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

by Chris Stephenson

  “What’s that?” Shanna exclaimed, with everything that was happening half-expecting it to be a bomb.

  Critock smirked. “My advantage. Tom, come on.” He turned to the door, Tom joining him, and Shanna started to follow. “NO.” He turned as Shanna halted immediately. “Look, I appreciate it, really I do, you want to help your friend or teacher or whatever he is. I don’t have time to play babysitter right now. We need your help and that means we need you alive, and unless you’ve got some kind of military experience or something else that you can offer then you’re no good to us. Please, just stay here.” Critock started to turn when Shanna put a hand on his arm.

  “Kyle, please!”

  He pulled his arm free and continued to walk out the door. “I’m not Kyle.” Together, Critock and Tom left the house, leaving Shanna alone to attempt to process everything that had happened.

  19

  The sun was starting to disappear behind the line of two-story houses in Kyle’s neighborhood, and the sky had changed from its regular blue into a more orange-yellow hue. Critock was running, the first time he was using Kyle’s muscles for serious exertion, and he could tell as he ran that it wasn’t something that the boy did often. Already he felt weary, and slight pain was starting to occur from overexertion. He made a mental note that if he ever spoke to Kyle again that he would recommend a regimen of exercise.

  Tom moved along with him, slightly ahead, trying to find a path through the houses to their destination. The problem that both were running into was although they had a fair general knowledge of the surroundings, Tom due to the learning machine he had been in and Critock due to the limited access he had of Kyle’s mind, neither one of them had good directions other than to follow the sounds and sights of the pirate firing into Mr. Phelps’ house. Kyle had never been there, in fact didn’t know he lived so close to the teacher, so he was useless in this regard. Most of the houses had their backyards with high fences so cutting through was not an option, causing the pair to wait until they hit a cross street that was going in the direction they wanted to go.

  “Fly up and see what’s going on!” Critock called to Tom, who didn’t reply, but just ascended into the sky. While the wisp was in the air, Critock found a crossing street, and headed right, jumping over a large rock in the process. There were quite a few people outside looking over in the direction of the attack, but other than the pirate’s ship occasionally coming close and then heading back in a loose holding pattern, there was nothing to see.

  Tom scanned the sky, and watched the ship move over the house. After a couple moments he came back down and momentarily panicked when he realized he had lost sight of his partner. He quickly located the cross street, and caught up to Critock, still moving fast towards their destination, although at this point he was breathing very heavy. “It’s still there! Not shooting though. Probably trying to see if he got Phelps or not.”

  “Someone let him in on the original plan!” Critock yelled as he ran. “If he thinks I’m Phelps, he’s not going to stop until that whole house is a hole in the ground, and then probably the school after that.”

  “What’s the plan?”

  “Get to his house, figure something out. I can’t run and plan in this body.” He was wheezing almost as he spoke, having to pause to gasp every time there was an opening.

  “Want me to go ahead?”

  “No! He knows you’re here too. He might not be able to see you, but that ship’ll have a few detectors on it. We’ll get up there and then take it slow.”

  Tom sighed. “Fine.” In silence, the pair reached a stop sign as the street they were on exited the residential section and hit a two lane highway. Cars moved past quickly on both sides. They had no way of knowing that there had been a stoplight there that would have helped their cause, but it had been removed a few months ago and replaced with the solitary sign. Critock tried to edge into the road but he didn’t want to risk getting hit, not knowing anything about this planet’s primitive travel.

  “We have to get past!” Tom zoomed back and forth.

  “You can fly over! I can’t! Can you lift me?”

  “Do I look like a strong soul? It was all I could do to get the sword down here!” Tom groaned, then stopped. “Okay. I’ll go up to the ship, and blind him. Hopefully he’ll crash.”

  Critock shook his head. “He’ll see you coming a mile away.” He looked helplessly back and forth at the cars, with no real break coming. Down the road a ways he could just make out a stoplight, and was preparing to make another run for it, damn his body, when he heard a voice call out from behind him.

  “Or you hop on, and we get there in two minutes.” They both turned in surprise to find Shanna Ewing standing, her hands on her bicycle handles, one foot on the ground and one foot on the pedal of her neon red bike, ready to take off at a second’s notice.

  Tom sighed. “For the love of…”

  Forgetting the street, and what lay behind the trees that were blocking the view to the subdivision beyond where Phelps’ home and the pirate ship were, Critock turned angrily at Shanna. “I told you not to come with us. This isn’t something you can possibly understand!”

  “And you had me come to your house, and risk getting me thrown out of school so I can hack in and get your damn pictures. I don’t know what the hell is going on with you, but you’ve already dragged me in the middle of this, so you can either get run over in the street and let Phelps die or you can shut up and let me help you.”

  Critock stopped, glanced at Tom, and shrugged. “She makes a good point. Fine, but when we get there, stay hidden.”

  Shanna nodded as Tom growled. “Critock, you have got to…”

  Critock cut him off. “So how do I…?”

