Kitai wasn’t strong enough to clear it all in one shot. It took several prolonged efforts as he continued slowly but steadily to pivot the debris clear. Finally, after what seemed like endless straining, when every muscle in his upper body felt like it was on fire, he managed to tip the debris so that it fell away from Cypher and hit the deck with a dangerously loud slam. The ship echoed and shuddered with the impact.
Kitai knelt next to his father. Cypher’s mask was still on his face, slightly fogged with his breathing.
Kitai realized that he no longer had any idea what he should do. He had discovered his father, learned that he was still alive, and done everything he could to maintain that situation. But he had run out of ideas. His father was unconscious. What was he supposed to do about that? Yell at him until he was forced awake? How would that help?
Kitai felt his face getting wet and didn’t understand why that was happening. He reached up and touched it and came to the slow realization that he was crying. He was so mentally disconnected from his body that it took him several moments to put it together. Once he realized what the wetness was, he lost all semblance of self-control and began sobbing openly. Got to get under control, he thought, but he failed utterly.
He continued crying that way, in huge heaving sobs, until slumber overtook him.
ii
The first thing Cypher Raige became aware of was the presence of his son next to him. Kitai’s eyes were closed, and his chest was slowly rising and falling. Cypher was unsure where his son had come from before he remembered that he had brought Kitai along on this … this disaster.
Then it took him a few more moments to assemble what had just happened: the asteroids, the wormhole, the shattering of the ship, and the crash landing in the one place that no human in his right mind wanted to be.
Cypher noticed that Kitai didn’t have a mask on anymore, but he didn’t seem to have any trouble breathing. Frowning, Cypher removed his own mask. No problem, he thought, sampling one deep breath after another.
First things first.
He gently shook Kitai, uncertain of what sort of response he was going to receive. His son woke up slowly at first, but then he saw his father’s calm gaze and snapped fully awake.
Before Kitai could say anything to his father, Cypher’s face conveyed a message of all business. “Let me see you,” he said. His voice sounded raspy, but he had to examine matters one at a time. “Can you stand?”
Kitai nodded and slowly got to his feet. Okay. Good start. “Evaluate yourself,” Cypher said briskly.
Kitai proceeded to do exactly what he’d been ordered to do. Slowly and systematically, he started checking his joints. He rolled his wrists, flexed his elbows, rotated his shoulders and neck. He was moving with slow confidence, so much so that Cypher was convinced of his son’s wholeness even before he finished testing his knees and legs.
“Good to go,” Kitai said. “Fully functional.”
That wasn’t enough for Cypher. “Turn around.”
Kitai probably didn’t think he needed to do so, but Cypher wasn’t in the mood to worry about what he thought at the moment. Kitai said nothing but turned slowly in a circle until Cypher satisfied himself that he was indeed fully functional.
“Confirm the Ursa is contained,” Cypher said.
At that order, Kitai’s confidence seemed to evaporate. When he first spoke in reply, his voice trembled slightly and he obviously had to fight to bring it under control. “It’s gone,” he said slowly. “The whole back of the ship is gone.”
This was not news that Cypher welcomed. Unwilling to accept it purely on the basis of what his son was telling him, he raised his voice and shouted, “Rangers! Count off!”
No one responded to the general’s order. There was simply a deathly silence.
“Most of them were in the back when the tail broke off,” Kitai said slowly.
Cypher absorbed the news. This was the worst possible report he could have received … except for the fact that the Ursa was nowhere close. The last thing they needed was to have the creature escape from its pod and hunt them down.
Cypher had shown up in the cargo bay just in time to see the damned thing locking onto his son. If they had landed safely at their destination, it wouldn’t have been a big deal. But because of where they had landed and the circumstances that faced them, it was a huge deal. Of course, if the rear section of the ship had landed nowhere near—maybe, in fact, hundreds or even thousands of kilometers away—the Ursa would be one less thing for Cypher to worry about.
