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

by Chris Stephenson

  “Whoa!” Critock scrambled backwards, and quickly stood up to defend himself. “My ship blew up thanks to that pirate ka’wilak…” His throat and face distorted both physically and painfully, but Critock thought it worth the effort, no word on Earth could possibly explain his feelings toward the space pirate. “…And we only barely got out in time. I was supposed to join with Phelps, but Kyle decided to jump in my way at the exact wrong time.”

  That didn’t assuage Shanna’s aghast feelings. “Just because you did it to one person over another doesn’t make it okay!”

  “No, but saving your tiny little backwards planet might do it, don’t you think!” Critock lost control of his anger, and roared at the teenage girl. “You’re acting like I had a choice here! How many times! How many times did both Tom and I almost die for this place! I think I’m earned just a little tiny bit of leeway for that!”

  Shanna did not yell back, but she stood firm. “So you didn’t listen to The Five at all.”

  “I…” Any thought that Critock had went out of his mind, and he deflated. “What?”

  “Well, from what you said, the point of it was to be careful what you wish for, you don’t know what you’ll get. You didn’t kill the guy, and now Earth might be destroyed because of it. No, Critock. You don’t get leeway.” She walked and spoke evenly to his face, though there was no trace of happiness in her eyes. “You are here to clean up a mess that you created, and now you’re hurting someone I care about to do it.”

  Critock stood still, unable to argue. How could he? She was absolutely right. If he had done his job and fully avenged Bakkara, Earth and the Empire itself would be perfectly fine. Hell, he’d probably be in charge of the military at this point.

  Shanna continued, while putting some distance between the two of them. “You said that The Five is a children’s story. Your mom read it to you?”

  “My dad. To me and my brother.”

  “I don’t think she was doing it just to make you happy. It’s a good message. Actions have consequences. But it’s not a great story. They fought their fate so much that it destroyed them, but they never had to face up to the consequences of what happened next. They were lucky. You aren’t. You have to deal with the aftermath.”

  Critock sighed. “I guess so. Fine, yes, I made a whole lot of mistakes. Mistakes I’d love to take back but I can’t. I have to finish this with Pt’ron so nobody else is hurt. That’s what I’m doing now. Kyle wasn’t my first choice, and you know Phelps would have jumped at the chance to interact with an alien. There wasn’t any time to ask permission.”

  Shanna paused, and collected herself. “Is Kyle ok?”

  Critock sighed. “Yeah. At least I think so. He was fighting me hard for a while.”

  “Like he should.” Shanna said under her breath, and Critock chose to ignore the comment.

  “I tried to reason to him. It’s still his planet at risk. He threw a fit, then shut down sometime right about when you showed up. Then the pirate showed up, and well…”

  “Can he hear me?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know if he can even hear me right now. Joinings are tough business, and the human psyche isn’t really the most advanced in the universe. I’m just happy he didn’t go catatonic.”

  “You could have put him into a coma?!” Angry Shanna was back again.

  “Oh for…” Critock threw up his hands and walked away from her. “Yes, it’s happened. If a joining goes bad, it can effect the host seriously. It didn’t happen here, and hopefully it won’t. It might end up being a good thing for him.”

  “How in the hell could this possibly be a good thing? He’s going to end up in therapy for years!”

  “When I do leave, he’s going to keep an imprint of my brain patterns. Every Joinee does. He’s going to have access to my memories, my training, everything that I can do and that I am he’s going to know all about. Meaning that he’s going to have more knowledge about the universe than anyone else on Earth. He’ll probably end up running this place.”

  Shanna shook her head, rejecting the positive side of the occupation. “If he survives!” She turned from facing him, and started stomping away.

  Exasperated, Critock called after her. “What do you want me to do?” Shanna stopped, and said something too quiet for him to hear. “I didn’t hear you!”

  She turned around. “Take me instead.”

  “What?”

