Delphi Promised (Targon Tales Book 4)

by Chris Reher

  He squinted up at her. “The boy’s right. I feel terrible.” He looked up at Kiran now sitting in the pilot bench with his knees drawn up to his chin. “You’ve grown taller,” he said.

  “You might be bleeding in that thick skull of yours, Uncle,” Cyann said and helped him sit up to lean against the com console. “Can you stand?”

  “Shields are a necessary constituent of safe aviation,” Kiran opined. “They tend to become even more helpful in space.” He peered down at Anders. “No pilot, huh?”

  Cyann took a long and hitching breath and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands. She ached for Jovan’s soothing touch to ease the growing sense of dread threatening to overwhelm her. She murmured softly to herself as she shifted into a khamal that would keep her from crawling into some dark corner to await the end of all things. It let her transform the energy wasted on panic into useful concentration.

  “All right,” she said resolutely. “Enough.” She came to her feet and stood by the console to switch the external screens. A few Jur hovered around in the distance. The bubble that Kiran had pointed out earlier now glowed orange, lit from within. She shifted her attention to the ship’s control panels. “Shields. Let’s hope Nigel got those reset.”

  “Those are shields,” Kiran pointed at the console.

  “I know that. Dadda used to take me flying.”

  He sighed. “Me, too.”

  She worked with the controls for a while but whatever Nigel had done there had not improved the situation. “Are you sure you can’t do this?” she said.

  “You can.”

  “If I could we’d have shields by now. What are they firing at us, anyway?”

  He giggled. “Rocks. They’re throwing rocks from the pod launch. Clever. Very clever Jur.”

  “Rocks!”

  “Cyann,” Anders said weakly. “If they damage the converter array we’ve had it.”

  “Clearly.” She bit her lip. “Why isn’t this working!” The Scout shuddered as another missile impacted nearby.

  Kiran reached over to the co-pilot seat and picked up its headset. “You have to do it from the inside, like all the real pilots do. Tell those processors who’s in charge, Little Blue.”

  “What? No, I can’t. I told you. Shields are part of tactical and I don’t have a program for that. I’m not a pilot, I’m not a navigator and I’m not even a Delphian. So don’t ask me to do things I can’t do!”

  He cocked his head. “Why do you want to be a Delphian?”

  “Huh?”

  He poked her arm. “You’re not a Delphian. I didn’t make you to be a Delphian. I gave Tychon and Nova a Cyann. Not a Delphian. You don’t need to be Delphian.”

  She searched his face. His restless eyes had stopped shifting around and he regarded her with something approaching stillness. “What am I?” she whispered.

  He smiled, looking fleetingly like Tychon. “You’re a Cyann.” He held up the headset. “Now be a Cyann. I will help.”

  She took the gear and connected it to the neural interface. Her device was meant to control intricate lab equipment but the ship’s navigational system recognized the link and signaled a ready state. Kiran placed his gaunt hand on her arm and she instantly felt the connection to his mind. She winced. “Slow down, slow down!”

  “If I could I’d be doing this,” he said with deadpan logic. “The Tughan can’t hurt the Cyann. See? Better than Delphian. Kinda. Talk to your plane. Make friends. I’ll show you.”

  She ground her teeth and directed her attention to the controls. Sifting through the blare of words and imagery that he could not control took all of her skill but, gradually, she found her way through it all to touch the plane. He led her to the defensive systems and, after a few stumbles, the lights on the console flashed their approval.

  “Forward shields!” she exclaimed. “Aft. Uncle, we have shields!”

  He did not reply.

  “Anders?” She twisted in her bench.

  “Leave him,” Kiran snapped. “Go now.”

  “Go?”

  “Yes, go. Leave the Jur.” He pointed up at one of the screens that showed nothing but asteroid surface. “They’re powering up the aperture and then they won’t be throwing rocks any more. Tughan says big flare might soon mess up our pretty shields.”

  “I can’t fly this!”

  “Cyann can.” He reached across to her and poked her arm. “Are you a Cyann or just a half Delphian?”

