The Joining: The Saga of the Shards Book One (The Cycle of the Shards 1)

by Chris Stephenson

  He stopped as he heard the muffled voice of the teacher. This wasn’t his style. He was much more the type to run in, shoot the problem in the head or wherever their brains were located, and leave. Quick and easy. Subterfuge was not something he was comfortable with, especially within a species he knew nothing about, as well as being a student! How was he supposed to pretend to learn information that was eons behind what he had already learned years before he was of the age these kids are! And that was hundreds of years ago! He didn’t think he even had the capacity to pretend he was on their level, he could probably no more do that than pretend he was a baby! Hell, Marconian children had knowledge streamed to them from birth in order to have the best possible start, what would a Human baby even be! He stopped himself, took deep breaths, and looked up. The best thing he could do now is just go back to his training. Absorb knowledge as best he can from Kyle’s thoughts and memories and from the students around him, and use that. If these kids thought something was off, at least they wouldn’t suspect his true identity. The only one that he would be concerned about is Pt’ron, but even he, being acclimated to this planet for so long, would probably not suspect him. He knew his target well enough, at least he used to, to know that once in place for a while he would feel safe and secure in his deception. And this has been hundreds of years of deception. It would not totally surprise Critock if Pt’ron had gone native and almost completely forgot who he was. Satisfied and feeling more confident, Critock opened the door to the classroom.

  The first impression that Critock had of the room was not positive. Desks cluttered everywhere, and way too many of them. Over twenty people in the room, most of which obviously not paying any attention to the instructor. Those that were trying to pay attention were also writing down points, dividing their attention between that and a course book that was also supposed to be followed. How was anyone supposed to teach using these arcane methods? How was anyone supposed to pay attention with three or four things to look at once? He shook his head as he entered the room. Madness. What did impress him, at least, was the model of the galaxy that was suspended over the room on wires. The scale was mostly correct, at least from the brief moments he had glanced over the galactic map on his now-destroyed hopper, and it gave him a small amount of hope. Most planets in the age that Earth was in didn’t think much to the boundaries outside their little world, focusing instead on their narrow religions and wars that failed to take into account the limited lifespan of their world and what could be out there in the infinite void. He referenced Kyle’s memory to navigate to his seat, and failed to notice that since he had entered the room that Phelps had stopped teaching, and the room had become eerily silent. He settled in the uncomfortable chair, shifting a couple times to find the most comfortable position, and only then glanced around the room, realizing that every eye was on him, looking at him with a mixture of concern and curiosity. He had a sudden memory of how it must have looked when he ran out of the room, bleeding and barely coherent, and now coming back in like nothing had happened. He didn’t know how to react.

  “Kyle, are you okay?” Mr. Phelps asked, peering over his glasses.

  “Yeah?” It wasn’t intended to be a question but his mastery of Kyle’s voice had not been completed as of yet.

  “I can give you a pass down to the nurse if you like, that looked like a nasty fall.” He glanced towards two empty seats, which Critock could remember were the ones that had tripped Kyle in the first place. It was their fault that Critock was in the position he was in the first place, and he hoped that he could find a way for either he or Kyle, or somehow both of them, to make them pay for the danger they just put both their worlds in.

  Realizing that the teacher was looking for an answer, he quickly shook his head, which luckily seemed to be something that was in common with Marconians as an answer in the negative. “No, no, everything’s fine. All good.” He smiled at Mr. Phelps, though due to the muscles involved looked awkward.

  “O…k…” Phelps looked at the boy strangely, and then turned around to continue teaching. He had enough to do right now than to continue focusing on Kyle, he had rid himself of the culprits that had sent him out of the room in the first place, having made sure they were down at the office. He needed to finish today’s lesson plan before the bell rang. He addressed the class in whole, his voice louder and commanding. “All right, now that we know everyone’s alive, we can finish up today with Jupiter.” He pointed towards the largest of the nine orbs hanging in the room. Critock looked at the orb along with the rest of the class, and found it startlingly familiar. “Largest planet in the solar system, made of gas. Nasty place. Known for…Anyone?”

