THE JOINING: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

To any average onlooker that would have happened upon them, unlikely as that would have been due to the seclusion of the hill rising above the small field with patches of trees, the pair appeared to be an average couple of teenagers, staring up into the sky on a romantic evening and watching the stars and constellations that appeared in the newly night sky. Of course, the circumstances were quite different for the two of them, as they sat awkwardly next to each other.

Critock sighed as he scanned the night. Tomkari, as expected, was vehemently against spending precious time with Shanna at all, let alone having an in depth conversation about exactly what was going on and who they really were. But he relented as Critock had explained, in hushed but direct tones, that a teenage girl who was going to be at the same place as the rest of them tomorrow and was needed for the latest iteration of the plan was understandably very disturbed and confused about what she had just witnessed. The only way that this was going to work was to make sure that she was going to stay on their side, and there was no better way to accomplish that than with a nice quiet conversation. Communication could break down any barrier, even in a glorified First Contact situation. He shook his head. If the governments of Earth could see them now, the designated representative being a teenage girl, the only one now that could help save their planet and planets beyond. Ridiculous.

If Kyle had anything to say about him hanging out with Shanna, he wasn’t making it known. After the insanity of the flight, and subsequent narrowly evaded destruction, Kyle had gone very silent, almost as if he was in shock. If he hadn’t been so focused on the task at hand, he would have worried about the boy’s consciousness. Right now, though, making sure the girl wasn’t going to run away screaming was the top priority.

Shanna, for her part, had lost count of the number of questions that she had for Kyle…Critock…Whoever. Who was he? Where did he come from? What was going to happen to Earth now that he had arrived? What was going to happen to Kyle? Realizing that she was probably the first person on Earth to ever have the chance to ask an alien whatever she wanted left her tongue-tied, which was compounded by the fact that the alien was in the form of someone she liked. For the first time she was alone with him on the hill where they were guaranteed that no one would bother them, and she was completely unable to take advantage of the situation. So she sighed and tempered down the feelings from her body that steadfastly refused to acknowledge that this wasn’t Kyle at all. She looked up at the stars along with her alien friend, and as she moved her head up she caught his eyes in the corner of her sight. She could just barely see the tint of color that differentiated yesterday from today in his pupils, and by the look in his eyes she realized exactly what he was looking for, and knew the perfect question to ask.

“Which one is yours?”

Critock was startled from his stargazing at the sudden voice. “Hm?”

“Your home. Up there. Which star is yours?”

“Oh.” He chuckled. “None of them, actually. Marconia is too far away to see with the naked eye from Earth. Hell, I doubt you could see it with most of your telescopes.” He was silent with thought for a moment, then pointed eastward, at a black portion of the sky. “But, it’s in that general direction. Roughly, give or take a few trillion miles.”

Her eyes squinted. “How did you get from trillions of miles away to here? Mr. Phelps said that warp drive was a myth.”

“And he’d be right, I suppose, I don’t know what warp drive is, but there’s no way to get a ship moving that fast. At least no one’s ever found one. Marconians have been around longer than any other race in the Universe that we’ve found, and we’ve never seen anything better than what we’ve got.”

“What do you have?”

Critock tried to put it into words that she would understand, and fumbled around for a moment when he realized he was having difficulty finding words that he understood. “Well it’s....It’s complicated. Our ships kind of tear a hole in subspace and dip...underneath the universe? Into a sub-universe? Look, I never got into the technology side of things...”

She turned and stared accusingly at him. “You expect me to believe you’re from another planet when you can’t tell me about how you got here?”

He turned as well, meeting her gaze. “Look, I was a soldier. It was never important enough to me to know exactly how a ship worked, only that it did and it got me where I was going.” He looked around, finally spotting an automobile below them and off in the distance. “Can you tell me all about how one of those things work?”

She turned away from him. “Fine, I get it.” They sat in silence again for a few beats. “You were a soldier?”

“General Critock of the Grand Marconian Navy, Seretto Fleet.” He held up a hand as she turned, a look of slight astonishment upon her face. “Don’t get too worked up over the title, it’s mostly honorary. I got lucky in a lot of fights. I had a famous face, and friends that...” He stopped, and even if she was only human Shanna knew better than to pursue any questions down that line.

“Well, it sounds impressive at least. You had to do something right, or they wouldn’t have let you keep it.”