  She looked over the maze of manual control systems in front of them. “I’m a Cyann.” She settled back into the couch and closed her eyes, letting the ship’s system show her what she needed to see and accept the commands she sent through her neural link. Kiran’s restless mental noise faded into a static blur and she saw only what she needed from him. She felt the Scout power up beneath her. One by one, the systems responded. A few power shifts made her a little nervous when the plane adjusted for some of the damaged components.

  “Do us a favor, Little Blue?” Kiran said.

  “Hmm?” She ran the thruster startup sequence as if she had done it all her life.

  “Don’t bother with the gravity.”

  “Oops, sorry!” The Scout had automatically engaged the gravitational systems in preparation for takeoff. Both Kiran and Tik would suffer for it. She overrode the setting to match the asteroid’s weak pull. “Uncle, I’m going to push off now. Hold on to something.”

  Kiran looked over her shoulder. “He’s out. I’ll help.” He unfolded his long legs to get up.

  “Stay where you are, dammit,” she said. “I need you for this. We’re about to launch.”

  “I know that. I’m not that confused.” He lowered himself to the floor and wrapped his arms around Anders. “Heavy uncle!” He flapped a hand at her. “Go! I’ll hang on to Uncle.”

  She dropped back into her couch. Kiran was still in her head, guiding her through the steps she needed to take to get the Scout airborne. A vibration moved through the ship and then they felt it rock gently as it rose from its landing gear. The ship, like its passengers, ignored a new barrage of missiles launched in their direction, glancing harmlessly off the shields. “It working!” she said. “I’m flying!”

  “Little Blue is flying!” Kiran shouted.

  She adjusted the thrusters and slowly rotated the plane. It rose higher and soon hovered over the valley. The Jur on the ground either scattered or stared up at them in what was likely surprise. Cyann moved the ship to an open area to give the thrusters the needed space for launch. She shifted her attention to the ship’s weapons system.

  “Cyann,” Kiran said nervously. “Don’t break the pod launches. Don’t be mean. The Jur need that.”

  “They’ll shoot us down!”

  “Go to the other side of the cloud.”

  “No time for that.” The targeting scanners, directed by her mental commands, found the Jur guides’ bubble in the distance. She fired. Kiran gasped when the missile she had chosen slammed into the bubble and it exploded into a hail of shards and what she assumed to be Jur body parts. “For Nigel,” she said. “Guides gone. So sad.”

  She engaged the thrusters, whooping in terrified joy when the ship shot away from the asteroid and broke though the thin atmosphere with barely a wobble. She set a course designed to take the Scout in a wide arc around the reach of the asteroid’s deadly flares and toward the keyhole.

  Before breaking her link with the ship, she sent a repeating distress signal and calculated their trajectory and that of the asteroid. “Kiran,” she said. “Is the cloud speeding up? Look at those projections.”

  “Yes, it does that when it gets close to the keyhole. Has to.”

  She worked with the ship’s processors and cursed silently when she had the results. “You could have mentioned that hours ago. No crossdrives, remember? We’re not going to reach the keyhole or the others before the asteroid does.”

  “Not at this speed.” He helped her tighten their curving trajectory while still avoiding t
he energy field’s effects. “We don’t have to.”

  “You’ll be able to link us all up from here? Without touching them?”

  “I found you, didn’t I? I can touch them from here. When they get here.”

  “Shouldn’t they be here by now?”

  Kiran shrugged. “Probably has a headache. Maybe he’s hurt. I don’t know.”

  “Don’t say that.” She went over her calculations again. “Jovan thinks we still have hours before the cloud hits the keyhole.” She climbed out of the pilot couch. “Help me with Uncle Anders.” They managed to lift Anders up and maneuver him back into the med service where he dropped gratefully onto the exam table. She engaged the scanners and placed an oxygen mask over his face. Whatever he was fighting was taking its toll on his systems and he seemed barely aware of them.

  “Damn. Bleeding, left side of his skull,” she said. “Subdural.”

  Kiran hovered anxiously nearby, holding Anders’ hand in both of his. “I’m so sorry I can’t help you, Uncle,” he said. “I don’t dare. I don’t dare!”

