Peter David: After Earth

Senshi is nineteen years old. Relatively young for a Ranger; she’s working her way through the ranks. Most of her responsibilities keep her in the immediate vicinity of the city. She doesn’t have much experience in genuine fieldwork. That’s fine with her mother, less so with her father. Fantastic as far as Kitai is concerned .

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

He is not entirely certain. What is he supposed to say? I was scared?

“Never mind,” she says. “Kit, we have to go. Right now.”

Despite the potential dangers awaiting them, he is filled with nothing but confidence in his sister. She looks brave in her Ranger outfit. For a flash he recalls when he first saw her in it, so tall and proud. The huge smile on her face was reflected in the face of their father, who didn’t smile a whole lot otherwise. Senshi is holding her cutlass, ready to lash out at anything threatening her .

“Right now!” she says, her voice louder, more insistent .

His bed is nothing more than a hammock suspended across his room, which is filled with clothes and toys. As he attempts to get out, his foot snags on the ropes. Instead of clambering out of the bed, he falls forward and lands hard on the floor, twisting the hammock around on himself .

“Oh, for God’s sake,” she mutters as she starts to move toward him so that she can disengage him .

That is when a loud, terrifying screech cuts through the air .

Kitai freezes. He does not do so consciously. The shriek is an inhuman noise that thoroughly immobilizes him .

Senshi’s head snaps in the direction of the screeching. The blades on the cutlass—a large, ornately carved metal staff—snap out from either side .

“Is that…?” Kitai manages to get out in a strangled whisper .

Senshi nods. Something has changed in the way she looks, in the way she holds herself. She’s all business, 100 percent professional. It’s as if she were merely pretending to be a Ranger until that moment .

“They surprised us,” she tells Kitai. “They keep invading the city at random times…” She steps forward quickly and swings the cutlass right at him .

Kitai lets out a startled cry, and then the cutlass slices through the ropes in his bed. It severs the bindings instantly, and he tumbles to the ground. Quickly Kitai starts pulling the remains of the bindings off himself. As he does so, Senshi asks him briskly, “You’re not afraid, are you?”

“No,” Kitai says. Then there is another high-pitched howl of animal fury, and he jumps several feet in the air. “Yes,” he admits, feeling ashamed but compelled by his lifelong tendency to be truthful .

This second source of howling is far louder, which means far closer, than the previous one. Senshi whirls and looks behind her, and Kitai cannot see the expression on her face. For some reason he is grateful for that. He suspects he wouldn’t like the way she looks .

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

There isn’t that much of a bed to get under, but it’s sufficient. Kitai scrambles under the torn and twisted hammock, useless now for supporting him but still good for hiding under. Having pulled it completely over his head, Kitai then backs up toward the corner. Squeezing himself into a small ball, he is certain that he cannot be seen by anyone or anything under the coverings .

“Senshi, come on,” he calls to her. The answer is simple as far as he is concerned. They hide together and wait for someone else to deal with the Ursa. To him, that’s the most reasonable way of handling the current situation .

He watches in confusion as Senshi continues to look around the room. Her eyes dart around and fix on a round glass container with plants in it. It is his garden, or at least the closest thing that he could have to a garden .

Quickly Senshi brings her fist down on a button at the end. The lid obediently slides open. Senshi sweeps her cutlass around and expertly attaches it to her back with its magnetic clasp. Then she quickly starts unloading the plants from the box. She dumps them all over the floor, sending dirt flying everywhere .

Kitai watches in confusion. He has no idea what she is doing. He finds out moments later, though, when Senshi drops the plant box onto its side and slides it across the floor to him. “Climb in here, okay?”

“But… why?” He does what he’s told even as he questions it .

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

He climbs and pulls his legs in after him, shrugging off the remains of the hammock. The moment he is completely enclosed, his sister drops the remote control into his hands. “Hold on to this.”

“But what do I use it for?” he asks .

“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 adds sternly, because she knows that those are words that Kitai will respect .

Then she takes his face in her hands. Her beautiful eyes are emotional and deadly serious. “Did you hear what I said, little brother?”

“Yes, Sen—”

He is unable to complete the sentence because there is another thunderous roar, this time from much, much too close .

Kitai starts to say her name again, but she doesn’t wait around to hear it. She hits the remote that is in Kitai’s hands and then yanks her own hands clear as the glass box closes. He is now completely closed in as Senshi backs up, pulling the cutlass off her back .

It is a C-30 weapon. He knows that because she boasted about it when she brought it home the first time. He recalls clearly the first time she demonstrated it around the house. It moved so quickly in her grasp that he could not even see the blades. Her mother had been impressed. Her father had pointed out things she was doing wrong and had spent an hour or two with her going over all of her mistakes. She took the corrections without comment or any evidence of frustration. That was just the way she was .

Once the cutlass is in Senshi’s hand, she taps a pattern on the weapon’s handle. Instantly it responds as thousands of steel-like fibers extend on either side. They form razor-sharp points that she can use to cut deep through the Ursa’s hide and squarely into its heart .

The cutlass is now two meters long and ready to be employed. Kitai watches and takes comfort from seeing it. He knows that once his sister is wielding her weapon, nothing is going to be able to get past her. She is a Ranger. She has been trained for exactly this sort of situation .

Then he sees a shadow in the adjoining room. It is the room his mother uses for various handcraft projects. Her “relaxation room,” as she calls it. It used to be Senshi’s room, but that is no longer the case since she has become a Ranger and resides in the Ranger barracks. So the room was made over .

Now, though, as the shadow moves across it, the room has become a place of danger .

Senshi spots the shadow. She doesn’t make a big deal about it. She doesn’t scream or point it out. She simply whips the cutlass around in her hand so that it is in attack mode .

Then she takes one final look toward Kitai. She nods confidently and makes a down-handed gesture to indicate that he should stay low, that everything is going to turn out just fine .

Senshi moves into the next room, spinning the cutlass in her hand, whipping it around in a figure eight pattern. Even as she does this, she is speaking in low, sharp tones to what Kitai realizes are other Rangers. She is bringing them up to speed, telling them that she is about to engage an enemy and that the sooner they arrive there, the better it’s going to be for everyone involved .