After Tomorrow: A CHBB Anthology

by Samantha Ketteman

  “Leigh, what sensors have gone bust and are we in danger?” Callahan prompted.

  “Most of them are reconnaissance sensors. Which means, all those scans I’ve been sending out to find if something is out there, well, they didn’t do anything. The sensor is busted in half.” Leigh bit at her bottom lip debating what to say next.

  “Translation, watch your ass when you’re out,” Solita offered.

  Callahan nodded. “Exactly.”

  “Fine. So the scans are incorrect,” DC stood. “That doesn’t necessarily mean we’re in trouble,” he looked at me and I could tell he was thinking about what we had discussed in the museum. “Why are we in trouble?”

  “The sensors that aren’t working are for the lift and flight maintenance. The ones for oxygen circulation are working, but that doesn’t do any good if the filters aren’t working because there isn’t air to draw on.” Leigh ran her fingers through her hair. “We can’t get off the ground because the thrust booster is smashed to bits and I can’t repair it.” Her voice was tight with anxiety.

  “Can we find the parts?” Ewert asked.

  Leigh tilted her head to the side and glared at him. “What do you think I’ve been doing?”

  “Calm down, Aerd. We have time to worry about this.” Callahan walked to the door. “Everyone is to be on top alert. Anything out of the ordinary is to be reported.”

  “Out of the ordinary? So if the wind stops blowing through the grass, report it?” Solita smirked.

  “You know what I mean. Start looking for danger Defense Officer. You were just whining about having nothing to do. Now you can scout for trouble and parts for Aerd.”

  “That isn’t going to work, Sir.” Leigh pushed away from the shuttle wall she had been leaning on. “No matter what we find here, it isn’t going to be the right technology. We’ve advanced in a hundred years and we’re in the middle of nowhere, so what we find here probably won’t even be state of the art for its time.”

  “Then figure something out, Aerd. Jury-rig something so that it works and get us off this rock.” Callahan shouted and left.

  The rest of the crew sat silently for a few moments after his departure.

  “Well,” Leigh shook her head, “I’ve got some work to do.”

  “I’ll help.” Solita stood. All immaturity slipped from her as she stepped out the door after Leigh.

  “I think I’ll rest a bit.” The doctor’s voice quivered as he made his way to his bunk.

  I felt claustrophobic in the shuttle, so I left and DC followed. We sat on the hill overlooking the valley. Our backs were against the white monument, worn smooth from the winds that whipped the field most of the day. The sun had set over the mountains almost an hour before and we were trying to pick out the various colonies in the night sky.

  “You still don’t believe me?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. If there are survivors, why are you the only one to see them?”

  “Maybe because I didn’t stay in the watch circle.”

  “What? You left that out of the story,” he inhaled sharply.

  “Yes.”

  “Why? I know you’re not normal UD, but I would have thought you’d known rule number one is not to leave the safety of camp.” Even through the visor I could feel him glaring at me.

  “I didn’t realize I had walked away from the shuttle,” I replied.

  DC shook his head. “You need to stop wandering off.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if there’s someone or something out there, who knows what’ll happen.”

  “Nothing will.”

  “How can you be sure?” DC retorted. “You said he knew your name when you hadn’t told him it. How can you explain that? How can you explain him knowing the meaning behind Kohana? It’s not like anyone in the UD actually pays attention to that anymore!”

  “He must have overheard us. And his name is Lakota in origin, so maybe he is of the same heritage.”

  “First, why would they have used the Sioux language instead of English? We are on the North American continent where English dominated. Second, how could he have overheard? We use closed coms. No one should be able to hear any of our conversations outside the masks.”

  I was thankful for the mask. It blocked DC from seeing my jaw working as I searched for a nonexistent answer.

  “Have you told the others about Wicasa yet?”

  “No,” I answered.

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know.” I reached out and grabbed a long blade of grass, twisting it nervously around my fingers.

  He sighed. “Maybe you should.”

  “Why? If you don’t believe me, why would one of them?”

  He turned and faced me, “Why did you think I would believe you? And why didn’t you tell me before my watch? If there was a possible threat, shouldn’t I have known before stepping out?”

  “I wasn’t sure if I saw what I thought I saw. I told you because you’re the only one who understands my purpose here. The others don’t get it.” My voice was tight and my throat felt constricted.

  “What is your purpose Kohana?” he asked softly, placing a hand over mine, saving the grass from being wrung into nonexistence.

  “To show the ancestors’ error,” I replied innocently.

  McLean laughed. “No, Kohana. You don’t have to show anyone that. We’ve been taught it since youth. You don’t know just how much is drilled into kids’ heads because you opted for the Archive where you willingly learned it. No, Kohana, that isn’t your mission.”

  I was dumbfounded. “Then what is my mission?”

  “To record the exploration. Only an Archivist can do that without involving personal feelings. Everyone else’s logs will have snide remarks about other members and they won’t realize their prejudices.”

  “But why take me along? I can sift through logs better than anyone.”

  “Because they don’t expect us to come back.”

  “What?”

