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

by Chris Stephenson

  "Oh boy, was hoping that wouldn't happen." Tom floated down and rested on the bedspread next to Critock. "How'd that go?"

  "Well, he's still in the dark of what's going on, but he knows something is."

  "Get caught in one of your rants again, did you?"

  "Hey!" He propped himself up on an elbow to look at the white wisp. "I'm surrounded by a sea of relative stupidity. I can't help myself." Shaking his head, he lay back down. "This kid has a lot of issues, Tomk. Mother leaving, father gone all the time. Lot of anger in here. Me showing up hasn't helped matters, either."

  "Have you tried relating to him?"

  Without looking at the wisp, Critock narrowed his eyes. "In what way?"

  "I mean, your family isn't exactly a secret to the Qua'roti, I know..."

  "We don't need to talk about that, Tomk."

  "But..."

  Critock's tone changed quickly. Lower, and commanding, and for the first time Tomkari saw the side of the Marconian that once made him one of the most feared soldiers in the fleet. "We aren't going to talk about my family. Got it?"

  "Ok, ok, sorry." The two were silent for a moment, before Critock began speaking.

  "And it wouldn't matter. He's got one absentee parent, I've got two. My real family is the ones that took me in. Wanted me as far away from the military as possible, but I went running to them like a fool. It's not exactly something I can use to be on the same level as a fifteen-year-old boy with rage issues."

  "Maybe not." Tomkari rose up slightly so Critock could see him out of the corner of his left eye. "But at least it would help the kid to understand you a bit, maybe it'll get him to stop fighting you."

  "He made a run at me while I was talking to his father. Must have struck a real nerve. I don't think anyone on this planet really talks to each other. Everyone's got their own little walls built up. The failed cheerleader hates the real cheerleader. Shanna doesn't talk to her mom. Kyle and his father. It's a perfect place for Pt'ron." He closed his eyes again. "You can even hide from yourself."

  Tom silently listened until Critock finished. "Is any of this going to be a problem?"

  "No." Critock sighed, and sat up, his voice changing from weak to determined. "It's still a simple plan, and there's nothing left to distract us. We go in, get the files, find Pt'ron, and end this. And we go home, and we forget Earth even exists, just like the rest of the universe does. You good?"

  The wisp bobbed up and down as though nodding. "Good."

  "Then with that..." Critock glanced around the room. Clothes everywhere, no sense of real organization, and a lamp nearby. "What do you know about human sleep routines?"

  "Uh...Not too much. Not a whole lot to talk about, though. Few hours unconscious, twice as many as Marconians, wake up ready to go, or not, depending on the person."

  Critock yawned suddenly, and it surprised him before he could access what had happened. Tomkari appraised him strangely, having seen the Marconian open his mouth and suck in a breath for seemingly no reason, then looked around franticly. "Sorry, that just happened. Must be a side effect of tiredness."

  "Be careful!" Tomkari warned suddenly. "If you're unconscious, and he makes a run..."

  "I'm strong, Tom, don't worry." Tomkari wasn't reassured that he had dropped the 't' and was taking on a more Earthian sound. "I'll catch him...doesn't matter..." Critock's voice slowed to a stop, and found his eyes closing without his permission. Tomkari waited for a moment as the Marconian's breathing slowed, and other than a soft snore, there was no more sound from the boy.

  "You know what, Critock, I'm worried." Tom looked at his partner for a moment, and then settled down into a nearby chair. Wisps being as they are, did not need much sleep, so he would have to take the watch. He knew a small amount of human sleep endeavors, but knew nothing about what happened during the sleeping process, if it differed from the recovering of energy that the Marconians did, or if there was something else. Already he noted the eyelids moving behind Critock's eyes, and wondered if he should wake him. In the end he decided to just monitor the situation. The last thing he wanted to do was interrupt Critock or Kyle from getting whatever rest they needed, as tomorrow was going to be a very big day.