At least for now.
Cypher noted that his body was unobstructed. That was a positive sign. At least he didn’t have ship debris all over him.
But that positive appraisal of the situation lasted for about as long as it took Cypher to try to stand. Kitai tried to shout a warning, but it was too late. The moment Cypher tried to get up, he let out an earsplitting cry of pain. It was obvious that he couldn’t apply any weight to either leg. He was effectively crippled; neither leg was going to function.
He collapsed back onto the floor as Kitai shouted for him to lie still. “I know, I know!” Cypher shouted back, mentally scolding himself for allowing pain to overcome him that way. It took him a few seconds more to compose himself fully and assess the damage he had sustained. In the meantime he lay there unmoving, the seconds stretching out until he was done. He was hardly thrilled with what he came up with.
I’m in bad shape, he thought. Very bad.
He looked up and saw where they were in relation to the rest of the vessel. “The cockpit is directly above us. Go. Now.”
Kitai hesitated. It was obvious that he wasn’t thrilled about the prospect of leaving his father. Cypher didn’t know why and didn’t really care. Whether Kitai was worried that Cypher would lapse back into unconsciousness or was simply afraid to leave his source of confidence, it didn’t matter.
Cypher needed him to climb up into the cockpit and get a handle on the situation there. End of story. “Go, Kitai,” he said. Kitai stood reluctantly but did as he was told.
iii
There was a ladder well down the hallway, and Kitai headed for it. He had no idea why Cypher had insisted that he make it to the cockpit, but that fact didn’t stop him. Whatever reason Cypher had for asking him to do something, Kitai would do it. Cypher Raige wasn’t in the habit of making arbitrary requests. If he wanted it done, he had a valid reason. Period.
When Kitai reached the ladder, he clambered up into the cockpit. He suspected he wasn’t going to be thrilled by what he saw there. He was correct. There were two people in the cockpit—he took them to be the pilot and the navigator—both of them dead. Some sort of structural beam had detached from overhead, falling on them and crushing them in their chairs. There were emergency lights blinking steadily everywhere.
Adjoining the cockpit was the avionics room. Much of the equipment in there was still lit up and blinking. Kitai moved to a control panel on the wall and tried to determine whether the panel was functioning well enough to give him some degree of control.
He heard his father’s voice, raised so that Kitai could make it out. “Go to the control board,” Cypher told him. “In front of the left seat. Top row, fourth from the right. Activate exterior motion sensors.”
Kitai tried to touch the panel, but he wasn’t able to—his hands were shaking too violently. He realized immediately what the problem was: He was shaking because he’d survived. Survivor’s guilt; that was what it was.
He tried to tell himself that he had no business being shaken by the fact that he’d survived. Nor was he going to do his father any good by being terrified simply because he had lived. That was a good thing, not a bad thing.
Kitai clamped his hands together to get them to stop shaking. He took a deep breath and let it out to compose himself. After a few moments he tried again, finding the screen labeled “EXTERIOR MOTION SENSORS.” His fingers still were shaking, but he got the result he wanted.
“MOTIO
N SENSORS ACTIVATED” appeared on the screen.
“Check,” Kitai slowly managed to say in a calm voice, as if this had been the simplest and least demanding undertaking in the history of humankind.
Cypher did not hesitate to continue. “Over your right shoulder where you just came through … there is a utility compartment. Go through it. There is an emergency beacon. Rounded silver top like a saucer, tapers at the bottom. We need it to send a distress signal. Bring it to me.”
Kitai followed his father’s instructions. The communication rack had been damaged, which did not surprise him in the least. Considering the pounding the ship had taken upon entering wherever the hell they had wound up, Kitai would have been astounded to find anything intact. Nevertheless, he managed to find the emergency beacon. He picked it up and turned it over in his hands; the bottom of it had been crushed.
Figures.
