After Earth

  A week later she moved out of the family’s tidy, tiny apartment, preferring to bunk with her fellow Rangers until the time came for a place of her own. She visited the family for meals, and the first time she arrived, she brought her cutlass with her to show Kitai.

  After dinner, she put on a demonstration for him, with both parents watching intently. She showed him several of the many configurations of the C-10 model, pirouetting and explaining several of the attack forms she had been taught. He watched with saucer eyes and clapped in delight.

  Faia was full of praise, but Cypher pointed out things she was doing wrong, taking her outside to spend the next two hours working with her. She did not take offense at his criticisms or argue but worked intently. This, after all, was how he showed he cared, and she loved him for it.

  Now, four years later, she was nineteen and already had been promoted to Ranger, second class. Senshi Raige was on the fast track to commander, determined to do her father proud. More than that, she knew that the moment she took the Ranger oath, she was committing to a way of life that her family had embraced dating all the way back to Earth. While her little brother played, she was immersing herself in the family history, starting with the first Supreme Commander of the Rangers, Skyler Raige II. It wasn’t long after they arrived on Nova Prime before the title of Supreme Commander was retired in favor of Prime Commander. More recently, her great-grandmother Khantun was even the Imperator for a brief time, and now her father was the Prime Commander. Although he might be expecting her to replace him one day, she wanted the job.

  Kitai might have tested off the scales in terms of Ranger potential, but he was still young and not interested. Their mother seemed resigned to his entering the Corps at some future point but acted as a counterbalance to Cypher’s infrequent comments about what was expected from him. Instead, the boy was currently excited about the Landing Day celebration, being a typical boy.

  She reveled in being a Ranger. She enjoyed being out on patrol, getting to know the city’s nooks and crannies, watching how businesses found new uses for the remarkable smart fabric. The skies buzzed with mag-lev traffic, and the city was thrumming with life.

  It had been fairly quiet, giving her a chance to brush up on her piloting. She had expressed an interest in the Varuna Squadron and was taking extra lessons back at command. Scheduled for her first solo flight in a few weeks, she’d already invited Braden to come watch. He might be a civilian, but he was a cute civilian, and they had been dating for months now. Faia had even started questioning how serious they were getting, but Senshi was living in the moment and was not focused on that kind of a future. Not yet. There was time for that. The Raiges tended to marry and start families later than the average person, and she was fine with that. It brought less pressure.

  All of that ran through her mind as she put on a fresh shirt and shorts before heading to the rec center. The spacious training and physical recreation facility was deep within the mountain housing the Rangers, kept cool by the natural rock and lack of windows. There were discrete areas for weight training, for calisthenics, and a general-purpose parquet floor for other activities.

  She began a light jog around the perimeter, warming up before going out later on patrol. Halfway around, she noticed that Kiara Kincaid, another nineteen-year-old Ranger, was lifting weights on her own. As she passed, Senshi called out a friendly, “Hey, K!” and kept moving. On her next circuit, Kincaid dropped her free weight to the cushioned mat and joined her on the track.

  Kincaid was curvaceous where Senshi was lean and muscular, a marked contrast that got remarked on more than once when the Rangers from their class went out drinking. Somehow, Kincaid added a dollop of sensuality to her every movement, earning her more than a few admirers among the Rangers and citizens alike. Senshi couldn’t help but notice their differences because both families measured the other with minute precision. She grew up constantly being compared with Kincaid’s accomplishments and found herself mentally competing with Kiara, whom she genuinely liked, in most everything from bust size to obstacle course times.

  “Quiet shift?” Senshi asked her running mate. She was already beginning to sweat.

  “Gate duty is boring,” Kincaid answered. “Nothing ever happens.”

  “True that,” Senshi said. “It still beats the alternative.”

  “Does it? Wouldn’t you rather have, I don’t know, a band of marauders come charging across the desert?”

  “You’ve been watching too many vids. There are no marauders. The occasional brigand, sure, but those are crazy solos, not organized.”

  “A girl can daydream, can’t she?”

  “Sure, and better marauders than Ursa.”

  “What’s the matter, doesn’t the OG’s daughter want to take down an Ursa all on her own?”

  Senshi bristled at the jibe, not hearing it for the first time. Yes, she was Cypher Raige’s daughter, and yes, he was the Original Ghost, meaning there was undue pressure on her to replicate his remarkable feat. She joined the Rangers because that’s what Raiges did, but did she want to do everything her dad did?

  “I’d rather blast them from the sky,” she said.

  That earned her a fresh appraisal from the redhead. They continued jogging in silence until, finally, Kincaid asked, “Are you trying out?”

  “Already training to qualify,” Senshi said.

  “Varuna Squad. Huh.”