“Wellll....” He sighed. “They didn’t. I’m a civilian.”

“Oh!” She shook her head quickly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean anything...”

Critock put his head down, staring at the blades of grass illuminated by the lights from the city and the stars above. It wasn’t a topic he really wanted to get into, but maybe it would be good to get this off his chest. “A long time ago, I had a friend. He was like a brother, which considering the family I have…” He stopped for a moment, collecting himself, before he continued. “He was…difficult, but he was by my side through the wars.

“And he betrayed me. Us, all of us. The entire empire, the fleet…Her.”

“Your wife?”

“Intended. My Sha’tri. Bakkara.” He looked up, and stared into the distance. “She was beautiful, you know? Kind but fierce. She was a hell of a warrior. All three of us fought alongside each other in the war for a hundred cycles. And it was a lie. Pt’ron was on the other side the whole. Damn. Time!” Critock pounded a fist into the ground. “Feeding information, running their war on our side for who knows how long. They called it brainwashing and whatever but he knew what he was doing. He had to, didn’t he?” There was silence for a moment and Shanna felt like she should say something, but Critock continued. “There was one more mission. We were all together, and he struck. We all crashed together. She…She died because of him. And he had the audacity to blame me.

“We fought. Ohhh…we fought. And chased each other. Eventually I trapped him somewhere no one would ever be able to recover him. I couldn’t kill him though. I hated him too much for him to die. I wanted him to suffer as much as I did. For letting him live, I got drummed out of the military. Hell, I should’ve been sent to the mines, but the all holy Qua’roti bailed me out.”

Shanna didn’t understand half of the terms he was throwing out, but was still fascinated by the story all the same. “…And he came here.”

“Right. Last place anyone would think to look for him. Backwater planet of the universe. Uneducated populace and no reason anyone would want to come here.” He was about to continue when he glanced over and saw the offended look on her face.

“…Uneducated? Really?”

“Comparatively to the rest of the universe, yeah. Half your planet is at war with the other because of factors that they have no control over.. Most don’t believe in anything outside religions invented thousands of years before by people who didn’t understand what a cloud was. You’re still using limited resources and pretending they’re unlimited, just hoping your generation dies out before the check comes due. You’ve still got weapons capable of wiping out every life on this planet ready to go at the first paranoid delusion, and you’re more than willing to screw up the planet itself to feed your own shortsightedness. Yeah. Uneducated and primitive.“

“So what, you come down here and play the holy warrior and preach to us how to live? Why not just start off with ‘Take me to your leader’ while you’re at it!” Shanna felt a blast of anger, as if she realized that she should be defending her entire race.

“I’m not telling you how to live, just calling it like it is. It’s one of a thousand planets in the same situation. You’re young. I’ve seen it before. There’s a lot of ifs. Too many. IF a meteor doesn’t wipe you out, IF there’s not some plague, IF you don’t kill everyone on the planet because their God has a different name than your God, IF you don’t get hit by a solar flare or a Gamma Ray burst and IF you put enough efforts to building things to help instead of hurt, then you’ll get past this stage. You’ll go poking around the galaxy, and IF you don’t run into the wrong species on the wrong day, you’ll join up with one of the good empires, and it’ll be a much better life for everyone. Protection, long life, and security till the cycle ends.” He looked at Shanna, hoping that she would understand. It’s not anything the she herself was responsible for, and probably not anything that she could do about it really, as the sheep couldn’t control which way they were led by their shepherd.

She just turned back silently. “So this planet sucks, then.”

He rolled his eyes slightly. “Every planet has this stage. Hopefully you’ll get through it. A lot do. A lot don’t.”

Shanna suddenly stood up and walked a few paces away, slightly down the hill but not angrily, more in a slight pacing motion, looking at the stars, in the direction of Critock’s home. “It’s not fair. People out there have spaceships and they’re so far advanced, why can’t they just come down here and fix things!”

“Welll…For starters, your race doesn’t exactly have the best track record when it comes to others that are different. All around the world, whoever doesn’t look or believe the same are the first targets for the established. What do you think’s going to happen when the Targaniox Ferom show up? Nicest guys in the universe. Cure any disease you want, build you anything you like. Just love to help. They can build a box that you can go in and live any fantasy you can come up with for a thousand years, and then you come out and only a minute has passed. Greatest invention in history. Catch is, they look like an inside-out cockroach and smell like death passed gas. You think Earth, where it is right now, is going to do anything besides throw a nuclear bomb at them and hope that does the trick?”

