Tomkari guided the hopper right up to the base of the mighty tornado, and then suddenly moved the ship as close as he could to the swell of it, beginning to fly parallel vertically alongside it, all the way up, and all the while continuing to accelerate. The ship groaned and complained all the way up with it’s creaks, and for the first time Critock was the concerned one. “Tomk, this isn’t going to work, the ship can’t take it!”
“Trust me.” Tomkari just repeated, and continued to fly.
The pirate growled. He saw where the trick was going. Following the tornado up was a fools errand, and would likely lead to the destruction of the vessel. But if they were able to get lost among the sight and sound and fury of the tornado, they could escape from him. This was something he could not allow. Throwing caution away, the pirate accelerated to the tornado and began to cautiously climb upwards. Just as Tomkari was hoping for.
Just as the pirate’s ship had reached the tornado, Tomkari directed the hopper to begin spiraling around and around the tornado itself, still going upwards but also sideways. To Critock it seemed the whole world was spinning and he just sat back and clutched his chair for dear life. To the pirate it seemed suicidal but he could not lose the ship now. He couldn’t lose his victory! He joined in alongside the tornado, turning his craft at a sharp angle and began spiraling upward slightly behind the hopper. Immediately he realized that this was a mistake. He felt the full force of wind ripping at his ship, and realized all too late that while he was keeping up for a moment, the turns were getting sharper, and maneuverability was not the strength of this vessel.
Three rotations later, it all came to a head. Tomkari was still accelerating as safely as he could, and the Pirate was finding it harder and harder to maintain speed and keep up with the smaller craft. It was a stray gust of wind that moved the Pirate’s ship that much closer to the tornado that ended it. Knowing he was lost as his wing clipped the side of the tornado and began to swallow the ship whole, he fired wildly, with one last blast of anger and hatred, as the ship disappeared into the tornado.
Critock whooped, but Tomkari was silent, still concentrating. He backed off on the acceleration, and slowly began getting farther and farther away from the tornado, still rising towards space. After what seemed like an eternity, the ship broke away, moving through the cloud cover in the sky, and accelerated quickly to escape the planet’s gravity along with the graves of the pirates that had threatened them.
Once they were free, the air seemed to escape from Tomkari as he floated lower, and lower, and then finally rested on the ground, and Critock turned to him, awestruck. “Where the hell did you learn to fly like that?”
Tomkari mentally turned the controls back to manual. “Lot of simulators. I like ships. Your Zeta-Class has an extra stabilizer, which helped. Can we still make it to Earth?”
“Yeah, nothing important damaged. Sensors, proximity, weapons. We don’t need them for a landing. At least we better not. We’ve also lost some time, you ready?”
“To be honest, I’m more ready now than I was. Though I think I need to rest.”
“You do that, you’ve earned it.” As Tomkari went back to the rear quarters on the hopper, Critock marveled at how lucky he was to have met the soul. After that flight, he didn’t think there was anyone else living that he would rather fly with. He adjusted the controls, and the ship resumed its previous course. Earth was closer than ever, and it was time to begin.
9
The second hand refused to move in any manner that resembled a regular second. Part of the problem was that Kyle refused to take his eyes off of it. For a period he had tried to ignore it but refusing to watch a pot will also not cause it to boil any faster, and combined with that was the frustration of not knowing, and hoping that when he finally looked back that the time would have miraculously jumped ahead an minute, an hour, something that would move him towards the inevitable fate. The wait was all there was, and it had consumed him.
Currently in math, the teacher had called on him a number of times with some inane word problem or something involving the current location of the letter x. If he had been feeling sarcastic he would have replied that it was right there and further questions were unnecessary, but today he just had a blank face as the teacher gave up and moved on to the old fallback: worksheets. He had filled out a couple questions more-or-less correctly, but his full attention was still on the clock. Every slow tick brought him closer and closer to Science class, which brought him into contact with a few of Brian Boyd’s cronies, though not Brian himself, fortunately. He didn’t share any classes with the bully, which would have been its own special kind of hell.
Even then, it was the period after science that he both dreaded and could not wait for. At lunch time they were left to their own devices, and he knew that, unless something had happened to him before hand, Brian would be there, and regardless of teachers or other classmates he knew that nothing was going to stop the confrontation. And then the aftermath, no matter what took place, how would that effect the rest of the day? The rest of school? His father? Shanna? He looked at the second hand crossing the 12 number, sighed, and continued his worksheet.
It felt like hours, but in fact was only a few more minutes before the bell rang, and Kyle felt his stomach drop. He picked up his feet and forced himself to move out of the classroom. He wanted to move faster. The faster he moved, the faster he could get into his seat and not have to risk running into any of Brian’s friends. But curiously his legs refused to move any faster, like they were being weighed down by the fear and dread that was rapidly taking over the rest of his body. If it was already this bad, he thought, what was it going to be like when lunchtime hit?