  “Take me. Jump in me. Take me over. I won’t fight, you’ll know all about computers, and Kyle will be okay.” She walked back slowly towards him.

  Critock threw up his hands at the suggestion, and was momentarily angry at himself for even considering it. “I can’t do that, Shanna.”

  “I’m asking you to! It’s my choice!”

  “And I’m telling you I CAN’T!” He roared at her, sending a brief bout of fear spreading throughout her body, as while the voice was in English, it was not Kyle’s. She looked at his face, and could tell it wasn’t out of anger that he was rejecting her request. His face was remorseful, looking genuinely sorry that he had to turn her down. Looking at him, realizing the situation, a couple of tears began to escape her eyes.

  “Why? Why can’t you?”

  “Because it doesn’t work like that.” His softer voice returned, and he cautiously approached her. “Marconians are very good at energy transference. We can change forms. There’s a humanoid form, not too different than anyone here on Earth, that we spend most of our time in. We can change into a monstrous being if there’s a fight coming, and I hope you’ll never see that. But then there’s the wisp.”

  She sniffed, and wiped the back of her hand across her nose. “Like Tom?”

  “Exactly. It’s easiest for us to jump into another body in the wisp, though the, um, battle form can do it too. But it takes so much energy and effort to just convert ourselves into another form, let alone to do a joining, that it would completely wipe me, and thus you, out. It’d be a miracle if we could make it home, let alone trying to stop Pt’ron. I am truly sorry, Shanna. I’m stuck here.”

  “Then…Then Tom! He can do it! Please…”

  “To be honest, I already asked. Don’t ask him. He won’t do it. He’s a religious type, little bit of a pain in the backside. He had a…traumatic experience once. He’ll never join again.”

  “But…But…” She breathed, still weeping softly. “You already asked?”

  “When we first got here. I was trying to get him into Phelps. It didn’t end well.”

  “Well, that’s selfish. I thought you said Marconians didn’t believe in God.”

  “I said we never saw anything that would suggest there’s an omnipotent being controlling all of this. Tom’s with the Qua’roti, and they worship the shards. They don’t believe that joinings are acceptable. For some of the same reasons you’ve already stated. He won’t budge, but he had a real bad time.”

  “Ugh, fine!” She waved her arms and stomped around for a minute. “This isn’t fair.” She whimpered.

  He came up and stood behind her. “No, no it’s not. I know it’s my fault, Shanna. Earth should have never been involved with this. I’m not asking for your forgiveness. I’m asking for your help to save the planet.”

  She turned to face him. “Why me? Why do you need my help? Surely someone else…”

  “There’s no time for anyone else, and you’re perfect. Kyle thinks so, anyway.”

  She blushed suddenly, and didn’t know what to do with her hands. “He…What?”

  Considering Kyle himself was being silent and made no attempts to interfere, he didn’t feel the need to keep from stretching the truth. “Look, I probably shouldn’t say anything, but the kid likes you. I think he probably tried to push me towards you to help, so I don’t want to disappoint him.”

  “He…likes me?”

  “I mean, I’m not up on puberty-age courting and mating rituals on this planet, but there’s an awful lot of thoughts of you in here. Nothing bad, don’t worry, and I’m
not looking through his brain. But at least from his point of view, you’re smart, and you’re probably the best person to go to in case of imminent global disaster.”

  “But…I don’t know anything about aliens or space or anything like that! I just can work with computers!”

  “And that’s exactly what we need right now. I need images of every student in school. Quality images, good enough that I can make out the irises of their eyes. Pt’ron’s going to have the same identifier that I do, that stupid black ring. I find it, I find him.”

  She tried to think as quickly as she could. “Um…Well like I said, the computers at school are the only ones that are going to have access to that kind of resolution.”

  “Which computers?”

  “Teachers. They’d have to have them so they can approve their classes prints. From there they go to the principal for final approval. I could have hacked into the general systems, but you'll need a teacher's login to get what you need, and I'm not that good.”

