After Earth: A Perfect Beast

by Peter David Michael Jan Friedman Robert Greenberger

  “No. You’re not,” he shot back. Xander had always been the most easygoing man she’d ever met. The fact that he was raising his voice to her now startled her. “You’re doing this for you. I’ve never been enough for you, and neither have the kids. If it weren’t for you being booted out of the Corps, you’d never have married me, never been a mother. This is about your pride and about you wanting to go down fighting. That’s what it’s about. So don’t make it about any of us because you need to take care of whatever needs you have that the kids and I aren’t fulfilling. Okay? So we’re clear on that. Now why don’t you just go?” When she remained where she was, he practically bellowed at her, “Go!”

  She swallowed once, a gulp, and then nodded. She reached out to embrace him, but he managed a step back and turned his head away.

  “Okay,” she said. “Okay.”

  As Cecilia left, she could hear Xander mutter one final barb under his breath: “Once a Ranger, always a Ranger.”

  The medicenter had been overwhelmed for days, and it was only getting worse. Doctors were at their wits’ end because painkillers were running low and the constant moaning of the victims was starting to become overwhelming. The doctors were in the horrific position of having to determine who was genuinely in the most pain so that they could be allotted painkillers and who would be denied them because they weren’t in enough pain.

  There was, however, one individual who was in huge amounts of pain and would have been a certain candidate for them.

  She simply refused.

  The beds in the medicenter were packed so closely that there was scarcely room between one and the next. Yet they had managed to get a small amount of distance between Marta Lemov and everyone around her. That had been because Marta had proved to be singularly unsympathetic to her fellow patients.

  A man with half his skin torn away during an Ursa attack was lying there bandaged from head to toe. Every so often he would groan a little, but even that relatively minor acknowledgment of his agony was greeted with nothing but impatience from Marta. “Shut up. Stop whining. You don’t hear me whining,” she growled, and the man with the shredded skin ceased immediately.

  When he died of his wounds a half hour later, Marta didn’t acknowledge it.

  She did, however, glance up when she heard a soft “Oh, my God” from nearby. Her gaze flickered to the source.

  “Theresa,” she said. She didn’t smile. There was no humor left in her.

  “I heard you were here.” Theresa tried to cover the dismay she felt as she stared at Marta’s broken legs and the arm she had up in a sling. “I spoke to the doctors. They said you’re lucky.”

  “Did they?”

  “They said that even a few decades ago, injuries like this … you’d never walk properly again. But with modern bone reknitting and neural repair for your spine, you should be at about fifty percent capability within a month. That means you’ll be able to get around—”

  “And fight?” she said tightly. “Do they let you fight Ursa at fifty percent?”

  “I … I don’t know …”

  “I do. They don’t let you. They don’t let you do anything except watch your world collapse around you.”

  “Marta …”

  “I was supposed to compete in the Asimov Games; did you know that?” Marta made no attempt to keep the bitterness from her voice. “Two years. Two years I trained for that. Not enough that they had to cancel the games because of the Ursa. God had to make sure that I’d never have the opportunity to compete should we survive all this and the games get rescheduled.”

  “Marta, why won’t you take any pain medication? The doctors said you must be hurting.”

  “I’m in agony. Look at my lower lip.”

  “It looks …”

  “Chewed through? Yes.”

  Theresa grimaced, though she was no doubt trying not to. “That’s how you’re dealing with pain? By abusing yourself?” The augur’s voice softened, and she reached for Marta’s free hand. Marta, without even realizing it, pulled it away.

  Theresa stood there for a moment with her hand extended and then withdrew it. “Marta … you shouldn’t feel guilty because you survived …”

  “I’m not guilty,” she said flatly. “I’m angry. I’m angry that these things are killing good Rangers. I’m angry that two members of the Raige family are gone. And I’m angry that all I’ve got is this broken body to deal with it.”

  “There’s more to life than anger, Marta …”

  “Don’t you dare …”

  “Marta—”

  Marta looked like she was ready to leap out of the bed and assault her. But Theresa didn’t move. She remained precisely where she was.