Shanna was quiet in acceptance, and decided to change the subject back to the primary problem. “So they’re going to destroy Earth if you can’t find this Pt’ron?”

Critock nodded, watching as Shanna paced by his side. “That’s the plan. Two missiles, one for each shard. If they aren’t neutralized, they ignite the atmosphere. Earth becomes a very small sun for a while.”

“But that’s horrible! I thought your people were supposed to be so advanced, and your first reaction to a problem is to kill billions of people?”

Critock shook his head. “I know it’s not going to make any sense, but it’s a lot better than the alternative.”

“NONE OF THIS MAKES ANY SENSE!” Shanna spun around to face him. What happens if he gets away?”

“Pt’ron has the Shards. These particular two have been inactive for millennia, but they are going live tomorrow. At that point, he gets imbued with all their powers. Instant Godhood. He’ll subjugate the entire human race, get off world, and form a whole new empire. End result, another war that’ll end up destroying unfathomable amounts of people.”

“What the hell is a Shard?”

Critock stood up slowly. “I’m not sure I can even try to explain.”

Shanna walked right up to him, staring angrily into Kyle’s face. “If they’re going to destroy the world over it, and it’s your fault, try.” Critock looked back at her, meeting the gaze, and for a moment, the two stared deep into each other’s eyes, before Critock broke it off, letting out a breath and looking up into the sky.

“Nobody really knows, to be honest. I told you Marconians, my race, were the oldest in the universe? The Shards were here first. They are small, red pieces of death that are a plague, and if there is one thing that I am tired of dealing with, it’s them.”

“So it’s not just these two?”

“Hell no. They’re only rare because of how big the universe is. And they’re all different. The main line ones just give your standard unlimited cosmic powers. There’s the control shards that can grow and show you where the other ones are, and then there’s the big daddy Master shard that controls them all. That one’s just a myth, but there’s so many different types of the damn things that it wouldn’t surprise me.

“My favorite is the prophecy ones. Marconian Qua’roti…I’m sorry, the religious cult or sect or whatever, have got a few of those locked down. They pull up possible futures of anyone that they come in contact with. So of course they march every child through the thing and get kids screwed up nice and early. It’s a wonder that the Empire is still around.”

“Wait, they can tell the future! Then…”

“I said possible futures. Timelines are splintered and fractured and if something hasn’t happened yet nothing can be said with any certainty. So here’s a kid and you show him he might be a teacher, then that might inspire him to be the best teacher he can be. But what if that’s not the best future for him? What if he rebels and becomes something else, or he’s a terrible teacher, or he goes insane and jumps off a bridge the next day because he doesn’t want that future for himself at all? What if this supposed amazing future never happens?”

Critock walked away, exasperated at the past, and Shanna followed, torn between wanting to get more information about what was going on, what this alien’s world was like, and finding out more about Critock himself. “It sounds like you didn’t like your future then.”

Critock stopped, and turned quickly. “Imagine being…what’s the equivalent age here, five? Five years old. And being told you are the savior of…everything. The entire universe and it’s future is one hundred percent your responsibility. Your prophecy is to be a hero. It even comes with a damn poem!” He closed his eyes, and recited from memory, in a annoyingly crisp tone, mimicking the Qua’roti prophecy masters of his youth.

Forgotten son of the Rule, Child of the Shards

He shall win but lose, he who falls

He who shall be lost but be home

A sacrifice denied, a family gained and gone

The Darkness loops for time unknown

All as before but all will change

He who meets the lost creator, his mistake redeemed

Reluctant to rule in the face of regret

Love lost, found, and lost again

Old lands lost, battles in time waged

Light and Dark shall join

The weapons will be equal and terrible

The cycle ends, and at the close comes The Return.

Critock finished the stanza, and looked at Shanna piercingly. “That’s what I had shoved down my throat from day one. No idea what any of that means, though everywhere I went people would bring it up. Scholars from the ends of the Universe would find me. There’s classes taught on that prophecy. Some worlds have it as a religion! You know what happened to me after that? You know what part of that epic thing was real? NOTHING!” He yelled his last to the sky, and then was quiet. The only sounds were the usual night ambience. “You want to screw up a kid for life? Tell him he’s destined to be the best there ever was. Tell him the universe will sing his praises forever. Then have nothing happen that’s even the slightest bit close to what he was expecting. And then…” He stopped again, a strong mixture of sadness and anger filling his face and Shanna knew not to pry. Instead, wanting to calm him down, she changed the subject and asked about one particular word he had used multiple times.