Disappointed, Kitai climbed down from the cockpit and brought it to his father. As he handed it over, he said in a voice kept deliberately low to hide his emotions, “I don’t think it works.”
Cypher made that determination quickly by trying to switch it on. Nothing. The activity light remained off. Quickly Cypher detached and examined the mangled lower section of the beacon.
Kitai didn’t know any of the construction details of the device, but seeing Cypher’s expression told him how completely screwed they were. For just a heartbeat he saw despair in his father’s face. But just as quickly as it appeared, it vanished. Cypher Raige was not someone who gave in to despair, and he certainly wouldn’t do so with anyone watching, much less his son.
Cypher didn’t say anything for a few long seconds. Then, still studying the beacon in his hands, he said, “Kitai, my left shoulder is dislocated. Come here.”
Dislocated? Kitai thought. Oh, God. You’ve got to be kidding me.
Cypher was already positioning himself flat on his back, his face unreadable. He then took Kitai’s left foot and placed it on his shoulder. “Take my wrist with both hands.”
Kitai’s stomach muscles clenched. “Wait … Dad, wait—!”
Cypher ignored his son’s obvious concern. “You need to pull as hard as you can.”
No, I can’t. You can’t ask this of me. You—
Even as all his protests rampaged through his head, Kitai knew there was no point in offering any of them aloud. They all boiled down to the same thing: Dad, please don’t make me do this. I know you’re in huge amounts of pain right now, but pulling on your arm really hard is more than I can take.
And that was unacceptable. Kitai had to do what he had to do.
He took hold of his father’s wrist, grasped it as tightly as he could, and mouthed, “One … two …” before pulling as hard as he could, his muscles straining.
Cypher screamed in agony.
It was such a horrifying noise that it jolted his arm right out of Kitai’s grasp. Kitai fell backward and lay there, terrified, as Cypher spent long seconds gasping for breath. As soon as he had air in his lungs, Cypher said with grim determination, “We didn’t get it. We didn’t get it.”
A pit opened in Kitai’s stomach.
“One more!” Cypher insisted. “Pull harder, cadet. I’ve been through worse.”
Kitai picked himself up. He had no choice in the matter.
Kitai braced himself as he held his father’s wrist. He was going to do it this time. He had to.
This time it was Cypher who did the counting, and he did so out loud. “One,” he said, looking steadily into Kitai’s eyes. “Two.” And then, unhesitatingly, without the least hint of the pain he had to be anticipating, “Three.”
Kitai leaned back and pulled for all he was worth. The cracking sound in his father’s shoulder was awful, like stones grinding together. But worst of all was the long bellow of agony that escaped from Cypher’s lips.
It came from a place so deep inside that Kitai didn’t even want to think about it, and it echoed through what remained of the ruined ship for what seemed like an impossibly long time.
By the time it was over, Kitai was sure it was his own pain. It took him a moment to remember that it wasn’t, to separate himself from it, and to look up into his father’s face to see if his effort had done any good.
Gasping for air as if he had run a sprint, Cypher tested his shoulder. He revolved his arm in its socket—not exactly all the way, but most of it. The movement made him wince, but not as much as Kitai would have thought.
“You got it,” Cypher breathed, sweat streaking down the side of his face in rivulets. “You got it.” He swallowed and looked around. “We need to get me into the cockpit.” He frowned, no doubt trying to figure out how that could be done. Then a solution seemed to come to him. “There’s a cargo loader at the rear.”
Kitai nodded, but he was too wrung out to absorb what Cypher had said. It took him a moment to lock in on the words. Cockpit. Cargo loader.
Got to move …
And he did. He half walked, half crawled in the direction of the loader, glad that he had eased his father’s pain—and even gladder that he wouldn’t have to pull on Cypher’s arm a third time.
Cypher watched his son move down the length of the ship toward what was left of its aft quarters. He wished he had time to reflect on how hard it had been for the boy to do what he had done and how proud he was of Kitai for doing it.
