Peter David - After Earth

“Excellent,” Andropov said. “You were lucky for me, my friend. I think you can be lucky that way again.”

Maybe the man was right. Maybe my luck is coming back .

Cade got back to his barracks an hour and a half after he had left, flushed with the prospect of getting his old life back. Who needs the Rangers? he asked himself.

They had been on his case since the minute he showed up. Tolentino especially. He’d seen it at the ravine that first day. He’d seen it after he disabled the construct. He’d seen it after he beat Kayembe in the tournament, and again in the San Franciscos when he saw the plaque.

They hadn’t given him an inch. And he had taken whatever abuse they wanted to throw at him because he didn’t want to go to prison. But soon he wouldn’t have to worry about that.

Cade imagined himself walking up to Tolentino and shoving his uniform in her face. Maybe even decking Kayembe before he left. Yeah . He would do all that and more.

He was thinking about that, thinking hard, when he heard yelling from inside the barracks. One of the voices was Nava’s.

A real Ranger would probably have entered the barracks without a second thought. But Cade wasn’t a real Ranger. He was a street kid at heart, a criminal, so he didn’t walk in. He went to a place where the fabric walls of the barracks came together and peeked inside.

Just in time to see Nava kick Kayembe’s cutlass, which had been propped against his bunk, halfway across the barracks.

Kayembe glared at her. “Are you nuts?”

“Cut him a break,” Nava snapped. She turned to Zabaldo. “You, too.”

“I haven’t said a thing to him,” Zabaldo protested.

“That’s the problem. It’s like he doesn’t exist.”

“What’s it to you?” Bentzen asked.

“He’s a Ranger ,” Nava said.

Kayembe sneered bitterly. “Not a real Ranger.”

They’re talking about me, Cade realized.

“Says who?” Nava demanded. “You?”

“He didn’t earn it,” Kayembe said. “You know that.”

“Since when do they ask you to decide who’s earned what?”

Kayembe poked himself in the chest with his thumb. “I went through the selection process. I busted my hump .” He looked around. “We all did.”

“That’s great,” Nava said. “And why did you do it?”

Kayembe looked confused. “To become a Ranger.”

“To fight Ursa,” Bentzen said, who seemed to have a better grasp of where Nava was going with this.

“To fight Ursa? Well,” Nava said, “that’s a coincidence, because that’s why Bellamy’s here, too. He wants to fight Ursa as much as we do. He wants to make a difference. Who are we to tell him he can’t?

“Especially if he can ghost. You know what that would mean to us? How many Ursa we’ll be able to take off the board with a guy like that? Or do you like losing your friends and having not a damned thing to show for it?”

That seemed to shut them up.

“If they’re right about Cade,” Nava continued, “the Ursa can’t see him. But we can. So stop pretending he’s not here, because he’s one of us. One of us .”

No one objected. Not because they had gained respect for Cade, because as far as he could tell, they didn’t have any to begin with. It was because of how they felt about Nava.

And how Nava felt about him .

Cade was touched. Hell, no one had ever stood up for him that way before.

But what if his ghosting turned out to be a fluke— a one-time thing , as Velan had put it? What if he wasn’t the difference maker Nava hoped he was?

How hard would she fight for him then ?

That night, Cade’s squad was assigned crowd-control duty at the East Side Arena, a huge, ivory-colored amphitheater open to the stars.

The occasion was a concert for kids who had lost loved ones to the Ursa. Cade had never heard of the performers, but they were loud and quirky and perfectly suited to their youthful audience if the applause they got was any indication.

Cade and Nava had been stationed on the curved walkway just behind the nosebleed seats. In the Arena’s early days, a couple of mischievous spectators had gone over the rail and tried to climb down the facade, only to fall to their deaths. Since then, it had become the Rangers’ job to watch the walkway.

Nava smiled. “If I’d known they used Rangers here,” she said, “I’d have tried out even earlier.”

“We’re not just here to enjoy the music,” Cade reminded her.

Tolentino had made him paranoid. He was sure that if he lost focus for even a second, she would find out about it.

Nava shrugged. “Who’s enjoying the music?”

“Then what?” Cade asked.

Nava looked around. “The way the place lights up the night. The way the air smells, like some kind of perfume. It’s nice.”

He slid her a look. “Really?”

“Uh huh. And it’s even nicer being up here rather than down there.”

“If you say so,” he said.

Suddenly, he realized that her eyes had locked with his. What’s more, he found it hard to turn away.

Cade had thought Nava was nice-looking from the moment he met her. But now that he saw her with the stars in her eyes, she looked absolutely beautiful. And her scar only made her more so, somehow.

Before he knew it, she was leaning closer to him, bringing her mouth up to meet his.

“Don’t,” he said suddenly, surprising himself. Am I crazy? A pretty girl is trying to kiss me and I’m turning her down?

Still, he couldn’t do it. Nava thought he was going to be a Ranger for the long haul, and he wasn’t. In no time at all he would be free of the Corps, doing what he did best—working the black market.

She was the one person in his life who had stood up for him. He wasn’t going to let her get hurt.

“Why not?” Nava asked. “No one’s looking.”

“Because we’re Rangers ,” he said, lying through his teeth.

“And Rangers can’t have love affairs?” She made a face. “Is that a rule or something? Because if it is, I’ve never heard of it.”

“I don’t know if it’s a rule, but it’s still a lousy idea.” His mind raced. “What if we wind up fighting an Ursa side by side? How are you going to survive if you’re worrying about me? How am I going to survive if I’m worrying about you ?”

“I’d be worrying about you anyway. You’re a member of my squad.”

“I mean me in particular . There are a million things to think about out there. You don’t want to add one more.”

Nava shrugged. “Then I’ll ask for a transfer to another squad.”

“Squads work together sometimes. They get mixed and matched. We can’t take that chance.”

“You don’t think this is stupid?” she asked. “I’ve never met anyone like you.”

Cade could see only part of her face, but she looked like she was in pain. “This is hard enough,” he said. “Don’t make it harder.”

Nava eyed him a moment longer. Then she said, “All right,” with only a faint note of bitterness in her voice and moved farther down the walkway. “If that’s the way you want it.”

It wasn’t. But he wasn’t going to put Nava in a position to hurt herself. Anyone else, but not her.

As the days passed, Cade became more and more certain that he had done the right thing back on the walkway.

Nava didn’t speak to him much, but that was all right. She was better off this way.

It occurred to him that they could get together after he left the Rangers, but he didn’t think she would want that. She was a Ranger. He was going back to the black market. Not exactly a match made in heaven, was it?