“You kept saying cycle. What’s a cycle?”

He turned, glad to not have to explain the rest of his life story to the girl. “Depends on which use you mean. In general Marconian terms, a cycle is somewhere close to two Earth years. It’s the length of time the planet takes to completely orbit both of our suns. But you’re probably meaning within the poem.” She nodded. “It’s popped up in a lot of other ancient religious texts. It’s the cycle of time itself. The universe is born, big explosion, gases expanding, God waving a magic wand, whatever science or mysticism you’d like to use, it happens. It lasts for a very long time. Billions, Trillions of cycles or years, whatever. Then, one day, it ends. Big Collapse, doomsday device, something. So that’s it, right? No more life, no more, well, anything. Except it’s not. It just starts over again. Different circumstances, different people, nothings the same way twice. Then that all goes through. It ends. It starts. It ends. It starts. The Cycle of time.” Shanna looked as though in awe. This was far beyond anything she had learned about in school. Even the possibility of the time and happenings involved with what he was saying was unfathomable.

Critock smirked. “Something, huh? It’s a theory, not really backed up by any real evidence. Except the Shards. Marconians were the first race around. We watched the universe grow, and at this rate we’ll probably be here to watch it end. So if we were the first…Where did the Shards come from?”

Shanna’s eyes widened as Critock continued. “Exactly. It’s all conjecture and scripture at that point. How did the Shards survive the old universe?”

“Do Marconians believe in God? Do you have a bible that says what happened?” Even though everything she had just learned would seem to supersede anything that had been taught in a bible, her interest brought her past her feelings of blasphemy, though she hadn’t stepped foot in a church in some time.

Critock stopped for a second, wanting to be very careful how he approached answering her question. “Well…Like I said, we were the first race in the universe. Since everything showed up after us except for the Shards, we got to watch and see everyone else’s thoughts about where they come from and Gods and we dismissed the lot, mostly. When you spend a lot of time empirically proving other people’s religions as nonsense, you end up with a pretty high water-mark with what you’re going to believe yourself. So no, no God, no holy scripture that gets written down years before and never updated. Closest thing we have to that anymore is The Five.”

“The Five?”

“Glorified children’s story, mainly. Tries to explain where the universe and the Shards came from at the same time and doesn’t do a real good job of either. Basic version. Before our universe began there was another one that was fizzling out. Races had moved on, evolved, transcended to alternate universes, etc. There was a few races that banded together that had no physical way out of their universe, so they tried to make one. Built a device out of everyone else’s technology, and the five were the ones that were in charge of it. Something went wrong, it blew up, killed them all, and this universe was born from theirs. The only things left of their universe are the Shards themselves.”

Shanna shuddered. “Not a real happy children’s story.”

“It’s more of a cautionary tale. Sometimes your fate is just your fate, and trying to avoid it may only make things worse. Since encountering a Shard usually ended up becoming a horror story for everyone, it worked to give everyone a proper fear and awe of the damn things.”

Critock was tiring of the topics of his race, and decided to see how she would react to a similar theme of questioning. “So what about you?”

Shanna was taken off guard. “Huh?”

“What about you? Tell me about yourself, about Earth.” Truthfully, Critock didn’t care about the primitive planet next to the Marconian Empire, but he needed a break.

“I’m not interesting, at all. You’re the alien.”

“Well, technically, to me you’re an alien. I’ve never been to Earth, Hell, I’ve never even heard of the place until today. And you’re at least a little bit interesting. What makes a girl so unafraid that she’s willing to help and have a conversation with probably the only alien that anyone on the planet has ever encountered?”

Shanna gulped. “Ever?”

“I wasn’t kidding when I said your planet is a backwater. Nobody in their right mind is going to want to come here unless they had to. Pt’ron’s been here so long he’s probably gone native, so nobody would realize there’s anything different about him.” He paused, and sat back onto the grass. “So tell me. Who’s Shanna Ewing?”

She sighed. “I told you, there’s nothing to me.”