  In a voice that trembled from the strain of keeping it at just below a whisper—as if she didn’t trust herself—Marta said, “Don’t you dare start telling me some kind of augur crap about belief in something bigger than ourselves. Don’t give me garbage about being tested or something.”

  “I wasn’t going to—”

  “You haven’t seen these things in action. You haven’t looked into those eyeless faces or seen your friends disappear down their gullets.”

  “My brother—” Theresa protested.

  “Is dead,” snapped Marta. “And I’m sorry for you. But you weren’t there to see them die, so you don’t get it. This is it. This is the end of days. Those things are going to keep on coming, and they are going to wear us down. Sooner or later, every damned Ranger in the Corps is going to be lying dead and there will be nothing to protect you from the Skrel and their pets. And then they will feast on you, on all of you. And here I am, and I can’t do a damned thing about it. I’m a warrior trapped in a useless body. Better that the creature had killed me.”

  She had spoken with deep, powerful intensity. But now she allowed her head to slump back onto the pillow. “Better that I had died,” she whispered, and turned away from Theresa.

  The augur’s impulse was to walk away so as not to irritate Marta further. It seemed hopeless; the poor woman was lost in a mental labyrinth of frustration and despair. Who could blame her, really?

  Theresa even started to turn away. Then she thought about Torrance. She couldn’t bring him back. God had taken him. But a little of Torrance survived in each person who had known him, and Marta had known him better than most.

  Therefore, instead of leaving the woman lying there, Theresa looked back at her. “I’ll be back tomorrow,” she said with quiet determination. “And however many tomorrows it takes.”

  “You’re an idiot,” said Marta.

  “Yes. I know.” Then Theresa left her, but only for the time being.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  As Yang led the way down the narrow street, he wished again that Wilkins hadn’t given him Bonita Raige’s squad.

  In the brief time he had served with Raige, he had come to appreciate her confidence, her tenacity, and her ability to coordinate the team’s efforts. It wouldn’t be easy to fill her boots, especially when he was leading the men and women he previously had fought alongside. Still, he imagined Wilkins knew what she was doing. She had seemed confident when she took Yang aside at headquarters and gave him the assignment.

  At the time, Yang’s thoughts were still in the shelter with Vander Meer. His heart went out to the man no matter what he had said about the Rangers. No one should have to endure a tragedy like that one.

  Not that Yang approved of the bounty Vander Meer had posted. He couldn’t imagine where that would lead. Vander Meer’s broadcast had aired just once, but it had gone viral quickly. It had become a vid that was talked about everywhere, even on the largely deserted streets.

  “Look alive,” Carceras said as they approached an intersection.

  He wasn’t talking to his fellow Rangers so much as to the two cadets on the team. Yang wasn’t thrilled about taking cadets with him, but he understood the need for them. Wilkins was running low on Rangers, so many of them having been lost in confrontations with
the Ursa. She had to do something. Besides, these cadets were supposed to be two of the best.

  Yang wasn’t familiar with Ditkowsky, the woman. However, he knew the other one—the Raige kid. Hell, who didn’t know him after he had almost single-handedly won the last war games exercise? Word traveled fast among the Rangers when it came to the war games, since they had all taken part in them as cadets, and it traveled even faster when someone pulled a stunt like the one Conner had.

  Of course, Wilkins wouldn’t expect Yang to give the kid special treatment. Not even if he bore a close resemblance to his uncle Torrance with his broad shoulders, dark eyes, and even features. Much more so, in fact, than he resembled Frank Raige, whom Yang had trained under, though Conner had Frank’s close-cropped thicket of sandy brown hair.

  As they approached the intersection, Bolt and Kromo went ahead to make sure there wasn’t an Ursa waiting around a corner. Then they signaled for the others to advance. No one had seen one of the beasts in that part of the city in days, but they had to stay alert. Otherwise, there would be even fewer Rangers for Wilkins to work with and a couple fewer cadets as well.

