The beast shuddered violently. Even with its brain bisected, its nervous system was still firing. In its death spasms, it fell forward, and Daniel wasn’t able to get away. It landed squarely atop him, and the only thing that prevented it from crushing him completely was the cutlass Daniel had shoved up under its jaw. Thick blood was drooling from its maw, dripping down on Daniel, and he made a sound of disgust.
Feeling Daniel beneath it, hearing his voice, there was no way the Ursa could miss him. It half rolled off him, and its flailing talons threatened to cut him to pieces.
And then the paw went flying, severed from the arm by Xin, who let out a cry of triumph as she swung her cutlass again and this time cut off the arm completely at the shoulder joint. Even as that happened, Martes charged forward and, disdaining to use his weapon, instead plowed into the Ursa like a linebacker. It knocked the creature clear of Daniel, and Xin and Martes quickly helped him to his feet. His legs almost gave way but he managed to maintain his footing. He gasped deeply for breath, and it took long moments for him to steady himself.
“I’m fine, I’m fine,” he said brusquely. Then he informed Freed over his comm unit that they had killed the Ursa but had two Rangers down.
Within minutes they were being evacuated to Ranger headquarters. Ephraim was, of course, dead on arrival. Bastante managed to live three more hours before succumbing.
Daniel was at both their funerals. He kept his gaze level, his jaw stiff, and he spoke to no one for a solid week.
And when he finally did speak, it was to Martes, and it was only three words.
“Let’s go drink.”
Martes was happy to oblige.
VIII
“Hey, don’t I know you?”
The bartender stared at the white-clad Ranger, seated next to another Ranger. The white-clad man had short hair, was clean-shaven, and had a look of quiet confidence about him. When the Ranger didn’t reply immediately, the bartender said again, “Don’t I know you?”
Daniel looked him squarely in the eyes. “No,” he said softly, nursing his drink. “No, you don’t.”
The bartender’s eyes narrowed; he clearly felt he was missing something that he should have been picking up on. Then he shrugged to himself and moved down the bar to attend to another customer.
Martes looked sidelong at Daniel. “Okay, where’s he know you from?”
“Here. I used to be a bouncer here.”
“A bouncer? You’re kidding.”
“I used to be a lot of things.”
They had another drink and then Daniel decided he’d had enough of the place. He’d returned to that bar as much for personal amusement as anything else, but the novelty had worn off. “Let’s get out of here.”
“You got it, boss.”
They slid off the bar stools and headed toward the door, emerging into the cool darkness of the Nova Prime night. As they started to walk away, a startled voice said, “Daniel? Is that—?”
He turned and, sure enough, there was Ronna. Her hair was shorter than he’d remembered, and she looked a bit more haggard, but otherwise she was more or less the same. Her eyes widened in astonishment. “My God, it is you. I thought I was … oh my God! You’re a Ranger?”
“Sweetheart,” said Martes, clamping a hand on Daniel’s shoulder, “I’ll have you know he is the Ranger. And who are—?” Then he saw the look in Daniel’s eyes, the silent warning. “You’re kidding. This is her?”
Daniel didn’t have to reply to him; the answer was on his face.
“So … Ronna … how have you been?”
“Been okay. I guess.”
He realized she wasn’t looking him in the eyes. “Really?”
“Not really, no,” she admitted. “I’ve been in and out of a few relationships, and, well …” She shrugged.
“They weren’t going anywhere?”
She looked down. “I guess I deserved that. The truth is, lately I’ve been thinking about that night. You know: that night. And how terrible I was to you. And I was wondering if you’re, y’know … busy? Maybe we could go somewhere and talk?”
He was silent for a long moment, studying her, thinking about her … thinking about what she’d meant to him, what she could mean to him again.
But he also thought about what he himself could mean for Nova Prime. And Ronna could fit into that, yes … but not in the way she was thinking.
For his purposes, he needed her to be not what she was now, but what she had been.
Forever.
Without a word, he started to walk away. Martes automatically followed him.
Ronna stood there, stunned. It took her a few moments to find words: “Daniel? Where are you going?”
And the last thing he said, before the night swallowed him and his fellow Ranger, was, “Actually, Ronna … I want to remember you just the way you are.”
She looked stunned, but his back was to her and he never saw it.
“But he hit me!” the six-year-old wailed.
His mother, a stout, stern-looking woman with graying hair tied in a bun, wrapped the crying boy in her arms, soothing him. She made shushing sounds to calm him and get his attention. “What have we taught you?”
“To turn the other cheek.”
“And?”
“Not to hit back.”
“Ever.”
“Ever.”
Hands slick with sweat grasped for the metal rungs of the monkey bars, refusing to let gravity win. Kevin Diaz was halfway across, making good time by his estimate, and was determined to finish. There was a bet riding on his outcome, and he meant to collect from Katya.
One bar, then another, as he made his way slowly across the magnetically suspended apparatus. This morning’s testing was just one in a long string of mental and physical exercises at which he needed to excel in order to make it to Phase 2: a step closer to being a Ranger.