  Senshi recognized the tone. It meant Kiara Kincaid was seriously considering the Varuna Squadron for the first time. After all, as the latest generation of Raiges and Kincaids to serve in the Rangers, the centuries’ old rivalry between the families was continuing through them. She couldn’t recall how it all began back on Earth, but somehow it endured the century-long voyage to Nova Prime and flourished when the tripartite government was formed. A Kincaid developed the F.E.N.I.X. tech to repel the Skrel, then another Kincaid turned that into the cutlasses they still used today. Raiges kept the planet safe and secure. Members of both families were found in the historic records of the Rangers, the Savant’s Mirador, and the Primus’s Citadel. Both families served Nova Prime with pride, but the tensions rose and fell between the families with regularity. Earlier this century, a Kincaid went down as the worst Prime Commander, supplanted by Senshi’s great-grandmother, who was considered the greatest. And now her father was in charge while the best the Kincaids could offer was a Chief Medical Officer.

  Yeah, no pressure on the girls.

  They continued to jog quietly as other Rangers arrived to do their own workouts. Men and women began their routines while two were setting up a net for what appeared to be a volleyball game.

  “Now, Santana, he’s got some nice moves,” Kincaid said, jerking her chin toward a very muscular man in his thirties. He was doing isometric exercises in just his shorts.

  “And you know this how?”

  “We’ve danced,” Kincaid replied. “A few times.”

  “I date closer to my age,” Senshi said.

  “And closer to your weight class,” Kincaid said.

  “So I like them lean, big deal.”

  “I prefer my Rangers to have some power on them,” Kincaid said, waving at the bearded Santana.

  “Gotta jet,” she said. “I go on duty in a bit.”

  “Hope you see some action,” Kincaid said, her tone intimating she didn’t necessarily mean official Ranger business.

  Senshi swallowed her retort and split from the track, heading for the lockers and a quick shower before going on patrol.

  She was on the evening shift for the month of Egypt and was patrolling with Janus McGuiness, a man just a few years older than she was. He was broad-shouldered and had nice sandy hair.

  “You watch the Meteors’ game last night?” he asked as they rounded a corner not far from where her family lived.

  “Their defense is …”

  “The word you’re searching for is sucks. The fourth quarter was a travesty,” he said.

  “The Comets
took every advantage,” she agreed. “Kochman was on fire. What’d he score, seven or eight in the last minutes?”

  “With luck, they can beat the Sapphires next and stay in the playoff hunt,” McGuiness said. He grew thoughtful for a moment and then added, “Why don’t you and that guy …”

  “The name you’re searching for is Braden,” she said, a smile finding its way to her lips.

  “Yeah, him. You, him, Mallory, and me,” he suggested.

  “Sure; if the stars align, it sounds ideal,” she said.

  Senshi was about to add something more about the Meteors’ poor defense when their navibands simultaneously sounded off.

  “Ursa,” McGuiness said, his voice dropping into the deadly serious tone that reminded her of the general. “Four spotted in town.”

  She was studying the feed on her own wrist device and saw that one was nearby. Close to the apartment building where her family lived. That became her priority, and she broke into a trot. McGuiness was on her heels.

  “You see something?”

  “We have to evacuate the people, and I’m starting at my house,” she declared. He merely followed along, which was wise of him. Her family meant everything to her, and she wanted to make sure Faia and Kitai were safe.

  The complex, carved deep into the cliffs that made up Nova Prime City, was a honeycomb of oblong apartments. Their home was a few floors above ground, meaning she had to make certain they were on their way to the nearest shelter.

  “You ever see one?” he asked from behind.

  “Just the vids during training,” she answered over her shoulder. No one was certain how many were left after the last incursion four decades earlier. Some definitely had survived, and the fear was that they had been breeding. However, no one knew where they lived, and so it was an ever-present threat.

  “They’ve gotten bolder, coming into the city as they please,” he explained.

  “Why can’t we find their home?”

  “If you could camouflage, would you make it easy to find your nest?”

  “Point taken,” she said just as the alert siren pierced the cool evening air.

  Instantly, there were the sounds of panic and movement. Senshi increased her speed as the apartment structure came into view. Other Rangers came from the opposite direction, and McGuiness, the senior officer in the area, gestured for them to fan out, enter the other buildings, and escort people to shelter.

  “One is two blocks over!” one of the others, an older man, shouted.

  “Faster, then!” McGuiness replied.

  McGuiness followed Senshi into the family’s building and gestured at her. “I’ve got the top floor. You get the kid to safety.”

  She leaped up the stairs three at a time and was quickly on her family’s floor. Senshi banged on doors, yelling for them to get to safety, then shouldered her way past those crowding the corridor to get to her own door.

  The automatic locks recognized her naviband signal and allowed her into the apartment. “Mom!” she called. No answer, so she must be at the turbine labs, working late again. Kitai at eight was old enough to put himself to bed.

  “Kitai!” she yelled, hoping he was not scared despite the siren still blaring.

  She strained to listen for his high-pitched voice amid the sounds of people and Rangers yelling. Ignoring the commotion behind her, she moved toward his room.

  “Kit?”

  “Senshi!” he replied, finally making himself clearly heard.

  He wasn’t coming out of the room, and so she ran across the distance and found him still in bed, a reading tablet by his side. She burst through the smart fabric that acted as the room’s door, cutlass at the ready, and he grinned at her.

  “Kit!” she said with frustration. “Why aren’t you out in the hallway? Why didn’t you come when you were supposed to?”

