“What’s in there?” he said, pointing toward the pod.
“He wants to know what’s in there!”
It seemed strange to Kitai that the security chief was talking to him in that manner, and then he realized that he was not in fact the addressee. Instead, there were several Rangers seated around a small table off to the side. They had a game in progress. Kitai, it appeared, was simply something else for them to play with.
One of the men said, “Might wanna go easy on him, Sarge. That’s the Prime Commander’s son right there.”
This was clearly something unexpected and unknown to the security chief. He looked at Kitai as if seeing him for the first time. “You’re Raige’s kid?”
This provided Kitai with the bit of a lead that he required under the circumstances. They could do whatever they wanted with some random kid, but Cypher Raige’s son was going to get special treatment, and they all knew it. Kitai even puffed out his chest slightly to give additional heft to his presence, and this time, when he said once more, “What’s in there?” it carried more weight and conviction. Or at least he imagined it did.
Indeed, the sergeant’s entire attitude toward Kitai appeared to change in a manner that benefited Kitai’s interests. He dropped his voice to barely above a whisper like a carnival barker with something to hide. “You wanna see?” he asked conspiratorially.
“Yeah, I wanna see.”
“Okay, then. All ya had to do was ask.”
If Kitai had been giving any real thought to the situation, that might have tipped him off. But he was so curious that he completely ignored any cautions and advanced slowly toward the pod.
The security chief followed right behind him as Kitai drew closer. “So are you gonna tell me what’s—”
“It’s an
Ursa
.”
Kitai stopped moving so abruptly that the security chief actually bumped into him. “An Ursa?” Kitai said cautiously.
“Yup.”
“A dead one?”
“Nope.”
That was when he remembered Rayna discussing how some Rangers had managed to capture an Ursa alive. At that point Kitai completely ceased moving forward. This was it. This was the Ursa the Rangers had captured. This was the closest he had been to one since … since Senshi.
“How … how did … where …?” He made several different attempts to ask questions, and none of them quite worked.
The sergeant didn’t display the slightest hint of amusement. Instead he spoke with the same fear that filled every molecule of Kitai’s body. “This is one of three we caught. We’re keeping all three on Iphitos, away from the civilian population. This one we call Viper. This one’s the biggest and meanest.” He paused and then said conspiratorially, “You want to see if you can ghost?”
The challenge promptly caught the interest of the men who were grouped around the table. Cards forgotten, they focused their attention on Kitai, who didn’t notice. He was busy looking in fascination at the pod, which was motionless.
Clearly intending to assuage Kitai’s concerns, the security chief went on, assuring him, “The pod is biostructural organic armor. She’s strapped and suspended in a gel inside there.” He pointed to a red line that circled the pod. “All you need to do is step over that red line around the pod. The gel doesn’t allow smells at certain distances, but at that distance it can smell you.”
Kitai eyed the red line surrounding the pod. There were no footprints on or near it. No one had come that
close to the creature. That meant one thing beyond question: They were taking no chances with the monster.
“You’re not scared, are you?”
Without giving his response any thought at all, Kitai immediately declared, “I’m not scared of anything.”
It seemed that the Rangers indeed took him at his word. In a declaration of “Uhh rahh!” the Rangers tossed off a verbal salute to him, congratulating him on his bravery.
“Even if it imprints on you, you don’t need to worry. She ain’t getting out.”
That froze Kitai for a moment. The concept of an Ursa imprinting on him was certainly daunting. Imprinting was one of an Ursa’s major weapons. Once it imprinted on a person—fully locked onto their DNA essence—that individual became the Ursa’s new target. The Ursa would proceed to attack its potential victim for … well, forever. Kitai wasn’t entirely sure how thrilled he was about becoming the creature’s number one priority chew toy, especially for that length of time.
But he pushed those concerns aside the best he could. He was being challenged by a group of Rangers; he couldn’t just walk away from it as if it meant nothing. Or, even worse, openly display his fear. They’d roast him for that. He’d be a joke. He’d be the gutless son of the Original Ghost and an embarrassment to the Raige family legacy.
All he did was simply nod in acknowledgment of the situation.