  Cyann stroked Anders’ spiky white hair. “Maybe you can.”

  Kiran shook his head. “No. I’ll hurt him. He’s Human. I’m too scared to try.”

  “Then let the Cyann try,” she said and placed her hand over Anders’ neural interface. “With your help. You changed my mother’s genes and you can damn well stop a little bleed. You know what to do. I’ll do it for you, just like I launched the ship.”

  He looked up from Anders pallid face. After a moment a grin formed on his colorless lips. He touched her hand to re-establish their link. She winced, anticipating another jolt of frenzied mental activity but, clearly, something had calmed him.

  “You’re better now, away from the asteroid?” she said.

  “Bad energy. Makes everyone crazy. I’m going to see Tik. She’s frightened. She’s not been on a plane in twenty years.”

  “Um, Anders, remember?”

  “Tughan knows what it’s doing. I keep telling you that. A thousand people in my head. What’s one more?” He wandered off down the hall toward the airlock.

  Cyann bent over Anders. “Uncle?” She probed carefully, needing at least a spark of recognition before she could join him in the khamal. “Can you hear me?”

  He reached for her, well used to the intrusion of the healing khamal after a lifetime spent on Delphi. She followed Kiran’s wordless direction to help Anders fight the pain and the damage to his veins and then watched in amazement as her hands seemed to know how to drain the accumulated blood from his skull with tools never intended for this task. They spent time in silent meditation, lending him strength and giving comfort. He accepted it gratefully, aware of Kiran but unafraid. Should have been a Shantir, Kiran sent when Anders calmed and the pain had receded.

  Cyann grinned as she considered Tychon’s reaction to that career choice. How’s Tik?

  Thirsty.

  Anders moaned and mumbled something. She reached for a cooler to sponge his face when she realized that her khamal with Kiran no longer felt like a hive of stinging insects loose inside her head.

  Any sign of the others? she asked hopefully.

  Nothing. Should definitely be here by now.

  Cyann secured Anders to the gurney and then returned to the cockpit where she stood, hands on hips, to stare at the display screens that refused to show what she wanted to see. None of the scanners revealed any vessel in range; only the asteroid field remained, gaining speed steadily as it hurtled toward the breach. Even without the Tughan’s eyes to show her the whipping flares of energy leading the cloud, the image of the asteroid and its vast field of debris had taken on an oddly malevolent shape that was likely entirely in her mind.

  Kiran joined her and curled up on one of the pilot couches where he rocked silently back and forth, uninterested in the data displays that she observed with diminishing hope.

  “Maybe he didn’t make it,” she said finally. “Or they didn’t catch him.”

  “Possible.”

  “Maybe they just need more time.”

  “We don’t have time.”

  “So what do we do?”

  He lifted his shoulders in an unfinished shrug. “Nothing. Too late now.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “When the flares find the keyhole I won’t be able to turn the field. It’s just too damn big. Too damn big!”

  “Can’t we try to do this ourselves? You are the Tughan! This is child’s play for you.”

  He shook his head. “Might have been, once. The Shantirs were right, you know. The Tughan Wai shall destroy the enemies of Delphi. So it’s been told. I don’t suppose those damn wizards thought I’d destroy Delphi right along with them. This is what happens when you don’t leave things alone! You get destroyed, just like Delphi promised. The Tughan will get you in the end.”

  “No one could have foreseen this!”

  His hand whipped out and gripped her wrist. She recoiled instinctively when he blasted her mind with a series of images that buckled her knees and dropped her into the co-pilot bench. “No!” she gasped. Blindly, she saw a battle field on a desert planet. Not planes in the air or missiles dropping from the sky, but thousands of individuals who looked much like the Jur descending upon a fleeing mob. They wielded no guns but she saw devices that spread a yellow fog over the arid landscape. People fell by the dozens to be stepped on by the advancing invaders like the lifeless biomass they had become. In the wake of the attackers came a line of ground vehicles that collected the fallen Jur and loaded them into bins. She turned her mind away from even considering the purpose of this harvest.