  He didn’t reply, and she realized he was scared. Who wouldn’t be, with an Ursa alert and no parent in the apartment? Part of the price of being a Raige was hearing many Ursa stories.

  “Never mind,” she said, deciding that determining the reasons for his paralysis would be of no use. “Kit, we have to go. Right now.”

  He stared at her, his eyes seeming to focus on her weapon.

  “Right now!” she yelled, insistent.

  That seemed to do the trick, and as he struggled to climb out of the hammock, his foot got caught and pulled one end of the bed from its fittings. It wrapped around the boy as he fell hard to the floor.

  “Oh, for God’s sake,” Senshi muttered as she started to move toward him so that she could disengage him.

  The background noise was overwhelmed by a loud, terrifying screech. She’d heard that sound before, but only on vids. This was live and far closer than she was comfortable with. After all, she was in her own home, trying to get her brother to safety. This was not the time for her first meeting with the six-legged killing machine.

  The Ursa’s cry made her brother freeze, still tangled in the hammock. Honestly, if she weren’t eleven years older and a trained Ranger, she’d probably be paralyzed with fear, too.

  Instinct took over, and without realizing it she thumbed the controls on the center of the cutlass; thousands of filaments curled to life, forming twin blades.

  “Is that …?” Kitai said in a strangled whisper.

  Senshi nodded.

  “They surprised us,” she explained to Kitai. “They keep invading the city at random times,” repeating what McGuiness had said just minutes earlier. She stepped forward quickly and swung the cutlass toward him. As the blade neared her brother, Kitai let out a startled cry, but the cutlass neatly cut away at the hammock, freeing him. He tumbled to the ground with a thud and wriggled free of the bonds.

  Senshi spun about, the cutlass in both hands now, and tensed, awaiting a fresh cry so that she could gauge where the beast was. She prayed she could get her brother to safety, but if it was already in the building, the odds of that happening were slim to none. Over her shoulder, she asked in as confident a tone as possible, “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  “No,” Kitai said, but she could tell he was close to freaking out.

  There! A second high-pitched howl of animal fury, and Kitai jumped several feet in the air.

  “Yes,” he admitted.

  She nodded in confirmation, refusing to admit that she, too, felt a cold knot form in her stomach. She might have trained for this, but not here, not in her home. Instead of replying, she turned and faced the doorway, tensing her body.

  It was coming.

  There were unmistakable sounds of the claws snapping against the floor in the hallway. All human sound had drained away. While she had tried to coax Kitai to action, her fellow Rangers had cleared the floor, apparently just in time.

  “Kit,” she said softly, “get under the bed.”

  Kitai scrambled under the torn and twisted hammock, useless now for supporting him but still good for hiding under. Having pulled it completely over his head, he then backed up toward the corner.

  “Senshi, come on,” he called to her.

  She didn’t spare him a glance or reply but already knew there was nowhere near enough room under the bed to hide. And she remembered what her brother clearly had forgotten. The Ursa worked predominantly with its sense of smell. Hiding under the bed wouldn’t work as well as he had hoped.

  All that she could focus on was protecting Kitai. She was his sister. She was a Ranger.

  There wasn’t much time and even fewer options available to her. She finally spied the rounded glass box with plants in it. It was Kitai’s attempt at an indoor garden, but now it could be used for something far more useful. Quickly Senshi brought her fist down on a button at the end. The lid obediently slid open as she swept her cutlass around and attached it to her back with its magnetic clasp. Her hands free, she quickly unloaded the plants from the box, dumping them all over the floor, sending dirt flying everywhere.

  Tight, but it will do. The soil and plant residue
will help mask his scent.

  She shoved the box toward Kitai, who hadn’t moved a muscle. Lowering herself to his eye level, she urgently said, “Climb in here, okay?”

  “But … why?” He was not thinking clearly despite all the stories the general had told him.

  “So it won’t be able to smell you. Hurry up!”

  That snapped him into action, and he climbed in while she turned her attention to the sounds outside the apartment.

  Where is it?

  Satisfied he was secure, she put the case’s remote control into his hands. “Hold on to this.”

  “But what do I use it for?” he asked.

  “You use this when I tell you to. Or when a Ranger tells you to. Other than that, don’t come out. No matter what.

  “That’s an order,” she added sternly.

  She knew that those were words Kitai would respect.

  His fingers hovered over the controls when she stole a moment and took his face in her hands. His skin was soft, smooth, unscarred by life. She would die before that changed. And she probably would.

  “Did you hear what I said, little brother?”

  “Yes, Sen—”

  Once more they were interrupted by an Ursa’s roar, but this one announced its presence in their home. Maybe it was their conversation or the sudden burst of the soil smell in the house, but none of the reasons mattered. It was here.

  Without hesitation, she pushed his hands atop the remote, closed the glass case, and then whipped her cutlass from its resting place, summoning it to life. She hefted the C-30, appreciating its solidity, and triggered the twin blades. Kitai was safe, and so she could focus entirely on the Ursa, which now was prowling her mother’s relaxation room. It once had been her bedroom, before she’d chosen to reside permanently in the Ranger barracks, making the transition from daughter to Ranger complete.