  He sat back, his mask pointed to the sky. “There have been three failed missions Planetside. No one knows what happened to them or where they ended up.”

  “I know that.” Who does he think he is to tell me about the past?

  He sighed deeply, “There are two things separating our crew from the failed ones. The first is you. The other is a homing beacon. If we don’t return, UD can send another crew to our location and find out what happened. That is, if they don’t get blown off course like we did.”

  “But what if they stop the Planetside explorations?”

  “Then we are forgotten, except in the Archive. Record us well, Ohanzee. Maybe one day someone will find our craft.”

  I stood and glared at him. “What about us getting back? That’s still an option.”

  He gave an unconvincing chuckle. “It is, but only if Aerd fixes those sensors.”

  “You make it sound unlikely.”

  “She doesn’t have everything she needs. Leigh’s a great engineer, but even she needs the correct materials. We didn’t plan on so much breaking.”

  The return signal buzzed in our headsets.

  “Time for watch.” McLean groaned as he stood. “If this Wicasa shows up tonight, call me. And please tell Callahan. A mysterious man coming out of the shadows is considered something out of the ordinary.”

  “Okay,” I agreed flatly, starting toward the shuttle.

  He stopped me and turned me to face him. “I mean it Kohana! Call me. I don’t trust this at all. I want to see him with my own eyes.”

  “I’m not crazy.” I argued, pulling away from him.

  “I didn’t say you were.”

  I ignored him and outpaced him to the shuttle.

  DC didn’t need to worry. Wicasa didn’t appear during my watch. It was the next morning when I was recording the markers that Wicasa returned.

  “You wish to speak to me, Kohana Ohanzee?” His voice startled me.

  I stood and faced him. “Yes, Wicasa. How did you kno
w?”

  “Why else would you be alone so far from your camp?” He jumped off the marker he had been standing on.

  I could study him; the first time we had met I had been too surprised to do so, and it had been dark.

  He wore late twentieth century clothing, what were once called blue jeans, and a dirty, white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled. His feet were bare and coated with dust and stains. Wicasa’s skin was the same rich red-tan color as my grandfather's. He had to come from Native American lineage. He kept his long blue-black hair loose and it fell below his waist. The breeze played with the ends but the hair as too thick and heavy to do more than wave.

  “Do you like what you see?” Wicasa asked.

  “Wh...What?”

  “You are taking me in, are you not?” he asked knitting his dark brows. His jet eyes hinted at far more than his innocence implied.

  “I didn’t look at you closely before.”

  “That is well, I still haven’t looked at you.” He reached out, but I stepped back. “What do you wish to talk about?” he asked, dropping his hand.

  “I would like some answers.”

  “What about?”

  “About you, about the other survivors.”

  “You wish to understand how anyone could survive on this world after the Exodus.” He stretched and turned away from me.

  “You know about the Exodus?” I watched him closely; he had broken my guard with one word.

  He turned back to me. “There are legends. The mass migration of the populace to space is a hard one not to tell. But tell me, Kohana Ohanzee, do you really believe some weren’t left behind, whether intentionally or not?”

  “It’s impossible! Some may have been left behind initially, but there were return voyages to gather the stragglers. Even if people were missed, there’d be no chance for descendants because of …” I stopped because my eyes had locked with his and the intensity of his stare made my breath catch.

  “Because of the Eradication Beams.” He finished my sentence.

  “How? How do you know what they were called?” Only high level United Defense officers called the Cleansing Beams by their true names. The TS reports were the sole documents written with the word ‘Eradication’, and it was not in the general entries. The politically correct term proved an effective way to hide the truth from most the populace.

  “What else could they be called? High intensity lasers with enough power to destroy cities? Do you really believe such a thing would go unnoticed?”

  “They were used to destroy weapon caches,” I lied, relaying the propaganda used by UD to make the beams seem appropriate.

  Wicasa laughed. “They did more damage with those beams than mankind could have done by themselves in ages. The Epitome Points were nothing compared to the destruction wrought by the Eradication.” His voice was hard and he wouldn’t look away from me.

  I shook my head, not in denial of his words, but in amazement.

  “They weren’t ridding Earth of weapons; they were using those weapons to destroy what was left behind. Do you deny it?” He spoke fast and forcefully.

  “No,” I whispered turning my face from his.

  “The problem is that man and Earth are resilient.” Wicasa straightened in his pride. “Earth will survive any torture given to her. Man is nearly as adaptable. There were survivors and there are descendants of survivors because of this adaptability.” Wicasa took my hands, causing me to meet his gaze once more. “We’ve bound ourselves to Mother Earth and She has provided enough for a few to survive. Why should this be surprising?”

  “It isn’t really. But so many toxins were released into the atmosphere!”

  “Yes, and only now is the vegetation returning. Even though contaminated, Earth is starting over.”

  “But how can you survive on a contaminated food source?”

  “Not everywhere was heavily hit. There are stockpiles of food scattered around. It is a matter of finding them, even if it means days of walking to find a source.”

  “But containers would be affected, if not the contents.”

  “True, but after a hundred years, an immunity to many of the toxins has been established. Eventually we become stronger with each generation.”

