Only Human

by Chris Reher

  "We've got them cornered for now. Get down here and we'll figure out a way to extract the boy. Are any of the other Vanguard here?"

  "Yes, and so is Carras. With his finger on the trigger. And Tharron's got a carrier on the way, too. Get out of there. The place is about to get scorched."

  "Tell Carras to stand down!"

  "You're crawling with rebels down there!"

  "Not as many as you'd think. Those are–"

  "Ty!" Nova yelled.

  Tychon turned to her. "It's Eagle One–"

  "Cut them off! Now!"

  Too late. Tychon knew where Eagle One was. Through Nova, Kiran understood. Then Jelani knew. He gave the Tughan a vicious mental shove.

  Eagle One's signal disappeared from the screen.

  "Nova!" Tychon shouted.

  Nova knew. The Tughan had risen. Carras would open fire.

  * * *

  "Vanguard Three," Carras roared aboard Teti. "Xi! Return at once. Stand clear!" He slapped at the controls. "Baroch!"

  "I hear you."

  "Eagle One has taken fire! They've gone down east of the city."

  "It was the Tughan, Colonel," Baroch said. "No shots were fired. Your Eagles are useless now. We will fire Challenger on my command. Ready?"

  Carras turned the transmitter down. "Newson, is the Challenger targeted on Eagle Five?"

  The engineer nodded. "It'll also affect the ground immediately beyond the Eagle. The city..."

  "I'm aware of that," Carras barked. "Fire when he gives the order."

  Newson nodded, overriding Erato's signal. "Ready."

  * * *

  "They've got a plane down there!" Greah gestured wildly at his screens.

  Tychon switched the scanners to real video. He saw a group of people exit the hangar, among them Jelani and Kiran, both moving slowly, seeing nothing. They walked toward an air car that would take them up to a cruiser now hovering over the damaged tarmac.

  His eyes moved from the screen to Nova. She was immobile, frowning as though she followed some unheard and unpleasant conversation. Like Kiran, she was held captive by the wonder that Jelani had unfolded.

  "Nova? What do you see?"

  Kiran suddenly stumbled over a crack in the torn pavement and fell to his knees. Both Jelani and Nova winced at the sharp pain that all of them felt. Startled, Nova was able to tear herself away from the Jelani-presence within Kiran.

  Kiran had changed! Nova sensed that she was witnessing, at last, the birth of the Tughan Wai. She saw an understanding that had not been there before. Something to do with Eagles and a memory of Centauri.

  "Adachi?" Nova gasped. Adachi, commander of Eagle One, was there! Somehow, he now lived within the Tughan. Or rather, any thought that had ever crossed the Terran's mind was now part of the Tughan. She gasped when she also recognized a familiar something that reminded her of Dylan. And Kiran had grown to accommodate them. He acknowledged their presence, aware, without question.

  Jelani had seen it, too. Like Nova, he could not break their link.

  "There's something happening," Greah shouted. "More planes!"

  Tychon turned his attention back to the scene below. Even as Tharron's new cruiser left the airfield, four shrills arrived from the city and shot toward Eagle Five.

  * * *

  "Colonel," Xi reported to Carras from his vantage point on Eagle Three. "Another cruiser has left the Shad Areen air-field. It's heading toward the enemy carrier and Eagle Five is following."

  "Colonel Carras, four fighter planes approaching Eagle Five from the ground."

  "Colonel Carras, enemy battleship has launched approximately two hundred fighters."

  Carras studied several screens and indicators at once. "McDougall," he advised Teti's captain, "we are launching seven squadrons against the enemy ship. Request that you do the same."

  * * *

  Aboard Tharron's cruiser, Jelani had dropped Kiran's hand and had fallen to his knees. His mouth worked to form some words, prayer perhaps, but no sound passed his lips.

  Kiran sat small and insignificant in one of the wide chairs of the bridge, his eyes fixed on the Shantir.

  "You're not finished," he said, smiling.

  "No," Jelani whispered.

  Tharron tore his eyes away from the screens. "Jelani! Take out that Eagle behind us. Do it now!"

  Kiran laughed. Jelani died. The Shantir's screams exploded through the rebel ship and even Tharron blanched at the sound.