  With a start, Critock realized where he had seen the planet before. He couldn’t stop himself from blurting out “The storm.”

  Phelps stopped, and looked at Kyle, surprised again. He couldn’t remember the last time the boy had actually spoken out in class. Of all things, could this be the topic that finally got him interested? He continued.

  “Yes! The great, red spot. Named after the Roman God, Jupiter is large enough to swallow the rest of the planets whole a couple times over. Now, how far from earth do you think it is?”

  Critock couldn’t stop himself. He had just made the trip a few hours earlier, after all, and was surprised how easy Kyle’s brain made the conversion into Earth’s distances. “About 500 million miles or so. At least today. Not that bad. Quick trip.” He stopped when he realized how much he had said.

  Phelps stopped, and then laughed, and there were also a few chuckles around the room. Critock stole a glance around quickly, trying to catch anyone that was giving away too much with their response. If Pt’ron was in this room, however, he wasn’t overly showing it by any obvious way. Disappointing, though starting a fight right here right now was not the ideal outcome, so he’d still have to find another way than to wait for some sort of unearthly reaction.

  For Phelps, however, this was almost a revelation. He lived for one of his students suddenly showing he had an interest in what he was talking about. He couldn’t stop now. “Well, a quick trip if you had a warp drive or hyper drive or something like that. But how else would you get there? What’s the quickest way that you can think of, shoot some ideas off me.”

  Critock looked around. Wasn’t there anyone else he could ask? “I’m not a scientist.”

  The rest of the class had faded away, Phelps wasn’t letting this moment wane. “Doesn’t matter, humor me, how would you get to Jupiter? Use your imagination, I know you’ve got one somewhere!”

  Critock sighed. Fine, guy wanted ideas? Sneak peek of the future coming up. “Ok, fine. If you don’t care about how much time it takes? Solar sail. Strap on one of those, hope for a good Solar wind, it’ll probably take you a few years, but you’ll get there. If you’ve got access to an unstable wormhole in the area, that’s an option, but it’s risky. You’re likely to get ripped apart by the forces going in, or make a wrong calculation and get thrown a few million light years in the wrong direction. Forgot about black holes, you’re just as likely to get into a completely different universe. Not fun. Warp drives and Hyper drives? Kids stuff, doesn’t work. Tears in space. Shortcut through subspace. Quickest way to get you where you’re going.” He stopped, again realizing that he said too much. The rest of the room was quiet, looking at him strangely. Still nobody looking the way that Pt’ron would, and nobody looking at him as oddly as Mr. Phelps was.

  Phelps opened his mouth just as the bell started to ring. Critock was confused for a moment until the memories reminded him what the bell was for, and it was time to leave to eat. He slowly stood up, hoping that his unnecessary outburst wasn’t going to go to the wrong ears, at least not until he was in a better position to do something about it. “Kyle, hang on a moment.” It took him a moment of movement, but Critock realized that Phelps was talking to him. He stopped and turned around.

  “Sorry about that, I don’t know my own imagination sometimes.” Critock tried to wa
lk back his explanation, though every one of the options that he presented were feasible, if not the most reliable.

  Phelps shook it off. “Where did that come from? You’ve been so quiet, I had thought you had no interest in space from the way you acted.”

  Critock sighed. “Believe me, space is foremost on my mind.” He didn’t want to waste time here, alone with the one person he knew for a fact was not a threat, or his goal. “Can I, uh, go? I’m a bit hungry.” Critock lied, eating Earth food was not something he was looking forward to, and considered fasting for the duration.

