your head. You can go.”

Then he turned away to examine the graphics on a holographic display at his side, as if Cade no longer existed. Because in the commander’s world, he didn’t.

I’ve got what I wanted, Cade thought. So why was he still standing there? Why wasn’t he halfway out the door?

“I want to stay, sir,” he said, the words sounding like they were coming out of someone else’s mouth.

“Stay?” Velan echoed, something like annoyance in his voice. He cast a sideways glance at Cade. “What makes you think that’s still an option?”

“Why… wouldn’t it be, sir?”

“Leaving aside the question of what you planned to do and whom you planned to do it with, I have to look at how you performed as a Ranger. According to your company leader, you’re not particularly suited to what we expect in the Corps. Self-reliance may be a positive trait when you’re running illegal goods on the black market, but we prefer our Rangers to work together, as a team.”

“But… you said you needed Ghosts.…”

“We do, in the worst way. But only if they can work within the Ranger framework—which you, apparently, can’t do. I’m not placing the blame for this on you, Bellamy. If anything, it was my mistake trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.”

And he returned his attention to the hologram.

Cade had been dismissed. But he wasn’t leaving. After a while, Velan noticed that. “Is there something else?”

“There is, sir. I’d like to remain a Ranger.”

The commander shook his head. “I’m afraid the decision’s already been made.”

“I’ve got unfinished business with the Ursa, sir.” Cade felt a surge of resentment. “You don’t want me to be a Ranger? Fine. I’ll go out and hunt them on my own.”

“That’s against the law.”

“The law never stopped me before, sir.”

A muscle rippled in Velan’s jaw. “Why so adamant about staying, Bellamy? You couldn’t stand being a Ranger, according to Andropov.”

“I’ve changed my mind, sir. Nava Ericcson… She died while I was thinking about me. About what I could do.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Bellamy. Ericcson’s death wasn’t your fault.”

“But I could have prevented it. She stood up for me, sir. Trusted me.” Cade’s throat began to ache. “You don’t find trust everywhere. You don’t find people who care about you. That’s a gift—like my knack for surviving, like my being able to ghost. A gift. And when someone gives you one of those, you don’t give it back. Not if you’ve got half a brain, you don’t.”

“And you think you’ve got half a brain?” Velan asked him.

Cade straightened. “I do now, sir.”

Velan looked at him for a long time. Then he sighed. “It’s against my better judgment, but I’ll let you try it again—with a different squad. Understand, it’ll be a whole new start.”

Cade nodded. “Thank you, sir. You won’t regret it.”

“But this is it, Bellamy. If you can’t hack it this time, you’re done. You understand?”

“I do, sir.”

Velan eyed him a moment longer. Then he said, “Dismissed.”

Cade left the office. Then he crossed the compound in the direction of the barracks, determined not to screw up a second time.

Cade’s new squad didn’t contain a single veteran except for his company leader, a lean, bearded man named Gwynn. No one else had more than a couple of months of Ranger service under his or her belt.

They were reminders of how helpless he had felt as he watched Nava die. How completely and utterly helpless. For all his ghosting ability, he hadn’t been able to do a thing to save her. He had been so concerned with leaving the Rangers, he ended up losing the one person he cared about.

And yet there he was again, facing the possibility of a terrible loss. People were depending on him, putting their lives in his hands. And as far as he could tell, not one of them had faced a live Ursa before.

Cade trained with them as he had trained with Nava’s squad. No—even harder. But he didn’t learn their names.

After all, there was a Nava among them. He didn’t know which of them it would be, but the odds were good that one of them would die under the claws of an Ursa. And what would it be like for him to see that—to see another human being get torn apart because he couldn’t kill the monster soon enough?

Cade remembered something his mother had told him just before she passed away. Insanity, she had said, quoting someone from way back, maybe even somebody from Earth, was doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

So maybe he was insane. But he was going to do everything in his power to keep what happened to Nava from happening again. His mother’s death hadn’t affected anyone but him, but Nava’s death would be different. It would mean something.

Cade didn’t demand perfection just from himself. He demanded it of his teammates as well. He hounded them without respite, without consideration for the way they felt about him. He kept after them even when Gwynn didn’t seem inclined to do so.

Clearly, they didn’t like it. A few of them barked back at him. One guy in particular, a big red-haired guy almost the size of Kayembe, looked ready to go after him after Cade chewed him out on the far side of the ravine.