  * * *

  Nova's hands flew to her head and she jumped from the couch as if to physically escape her link to Kiran. She moaned loudly when she felt the Jelani presence, like Adachi, now part of the Tughan. The Tughan no longer needed his teacher. His teacher had become part of him. She struggled to back out, frightened by the power she felt, unaware that Union battleships prepared to fire and that four rebel fighter planes slowly caught up with the Eagle. She saw only the Tughan. And now the Tughan saw her. Kiran seemed to remember Nova's presence with some surprise and then allowed her to live. She became a spectator, helplessly bound to this mind that would not release her.

  * * *

  "Challenger ready," Baroch said, his voice clearly audible aboard the Erato, aboard the Teti, aboard the Eagles and aboard Tharron's ship. "Fire."

  Kiran smiled, having understood the Challenger through Adachi. He turned his attention to Erato and deflected the deadly beams as though shielding his eyes from an overbright sun. Most of the blast went wild, out into space where its signal rapidly decayed. Then Kiran followed her output back to the Erato. As all life there winked out within seconds, the Tughan absorbed and learned, rejecting nothing and no one.

  Nova slumped onto the floor of the Eagle. She had felt Kiran's roar of pain and triumph when the combined consciousness of nearly nine hundred people flowed into him.

  "Kiran, please," she begged. "Stop this now."

  I haven't even begun! the Tughan returned.

  "Ty, he's taken out one of the ships!"

  "From here?" Tychon gasped. He waved a hand to get Greah's attention. "Hang on to something, we're about to leave the atmosphere."

  He reached for his headset as the Eagle approached escape velocity. They were still racing after Tharron's ship while in turn pursued by the four rebel fighters. One by one, the planes headed into space, directly toward Teti's dogfight with the enemy shrills. Tychon held his course nervously, not wanting to lose Tharron's cruiser in the melee. A hit into their deflectors threw the Eagle wild. Greah tumbled off Nova's pilot bench and landed hard on the steps up to the main cabin. He touched his head and cursed when his hand came away bloodied.

  "Nova, there are four shrills on our tail," Tychon said. "I'm going to have to let the cruiser go."

  Kiran had perceived Tychon's predicament through Nova. His attention moved only momentarily to their pursuers. All four shrills disintegrated. Tychon stared at his screens. They were gone! "What is going on? Did Kira do that?"

  * * *

  Kiran no longer existed. The being that now inhabited the young body gazed around Tharron's ship to find the K'lar leader. "Tharron," he said.

  Tharron was staring at him in wonder. "Well done, boy," he managed. "But those were my planes. I want you to do away with that second battleship now. You hear me? And the small ship behind us."

  Kiran regarded him for a moment. He felt Nova's warning. Did she not want this man dead? "The small ship?" he said. "The one with my father on it? Will you give me candy if I do? Come here, Mighty Tharron. Take my hand so that I may know you."

  Tharron backed off. "You listen, boy..."

  Kiran slid out of his chair.

  "Sit down!" Tharron commanded.

  "You know," Kiran said, his cherubic face smiling happily at the rebel leader. "I don't even need to touch you, you know. I can feel you through the floor we're both standing on."

  Tharron recoiled from the child and found himself backed into a corner of the cockpit. Suddenly, the K'lar's eyes widened in understanding. There
was a brief moment of vertigo as he floated between life and death. Then there was nothing.

  Kiran shook himself in disgust when Tharron's being had become part of the Tughan. I see what you mean, he said to Nova. He turned to the pilot, the only rebel still alive on this ship.

  Pe Khoja had watched Jelani die and had marveled at the ease with which their leader had been dispatched. They were gone now, their bodies littering the floor, their minds living on inside this child.

  Kiran's hand moved to Pe Khoja's wrist.

  "Can you fly this ship?" the rebel asked.

  "Yes."

  "The Eagle's right behind us." Pe Khoja felt no fear. Neither did he underestimate this boy. "If Tychon doesn't shoot us down the battleship will. They'll destroy both of these ships."

  Kiran shrugged. "They'll try. I can handle the Teti and I can handle Tychon." He dropped his hand. "Perhaps you shall live, Pe Khoja. There is something you want to know, isn't there?"

  Pe Khoja nodded, his eyes on his screens. "I have many questions."

  "And you want answers for all of those?"