  “Oh! Yes, of course, just keep that imagination Kyle. With the way the world is, you need it!” Critock nodded slowly, and backed up, then turned and moved out of the room, leaving a beaming teacher in his wake. Critock shook his head. Sometimes it was so easy to impress people. He slowly moved, getting his bearings and still trying to get used to accessing the memories of an unfamiliar mind, and realized he was getting near to a mass of students, all conglomerating to move through the halls together. Most of them seemed to be going in the same direction he was heading, towards the lunchroom, while others were navigating the sea of people to reach their respective lockers or classrooms. Critock’s fight-or-flight response was going into overdrive as he realized that likely one of the people around him could very well be his target. Pt’ron was here! His mind seemed to scream at him, and he knew it wasn’t Kyle trying to edge past his consciousness this time. He’s right here! He could be anyone! He tried to suppress his urges to lash out, or run to a better vantage point. He was safe. Nobody knew he had come here. Pt’ron was unaware. Even if he was right in front of him, his enemy would never know he was here for him.

  Almost as if on queue, Critock found his slow path blocked by a big, bulky boy, who glowered down at him with a snarl. “It’s lunchtime, jerk.” Brian Boyd looked at Kyle, to his eyes the same boy that had been annoying him for some time.

  Critock was already annoyed at the situation, but now he had to hold himself back. Who the hell was this now? He didn’t even want to expend the energy to try and seek out this idiot in Kyle’s memories. But he didn’t want to cause an incident either. He just nodded, confirming the asinine statement. “Yes, yes it is.”

  Brian was getting increasingly mad. How dare this kid brush him off? Critock attempted to step out of the way, but the bully, not understanding at all the changing of the status quo, blocked his path. “Look, I know you think you’ve started to grow a pair, but you need to remember how things work. But I’m cool, I’ll tell you what. Double your usual payment for the next week or so, and we’ll forget this ever happened.” Brian smiled, having decided that profit was better than the pleasure of giving this kid a lesson.

  Critock had no idea what was happening. He had been out of the classroom for what, two minutes, and already being accosted by a pitiful excuse of what this planet called a bully? The earlier compulsion to reveal himself to the world rose within him, but this time he was able to suppress it. Causing an act of violence to a child, even one that was acting the way this one was, would cause too much attention too early. A sudden idea occurred to him, and instead of answering immediately, Critock just stared Brian directly in his eyes, looking closely with a stern look. Brian, of course, didn’t know how to take this.

  “What are you doing? Stop that? Ew!” Brian moved back quickly, blinking. Was this a challenge?

  Critock stood unmoving. The best way to handle people like this is to take them head on. Of course, he realized, he had the advantage even if the bully didn’t see it, having eons of military training and experience. If he wanted to use his abilities to their full effect, this guy was a dead man walking, even if he wasn’t Pt’ron. He also knew that bullies like him weren’t used to being challenged. So he waited to see what the response would be.

  Brian took a breath. He would not let this jerk ruin his day. So he wasn’t going to get paid anymore. That’s okay. There were other people he could get money from. Right now this guy had everything he had coming to him, and it was all past due.

  Critock saw the bully’s stance change, and he knew a punch was coming. He prepared himself to redirect the strike and the energy of the boy, and planned a response of his own. He could hear Kyle’s voice yelling in his ear from far away. “Stop!” But he didn’t have time to investigate just who this guy was or what the repercussions could be from an altercation. He was here in this impossible situation, with the fate of the Empire to deal with, and he wasn’t about to let some primitive child challenge him.

  Before anything could happen, they both heard a voice, startling them out of their planning. “Hey! You want to fight, you do it outside of school!” Both looked and saw a elderly female teacher looking at them, trying in vain to control the traffic of the hundreds of students that were filling the halls. They looked at her, and then back to each other, and Brian smiled at Critock’s glaring face.