“Who the hell do you think you are?” the guy demanded.

When Cade didn’t answer, the guy took a swing at him. Cade ducked and planted his fist in the guy’s belly. And when the guy doubled over, Cade cut him down with a blow to the side of the head.

Gwynn could have disciplined him, but he didn’t say a thing. He just called out the names of the Rangers who would be negotiating the ravine course a second time, as if nothing had happened.

Then came the squad’s first training exercise with the mechanical Ursa, out on the streets built in the desert. Everyone followed Gwynn’s orders, but it wasn’t Gwynn they kept glancing at to see if they were doing everything right. It was Cade.

And he was fine with that.

He wanted them to know he was watching. He wanted them to know they couldn’t get away with anything less than their best.

It was after he had plunged his cutlass into the construct’s back, as he was drawing it out again, that he caught a glimpse of a shadow passing over the squad. The kind of shadow an Ursa would make if it were leaping from roof to roof, even if it were otherwise camouflaged.

He wanted to yell, but instead he touched his naviband and said, “Ursa!” Then he leaped off the back of the mechanical construct.

A moment later, the creature appeared in the middle of the street.

“Surround it,” Gwynn barked, exactly as he was supposed to.

They fanned out, four Rangers to each side of the street. But Cade’s assignment was different from anyone else’s. As a Ghost, he was supposed to find a soft spot and go for the kill.

He was looking for an opening, confident that he wouldn’t be seen by the beast until it was too late, when the Ursa suddenly went after Gwynn. He had gotten too close, Cade realized. But then, corralling one of the beasts wasn’t an exact science. It was easy to make a mistake.

Gwynn managed to activate his cutlass’s blade configuration in time to deal the Ursa a slash to the face, but that didn’t stop the creature. It smashed into the squad leader with bone-rattling force, sending him flying backward into the base of an ersatz building.

Cade had the opening he had been looking for. While the Ursa was busy with Gwynn, he would be able to land on it and plunge his cutlass into the soft spot on its back.

But Gwynn would be mauled first.

He knew that with the same certainty with which he knew his own name. And he couldn’t let it happen. He had seen Nava spill her blood on the ground, and he couldn’t bear the thought of that happening to another of his teammates.

So Cade leaped onto the thing’s back and used his cutlass to vault over it.

He twisted in midair and came down between the Ursa and Gwynn. The monster didn’t see him, of course. He could have gotten out of the way at the last moment and remained utterly unscathed.

But that wasn’t his plan.

Going hook with his cutlass, he buried its business end in the Ursa’s mouth. Then he yanked it to the side for all he was worth.

The move pulled the Ursa off its course, keeping it from sinking its teeth into Gwynn. However, it also forced Cade to take the brunt of its charge. He twisted his body at the last moment to try to avoid the impact—but he couldn’t.

The next thing he knew, he was lying on the ground not far from Gwynn, the metallic taste of blood thick in his mouth. He had taken a beating. But he was still alive, still able to think, still able to find his cutlass in the dirt.

As he regained his senses, he saw that his teammates were in disarray. Their strategy had gone haywire, and their leader was sprawled on the ground, unconscious and maybe worse.

“We can still do this,” Cade said into his navi-band even as he went spear with his cutlass. “Hit it from behind. Turn it around.”

The others went into action. All they had needed was a little push.

As they attacked the Ursa, it did exactly what Cade had hoped: It turned on them, giving him the opening he needed. Dragging himself to his feet, he ignored the injuries he had suffered in his collision with the monster, took two painful steps to gather some speed, and leaped onto its back.

Still stunned, he wasn’t moving as quickly as he had before. But he managed to hang on when the Ursa tried to dislodge him, lift his weapon above his head, and drive it deep into the thing’s back.

Then the Ursa did dislodge him. He hit the ground, rolled, and looked up to see what had happened.

What he saw was the beginning of the beast’s death throes. The spear had done its work. They all had.

But Cade didn’t stay there to watch the Ursa die. He picked himself up and staggered over to where Gwynn still lay on the ground.

Be alive, he thought. Be alive…

The squad leader’s face was bruised and bloody. Pitifully so. And he wasn’t moving. Is he even breathing?

“Gwynn…?” he said.

No response.

A second time: “Gwynn?”

He was about to start mouth to mouth when he saw Gwynn’s eyelids flutter open. Cade heaved a sigh of relief. He’s alive, he thought. Alive.

