As soon as the sun was up, so was I. I was gathering my gear when I heard from my dad again. “Fourteen kilometers from the falls. That’s our halfway checkpoint.”
“Reading you,” I replied before beginning my trek, slow and steady, feeling the weight of sleep deprivation pushing down on me with so far still to go. I hacked my way through the forest with the cutlass, but it felt so heavy. I stopped for some water and ate a nutrition bar from my pack. I should have slept more last night. I could barely think, much less move, I was so tired. But I had to do both anyway.
“Seven kilometers from the falls.” Thanks for the update, Dad, I thought but didn’t say. Every kilometer I completed felt like a small victory, given what I’d been through already and what I had left to do. So of course I was keeping track of every single one myself.
Annoyed, I wadded up the bar’s wrapper and tossed it on the ground. Then I felt like a jerk. Earth turned against us because we treated it so badly, and here I was, on-planet for a day and already making a mess again. I grabbed for the paper, but it blew away on a gust of wind. I’d almost reached it when another gust floated it into a thick patch of vegetation. I plunged in after it, finally retrieving it. But then I looked up to see that the forest had been trampled, trees ripped down. Dozens of baboons lay butchered on the ground.
“What could do this?” I asked my dad. I didn’t want to say what I suspected.
“Double-time it,” my dad replied. “We need to make it to the falls. Hurry!” No argument there. I walked quickly beneath the forest’s canopy, looking around in hopes of spotting the attacker before it was on top of me.
An enormous boom! rang out, and I ducked, drawing my cutlass. “Volcanic eruption,” Dad explained. “Twenty kilometers east. You’re fine. Keep moving.”
A volcano sounded a heck of a lot better than an Ursa. I guess the increased volcanic activity is courtesy of the global warming we humans inflicted on the planet. I reached a steep hill and carefully tapped a combination into the cutlass. This time, the pattern did what I wanted, forming two picks that I could use to climb the hill.
I asked if there was anything behind me, and Dad said there wasn’t. But I heard something and froze, listening. It sounded like static in the distance, and I thought it might be the waterfall. That would be a very good thing.
“You’re close,” my dad confirmed. “Keep hustling.”
I climbed faster, digging deep, but the lack of sleep was catching up with me. Then I stepped out of the forest, pushing giant leaves aside, and found myself on a rocky ledge. I connected the cutlass back into one piece and snapped it onto my back. The sound of the waterfall was deafening. More birds than I’d ever seen before swooped and circled through the mist in giant flocks. We hardly have any birds on Nova Prime, and I’m fascinated by these graceful flying creatures.
“Inventory up,” my dad ordered, and I slowly unloaded my gear.
“Roger. Food rations: half available. Flares: full. Med kit: half available.” Everything looked good—except for the one thing I couldn’t survive without. “Breathing fluid . . .” I considered telling the truth this time. Maybe he could help me find a solution.
But I knew if I told him, he would order me back to the ship. I wouldn’t be able to disobey. And then we’d have no chance of survival. So I said, “Breathing fluid: four vials available.”
“Why are you not showing me the case?” my dad asked.
“What?” I asked, like I didn’t know.
But this time, he wasn’t giving up. “Show it to me now.”
I had no choice.
I held it up, revealing the two remaining vials.
I expected yelling, but all I got was silence. After a long moment, I couldn’t take it anymore. “I thought I could make it, sir.”
“Abort mission, return to the ship. That is an order.” At his words, I flashed on Senshi telling me almost exactly the same thing, right before she died. “Don’t come out, no matter what. That’s an order.” With the same order, my dad was forcing me to stand by and watch his death too. If I didn’t complete the mission, I didn’t see how either of us would survive.
“No, Dad, we—I—can do it. I can, I don’t need many. I can get across with just two.” I’d been through too much, come too far, to give up now. And I’d rather die trying than die giving up. At least if I was still out here, maybe I could make it to the ship’s tail somehow.
“You need a minimum of three inhalers to make it to the tail. You’ve exhausted your resources.” There it was again, that utter calm, even though he was basically sentencing us both to die.
“I can get across,” I insisted. “I can do it with just two, Dad.” Just this once, I needed him to believe me—to believe in me.
“The mission has reached abort criteria. I take full responsibility. You did your best—you have nothing more to prove. Now return to the ship.”
I started pacing, struggling and failing to keep my emotions in check. “What was your mistake? Trusting me? Depending on me? Thinking I could do this?”
As if I hadn’t spoken, he replied, “Now I’m giving you an order, to turn around and return to this ship.” There it was, what I’d been trying to avoid: a direct order from my commanding officer. An order that I would not, could not obey.
“You wouldn’t give any other Ranger that order,” I said, pacing closer and closer to the edge of the waterfall.
“You are not a Ranger, and I am giving you that order.” I didn’t know if he was saying that because I was his only living child and he wanted to protect me, or because I was the one who had let his favorite child die.
Suddenly, I had to know, the one thing I had always wondered, every day since that day. “What was I supposed to do?” I was yelling and crying and I didn’t even care how far out of control I’d spun. “What did you want me to do? She gave me an order! She said no matter what, don’t come out of that box!” Catching my breath, I repeated, “What was I supposed to do? Just come out and die?” The water roared in my ears as I waited for the answer I hoped for, or the one I dreaded.
He gave me neither. “What do you think, Cadet? What do you think you should have done?” Again with that incessant, uncrackable calm. “Because really that’s all that matters.”
But that wasn’t true, not for me. His opinion was all that mattered, all that had mattered since the day my sister died. I had wanted him to tell me it wasn’t my fault, that I had made the right choice, that he was glad that I had survived. Furious at his refusal to give me that, even now, I shouted, “And where were you? She called out for you, she called your name! And you weren’t there, ’cause you’re never there!”
I stood at the very edge of the falls, staring down at the birds swooping through the mist. The water roared in my ears. “And you think I’m a coward?” I was sure that’s what he thought of me, even if he wouldn’t say it. “You’re wrong! I’m not a coward! You’re the coward! I’m not a coward!”
I took two quick steps and dove off the cliff, toward the water below. The ground disappeared behind me and I was in free fall. Arms outstretched, body floating downward—for one perfect moment, I was at peace. My lifesuit released fabric that stretched from my legs up to my arms, creating wings that let me soar on the winds. I had a moment to think that this might have been an amazing idea, instead of a terrible one.
But then my lifesuit turned black, just as I heard my dad shout, “Kitai, you’ve got incoming!”
Something struck me midair—a massive predatory bird that immediately circled around for another attack. “Kitai, dive! Dive!” I pulled my arms to my sides, legs straight as arrows, turning myself into a torpedo to slice more quickly through the air. Not fast enough, though. The creature’s razor-sharp talons flashed past my cheek as it slammed into me again and I heard my dad, one last time, scream, “Kitai!” This time, the force must’ve knocked me out. Because everything went black for a while, though I’m sure I kept on falling.