The Joining: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

21: The Attack

     The sun was starting to disappear behind the line of two-story houses in Kyle's neighborhood, and the sky had changed from its regular blue into a more orange-yellow hue. Critock was running, the first time he was using Kyle's muscles for serious exertion, and he could tell as he ran that it wasn't something that the boy did often. Already he felt weary, and slight pain was starting to occur from overexertion. He made a mental note that if he ever spoke to Kyle again that he would recommend a regimen of exercise.

Tom moved along with him, slightly ahead, trying to find a path through the houses to their destination. The problem that both were running into was although they had a fair general knowledge of the surroundings, Tom due to the learning machine he had been in and Critock due to the limited access he had of Kyle's mind, neither one of them had good directions other than to follow the sounds and sights of the pirate firing into Mr. Phelps' house. Kyle had never been there, in fact didn't know he lived so close to the teacher, so he was useless in this regard. Most of the houses had their backyards with high fences so cutting through was not an option, causing the pair to wait until they hit a cross street that was going in the direction they wanted to go.

"Fly up and see what's going on!" Critock called to Tom, who didn't reply, but just ascended into the sky. While the wisp was in the air, Critock found a crossing street, and headed right, jumping over a large rock in the process. There were quite a few people outside looking over in the direction of the attack, but other than the pirate's ship occasionally coming close and then heading back in a loose holding pattern, there was nothing to see.

Tom scanned the sky, and watched the ship move over the house. After a couple moments he came back down and momentarily panicked when he realized he had lost sight of his partner. He quickly located the cross street, and caught up to Critock, still moving fast towards their destination, although at this point he was breathing very heavy. "It's still there! Not shooting though. Probably trying to see if he got Phelps or not."

"Someone let him in on the original plan!" Critock yelled as he ran. "If he thinks I'm Phelps, he's not going to stop until that whole house is a hole in the ground, and then probably the school after that."

"What's the plan?"

"Get to his house, figure something out. I can't run and plan in this body." He was wheezing almost as he spoke, having to pause to gasp every time there was an opening.

"Want me to go ahead?"

"No! He knows you're here too. He might not be able to see you, but that ship'll have a few detectors on it. We'll get up there and then take it slow."

Tom sighed. "Fine." In silence, the pair reached a stop sign as the street they were on exited the residential section and hit a two lane highway. Cars moved past quickly on both sides. They had no way of knowing that there had been a stoplight there that would have helped their cause, but it had been removed a few months ago and replaced with the solitary sign. Critock tried to edge into the road but he didn't want to risk getting hit, not knowing anything about this planet's primitive travel.

"We have to get past!" Tom zoomed back and forth.

"You can fly over! I can't! Can you lift me?"

"Do I look like a strong soul? It was all I could do to get the sword down here!" Tom groaned, then stopped. "Okay. I'll go up to the ship, and blind him. Hopefully he'll crash."

Critock shook his head. "He'll see you coming a mile away." He looked helplessly back and forth at the cars, with no real break coming. Down the road a ways he could just make out a stoplight, and was preparing to make another run for it, damn his body, when he heard a voice call out from behind him.