The security chief promptly called out, “Ladies and gentlemen, the son of the OG is going to try to ghost. Place your bets!”
To Kitai’s annoyance, they actually started throwing down money. He couldn’t help noticing that there weren’t any bets placed on his ability to pull it off.
I’ll show them
, he thought in grim annoyance.
Slowly Kitai made his way to the rear of the organic pod. For the first time he was close enough to see that
in the shell-like exterior of the pod, there were holes so that one could see in. But there didn’t appear to be an Ursa or anything else inside. “I don’t see anything,” he said cautiously.
“Active camouflage,” the security chief replied. “Photosensitive skin cells change color and texture to match its surroundings. It uncamouflages so it can frighten you. So you release more pheromones—they’re crafty bastards.”
It truly was insidious. Ursa required fear to find their targets, and so their method of attack was calculated to elicit as much fear as possible. Being virtually invisible allowed them to appear abruptly and terrify the crap out of their intended victims.
Kitai moved closer to the pod. He stopped a mere few centimeters away from crossing the red line.
The security chief wasn’t making it any easier for him. “Ghosting is when you don’t have a trace of fear in you. Good luck doing that. To ghost one must be so free from fear that you become invisible to the Ursa. Fear is territorial in your heart. It refuses to share space with any other virtues. You must force fear from your heart and replace it with any other virtue. It could be love or happiness or faith, but the virtue is specific to the individual and comes from the deepest part of that person.
“You get all that, cadet?” said the security chief. His voice was sardonic as he added, “Your dad wrote that helpful tidbit.”
And there it was, unmistakable. The security chief wasn’t screwing around anymore. He was putting it right out there:
You think you’re on your dad’s level? Let’s see what you’ve got
.
Without hesitation, Kitai stepped defiantly over the red line surrounding the pod. If the security chief was startled by his audacity, he didn’t show it. Instead his voice dropped to just above a whisper. “Most guys freeze—that’s your cerebral cortex looking for an answer it doesn’t have. Your blood is filling with adrenaline right
now, whether you know it or not. Your heart’s beating faster. It’s getting a little harder to breathe … Your neurobiological system is telling you to run, but your knees are too weak to move, and it’s too late, anyway—the pores on your skin have already opened up, secreting an imperceptible amount of pheromones into the air. And all you can think about is
when it’s going to kill you
.”
Kitai was standing centimeters from the pod, his eyes wide. There still wasn’t any response from within, and he was beginning to wonder whether the Rangers had been screwing with him the entire time. Maybe there was nothing especially dangerous in the pod after all. He did not notice that even the Rangers looked surprised that his proximity wasn’t eliciting a violent reaction from within.
Or maybe I’m ghosting. Maybe this is what it feels like. I’m actually doing it. Ghosting, just like my—
That was when the pod exploded with violent sounds and movement. The tension wires wrapped around the thing were suddenly strained by whatever the hell was smashing the pod from the inside. Despite the wires, the thing shook so violently that it seemed as if the creature within was going to tear it apart and come leaping straight out …
… at him.
Kitai had just enough time to see a flash of the monster’s pale skin slamming up against the side of the pod, and then he leaped backward, letting out a very un-ghostlike scream of terror. However, his yelp of surprise was easily drowned out by the thunderous shriek of the beast within.
It was a noise Kitai had heard before. It had overwhelmed him years before when the monster tore apart his beloved sister while Kitai hid in the shelter she’d thrown together for him.
He lay against the wall behind him, gasping for air, desperately trying to shove his mental images of his sister’s death back into the more remote sections of his brain.
The Rangers, of course, didn’t know. All they knew was that he was the son of the Original Ghost, and he was now pressed flat against the wall, trembling with fear. Naturally they responded in the only way that seemed appropriate. They laughed collectively. The security chief called out, “He sees you, kid!”
And suddenly, just like that, the security chief was on his feet. Not only that, but his hand had snapped into a solid salute. The other Rangers were doing the exact same thing.
Their reaction made it painfully obvious to Kitai exactly what was happening and who was standing behind him. Only one person could have prompted that kind of reaction.