  She took her hands off the bike. “Sit on the handlebars, give me enough space to move.” He quickly jumped on, sticking the sword cylinder into his belt tightly, and she started to pedal, finding it hard to balance. As they started to move, he found he had to spread his legs slightly, as Shanna had to put her face very close to his, looking over his shoulder. “This good?” He asked.

  “Yeah. Little rough to get started with both of us. Hang on.” He put his hands on both sides of his rear, grabbing what little space there was and unavoidably brushing against her hands. She smiled as she slowly rode back the way they had come from, and then turned around and looked down upon the street, and Critock suddenly realized with some terror what her plan was. She happily hollered as they started moving faster towards the intersection.

  “Wait. WAIT!” He yelled.

  “Too late!” She whooped as they passed the stop sign. “Here we go!”

  As Tom worriedly flew overhead, the bicycle with both occupants holding on for dear life rushed into traffic, narrowly missing a car in the process. Shanna quickly directed the bike to the right, and it turned quickly, settling into the space between the lanes as the car that had almost hit them instinctively swerved and honked at them. She rode quickly to where another road joined on the left, and Critock glanced at the car next to them, its occupants looking at them with a look of horror. He noticed Shanna reaching for a lever next to her left hand, and even though he had no idea what a bicycle was, he knew what was about to happen. He just said “No…”

  She said. “Yes!” As she pulled the brake, and they watched the car rush past them. Immediately she swerved to the left, and before the car directly in front of them could strike them, they moved again into the side street, finally getting past the intersection and back towards their goal. Shanna was not slowing down even though they were past the danger, though, as she hadn’t forgotten the reason they had done this. Critock, through the panic, was holding on so tightly his knuckles were white from the stress.

  “Yeah, that was safe!” Tom called down, relieved that they had made it through but angry that they had done it in the first place, especially with a civilian!

  “I didn’t say it was safe, comet!” She called up, forgetting how strange this all was in
the adrenaline of the moment. “But it’s getting us there, isn’t it?”

  “Yeahhh…” Critock finally emitted a word, though it was more of a groan.

  “Oh come on, you’re acting like you’ve never been on a bike before!” Shanna laughed as she quickly made a turn.

  “I hadn’t.” He said quietly, as they maneuvered through a twist in the road, which entered them into the subdivision where Phelps’ house lay. Immediately they could see the ship, which was currently firing at the neighbor’s house directly to the right of Phelps. His house itself was scarred, with several small fires burning on the roof among other holes and damage, but at the least it was still standing. The group was silent as they took it in, Tom moving closer to Critock in an attempt to hide himself, suddenly spooked due to the comment made about the ship’s sensors.

  Together, they arrived at a point where the ship had swung away from the house in the opposite direction, inevitably to return in a moment. Critock jumped off the slowing bike and ran ahead, as Tom moved just behind him, Shanna dropping the bike, swinging a leg around and jumping off herself. All three ducked behind a bush next to Phelps’ chain-link fence. Critock looked around the backyard, noting that it was mostly empty other than a large tree in the middle that was higher than the house itself, and silently started to develop a plan in his head. “Ok, got something. Tom, stay here with Shanna, make sure she’s safe.”

  “Now wait a minute…” Tom and Shanna both spoke at the same time, and Critock spun around.

  “Tom, we need her safe. If you have to come along, make sure she’s far away from here before you join me. Shanna, you got us here, we appreciate it, but now it’s time for me to do what I do. You’re good with computers, you’ll be the best help there. Now please, stay put.” He got up to leave again when she grabbed his shoulder.

  “I…I still don’t understand.”

  Critock sighed, and faced her, taking the opportunity to retrieve the cylinder where he had slipped it into his belt. “Shanna, I’m not Kyle. I came here from another planet. Second star to the right, keep going for about a billion years. I’m here to find one of our people, get rid of him, and save the world.” She looked blankly at him. “Ok. That…” He pointed at the ship. “Is a bad guy.” She nodded. “I’m going to stop him. We’ll cover the rest when I get back, okay?” Their eyes met, and she nodded, hers starting to water. The adrenaline of the adventure was starting to wear off.

  He got up slowly. She called one last time to him. “You’re really not Kyle, are you?”

  He shook his head, and started to walk. “No.”

  “Then who are you?”

  Not breaking his stride, he retrieved the cylinder, and activated it. The cylinder expanded out into the sword quickly, instantly sparking with orange electricity, causing Shanna’s eyes to widen. As he walked alone, fully exposed as the pirate’s ship began to turn back towards the house, he muttered just loud enough for her to hear.

  “I’m the good guy.”

  20

  The ship swung back around, targeting the two-story structure below, and peppered a volley of lasers down upon it. As with the last several times that this had taken place over the last few minutes, the shots impacted what appeared to be a primitive domicile and went straight through the roof and the walls. From what little could be detected from the inside, there were indications that several small fires had started. Left unchecked, it would collapse in a very short time period. The pirate Oi’Ramal growled behind his unneeded breathing mask as he moved past the house and once again flew over the collection of similar domiciles below, looking down upon the wretches of this backwards planet. He did not understand how they were lacking basic security instruments such as shielding or reinforced giranal building materials meant to take more firepower than even his ship had handy. Glancing down at the curious and panicked Earth dwellers, he considered firing on them directly, but decided against it, not thinking them worth the energy. This planet would likely be destroyed soon enough anyway regardless if the missiles were going to arrive on target and schedule. It was no matter to him, he had his mission and he would see it carried out.