  The next intersection didn’t give them any problems, either. It was the third one where things began to get hairy. It was there that Bolt and Kromo spotted the ragged mob of men and women carrying shovels and rakes and implements of destruction.

  In other words, out hunting Ursa.

  Yang eyed the mob as it got closer. He counted twelve or thirteen Novans, all of whom eyed him back. Looks like Vander Meer’s offer got some takers.

  “They’re going to be eaten alive,” Bolt observed.

  “Yes, they are,” said Yang.

  “How do we save them from themselves?” Carceras asked.

  “Let’s see how far talking gets us.” Knowing that he made an imposing figure because of all the time he spent in the gym, Yang went ahead of the squad and planted his booted feet in a stance that suggested he wasn’t moving.

  The mob slowed down warily but didn’t stop.

  “I need you to go back home or somewhere safe,” Yang said in a deep baritone that echoed on the long, narrow street. “This is no place for civilians.”

  “Why?” called a man. “So you can get the bounty for yourselves?”

  “We’re just doing our jobs,” Yang told them.

  One of the women laughed derisively. “Like you’ve killed any of ’em! Step aside and give us a chance.”

  “They’re out of their minds,” Kromo said. He came up behind Yang’s right shoulder, helping to create a human barricade. A moment later, Arce came up on his right.

  The mob kept coming.

  “They’re nuts,” Carceras whispered.

  “They’re scared,” Yang said. “And the bounty is tempting.”

  “What do you want to do?” asked Kromo.

  The last thing the Ranger wanted was to fight his own people. With just a few yards separating him from the mob, he took out his pulser, put it on its lowest setting, and aimed it at the street in front of the mob. Then he fired.

  The shot of silver-blue energy did what words could not: The civilians stopped in their tracks. A man who had a pitchfork in his hands raised it defensively.

  “Hang on,” said Yang. “Let’s be reasonable about this. Is a farm implement really going to do a better job than a pulser?”

  That gave the assembled Novans pause. But before any of them could respond, there was a war whoop from above. Yang turned and followed it to a man on one of the roofs.

  “I see an Ursa two blocks over,” the guy cried. Then he darted across the rooftop in the direction of the creature.

  The mob turned and ran, leaving the Rangers slack-jawed—but only for a heartbeat. Then Yang said, “Pulsers on high. Let’s move!” The team took off after the retreating citizens, hoping to catch them in time to keep them from engaging the Ursa.

  The mob, or at least part of it, moved faster than Yang would have guessed. It seemed like all he and his Rangers could do was keep pace. But after a while, the citizens ran out of steam and Yang’s squad caught up to them. It was no time for niceties. As Yang went by each bounty hunter, he shoved him to the side. More often than not, the civilians lost their footing and rolled. The others followed his lead, and in short order the way was clear ahead of them.

  That was the good news. The bad was that an Ursa charged out from an alley up ahead, its bulk nearly filling the narrow street.

  “Fan out!” Yang commanded. “Fire at will!”

  The air was electric with the ripping sounds of multiple energy bursts, all concentrated on the Ursa. Unfortunately, they couldn’t get around it to hit it from all sides, which was something that seemed to at least slow the things down. Still, it was distracted by the collective power of their pulsers long enough to pause in its tracks, toss its eyeless head, and roar in defiance.

  Dammit, thought Yang, what’s it going to take to kill one of those things?

  Far from dying, the Ursa began to advance on them. Fortunately, the bounty hunters had begun to run, not so brave now that they had seen their target for real. Worst came to worst, Yang’s squad could retreat without fear of leaving a civilian in harm’s way.

  “Fall back!” Yang bellowed. He looked around and counted Rangers to make sure none of them had fallen without his knowing it. But he counted only five. His heart sank. Who was missing?

  It took him a moment to figure it out: Raige.

  Where had the kid gone? There weren’t any bodies in the street, either Rangers or civilians. So where—

  Then he saw it. Somehow Raige had gotten behind the monster. He was standing there in the street, aiming his pulser at it. Good work, Yang thought. We’ve got it surrounded.