  Suddenly Pe Khoja was no longer sure. He looked into the Tughan's eyes and knew that all of the answers were there. The child had absorbed the conscious and subconscious, the knowledge and the memories of almost a thousand people and had learned. But did he, Pe Khoja, really want to know? Did he really?

  "Well?" the Tughan demanded. "Shall I tell you a few things?" He climbed into the copilot's seat. His child's fingers brushed back the long blue curls and the eyes in the youthful face regarded him mischievously. "Didn't you always want to know where we all come from? You always thought that our origin might have been something quite extraordinary, didn't you? That, just maybe, we are all the same species, after all? Should I tell you how right you are about that? Do you really want to know?"

  Pe Khoja gripped his controls. "No!" he said, his teeth clenched.

  "How about our future? Do you know where we're all going? Do you want to have a look at what's ahead? By understanding all those people that have joined me, I know what happened and why, so very long ago. You would, too, if you could see all of us at once. But I can also see where we're all going. For the same reason. Nothing is coincidence if you know the math, Pe Khoja, nothing! It's just more tangled than you were led to believe." Kiran paused for a moment. "And did you know that I can change it all? I can do anything!"

  "You can also die!" Pe Khoja flipped his plane to rush directly at the Eagle behind them. Tychon would either shoot them down or let them crash into him. It would mean the same, either way.

  Kiran shook his head. The ship assumed a mind of its own and veered away from the Eagle. Pe Khoja suddenly saw into the Tughan and understand. For an instant, his life's search for wisdom had come to fruition and he knew. Then he died for it.

  * * *

  "What was that?" Tychon looked after the receding ship. For a brief moment it had seemed as though they had been on a collision course with the rebel cruiser. "Nova? Talk to him! Find out what's going on!"

  "The Tughan," Nova managed. "He killed Tharron. Killed Pe Khoja..."

  "He's flying that plane alone? I'll tan his hide!"

  * * *

  "Eagle Five, come in," Carras called again. "Eagle Five!"

  He reached for another channel. Who was aboard? Why was it chasing the last of the rebel cruisers? The Tughan was on one of those ships. But which? He glanced at the screens in front of him, unwilling to take the time to wonder why Erato had fallen silent. One problem at a time, he thought.

  The bridge behind him was a frantic, noise-filled hive as operations officers conducted the external battle with the enemy shrills.

  "Hullo? Battleship up there?"

  Carras frowned. "Identify."

  "Um, this is Greah."

  "Who?"

  "I'm from Shaddallam. We're on the Eagle. Nova is sick or something."

  "Who else is aboard?"

  "Ty."

  "Not the boy?"

  "No, he's on the other ship. He's killed everybody!"

  "Let me speak to Tychon."

  Someone shouted in the background and Greah shouted back something equally unclear. Then Greah was back. "Uh, he's busy. Something broke."

  Carras swore. "Tell him to get out of the way!" He turned to his helmsman. "Destroy the rebel ship. Go through the Eagle if you have to."

  "But, sir, what about our fighters? The battle–"

  "Go!"

  * * *

  "No!" Kiran screamed into Nova's mind when he saw Teti streak after them. Nova was knocked backward, unconscious.

  Tychon hailed the rebel ship. "Kiran! You will not harm that battleship!" he said firmly, as he would at any other time when Kiran misbehaved. He's just a little boy, he told herself, knowing better. Just a little boy. "I know you can hear me. Let Nova go. You're hurting her! I want you to turn your ship back to Shaddallam. I'll be right behind you."

  The Eagle shook like a horse bucking its rider when a hit from the Teti glanced off the shields. Another volley bypassed the Eagle. This time it found its target and blasted Kiran's ship off course.

  Tychon watched in horror as the small craft righted itself and came about as if to make a stand. He waited for the final blow from the Teti.

  Kiran had other plans. Tychon changed course to follow him as he dove past Carras' battleship, dodging her fire, and raced toward the dead Erato drifting at some distance. Tychon swerved the equally maneuverable Eagle around Teti and followed closely. He did not hesitate to follow Kiran when the rebel ship dove into Erato's open launch bay where it skidded as it touched down and crushed its landing gear. Tychon set the Eagle down close to the crippled vessel. The massive bay door lowered behind them even as deadly volleys from the Teti impacted against Erato's shields.