Still, the guy was going to need a doctor. Cade could hear his teammates behind him, making the arrangements.

Gwynn groaned at him through swollen lips, but Cade couldn’t make out what the squad leader was trying to say. He leaned down and put his ear next to Gwynn’s mouth.

What he heard was, in words like the rusting of weeds, “What took you so long?”

Cade laughed.

“What’d he say?” one of the others asked.

Cade laughed again. “None of your damned business.”

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Then another. Then someone else grabbed hold of him, and yet another hugged him from behind.

Before he knew it, he was part of one big embrace. Not just a bunch of Rangers sharing a victory but something more than that. He had survived. But—more important—so had they.

Together.

Cade was hot and dusty and more than a little stiff-muscled as he exited the transport that had brought him and his squad back from the San Franciscos to the Ranger compound. He was looking forward to a shower and some shut-eye.

What he encountered instead was Velan’s adjutant, standing there by the transport. “The commander wants to see you,” the guy said.

Cade had a notion why that might be. “All right,” he said, “let’s go.”

He cast a look back over at his teammates. They looked concerned. Maybe they were right to be so.

After all, Cade had risked his life to save Gwynn back at the desert training facility a few days earlier. And a Ghost, as Gwynn himself had pointed out more than once, was too valuable to risk that way.

Unfortunately, he’d had no choice. He couldn’t have let Gwynn die the way Nava had died. Faced with the same choice again, he would have done the same thing.

Surely Velan’ll see that.

When they got to the commander’s office, Velan’s adjutant said, “Go ahead in.”

Cade opened the door, but Velan wasn’t in evidence. “Sir?” he said, wondering if the commander might be under the desk looking for something he’d dropped.

“It’s all right,” said the adjutant. “He’ll be right back.”

Cade took up a position in front of Velan’s desk. How much trouble could he possibly be in? He had killed the Ursa, for God’s sake. He had saved Gwynn’s life. He hadn’t followed orders precisely, but—

Finally, Velan came in. “Ranger.”

Cade turned to his superior. “Commander.”

Velan walked past him and sat down behind his desk. He didn’t look happy. But as far as Cade could tell, the guy never looked happy. “At ease, Ranger.”

Cade assumed the more relaxed position.

“There’s something I should have shared with you a long time ago,” Velan said, “when I first offered you a place with the Rangers. If I had, we might have avoided some difficulties.”

Cade just stood there and listened.

“Ghosts are critical to our efforts to eliminate the Ursa, no question. But so is every Ranger. Everyone has a contribution to make. Some people are capable of learning that lesson. Others are not.”

Cade didn’t quite get where the commander was going with this. Is he talking about what happened at the training facility?

Velan looked at him a moment longer. Then he said, “I made a mistake. You weren’t meant to be part of a Ranger squad.”

What? Cade thought.

The words didn’t seem real. They couldn’t be. After everything he had been through? After everything he had accomplished?

No, he thought. Just that: No.

“Permission to speak freely, sir?” he snapped.

“Granted,” Velan said.

Cade pointed to the commander. “That’s the biggest load of horseshit I’ve ever heard. And if that’s your final word, you’re not half the Ranger I thought you were.”

Velan’s eyes narrowed. “You’re a judge of Rangers now?”

“Damned right I am.”

“And that’s the way you speak to a superior?”

“You gave me permission, remember?”

The commander frowned. “So I did.”

“And as long as I’ve got that permission, I’m going to tell you what—”

Velan held up a hand. “Hold on, Bellamy.”

“Or what?”

“Or you’re going to miss the rest of what I was going to say.” He cleared his throat. “As I noted, you weren’t meant to be part of a Ranger squad. You were meant to lead one.”

Cade straightened up. Lead…?

“Well?” asked Velan. “No comment? No thank you, sir?”

Cade grinned. “Um… thank you, sir.”

The commander nodded. “It’s my pleasure, Ranger. And I mean that as sincerely as I’ve ever meant anything in my life.” He held out his hand and opened it to reveal an insignia, the kind squad leaders wore. “This is yours.”

Cade took it. “I didn’t expect this. I…”

Velan made a face. “Is this going to be a long speech, Bellamy? Because I’ve still got things to do today.”

Cade shook his head. “No, sir. Not long at all. Again, thank you, sir.” As he left Velan’s office, he could think of only one thing:

How proud Nava would have been of him. How very, very proud.