  “Saved again, jerk. Watch your back.” Whistling an unrecognized tune, Brian moved away from him, merging with the students going the opposite direction. Critock looked at the teacher, who had already began marching towards a couple that were getting a bit too friendly with each other, and took a breath before walking again. The anger within him was subsiding, and he took a moment to actually take stock. He was letting his rage take control of him. All the injustice and all the unfairness that had led him to becoming a bounty hunter had fueled him through his career, and now he was carrying that over into the current task, multiplied by the situation he now found himself in. He listened, and Kyle was quiet again, and he began walking in the direction of the lunchroom again, this time looking up memories of this bully and seeing how he could better handle him should they cross paths again.

  “Oh….Oh.” Critock muttered to himself as he entered the lunchroom, almost pushed along with the mass of students. So Kyle and this Brian had a history. Nothing about what Critock saw in memories made him want to take care of the bully any less, and not for the first time felt sorry for Kyle. He was sure there was some kind of traumatic experience or shattered home life that was causing the bully to act the way he did, but there was no excuse for his actions. His constant pattern had to end, and maybe he would feel better about invading Kyle’s life the way he did if he could do something to make it better after he left. Granted, if the boy retained any of Critock’s training, he supposed that he would be able to take care of pretty much any situation no matter how big the bully, or army for that matter. He got the idea to stand in the queue after observing the students, and awkwardly took a tray. Instead of just putting his tray on the rack and sliding it along allowing the lunch servers to just drop the mostly unidentifiable glops, he held out the tray almost to their faces.

  “No, no honey, slide it along.” He had thought he was helping them, but he felt slightly embarrassed when he noticed the other students looking at him strangely. Sheepishly he put the tray back along the grooves, and slid it along.

  “What was that?” A tall boy sidled up along side him as they went through the line. He had done so smoothly, and even though he had jumped in front of someone else the other student just looked at his smile and chose not to say anything.

  “Uh, nothing. Thought it might be easier for them.” Critock glanced at the boy, unable to get a good look at his eyes.

  “They’ve got a system, look at them.” The other boy was right, every one of the lunch workers were doing their job almost as an assembly line. He needed to observe situations more before he threw himself into them. Primitive cultures tend to get upset when anything changes their way of doing things, Critock reminded himself, and continued to move as a white lump of what was labeled as mashed potatoes was added to the tray. He racked his memories, and chanced upon the boy that was talking to him. Known him for years, had a brief bout of pubescent rebellion, but other than that, this ‘Daniel’ seemed all right. He mentally put him on the low priority list, though he would still find a way to check him just like everyone else. He knew tha
t at this point Pt’ron could very well think he’s just like any other student.

  “You’re right. If it works for them.” Critock effected a shrug, and the pair moved on.

  “So, you’ve been pretty antisocial lately, just hanging out outside.” Daniel just let the statement hang in the air, giving Critock an opportunity to answer. Critock himself was lost, not sure what Kyle had done before he had shown up and had been trying desperately to give the kid his privacy, but he supposed if he had to pretend to be him for a day a few light prods into his recent history would be okay.

  A beat passed as Critock glanced through. “It’s been nice, just enjoying the weather. I don’t mind sitting by myself once in a while. Helps me find myself.” In more ways than one, Critock thought, as he wouldn’t mind a moment alone to get his bearings straight.

  Unfortunately, it seemed Daniel had no intention of letting that happen. “Seems like all you found out there was Brian, and that asshole’s on the warpath today. Sit down with us! Safety in numbers!” Critock thought for a moment, and realized it would probably look very strange if he isolated himself. And he may need assistance in his task, even if it was unwitting. He nodded at his ‘friend’.

  “Good point. Stronger together than apart. Good military strategy.” They reached the checkout, and Critock fished in his pockets. He realized that he had no idea what money was in this world as he pulled out some bills with unfamiliar slogans and faces on it. He glanced at the cash register, hoped that math was a constant across the universe, and was relieved when he was given money back. The lunch lady was looking at him strangely, but she smiled anyway and wished him a good day. Daniel followed, completing the transaction much more smoothly, and continued talking all the way.