  Critock nodded. “Can we get in the school tonight?”

  “Not unless you want to get arrested.”

  Critock nodded. Place would be locked up tight, and alarmed. There were ways he could do it but all of them were too risky, considering they would just be there in the morning. “So we go in tomorrow, and we get on someone’s computer. We need enough time for me to scan through the photos.”

  “Phelps.”

  “What about him?”

  “He’s got first lunch tomorrow. His turn in the rotation. His room will be empty for about fifty minutes. I can skip study hall, you’ll have to skip whatever class you…Kyle is in, and we’ll have to find a way in, but that should be enough time.”

  “What time is that?”

  “Um…” She thought for a second, as she usually didn’t think about the day in time periods, just in class periods. “Before you’re in his class. Ten something.”

  Critock glanced at Kyle’s watch, and had to stare for moment before the knowledge of how to tell Earth time came to him. “That’s about three hours…Three periods out from when the Shards activate. And that’s if he shows up anyway. His house just got shot to hell, remember.”

  Shanna nodded, the conversation making the earlier events seem much longer ago. “He doesn’t miss days. He’ll be there. It’d be better if he wasn’t. We could break in first thing.”

  “You seem confident we won’t have any problems going in?”

  “This isn’t my first rodeo, spaceman.” She smirked, the earlier strife forgotten, or at least pushed aside for now.

  Critock took a heavy breath. “I hate cutting these things so damn close.”

  “Look. You wanted me involved, here I am. This is the best plan that doesn’t involve something that’s going to get someone hurt. You find him, and then what?”

  Critock closed his eyes. “I get the shards. And I finish what I started a long time ago.”

  “You’ll kill him? And whoever he’s, um, joined with?” She said, quietly.

  “I won’t have a choice. If he’s exposed, he’ll be the most dangerous creature on this planet. If it makes you feel better, you probably never knew the real person he’s inhabiting.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean?”

  Critock sighed again, unhappy that the conversation had turned this way. “When you…join with someone, your essence and consciousness slowly starts taking over everything that is the other person. For a short time it’s usually fine. For Kyle, I’m only here for a day, he won’t be effected in any permanent basis other than getting my memories. Assuming Pt’ron caught his body a long time ago, which would be the simplest, he’d have completely supplanted the host self years ago.”

  Shanna’s smirk was gone, replaced with a mask of fear. “So what happens if you don’t get out of Kyle in a day?”

  “Don’t worry.” He held up a wrist, and revealed the thin silver wristband. “It’s like a communicator. When the job is done, they’ll come and get me. I’ll jump out right on schedule, don’t worry.”

  “But…”

  “Please, Shanna.” He got much closer to her than he thought he should have, but the girl was drifting between moods so frequently he was concerned, and he needed her able to function. “I won’t let anything happen to Kyle. He had no part in this.”

  She just looked at him. “So you’d die instead of him?”

  He looked back. He wanted to lie, to say yes, he’d be the superhero that asked for nothing and sacrificed himself for the greater cause. But he couldn’t. “It’s not going to come to that.”

  “Critock?”

  “I’m not going to die. I won’t die here. I’ve got a lot left to do, another good two thousand cycles.”

  “And Kyle has no choice in this, like you said, and he’s got the rest of his life too!”

  He walked away, glancing at his watch again. “Shanna, we’ve got a plan, and it’s going to work. I’m not going to even think about anything but saving this entire planet from dying. Power of positive thinking. Good thoughts, okay?”

  Her face was firm. “Okay. I’m going home now, and you should too, it’s getting really late and my mom is going to worry. We’re going to school tomorrow, we’re going to break into Mr. Phelps classroom, and we’re going to find whoever this guy is, and you’re going to kill him.” She walked up to him one more time, so close that their noses almost touched, and her next statement left nothing to the imagination. “But if one hair on Kyle’s head is hurt, you will regret it.”

