The Joining: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

12: The Joining

     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.