  Suddenly there was a familiar battlefield. With nothing to suggest how or why, soldiers of the Marconian empire, hailing from a thousand different worlds, waged bloody, savage war on the beings of the Sykar Continuum, themselves as unique and numerous as the stars in a nighttime sky. With laser rifles and more immediate devices of destruction, the two armies advanced on each other and clashed, blending together until any onlookers, should they survive, would not be able to tell one side from the other.

  Far above, dozens of ships both plentiful and deadly soared above the sky, firing both at their equal numbers of adversaries and below at the ground and their enemy, if they could pick them out of the masses. They swung and swooped through the sky, some misjudging distance and slamming into the ground and the indiscriminate numbers below. And far above them, above the atmosphere and the ground and air wars, was the greater battles in space itself for control of the sector and the planet. Dozens of Capital and Turanga-class battleships danced a much slower dance with each other, firing volleys of large blue energy at one another in efforts to cut off each side’s reinforcements to the greater war below.

  At stake was this unnamed, barely habitable planet, which until the war began was simply another large piece of space rock that would barely be worth the effort to claim for any empire’s own. But now it was a strategic piece of a larger plan: An assault on the Continuum’s home planet, and possibly finally an end to this long war. The necessary subspace point and the strategic location to build and launch more warships were imperative to both sides of the conflict and neither side was willing to give up an inch.

  It was here that Critock found himself without preamble. It was a place he had been before, of course. This battle would eventually be hard won by the Marconians, though with heavy losses. He walked through the battle as though in a daze, lost in memory. He stared at his fellow soldiers as they fought with honor, many dying for that same honor, and remembered that when this battle ended, the Imperial Warship ‘Tri-Cyrellian’ would launch, and carry himself, Bakkara, and…

  “The war’s here, Critock! Get your mind in it!” Pt’ron. His enemy of a thousand cycles cut through the Continuum soldiers easily, and all thought of how and why left Critock’s mind, replaced with a white hot anger. Whatever madness had brought him back to this place in time, it had given him a gift. He could stop all of this before it happened! Every other being on the battlefield disappeared from thought as he ran, and then sprinted, towards the other Marconian, as Pt'ron whooped and swung his gun in an upward arc, catching the chin of an adversary and sending them flying into the air. He moved the gun around in a regular firing position, and let loose a volley of blue shots, right as Critock’s body struck his.

  The pair flew back with some force, and Pt’ron’s body took the bulk of the blow and they both grunted as they struck the ground, Critock landing on top of him.

  “Critock, what the…” Pt’ron was cut off as his general began to rain a series of blows down upon the unfortunate and unexpecting soldier. In the beginning he was still attempting to get words out, but as his face became more and more bloody he stopped trying, and put all his energy into trying to force his unstoppable friend off of him.

  Critock’s mind was lost in rage. He wasn’t going to stop until Pt’ron stopped resisting, and stopped moving altogether. He didn’t even realize he was yelling, and it didn’t matter. This was right. This was just. Bakkara would live. The war would end. Earth would be saved.

  Suddenly he was hit by a force on his right, and was forced to cease his pummeling as he fell hard from the impact. As he hit the ground he instinctively rolled and moved to his feet, ready to take down this new attacker quickly so he could finish the job with Pt’ron. His eyes focused, and he suddenly found it very difficult to do anything but star
e.

  “Critock, Stop!” If there was such a thing as perfect beauty in the universe, Critock would swear that it existed right then as he looked upon a vision he had not witnessed in a thousand cycles. A perfect form with long blonde hair and a streak of green through it that extended from the middle all the way down to the small of her back. Hard emerald eyes, and the reddest of lips. The face was angry and confused right now, but it did not matter, Bakkara was the most beautiful thing in the universe right now no matter what expression she wore.

  “Bakkara, he…He’s going to…” He couldn’t speak. After so long apart, there was no way to get anything out. All the words that he had thought for cycles combined into a unspeakable soup that met at the start of his throat and then stopped, resulting in a rash of uncharacteristic stumbling. Her eyes turned to fear as he approached her, but not fear at what he would do to her, she knew that he was incapable of doing anything like that. It was a fear as to what was happening with Critock himself.

