Peter David - After Earth

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.

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.

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.

“MOTION 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.”