But he didn’t, because it was only the beginning of what was in store for both of them. Pain, hardship, sacrifice … when it came to such things, they hadn’t even scratched the surface.
Clenching his jaw, Cypher propped himself up on his good elbow and assessed the damage to the ship. The hull was twisted like a double helix, completely useless for the purpose of transportation.
All things considered, it was a one-in-a-million shot that either he or Kitai would have survived the crash. A statistical aberration of the highest order but one he was surely grateful for.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the ship that had been twisted, maybe beyond any hope of repair. It was also Cypher himself.
He looked down at his left leg and saw what he had kept Kitai too busy to notice: Blood had soaked through his pants, leaving a crimson stain that was spreading with each passing minute. And it wasn’t just his left leg that had been damaged, because he couldn’t turn his right ankle without a bolt of fire shooting up his leg.
I’ve done it now, he thought. I have most assuredly done it now.
iv
Kitai lowered the flatbed of the cargo loader—a hydraulic machine on a set of four tough wheels—next to his father. Cypher looked impatient as he watched the thing descend beside him. But then, he always looked a little impatient, as if he had something more important to do somewhere else.
It was dark outside. Night. The ship’s observation ports had frozen over with ice.
Must be cold out there, Kitai thought. Much colder than anyplace he had ever visited on Nova Prime. Fortunately, it wasn’t cold inside the cabin. There was at least that to be thankful for.
Kitai extended a small ramp from the end of the loader to the ground. Then he hit a button, and the ramp started to move like a conveyor belt. He looked at his father, who was bracing his arms at his sides. He didn’t look happy about being so helpless.
The first step was for Kitai to lift Cypher’s leg and place it on the ramp. Even the slightest touch made Cypher wince, and so Kitai was as gentle as he could be. As the belt started to drag his father’s leg, Kitai lifted the other leg and put it beside the first one. Then Cypher jockeyed his upper body around until that was on the belt as well.
As Kitai looked on, the belt moved Cypher up until he was on the flatbed at the top of the loader. Mission accomplished.
But it also underlined how badly Cypher had been hurt. There was blood from his legs on the ramp and also on Kitai’s hands, and the effort of sliding himself onto the loader had left Cypher exhausted.
It was jarring to think that his father could be broken like any other hu
man being. Cypher had always been bigger than life to Kitai. More than a hero.
And now he needs help from somebody like me.
He pressed a button, and the elevator began to rise. He craned his neck to watch his father as he ascended.
Cypher called down to him. “Inventory. Full assets. Now.”
Because I’m just standing around gawking. I get it. “On it,” Kitai said.
Occupying the space where the ship’s navigator sat—or, rather, would be sitting if the navigator were still alive—Cypher considered the portion of the pilot’s control panel that hadn’t been wrecked in the crash.
He needed to access the panel despite the damage to his left leg. With that in mind, he manipulated the cargo loader’s controls, using the machine like an adjustable gurney. Little by little he tilted himself forward until he was sitting upright. Then he propped his leg on the console beside him.
That done, Cypher placed his palm on a terminal to activate the cockpit computers. The initial burst of power gave him hope that he and Kitai might get out of this spot after all.
A hologram flashed in front of him: IDENTITY VERIFIED: GENERAL CYPHER RAIGE.
Having recognized him, the computers booted up with a soft hum. He tapped out a command, and a holographic display appeared over the panel, spitting out initial readings: MAIN CABIN BREACH … SELF-SEALING IN PROGRESS … TRANSPORT SHIP … CONDITION CRITICAL.
Cypher glanced at the recorder on the other side of the cockpit. Then he spoke and watched voice waves undulate on one of the monitors, indicating that the recorder was doing its job.
“General Cypher Raige,” he said. “First quarter Earth day. Crash-landed.”
v
Kitai dragged the navigator’s inert form along the deck and tried as hard as he could not to acknowledge the fact that he was pulling a corpse.