As though his body had been trying to tell him that there was an imminent confrontation, Kyle rounded the corner to the hallway and ran straight into Brian himself, who had been standing in the hallway talking with the very same friends that Kyle was hoping to avoid: A rather dopey looking boy by the name of Travis who had only just avoided being put into remedial learning, and a tough looking girl, Melissa. While his underlings grinned at him, Brian looked down at Kyle. Kyle, for his part, was terrified, but still met his gaze. He decided that whatever was going to happen, was going to happen, and there was nothing he could do for it but to face it with courage. At least now he wasn’t going to have to wait another period.
They both heard the clearing of a throat, and turned and saw Mr. Phelps, his arms folded. “Is there a problem, gentlemen?”
Both muttered. “No.”
“Cause I could just get you both right back to the office, I hear it’s even nicer today than yesterday.”
“No.”
“Then I suggest you two,” He Pointed at Melissa and Travis. “Get into the room before the bell rings, and you,” He stared straight at Brian. “Go wherever it is that you go.”
Melissa and Travis muttered quietly to each other as they moved off, and Brian held his stare with Kyle a moment longer. “Lunch.” It was not a command, or a part of conversation. It was both a warning and a promise. Then he moved off as well, disappearing into a rush of students trying to both get to their lockers and their classes before the bell ended the free time. Kyle was about to move when he realized Mr. Phelps was still standing there looking at him, and also that he was not commanded to go anywhere. Phelps walked up to him.
“Kyle, wait a moment.” As much as he had been hoping that the situation with Brian would pass, involving a teacher was not something he was willing to do. It seemed silly, but he did have his pride, and hiding behind anyone of any kind of authority instead of solving the problem himself was just going to be a one way ticket to future problems. So he stood, somewhat defiant, waiting for Phelps to say what he had to say.
“Kyle, I know you’ve had a rough day. Hell, I know you aren’t having an easy time with Brian. But you’re smart, you can’t just let these guys run over you. Is there anything you want to tell me? Anything going on that I should know about?”
Mr. Phelps appraised him silently, and looked slightly disappointed. Kyle had been one of the ones that he thought might do something interesting, and instead to him it looked like he might become just another statistic, trudging through school and then later life. But, there was nothing else he could do. The bell rang, reminding him that he had twenty-five other students to teach, and there was no time to deal with the one. Maybe there’d be another chance later to have a real conversation with the boy. “All right, c’mon, lets get in there.”
The two walked into the classroom, Kyle first. Phelps closed the door behind him and marched up the separation between the desks, and took a left to where his own desk and the chalkboard were. To the right was the lone window looking out on the day, and a pencil sharpener, which Phelps long had thought should have been moved as more than one student would lose themselves in imagining themselves outside instead of quickly sharpening and returning to their seat. Today being a especially nice day considering the season, the window was open, letting in a small breeze. Kyle sat in his chair, sighing. The dread and fear in his gut were still there, and were still intensifying. Trying to ignore the glances and giggles from both Melissa and Travis as they whispered to each other, he tried to concentrate on what it was that Mr. Phelps was saying, but it kept getting lost on the what ifs and the strain of the day. He glanced out the window, trying to imagine he was anywhere and anyplace but here, or just plain someone else.
10
The acceleration of the hopper slowed as the ship neared its destination. Critock couldn’t help but feel a little nervousness. Bounty Hunting wasn’t as fun or interesting as this type of thing, but it was safer, and there was significantly less at stake. But he did not allow himself thoughts of failure. He had a job to do, and for the first time in several hundred cycles, he had a good partner alongside him he could count on.
Every ounce of courage and confidence that Tomkari had gained during the campaign in the storm had ebbed and now he was back to worrying about the mission. While he knew that Earth didn’t have any kind of dangers that were in any way comparable to what they had just went through on the gas planet, he would still rather avoid any kind of fighting. He hoped that he wouldn’t have to do much more, and just keep the main part of the mission to Critock, who he noticed was now looking at him as the craft was about to hit the atmosphere of Earth. “You ready?”
“Ready as we can be, I guess. Same plan?”
“Same plan.” They were close enough to the planet for Critock to adjust the screen to see the actual landscape where they were set to land. As they had hoped, the surrounding area around the forest was as close to deserted as you could get. Critock smiled, it was about time something was going his way.
As he thought that, or perhaps because he thought that, the ship was suddenly rocked with a sudden jolt, sending Critock to the ground and Tomkari spiraling through the air. As Critock raised his head from the ground, a series of loud whooping alarms started going off throughout the ship.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” Tomkari yelled over the alarms, while Critock was picking himself off the floor and jumping to the front screen.
“Hold on…Sensors still down, lets go visual…” He tapped a few times, and the screen changed to the rear view of the vessel. Immediately his eyes went wide as he saw the lead pirate’s vessel, slightly damaged with one wing trailing sparks, bearing down upon them. Critock cursed and Tomkari yelled, and a volley of shots struck the vessel. The ship began spiraling down towards Earth, being pulled into the planet’s gravity.
“We’ve lost stabilizers and all forward control, and our engines are history! I can’t get attitude control back!” Critock called out. Thinking quickly, he went to the side compartment, tapped, and it slid open. As consoles were blowing out sparks and turning on and off, he knew his ship was dying as it was going through the planet’s heat shield, but at least this door still worked. From within it, he retrieved the Sword of Kon. He quickly tossed it to Tomkari. “HERE!” He yelled, and the wisp barely had time to attach it to himself using a portion of his energy. As a white glow enveloped the sword and it hung in mid air below the wisp, he just looked at Critock, confused and panicked enough to not be able to form words.