For as long as he could remember, Diaz wanted to be a Ranger above all else. They were everything he was not allowed to be. As a boy he marched alongside them during parades, his short legs hustling to keep up with the matched precision of the corps. When his parents weren’t watching, Kevin would access the image library to watch clips of the Rangers in action. They seemed to be everywhere, and while, yes, there was danger, there was also excitement and adventure.
Being a Ranger was all he wanted to do and it was the one thing his mother and father both objected to. It was not something the family condoned. Peace was a lesson imparted from an early age—and one Kevin remained resistant to learning.
“You yelled at your teacher?”
His father walked back and forth in the kitchen, a tight pattern given the lack of space. He clearly was controlling himself, refusing to let his anger and frustration seep through. It was always about maintaining calmness and inner peace.
“She wouldn’t listen to me,” the seven-year-old Kevin explained in as quiet a tone as he could manage. Unlike his father, controlling himself had proven to be a problem. There had been previous outbursts and even fights. After each one, the scene would replay itself much as this was happening now.
“And that gives you the right to be disruptive? To show a lack of respect for your teacher? What have we always said?”
“To be humble before one’s elders,” the boy said mechanically.
“Were you humble?”
“No, sir,” Kevin said.
“Kevin, our family left Earth determined to make a clean start. We vowed to do better, as a family and as representatives of humanity throughout the stars, It has been this way for a thousand years. Our ancestors held tightly to these ideals regardless of what has happened. When the Skrel found us. When they sent the Ursa to us. When we nearly had a civil war. We survived a great deal helping colonize this world, and the Diaz family …”
“… is determined to be humble, to embrace peace and simplicity,” Kevin finished.
“Were you demonstrating peace or simplicity?”
“No, sir.”
“Have I made myself clear? Now go to your room, and no vids before dinner.”
“Who did this?”
There was still blood dripping from Luis’s nose as he kept his head tilted back and pushed a cloth against his nostrils to stanch the leakage. His mother held his other hand. She would have been tending to his nose herself, but Luis was a proud young man and insisted on doing it himself … although there was still enough of a boy in him to gain solace from her hand against his. Meanwhile, Kevin sat by, staring mournfully at his brother’s injured face and flinching every time his increasingly irritated father demanded to know who was responsible. Finally Luis was worn down enough to shrug off the ancient school code of honor that discouraged snitching on one’s classmate no matter the provocation. “Colm,” he said.
“Colm. Colm who?” Luis and Kevin’s father demanded.
“Colm Delahantey. We … go to school together.”
“Kevin, tell me what happened,” their mother said. “I don’t understand.”
Stifling tears, Kevin moved closer to his parents and spoke barely above a whisper. “Colm was picking on me at the playground,” the ten-year-old said. “He followed me around, calling me names, even trying to trip me. I ignored him. Just like you taught me.” It was a struggle to keep the bitterness out of his voice.
“So, what, he hit Luis instead?” his father interjected.
“No … it wasn’t like that. Luis saw what was happening and came over. He asked Colm to stop, but by then Colm’s friends were egging him on. They wanted a fight.”
“Why on Earth did they want a fight?”
“I don’t know!” Kevin screamed, all the bottled-up frustration finally erupting. “He’s a monster! He has a disease! He was born evil! I don’t know!”
His father softened at the outburst, clearly shaken. “This should never happen,” he said in a gentler voice.
“No kidding,” Luis said, and was immediately shushed by his mother as she changed cloths.
“I still don’t understand. This boy wanted a fight and you gave it to him?”
“No, Dad, it was nothing like that,” Luis said. “He was chasing Kev, the others were following him, and they were looking for a fight. I went to stop it.”
“Just like you taught us,” Kevin said once more and not without a touch of sarcasm, earning him an unhappy look from his father.
“Who threw the first punch?” his father asked.
“I was trying to get Colm to back off, but his friends crowded us … someone pushed me into him. He thought I attacked, and then he started swinging,” Luis said.
“I think his nose is broken,” Marisa said to Juan Carlos. “He needs a doctor.”
“Let’s go then,” he said, rising. “This Colm can wait.”
“Dad, it started as an accident, but Colm wouldn’t listen. He just hit Luis again and again, and I just watched. I didn’t interfere. I practiced our way,” said Kevin.
“And you did well by not making a bad situation worse,” the man said.
“But Luis has a broken nose. I could have stopped that!”
The father’s eyebrows rose quizzically. “You sure of that? Do you know how to fight?”
“No.”
“Sounds like this Colm does. Might be, there would have been two broken noses today.”
“Dad, it’s just wrong! I let my brother get hurt.”
“No, you kept things from escalating. When you’re ready, we can teach you ways to disarm the conflict.”
“I don’t want to disarm the conflict; I want to disarm Colm, like rip his arms off!”
Juan Carlos crossed the small space and grabbed his younger son by the shoulders. In a surprisingly soft voice he said, “No, my boy. We don’t fight. We don’t strike back. We don’t argue. We are better than that. We make our way through life in harmony with the surroundings. Colm was disruptive and will need punishment, but not with a brawl.”