  “That was my home,” Kiran whispered. “I left Trans-Targon to get out of the way. To stop killing. To grow up where I won’t harm anybody else. The Jur took the boy into their homes and there was peace in my head for a few years. Didn’t have to think about anything, do anything. They are quiet people. Gentle people. But also boring. I left them for a while. To look around; to get parts for the Eagle. And when I got back the others had come. Thousands. My Jur family were dead. Taken for food. All but Tik. The ground was scorched, water poisoned.” He released her wrist.

  “So you took revenge?”

  “Did.” He coughed something sounding like laughter. “Killed everybody. Took me minutes. Didn’t even take them into the Tughan. Just made them dead.”

  Cyann closed her eyes, unwilling to imagine the carnage. “And you took their transport and brought the survivors to the asteroid. To find them a new home.”

  “You’d think I’d get that right, wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you! Exiled them on a dreary rock with bad food and bad air and nothing to do but turn on themselves, exposed them to a disease-riddled comet and then gave them a damn weapon! And now I’m visiting all of this on Trans-Targon. Delphi didn’t foresee this? They designed me for this!”

  “That’s what did it,” she guessed. “Destroying the Jur like that started to jumble things in your mind. And the radiation on the asteroid made it worse.”

  “So now you have a demented Tughan,” he said. “A botched experiment. Best to stay over here. Best to not be at all.”

  She watched his haunted face for a moment, hovering somewhere between sympathy and fury. He had returned to rocking himself, eyes squeezed shut, mumbling. “So now you’re just going to give up?”

  He looked up, puzzled. “It’s too late. Too late. The keyhole promises sub-space and that’s what draws it. Faster and faster. There isn’t room to turn it now.”

  “There has to be something we can do with this thing.” She gestured at their screens. “Think!”

  He looked from her to the displays.

  “Can’t you, I don’t know, dampen that energy field? Deflect the flares if not the asteroid? Dislodge the anomaly itself? If we can slow the asteroid we can offload the Jur and take them to Trans-Targon.”

  He shook his head. Then he stared at her for a time but she was certain that he wasn’t seeing her at all. He raised
a hand and poked his finger into the air like someone working out a mental calculation. His brow furrowed and he flinched as if something unpleasant had crossed his mind. “There is something,” he said finally.

  “What?”

  “Collapse the keyhole.”

  She blinked. “Collapse it? Is that even possible?”

  “Mathematically, yes. Mentally, yes. Physically, no.”

  “How?”

  “Use the anomaly’s own energy when it gets there with the cloud.” He looked up at the monitor showing the asteroid field’s velocity and trajectory. Something like new hope brightened the color of his eyes. “Yes. I can do this. But I need you for this. You’re a Cyann. I made you strong. I won’t hurt you. It may be enough.”

  She observed him silently for a moment. “That’s going to leave us stuck here. Alone.”

  “Yes.”

  “The Scout won’t make it to the next keyhole at this speed without running out of supplies for us.”

  “True.”

  “So we either die out here or go back to the asteroid and hope they don’t shoot us. Maybe hide there, like you did, until the next jump.”

  “I’m used to it. You’ll get used to it.”

  “It drove you mad!”

  He shrugged. “Closing the keyhole is more important, isn’t it? It’ll save your Trans-Targon sector so they can keep having their rebel wars and their solstice parties, and their far-too rich Union Commonwealth. Don’t be selfish, Little Blue.”

  She shut her eyes, once again fighting tears that threatened to overwhelm her. The idea of being lost in space was something all who refused to remain on their home worlds had to grapple with at some point. Equipment failure, hostile species, miscalculated jumps, rebels and pirates all added up to a great deal of hazard. One accepted the risk or stayed at home. She had opted for the risk and had trained for its outcomes. But how fair was this, now that Jovan had finally come to his senses? She had waited all of her life for him and now this?

  Kiran patted her arm. “Survival chance is much higher now, seeing how you blew up the Jur’s entire ruling class. Very clever of you.” He grimaced. “You won’t like the food, though. Awful stuff.”