“WE HAVE TO GO. WE HAVE TO GO RIGHT NOW. FOLLOW MY LEAD.” He turned, but Tomkari was frozen to the air. Whether it was by fear, or just being overwhelmed by being able to hold on to the sword that he had idolized for so long, Critock couldn’t be sure, but either way, there was no time to waste. As he saw the resilient pirate moving back into position and preparing to fire, he finished. “TRUST ME.”
The bright flash in the sky caught both Kyle’s and Mr. Phelps’ attention for a moment. Assuming that it was just the sun reflecting off of a plane or some other instance that would cause no reason for concern, the two went back to their respective pursuits; Phelps attempting to teach, and Kyle attempting to learn how to just skip over the rest of the day, or at least clear out the rest of his brain so he wouldn’t overthink about everything. He started pressing his pencil to the desk point first without realizing it. The thoughts once again invaded his head. No longer was there any chance of avoiding Brian today. In one period, his fate was sealed. He accidentally caught the eye of Travis, who smirked and winked at him. He averted his eyes, but he must have pressed down harder on the pencil lead because it suddenly snapped. Kyle sighed as he looked at the broken piece of lead on the desk. He hadn’t had a chance to pick up another pencil or pen on his breaks, and the pencil sharpener was on the other side of both Travis and Melissa. Gripping the pencil tightly, he mentally prepared himself to get out of his seat and make the journey.
The hopper exploded in a blaze of yellow and red after the last volley of shots had struck the leftmost engine. The influx of energy had completely overloaded every system on the ship, and in microseconds the resulting explosion had rendered molten every piece of metal that the hopper had contained. The explosion quickly faded in air to a large puff of white smoke, and out of this smoke flew two white wisps, one with a sword much larger than itself, and another one, a slightly brighter color. The two wisps flew alongside each other, and the brighter one called out.
“Do you trust me now?” Critock practically sang. The act of changing form never seemed to be one that should be done quickly, but desperate times called for desperate measures, and immediately after calling for Tomkari to trust in him, he had instantly changed, his body almost becoming pure white, before folding in upon itself and morphing into his soul form. While he had no face to show it, he was exhilarated from the adrenaline that the near escape had caused, and was hoping to carry that all the way down.
“Not exactly the plan, was it?” Tomkari was similarly exhilarated, though still so scared that he could barely move. Immediately after Critock had changed, he had flown to the front of the ship. Tomkari knew to follow, and when the shots hit the engine, the two moved forward as quickly as they could. The resulting explosion had drove both of them forward, but as they no longer had any bodies or any internal organs to be harmed, they had been pushed harmlessly out of the destruction. “What do we do now?”
“Divide and conquer. You take the sword, stash it somewhere safe, I’ll get it after. I’m gonna do a direct join on the run.”
“Isn’t that exposing yourself a bit muc
h?”
“Can’t be helped! We need to get ourselves set before that pirate makes his next move! There's no time to slow down!”
“Right. Okay, there’s a mid-day meal in about half of an hou…in just a little while. I’ll meet you there!”
“Ok, I’ve got it! See you down there!” The two wisps split off slightly, each using their quickly memorized geography to navigate. From above, Critock could see the school, its brick two story décor standing next to a smaller road, off a major throughway. He could see the vehicles on the road, and thought it quaint that the traffic was contained on the roads instead of automated sky lanes. Sighing at the primitive nature of the planet and wondering what else he was going to have to deal with today, Critock rushed down towards the school. He noticed that in his spirit form, his vision was far better than it had been, and he could see down into the school, in fact into the very window where his target was. He mentally mapped out his trajectory, as any attempt to slow down would leave him well off the mark and losing precious time. He noted the layout of the room, the location of his target, as well as one of the children heading towards the window that thankfully was open, and made a slight course correction.
Every step now seemed like a mile as Kyle stood up from his desk and headed towards the pencil sharpener. He averted his gaze from Brian’s friends, and chose instead to keep his head high. Why should he put his head down? They’ve been in this same grade for at least two years, and even at his worst he couldn’t see where he wouldn’t move up. He didn’t normally feel like he was above people, and he knew he didn’t know their home life or situation, but considering the way they alongside Brian had treated him why shouldn’t he feel a little bit superior! He held his head high, which unfortunately allowed Melissa to stick a foot out, catching Kyle in the ankle. With out any warning he stumbled and fell hard to the ground right in front of the sharpener, which immediately caused a outburst of laughter from the immediate surroundings, Melissa and Travis louder than anyone. The sudden noise caused Phelps to pause in the middle of a sentence about the orbit of Pluto to see Kyle on the floor, pushing himself up slowly. “Everything okay over there, Kyle?” He asked concerned, which caused another bout of laughing from a few tactless individuals.
The Joining: The Saga of the Shards Book One (The Cycle of the Shards 1) Page 12