“Kitai,” came the sharp voice of Cypher Raige from right behind him. “Back in your seat now.” Without waiting for a response or an explanation, neither of which would have done much to calm him, he continued, “Rangers, go to Red Con 1.”
The security chief blinked in surprise. Obviously he’d been expecting Cypher to rip into them for screwing around with his son. Putting them on an alert had probably never occurred to him. But he responded crisply, calling out, “Secure all cargo!”
His crew obeyed instantly. They were confident about the security of the Ursa, but there were other objects being transported as well, which required double-checking to make sure they weren’t going anywhere.
Kitai had moved in silence when he’d traveled from his seat to the cargo hold. The way back required no quiet at all; he barreled as fast as he could to his seat. Before he could buckle in, Cypher was already behind him and saying briskly, “Under your seat there’s a lifesuit. Put it on, now.”
Kitai did as he was instructed. Even as he did so, however, he looked up questioningly and said, “What’s going on?”
Cypher was clearly in no mood to respond. All he did was snap, “Full harness!”
“Yes, sir,” Kitai replied. Whatever was transpiring around them, there was clearly no time to engage in conversation about it. His father clearly had greater problems on his mind than answering his son’s questions, and for once Kitai totally understood.
Cypher didn’t wait around to see if his son obeyed. He headed off down the corridor in the general direction of the cockpit. Kitai suspected that was where Cypher was going to wind up, and he already felt a bit better. There was no one he wanted overseeing things more than his father. With Cypher Raige in charge, no matter what was coming up, they would all be able to get past it.
The pilot and navigator at the controls in the cockpit nodded when Cypher made his entrance. “Good evening, General,” said the pilot, a tall and powerful man named Lewis. “Care to take the controls? Feel her out?”
There was no doubt in Cypher’s mind that that was in fact the last thing Lewis wanted. Technically Cypher could indeed take control; he was the ranking officer present. But that wasn’t going to do anyone any good. “Appreciate the offer, Captain. But it’s been a while since I sat in that chair.”
Lewis and the navigator, a longtime veteran named Bellman, both chuckled.
Cypher’s tone then became steely calm. “What’s the last known position of the closest asteroid storm?”
“We’ve plotted well around those storms, sir. Nothing to worry about,” Lewis assured him.
Cypher spoke with total respect in his voice, but the order inherent in it was clear: “I’d like you to check again, Captain.”
The pilot clearly didn’t quite understand why he was being asked to recheck, but it wasn’t his job to understand
orders. Just obey them. He ran their immediate vicinity through the data banks. “Category 4 asteroid formation, two thousand km to starboard at plus-four-five declination. Bearing one-two-seven mark four.”
“That’s headed in our direction,” Cypher said. There was not a trace of nervousness in his voice. He was simply trying to anticipate anything that could go wrong.
“Yes, sir,” Bellman acknowledged. “But at that distance—”
“I detected graviton vibrations in the ship’s hull,” Cypher said. “A cat 4 storm’s large enough to generate its own gravitational field, correct?”
“Yes, sir. But … you detected?” Bellman was staring at him in confusion. “How?”
The fact was that Cypher had felt it. A gentle vibration that had actually awakened him from his slumber. No one else would have noticed it, and even if anyone had, he would have given it no thought at all. A vibrating hull. So what? It was probably nothing.
Even Cypher thought that he might well be overreacting. In fact, he was certain that a straight answer to the navigator’s question would garner nothing save puzzled looks and assurances that he was getting worked up over nothing. Having no desire to deal with any of that, he kept his reasons to himself. Instead, all he said was, “Graviton buildup could be a precursor to mass expansion. That storm could be on us in minutes.”
“Sir,” said Lewis, “if I may … Mass expansion is one in a million.”
“Then let’s just say I don’t like those odds.”
The pilot and navigator exchanged confused looks. But if that was how Cypher felt, it was their job to make sure that his worries were attended to.
Long moments passed, and then slowly the image of a huge, swirling storm pattern began to take shape on the screen. “Not loving those odds, either,” Bellman said as the storm began to swirl even more widely.