  He had an answer to every question. The eerie problem was that each answer was close to the hypothesis I had formed in my mind.

  “Ohanzee!” Callahan’s voice came over my headset.

  “You are being called. I will go.” Wicasa turned to leave.

  “Wait!” I called after him. “I haven’t asked what I wanted to.”

  “Ohanzee!” Callahan repeated.

  I pressed the com button. “A moment, Sir.”

  “Wha… What!” Callahan sputtered.

  “Wicasa,” I called out to the strange survivor.

  “Yes?” He turned at the waist to see me.

  “Is there any way you can help us?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Help how?”

  “Our ship is damaged. We need parts. Can you help us find some?”

  “No,” he replied before leaving me.

  I started to follow, but Callahan buzzed in again, and I couldn’t ignore my return summons any longer. I let Wicasa go.

  “What do you mean ‘just a moment’?” Callahan fumed when I entered the shuttle.

  “I was busy,” I answered.

  “How could you be busy? You have less to do than Sabin!”

  “I was recording the markers.”

  “Recording the markers?” Callahan’s face was reaching a new shade of red. “Haven’t they already been recorded? Let me see.” He turned to a screen and tapped away. “Yes, recorded over two hundred years ago. Now, why would you have to re-record them?”

  “To see what has changed in the last hundred years. We did leave Earth for a time, after all. Decay and contamination could have affected them,” I drawled, aware of my insubordination.

  Callahan glared at me and DC stepped forward and asked, “You were speaking with him weren’t you?”

  “With who?” I played innocent despite the tingles of fear that raced along my spine.

  “Wicasa.”

  “Who?” Callahan looked from me to the pilot.

  DC could see that I wasn’t going to answer, so he spoke instead. “Ohanzee believes she has met a survivor by the name of Wicasa Howahkan. He came to her on the first night of watch.”

  I felt a wave of anger surge through my body, caused by DC’s betrayal.

  “Why didn’t you tell me this earlier?” Callahan asked, his fingers drumming on the table.

  “I haven’t formed a complete hypothesis yet,” I replied.

  “Hypothesis? A complete hypothesis? Didn’t I say I wanted to be informed of anything out of the normal? Did I not say that?”

  “Yes, Sir,” DC and I stated in unison.

  “You two wait here,” Callahan ordered before getting up and leaving the shuttle.

  I turned to McLean. “How could you just come out and tell him?”

  “I had to. You’ve been acting strangely since you met this supposed survivor.”

  “How can you say that? You don’t even know me!” I started for the portal, only to be blocked by Sabin and Aerd.

  “Is it true?” Solita asked. She sounded defeated and worried, and Aerd looked hurt.

  And so they should. I was the Admiral’s granddaughter, placed in their charge, and if I went crazy on their watch, it would be a bad mark on their records. “There are survivors,” I admitted, avoiding eye contact.

  “Why haven’t we seen them?” Aerd asked as she sat down.

  I shrugged. ”They are afraid of us.”

  “Then why do they approach you?” DC asked.

  “I told you I don’t know!”

  Sabin sat down behind me. “Why haven’t you reported this?”

  “Because I wasn’t sure of what I had seen.”

  Callahan came back in. “That doesn’t matter. You were charged with reporting all
strange occurrences. Especially now that you know the sensors are broken.” Callahan placed a heavy hand on my shoulder.

  “So what do you want me to do?” I turned slightly to look up at him.

  “You are to remain on the shuttle until we dock at the satellite. You are excused from watch.”

  “You’re confining me?” I screamed, aghast at the thought of being locked away in the shuttle for who knew how long.

  “Yes, I can’t trust that you won’t leave the safety of the camp, and I can’t have you travel too far out. If anyone comes across this Wicasa and we find him not to be a threat, I’ll reconsider the order.”

  I shook my head. “That’s unacceptable.” I brushed his hand from my shoulder and left the cabin, quickly placing my mask and visor in place.

  Callahan and McLean tried to call me back, but I flipped the button that shut off the Com. They could easily have overtaken me. For some reason, they did not follow; perhaps they were waiting for me to calm down.

  I went to the Retreat Marker down in the valley by the river. It was there that three companies of the Seventh Cavalry, under the command of Major Marcus Reno, had been routed and trapped. They had fought hard and only had forty casualties out of a hundred and forty men. Again, I could feel my heart pound faster and my blood rushing through my veins as I sat on the ground feeling like a warrior and seeing in my mind’s eye the event of that day. I calmed down after a moment and found Wicasa standing over me.

  “You are leaving soon?” Wicasa asked.

  “I told you, we can’t leave until our ship is fixed. Then we’ll go.”

  “I have talked with the others. They are wary of your request for aid.”

  “Where are the other survivors?” My eyes scanned the plain around us. The grass was tall enough for someone to hide in, but I saw no indentations in it.

  “They are near.”

  “Why don’t they show themselves?”

  “Because they are unsure of you.”

  I exhaled loudly.

  He crossed his arms in front of his chest. “We have never seen outsiders before. They want to be sure you won’t hurt them.”