  As Shanna walked way, Critock let out an involuntary gulp. He wasn’t sure why, but he had a nervous response to her last statement. She was just a teenage girl! She was absolutely no threat to him in this body or any other! But still he was struck with the need to protect Kyle beyond just his own, but for her need as well.

  But he would not die. Not here. Not on this primitive rock that Pt’ron had stolen for his own purposes so long ago. No matter what, he would live. He would make it out of here all the way back to Marconia, and take what was rightfully his. He was General Critock, then and now, and he was going to make up for lost time, save this planet, and if it was all possible, Kyle and Shanna too! He defiantly stared up at the stars as he stood on the hill, as to deny his enemies any victory they had ever had. Critock of Marconia still lived, and he was going to win!

  22

  The first inkling that Critock had that something was wrong in Kyle’s house was the oppressive silence that seemed to fill the air from the moment he walked in. With the insanity of the last few hours, he hadn’t given any thought to Kyle’s family life, and was operating under the uneducated assumption that he would be alone tonight, which was the ideal situation. He knew that plan was dashed when he finished the rather long trek from Shanna’s hill to the house, and found an unfamiliar truck sitting in the driveway. A quick search of the unresponsive teenager’s brain discovered the truck belonging to Kyle’s father. Not expecting to have to act like the boy again until the next day, he steeled himself, searching for something, anything in Kyle’s mind that would help him. He glanced around for Tom, but true to his word, the wisp had made himself scarce to allow Critock to make his own mistakes. He figured he had retreated to Kyle’s room, to wait for him there so that they could speak in a more private atmosphere.

  He slowly opened the door to the aforementioned quiet, and waited. He knew it must be past whatever curfew that had been established for the boy, but he wasn’t going to be the first one to make a sound. He quietly moved Kyle’s body past the door, closing it gently. The silence hung still, and he allowed himself a moment to hope that Kyle’s father would have already went to bed, or went out, or whatever humans do. This hope was eliminated when he saw the older man sitting with a bowl in front of him of some kind of noodle concoction. Their eyes met, and Critock saw a look of concern and slight sadness instead of the anger that he had expected .

  Critock broke the look first, which seemed to prompt Kyle’s father to speak. “O
ut with your friends?”

  Still not prepared, he stood still as though struck dumb, and nodded.

  “Wish you would have left a note. Seems like there’s a lot of crazy people out there tonight.” Kyle’s father absent-mindedly stuck a fork into his bowl, and took a small amount of food to his mouth awkwardly.

  “Um…Sorry.” Critock said, and finally saw the bowl sitting in front of a chair across from the man. Realizing suddenly what was expected of him, he moved to the chair, sitting down and immediately assessed the food. It resembled a few dishes from a lot of different planets that he had been to. “Noodles, the universal constant.” He muttered, wishing that Tom had heard him.

  “What?” Kyle’s father raised his head from his bowl quickly, as though he was waiting for Kyle to say something.

  “Oh! Um, nothing.” There was nothing Critock hated more than being in a situation that had him off guard. There was no chance of anything to remove himself from this situation that wouldn’t send Kyle into an insane asylum or at the very least prevent him from attending school the next day and continuing with the plan. He gingerly stuck his fork through a noodle, testing both the consistency of the pasta and the abilities of the strange utensil. The silence returned, and it was so maddening it forced Critock to fill it. “Just thinking to myself.”

  “Well, you know best when it comes to yourself, I guess.” Kyle’s father was quiet for a moment, before nodding towards the television, which Critock now realized was on and showing a news report. With a start, he realized the report was showing pictures of Phelps’ smoldering house.

  “That’s where your teacher lives, isn’t it?” Critock could only nod as he watched the screen. The volume was on but low, and the scene changed to an interview with William Phelps himself. Critock could just barely make out what was being said, Kyle’s father could tell that he was straining, and brought up a remote control from the table, tapping the volume button. A few seconds later, Critock could actually follow the conversation.