“You’re not making an impressive first contact here.”

She rolled her eyes. “I’m not trying to represent the planet.”

“Then don’t. Introduce yourself?” Critock didn’t really know what was driving his interest. Probably some sort of behind the scenes machinations from Kyle bubbling up to the surface, he figured.

“Fine. I’m Shanna Ewing. I’m fifteen years old, I’m a cheerleader, I like long walks on the beach and officially can’t drink so I wouldn’t know anything about margaritas. Happy?”

There was a few stray thoughts bothering Kyle and Critock had run across them several times. No time like the present to solve the mystery for both of them. “Why are you a cheerleader?”

“I…” She stopped. “What?”

“Well, I mean you’re beautiful, in that teenage kid awkward phase kind of thing that Kyle seems to like, but you don’t fit. It’s obvious just from looking that you aren’t overly close with the other skirts, your tastes seem more, well…” He gestured towards her clothing, more for comfort than enhancing her attractiveness. “And not to fit into a cliché but you are more the computer type. AND there’s that whole bit with Claire that she was telling me about. So what gives? The kid’s never going to ask about it, and I don’t like lingering questions.”

Shanna caught on one word, and used it to try and dodge the oddly personal question from the alien who had never met her before today. “Kid? How old are you?”

He closed his eyes, trying to do the calculations to Earth’s years. “I think…Three thousand years? Something around that number? The cycles don’t exactly add up.”

She whistled, and smirked. “So trolling Earth’s schools for chicks working out for you?”

Critock didn’t miss a beat, pulling directly from Kyle’s memories of particularly painful Earth fiction. “Well, girls here do seem to fall in love awfully easily with older men. Should I have said I was a vampire, instead? A few sparkles, perhaps?”

She stopped, processing, and then burst out laughing. Critock didn’t understand the context, but would rather have her at ease with him and laughing than the opposite. “Not this girl, Grandpa. Or…Great..Great…Great…”

“Try not to think about it. There’s probably about twenty generations between me and you. But you’re evading the subject. Cheerleader. You. What?”

“I don’t suppose ‘None of your business’ is going to work?”

“This open book business goes both ways. Shoot.”

Shanna theatrically sighed. “Fine. My mom. Cheerleading was a big part of her life, then she broke her ankle, missed out on a lot of stuff. So she’s more or less forced me into doing it. I don’t like it. I’m not really into the dancing and showing off and stuff, you have to deal with comments from ignorant people. Not just boys but their fathers. You’re an instant slut to any girl that doesn’t get in, and if you try to hang out with people outside of the team, you’re ostracized.”

“Why don’t you just tell your mother that you don’t want to do it?”

“HA!” She laughed again, though more sarcastically. “You don’t know my mom. It’s ok. Couple more years, she won’t be able to stop me. Unless I pretend to screw up. Or break my ankle or something. It’s tempting.”

“Ok, so no cheerleading in your future. What do you want to do, then?”

She stopped for a second. “You know what? I don’t know. We don’t have prophecies or Qua’roti or anything. We have college and counselors. And they try to lock you in to a career before you’re ready. Before you’re supposed to even drink!” He noted that this was the second time that she had brought up alcohol, but he didn’t want to get quite that involved in her life. “Between that and mom…I don’t know Ky…Cri-tock?” She put a short pause in between the syllables of the Earth pronunciation of his name that he oddly found endearing. “Maybe I just want to be left alone to figure things out? Maybe there’d be a lot less problems if everyone was just left alone to figure it out for themselves?

“Can’t argue with that, on any planet.” Critock shook his head, the beginnings of a plan forming to assuage his constant background guilt regarding his forced occupation of the teenager’s body. “Ok, so some of that explains you and Kyle.”

“Kyle?” Shanna had been slowly starting to enjoy her conversation with Critock, but his slightly probing statement had struck a chord. “Where is he? Can he hear us? Is he going to be okay?” Her line of questioning was turning almost frantic.

He closed his eyes, hoping to hear some kind of response from the boy himself. Unfortunately, no answer came, forcing him to move forward on his own. “He’s…here. He’s in here.”

“I don’t understand. How can you just ‘take over’ his body? How could he have let you?”

“He didn’t really…let me. It was an accident.”

Shanna advanced on Critock, sending him falling backwards on his elbows. “You forced your way in and took him over? Do you know what that sounds like?”

“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!