  “Bakkara…” He reached up, and tried to stroke her cheek, to touch her one more time. The instant his hand touched her skin, her face vanished in a puff of peach flesh colored smoke, and almost immediately followed by the rest of her body. His eyes widened in shock as he witnessed Pt’ron, the soldiers, the entire war and planet itself suddenly fly away like so much dust, and after that instant there was only darkness. But there was still ground beneath his feet, and he realized now where he truly was. The Mandragora’s lair.

  He remembered now. It had been cycles of searching, so many fights, so much pain, but he had tracked down the one person in all the universe who you did not go looking for. The Qua’roti thought it was the last shard that convinced him to likely throw his life away instead of living in the punishment mines of Ky’ro’ka, but no. Pt’ron had engineered the war, but the Mandragora had engineered Pt’ron, and she had much to answer for.

  Beyond that even, there was their history. There were many questions for the evil queen of the Shards, who collected and kept them as decorations of her power even as she ran the vast underworld of the Universe. Critock knew her as someone else though, long before she took this crown for herself. He willed his legs to move as the Sword of Kon slid open in his hands, and he moved forward in the makeshift cave, dimly lit with unknown sources of purple light. He could see in his peripheral vision the insane cult members that the Mandragora kept with her, harmless members of countless races hidden under black hoods, chanting a language long-since lost to this time.

  Critock stopped as he reached a series of stone steps, and looked up upon the figures that stood at the top. One was a woman, in loose, non-descript black clothing that flowed around her, holding a scepter with a pure black coal staff and a large rounded top, meticulously covered with Shards. The other was a man, slightly older than Critock himself, with completely white, short hair. His right hand seemed to have small red shards growing out of it, and from the shards flowed blue streaks of electricity. The electricity flowed up to the man’s eyes, covered by a black cloth. He leered at Critock with a familiarity built on intense hatred.

  Critock paid no mind to the white haired man, he had had his battles with him, and this was not the time for a reconciliation. Instead it was the woman that he focused his gaze upon. The Mandragora, the name whispered in secret across the galaxies, the bedtime story told to scare your children to sleep. The Goddess holding the absolute powers of the universe and unwilling to share or give them up. Critock put one leg on the first step and stared at her as he addressed her.

  “Mother.”

  Suddenly everything changed again. The Mandragora, the man, the cave itself all went to dust and reformed, and Critock was forced to a chair. His vision unfocused and he rubbed his eyes, and then everything became clear. It was the Tri-Cyrellian, cycles after the battle on the forgotten planet with his enemy and his love. And it was diving through the atmosphere of yet another planet, similarly desolate but at least inhabited. It was, after all, the unassuming home planet of the Sykar Continuum.

  Instinctively, Critock opened the controls on the front panel, but he realized as soon as he did so that there was no hope. The panels were unresponsive, as he expected. The sabotage was complete and total. This ship was never going to reach it’s target, let alone deliver it’s deadly payload that would end this war once and for all, destroying the home base of the Continuum and it’s secretive and unknown leader along with it.

  He tried to think quickly, about some way out of this. But in front of his mind, even before his imminent demise, was that who could have done this? Almost nobody knew about this mission. He designed this plan himself. A small battleship, flying traitorous colors and broadcasting the enemy codes, was the perfect cover to approach the planet. Once past the minefields and the hundreds of turret defenses and battleships on constant high alert, dropping a series of low-yield warheads directly on the capital base would be an incredible blow to their morale, and it would only be a matter of time before there was a call for surrender. It wasn’t something that he brought before the hierarchy, there was no time. The window for this would close all too quickly, and they would worship him after.