  The Rangers had seen from experience that that was only a temporary solution, that the creature eventually would shrug off their blasts and come after them. But maybe this time the tactic would work. With the ordnance they had, there wasn’t much else they could do.

  The only problem was that Raige wasn’t firing his pulser yet, which meant the Ursa could continue to advance on the squad, unaware that there was a threat behind it. And eventually that advance would turn into an outright attack. Yang didn’t get it. What was the kid waiting for?

  Then he saw something he would never forget as long as he lived.

  With about sixty feet between Raige and the Ursa, the kid broke into a dead sprint in the monster’s direction. Like a long jumper, he waited until the last moment and then used his momentum to leap into the air—and land right on the creature’s broad, sinuous back. Feeling Raige’s weight, the Ursa whipped its head around—

  Just in time to take the cadet’s silver-blue pulser burst squarely in its face.

  Suddenly, Raige was flying end over end through the air, flung off the Ursa’s back. Yang watched the cadet hit the ground hard. Somehow he had managed to hang on to his pulser, but he looked unconscious—or worse.

  Stupid! Yang thought as he rushed to Raige’s side. After all, the kid was defenseless. The Ursa would make a meal of him if it didn’t meet some kind of resistance. But as the squadron leader reached Raige and whirled to meet the Ursa with a burst, he realized there was nothing to meet. The monster was still standing in the same spot. As Yang watched, scarcely able to believe his eyes, the Ursa shuddered.

  “Hit it with everything you’ve got!” he roared.

  And they did. He and his four remaining squad members blasted away at the creature, advancing step by step, their barrage making the Ursa’s skin seem to writhe like a watery surface in a strong wind.

  Until that same skin blackened and cracked and bled something that looked more like crude oil than blood and the beast crumpled to the ground, and even then they kept up the barrage. Finally, once Yang was as sure as he could be that the thing was dead, he told his Rangers to stand down.

  Bolt took a reading with his mediscan. “Looks dead to me,” he said.

  But it was an alien creature, and they wouldn’t take any
thing for granted until a science team had confirmed Bolt’s finding. In the meantime, Raige was stirring, trying to get to his feet. Yang went over to see to him.

  “Did we get it?” the cadet groaned.

  “Don’t move,” Yang said. “You may have broken something.”

  Raige glared at him as if to remind him that he was Bonita’s nephew and that he had a score to settle. “With all due respect, sir, did we get it?”

  Yang smiled. “We got it.”

  Carceras and Kromo exchanged high fives. And why not? It was the first Ursa they had taken down since the things had infested Nova City.

  And it was all the kid’s doing.

  Conner stood in Prime Commander Wilkins’s office, his arms at his sides, and waited patiently for her to recognize him.

  Wilkins shook her head. “What is it with you Raiges? Don’t injuries mean anything to you people?”

  Conner had landed funny after the Ursa had thrown him off its back, but it wasn’t anything serious. He couldn’t run, but he could still walk. And if he could walk, he was going to talk to the Prime Commander.

  That was why he had left the medicenter, made his way across the Ranger compound, bypassed Wilkins’s surprised adjutant, and planted himself directly in front of Wilkins’s desk.

  “Sorry, ma’am,” said the adjutant, a couple of seconds behind Conner, “but he just—”

  Wilkins held up a hand and said, “Understood.” Then, with another gesture, she dismissed the man, leaving Conner standing there.

  “Prime Commander,” he said, “I know you asked me to wait at the medicenter and it’s my duty to follow your orders. But if our positions were reversed and you told me you were in possession of something that could save human lives, I wouldn’t ask you to wait. I’d want to hear what you had to say before I took another breath.”

  For a moment, he was sure she would punish him for his impudence. After all, what kind of cadet did what he had just done? Somebody insane, maybe. Somebody who had lost his last marble.

  But Wilkins didn’t give him any indication that she was going to punish him. Instead she smiled and said, “Actually, I was about to go see you, now that I’ve gotten the Ursa’s carcass to a secure location. After all, we don’t know if the creatures are cannibals, and we didn’t want to risk one of the other Ursa consuming it before we got it under wraps.”