“I know, it’s our way. But you know what, Dad? I hate our way.”
Diaz stepped out of the testing booth, grinning from ear to ear. “That was a snap!”
Katya Ronaldo, thin, blond, and adorable, smacked his arm in an affectionate way. She was standing in line, waiting for her turn in the chamber where knowledge of Earth and Nova Prime history was examined in addition to general information about the Rangers. The Rangers likewise traced their heritage to just before humankind had to leave their homeworld for good. So certain was Diaz in his facts that he volunteered to go first, wanting to get the testing over with.
Malcolm Velan, the barrel-chested examiner, consulted a small tablet in his left hand and then extended his right hand to the teen. “Nice work, you scored highest in your squad.”
Diaz broke into a fresh grin as he pumped the extended hand.
“The highest so far,” Velan added and spun on his heel, returning his attention to the next cadet inside the chamber.
“Pretty sweet work,” Xan Minh said. The fifteen-year-old towered over Diaz, which gave him the advantage in many of the physical tests. The chamber was all about the mind, and there, Diaz excelled. Normally, he was content to ignore his parents and their teachings, but controlling his breathing, figuring out a plan of attack, and having confidence in himself certainly gave him the advantage at mental activities.
“It’s a gift,” Diaz said, looking at the worried faces still waiting to enter the chamber. The randomized oral testing lasted twenty minutes unless the artificial intelligence needed to probe a candidate’s knowledge deeper to make a final assessment. The process had been known to continue for around twenty-five minutes; the longest was thirty-seven minutes by a cadet who wound up repeating Phase 1 as a result. Diaz was in and out in just over twenty-one minutes, a personal best after weeks of preparation.
Months later, not long after the grueling Phase 2 trials were completed, Kevin Diaz rolled out of his bunk, careful not to wake Katya, who slumbered beside him. It was the big day and he couldn’t sleep, too excited about the ceremony. He felt his pulse race as he anticipated the day, taking his three-minute shower, then carefully inspecting every inch of his Ranger uniform. As he buffed a button with a cloth, Katya, still in his T-shirt, stumbled into the common room.
“You’ll blind me with the glare coming off those things,” she murmured as she sought a drink.
“Just excited.”
“Hunh. Couldn’t tell,” she said before taking a big gulp. She shook her head, but her close-cropped hair refused to budge. The normally dry air was somewhat humid, unusual for the time of year, and she always kept it short—shorter than even regulations demanded.
“C’mon, wash up and I’ll make breakfast,” he offered.
“I can unwrap my own protein bar, thank you.”
“Well, hurry up then, it’s the day.”
“No kidding. I get it. Today we become Rangers. The Commanding General himself will be on hand to make a speech and maybe pat us on the head. I get it. Our parents will be there to cheer and snap pics. We celebrate, especially those of us in the top ten percent.”
Diaz wanted to be number one, but had to settle for top ten. He had easily passed the chamber testing and the physical skills. He won the bet and Katya had to actually go out on a formal date and wear her first-ever dress. They’d been together ever since.
He was, though, dunned by Velan for “excessive force” on the firing range. Rather than pick off the holographic Skrel soldiers, he fired a little too often, a little too wildly. Even now he recalled the free flow of adrenaline, the excitement of the adventure, letting himself get caught up in the thrill of the battle. Velan yelled at him for letting the phaser do the talking. Diaz started to yell back but his training caused him to painfully bite his tongue instead. Later that night, Katya teased him for turning beet red in anger, swearing she saw heat waves rise off his head.
That cost him number one, but his restraint kept him a Ranger.
He reached into the cabinet, pulled out th
e protein bars she liked, grabbed a round, bright red piece of fruit, and set them on the small table. The other cadets were finally stirring, so there was going to be a run on the showers and the food. Being up early had its benefits.
On the other hand, being up early meant having to wait for the ceremony to begin, and he was never good at waiting. He hurried Katya along so they’d have time to walk the grounds, burn off the nervous energy. In addition to the searing heat, there was excitement in the air. Not only did friends and family attend the graduation exercises, but lots of nearby residents turned out. Being a Ranger was prestigious—and it also meant they could glimpse Cypher Raige, the Prime Commander, perhaps the best-known person on Nova Prime.
Diaz and Katya walked the grounds, which were quiet. No one using the equipment, no trainers yelling at raw recruits. The air was still and the heat was rising. Nova Prime turned out to be hotter than anyone expected, and the honeycombed residences, built right into the mountains, offered some respite. But out here, the sun beat down on them, and he could feel the sweat run down his neck and spine.
“My uniform is going to wilt,” he complained as they neared the grandstand where the event would commence within the hour.
“Velan will write you up,” she teased.
“You think he will?”
“Yes, and then make you do fifteen laps, one hundred pull-ups, and hand sew a new uniform,” she solemnly announced. “All before the ceremony.”
“You forgot disciplining the insubordinate graduate,” he said, reaching out for her, grasping her tiny waist and pulling her close. He took a deep sniff of her hair and was content. She centered him in ways his upbringing failed to do.
After Earth: A Perfect Beast Page 36