  But they knew. Damnit! How could they have known! Halfway beyond the turrets, they suddenly swung around and fired in unison. It was a miracle that as many missed as they did, but it was enough to send the ship spiraling down to the surface. The number of people who knew about this plan could be counted on one hand! He came up with it, Bakkara begged to come along, and…

  “…No.” He said to himself. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be him. He was with them! He had recovered! He couldn’t be with them! But there was no other way. Pt’ron had begged off of this mission before Bakkara had even volunteered. Unless he had told someone…But he did, didn’t he? He told his friends on the other side. All this time, setting up Critock to die, and deal a blow to the Empire, extending this endless war who knows how much longer. But not just Critock. He suddenly jumped out of his control chair and began to run towards the back of the vessel.

  “Bakkara!” They were both lost. He knew that. But he had to see her. To hold her. Maybe there was a way one of them could survive. There had to be a working escape pod on this ship, didn’t there? And if there was, it had to be towards rear engineering, where Bakkara had gone right after the ship was struck to try and restore power to the hydraulics. “Bakkara!” He screamed her name as he ran at full speed, begging fate to allow this craft to defy gravity and fall that much slower, to allow him time to save her. Just her.

  He reached the hallway in time to see her, and he yelled one more time, his throat cracking as he did so from the heat caused by nearby fires that had sprung up with the initial turret barrage. She heard him just the same, as she stood near the doorway to the engineering bay, holding on to a few strings of wire, trying desperately to stretch them to another conduit. She turned her face, standing still, and across the distance their eyes met.

  Just as their gazes crossed, the ship rocked with another blast. The two lovers fell to the floor. Critock cursed, realizing that it wasn’t enough for Pt’ron to blast them out of the sky with the turrets, he had to finish the job with a squadron? He could hear the peppering of the hull by laser fire, and there was another explosion, followed by a series of crunching sounds. Halfway through the metal grated hall separating Critock from Bakkara, a crack grew across the ceiling, with small yellow and orange explosions rippling across it. The same happened across the floor. Critock watched the cracks with a sudden horrifying realization, and looked up at Bakkara. One last time.

  With a sudden lurch as their eyes met, the engineering bay as well as the back half of the Tri-Cyrellian cleanly separated off. Isolated from the secondary thrusters, it began to pitch forward. That was the last time Critock was able to see Bakkara, her perfect form staring back at him, spiraling away into the distance, before the overloaded engines could no longer hold back the inevitable, and exploded into a million bright lights.

  The lights
filled Critock’s vision, and soon faded to dust, and then as quickly as the previous visions had appeared, so too did a new one, but unlike the sharp memories that he had just experienced, this one was different. It was the school, the same one he had arrived at just a few precious hours ago. But it was different. Meaner, somehow. Foreboding and ugly. He stood outside of it and looked up, suddenly filled with a fear that almost paralyzed him, but with no explanation.

  Without movement suddenly he was inside the school, in the middle of the main hall, just inside the entrance. There were several other students there, and in fact it seemed the whole school was there, stretching out into the hallways and the central stairways leading up the second floor. But instead of constantly being in motion as Critock had experienced, they were all standing still, and looking right at him.

  He felt shame. Embarrassment, but again he could not identify the source. He could not move, and he could not figure out what they all wanted from him. None of them said anything, but instead slowly began parting into two parallel groups, forming a lane in the middle. A lane that Shanna Ewing in a cheerleader outfit began walking up. The outfit seemed a bit more risqué than the average outfit, as it exposed a midriff, and the skirt seemed much shorter than would be allowed on any regular school day. She came up to him and gave him a look that could only be described as sultry, and Critock was hit with another blast of fear. That look wasn’t for him! Why was she doing this! Why were any of them there!

  Then, the unexpected happened once again. She started laughing. A pointed, mocking laugh, and it was directly at him. The rest of the assembled students began laughing as well, some of them pointing and making faces. There was no joke to be heard, in fact it seemed that he himself was the joke.

  The laughing went on for what felt like forever, and it seemed to get louder and more shrill the longer it went. He attempted to put his hands over his ears, but it could not block out the sound, which seemed to only grow in volume to compensate.