  * * *

  Nova dragged herself to her feet and staggered toward the cockpit. Tychon tossed his headset aside and jumped from the pilot couch to catch her.

  "Kiran..." she mumbled. Why did everything seem so foggy?

  "You stay here," Tychon said to Greah. Greah didn't seem to be inclined to do much else. He stared speechlessly out of the cockpit and through the transparent wall that separated the launch from the pressurized decks where the bodies of pilots and crew lay where they had dropped. No one here had been prepared for the Tughan's rage.

  Tychon walked Nova back to the lounger. "Lie down. I'll–"

  She snatched his hand and held it to her interface node, allowing him to see the Tughan through her khamal with the child. Tychon's eyes widened in horrified surprise when he perceived what Kiran had become. Like Nova, he felt the presence of the people now dead and the terrible intelligence that made up the Tughan Wai. "No," he breathed.

  "Gone!" she gasped. "He's broken our khamal. He doesn't want you to see him." Nova tried to sit up. "He's taken control of the battleship. Leaving Shaddallam now. So fast... Carras is following. We've got to stop Kiran!"

  Tychon nodded, slowly, as if to himself. Wordlessly, he pulled his gun from its holster and left the Eagle.

  "Ty, don't," Nova cried. She groped for the edge of the lounger and lurched to her feet, her mind clearer now that the Tughan had released her. She stumbled to the cargo bay door and into Erato's landing area, stopping only to snatch a gun from its storage.

  Kiran stood near the rebel plane's ramp, coughing, his face smudged and very pale. Acrid smoke still seeped from the ship. No one else had exited.

  He stared up at his father and the gun that was pointed at his head.

  "Dadda," he cried, backing away. In spite of the lives he had taken and the vast power awakening within him, his face was that of a small boy, frightened and confused. He stumbled over a prone body on the ground and fell. Some small part of him recognized the lifeless thing and he shook his head in horrified comprehension. "I did this? Why did I do this? Why is this happening?"

  "You can still stop this, Kira!" Tychon said urgently.

  Kiran came to his feet. His expressi
on turned to outrage. "I cannot! Your own people were shooting at you to get at me. Can't you see what they've done? Can they lock me away? Can they ever live without fear of me? They will kill me, Tychon. They were prepared to destroy the whole planet to get at me. Baroch is here with me. I know what happened!"

  "You're just doing what you were designed to do. You'll have to learn some things."

  "I know everything!" Kiran's words were an accusation. "I have touched this ship and I know every Union ship ever built and some you haven't invented yet. I have touched nine hundred and twenty two people and I know things that no one will ever know. And that is only the beginning! They will not let me touch them. They will kill me if they can."

  "You are still Kiran Tar Phera and heir to Delphi."

  "I am a monster locked in the body of a child and I have no place to go!" The rage emanating from the Tughan was palpable.

  Tychon lifted his other arm to grip his gun with both hands. It still shook in his grasp as if just holding it required tremendous effort. The agony on his face was not something Nova had ever encountered. "Why won't you stop me?" he pleaded, forcing the words through gritted teeth.

  Kiran slowly shook his head. "I don't belong here, father. End this now." He closed his eyes and lifted his arms away from his body. "Do it! Before I change my mind!"

  Nova glanced at the setting of her own gun, aimed, and shot Tychon twice.

  She heard Greah's scream from inside the Eagle when Tychon was thrown some distance away where he landed painfully on a conveyor, dazed and unable to move.

  Stunned, Kiran looked from his father to Nova and the gun in her hand.

  "You have destroyed enough people," she said. "I won't let you destroy him, too. I can't!"

  This was not Kiran, she reminded herself, feeling the setting on her gun reset under her finger. This was a creature without equal, one who had killed to feed itself and would kill again to become even more powerful. Tharron was within him, as was Jelani and Pe Khoja and so many others. All of them furious, all of them grieving. Already, these entities were fighting over dominance in shaping Kiran's new personality. This thing had to die!

  Or did it? When the fury settles, when the grieving ends, would what remained not also have the right to live? Would the Tharron-presence inside the boy guide his future or would reason prevail? Would Pe Khoja's thirst for knowledge lead the Tughan to kill, or would he use this powerful new mind for greater things? How would all the others that died here today shape this creature?