Peter David - After Earth

…at him.

Kitai had just enough time to see a flash of the monster’s pale skin slamming up against the side of the pod, and then he leaped backward, letting out a very un-ghostlike scream of terror. However, his yelp of surprise was easily drowned out by the thunderous shriek of the beast within.

It was a noise Kitai had heard before. It had overwhelmed him years before when the monster tore apart his beloved sister while Kitai hid in the shelter she’d thrown together for him.

He lay against the wall behind him, gasping for air, desperately trying to shove his mental images of his sister’s death back into the more remote sections of his brain.

The Rangers, of course, didn’t know. All they knew was that he was the son of the Original Ghost, and he was now pressed flat against the wall, trembling with fear. Naturally they responded in the only way that seemed appropriate. They laughed collectively. The security chief called out, “He sees you, kid!”

And suddenly, just like that, the security chief was on his feet. Not only that, but his hand had snapped into a solid salute. The other Rangers were doing the exact same thing.

Their reaction made it painfully obvious to Kitai exactly what was happening and who was standing behind him. Only one person could have prompted that kind of reaction.

“Kitai,” came the sharp voice of Cypher Raige from right behind him. “Back in your seat now.” Without waiting for a response or an explanation, neither of which would have done much to calm him, he continued, “Rangers, go to Red Con 1.”

The security chief blinked in surprise. Obviously he’d been expecting Cypher to rip into them for screwing around with his son. Putting them on an alert had probably never occurred to him. But he responded crisply, calling out, “Secure all cargo!”

His crew obeyed instantly. They were confident about the security of the Ursa, but there were other objects being transported as well, which required double-checking to make sure they weren’t going anywhere.

Kitai had moved in silence when he’d traveled from his seat to the cargo hold. The way back required no quiet at all; he barreled as fast as he could to his seat. Before he could buckle in, Cypher was already behind him and saying briskly, “Under your seat there’s a lifesuit. Put it on, now.”

Kitai did as he was instructed. Even as he did so, however, he looked up questioningly and said, “What’s going on?”

Cypher was clearly in no mood to respond. All he did was snap, “Full harness!”

“Yes, sir,” Kitai replied. Whatever was transpiring around them, there was clearly no time to engage in conversation about it. His father clearly had greater problems on his mind than answering his son’s questions, and for once Kitai totally understood.

Cypher didn’t wait around to see if his son obeyed. He headed off down the corridor in the general direction of the cockpit. Kitai suspected that was where Cypher was going to wind up, and he already felt a bit better. There was no one he wanted overseeing things more than his father. With Cypher Raige in charge, no matter what was coming up, they would all be able to get past it.

The pilot and navigator at the controls in the cockpit nodded when Cypher made his entrance. “Good evening, General,” said the pilot, a tall and powerful man named Lewis. “Care to take the controls? Feel her out?”

There was no doubt in Cypher’s mind that that was in fact the last thing Lewis wanted. Technically Cypher could indeed take control; he was the ranking officer present. But that wasn’t going to do anyone any good. “Appreciate the offer, Captain. But it’s been a while since I sat in that chair.”

Lewis and the navigator, a longtime veteran named Bellman, both chuckled.

Cypher’s tone then became steely calm. “What’s the last known position of the closest asteroid storm?”

“We’ve plotted well around those storms, sir. Nothing to worry about,” Lewis assured him.

Cypher spoke with total respect in his voice, but the order inherent in it was clear: “I’d like you to check again, Captain.”

The pilot clearly didn’t quite understand why he was being asked to recheck, but it wasn’t his job to understand orders. Just obey them. He ran their immediate vicinity through the data banks. “Category 4 asteroid formation, two thousand km to starboard at plus-four-five declination. Bearing one-two-seven mark four.”

“That’s headed in our direction,” Cypher said. There was not a trace of nervousness in his voice. He was simply trying to anticipate anything that could go wrong.

“Yes, sir,” Bellman acknowledged. “But at that distance—”

“I detected graviton vibrations in the ship’s hull,” Cypher said. “A cat 4 storm’s large enough to generate its own gravitational field, correct?”

“Yes, sir. But… you detected?” Bellman was staring at him in confusion. “How?”

The fact was that Cypher had felt it. A gentle vibration that had actually awakened him from his slumber. No one else would have noticed it, and even if anyone had, he would have given it no thought at all. A vibrating hull. So what? It was probably nothing.

Even Cypher thought that he might well be overreacting. In fact, he was certain that a straight answer to the navigator’s question would garner nothing save puzzled looks and assurances that he was getting worked up over nothing. Having no desire to deal with any of that, he kept his reasons to himself. Instead, all he said was, “Graviton buildup could be a precursor to mass expansion. That storm could be on us in minutes.”

“Sir,” said Lewis, “if I may… Mass expansion is one in a million.”

“Then let’s just say I don’t like those odds.”

The pilot and navigator exchanged confused looks. But if that was how Cypher felt, it was their job to make sure that his worries were attended to.

Long moments passed, and then slowly the image of a huge, swirling storm pattern began to take shape on the screen. “Not loving those odds, either,” Bellman said as the storm began to swirl even more widely.

“If we try to navigate out, the pull of our own graviton wake could set the thing off,” Cypher said. “Just hold course… and let’s hope I’m wrong.”

The storm seemed to be holding its own course as the men kept their eyes on the cockpit readouts. Lewis, doing his best to keep everything stable, asked Cypher with forced casualness, “Just out of interest, sir… how often are you wrong?”

Without so much as cracking a smile, Cypher replied, “My wife would give an interesting answer to that question.”

A long, excruciating silence followed. Only the digital chirping of the computers in the cockpit could be heard. Beyond the forward observation port there was only a star-pricked expanse of space.

Studying his instrumentation closely, the navigator called out, “Graviton count’s decreasing. Eight hundred parts per million… Six hundred and fifty…”

Upon hearing that, the pilot exhaled in relief. With the graviton count diminishing, whatever danger they might have been in was sliding away. “Well, sir,” he began to say, “there’s a first time for every—”

That was when the asteroids, which hadn’t even been factored into the calculations until that split second, made their presence known.

It was like being witness to a star going supernova. One instant the space in front of them was empty, and the next instant a massive wave of asteroid fragments was expanding in their direction. The icy chunks of rock were coming in so fast that there was no time for Lewis or Bellman to react. All they were able to do was cry out in shock as the asteroid field engulfed them, hitting them like a freight train. The ship shook violently as the rock storm pounded them, creating the kind of turbulence that moments before would have seemed unimaginable.