  After tailing his target all the way to the planet and intercepting them, he had initially thought that would have been the end of it and he could progress to phase 2, the destruction of the school and ideally the recovery of the Shards for his employer. Those hopes had been dashed when he had seen out of the corner of his eye the two white lights of wisps spiraling down to the surface, undoubtedly to complete the first part of their own plan. At that point, he didn’t have much choice but to contact his employer for further instructions. His payment was halved, but he received the information he needed, the individual that had been targeted for an emergency joining by the disgraced soldier. Now here he was, beginning to feel that he was wasting his time. There was no sign that there was anyone at home, no one had come screaming out at the sky, and he was having issues detecting any kind of life signs either before or now. Just the people in the streets below, and a couple figures near the house, probably trying to get a closer look. And why shouldn’t they? This was probably the biggest thing to happen to this planet since they had invented nuclear fission.

  He adjusted a breathing tube attached to his mask, a device that he didn’t particularly require to be around this planet’s atmosphere but it did improve his intake levels, and started to retarget. At this point he decided to just set to hover and collapse the house. The next most likely place to strike his target was the school itself anyway, so taking care of both parts at the same time would likely earn him the good graces of his employer again, and perhaps restore his payment at the end of all this.

  Right before he inputted his final commands was when he saw the figure breaking away from the pack around the entrance to the rear of the house, and moved towards the middle of the rear grassy area. He saw an hand extend and suddenly knew that he had been targeting the wrong location. The sword of Kon was there in the figure’s hand! His target was somewhere else altogether! He hurried to reset his systems as the figure broke out in a straight run for the lone large tree in the middle of the yard. Oi’Ramal depressed the screen and the shots fired, but slightly too late, and striking the ground behind and around the figure as it reached the tree. He emitted a larger growl and cursed the maneuverability of his craft, as it moved past the tree. It would take him a moment to come around, but when he did, this would end, and he would claim the ancient sword as his prize!

  Finally, I’m back in my element. Critock thought as the laser blasts rang around him, kicking up dirt and grass. The shots fortunately had all missed through no work of his own, all he had to do was run as quickly as Kyle’s weary legs could carry him and that was enough. He correctly assumed that the pirate, if that was the same one, hadn’t had the benefit of getting a primer on Earth, whether through Tom’s learning machine or his own attachment to an Earth-bound brain. So he would have no idea at the speed, or what Earthlings could actually do. He noted the ship soar past him as he neared the sole skinny tree, and he hoped that both Kyle’s body and the tree limbs would keep up with what he had in mind. With a quick leap, he grabbed two branches and hefted himself up, using the velocity of his body as fuel to spring up into the tree itself. Without pausing he climbed quickly up the branches, through the sticks that poked his skin. The higher up he went he noted more of the multi-colored leaves and would have thought them worth looking at if he had the time, but there was no stopping him until he reached the top of the tree, which reached to approximately the height of the middle of the second story. His feet stood balanced on a top branch that miraculously supported his weight, and he turned smoothly to face the pirate’s craft, now having turned around and was moving right towards him. He stretched out his arm, again activating the Sword of Kon, and smiled slightly as its electricity arced out more furiously than before, almost as though it too was anticipating the battle. Laser shots rung out from the ship, but were slow enough that Critock swung his s
word, knocking them away seamlessly. The pirate kept coming at him, and he braced himself. He knew the ship wasn’t going to come too near the tree for fear of crashing, but since firing at him wasn’t accomplishing anything the next trick was to try to scare him off balance. Once he had fallen, he would be easy pickings. So it was a game of chicken, then. He braced himself as much as possible as the ship continued to aim directly at him.

  At the last possible moment, the ship moved upward slightly, just enough to miss the tree and Critock completely but still close enough for him to reach out and touch it. Which was exactly what Critock was hoping for. With a quick motion, he stabbed upward with both hands with the sword, causing it to drive into the fuselage of the craft. At the same time, he strengthened his grip on the sword, having mentally braced himself for what was to happen next. The ship kept going, its pilot unaware that his hull had been slightly breached, and the sword and Critock went with it. With a quick jerk that caused a significant amount of pain to his wrists, he was pulled along with the craft, the metal catching and supporting Critock’s weight.

  The pirate looked back at the tree and saw nothing, and laughed mightily at his apparent victory. The enemy was dead! His reward was assured! Now he could move on to the rest of the plan, which was far, far simpler. He steered the ship away from the house in the direction of the school, and primed his weapons for maximum destructive power.

  Shanna had been watching with mixed amounts of bemusement from watching Kyle climb a tree, and then horror at him being carried away with the vessel. She ran slightly after him before her brain caught up with her body. She uselessly called out Kyle’s name as she watched the ship soar away, her eyes never leaving Kyle’s body dangling beneath it.