The Joining: The Cycle of the Shards Book One

27: Destiny Dawning

     The insistent buzzing of the alarm clock both stirred Critock awake and scared Tomkari who, while not asleep, had settled into a dormant state after several hours with no change in the boy's body. The wisp flew straight up in the air, almost hitting the ceiling, as Critock slowly sat up, his eyes slowly scanning the room as though assessing everything he saw. He turned his head towards the source of the alarm, a small square box flashing the time, and flipped a switch at the top, silencing it. He turned his head back to find Tomkari right in front of his face, startling him slightly.

"Gah!" Critock recoiled from the sudden appearance.

"Is that you?" Tomkari peered closer at the boy's eyes, searching for the telltale strip of black.

Critock waved him off, forcing the wisp to back off. "Yeah, yeah, I'm awake. Yes, it's me, Tomk. It's Critock."

The wisp made a sound not unlike an exhaling of breath. "Oh, thank the Qua'roti. I thought the kid took control."

"Please. I'm stronger than that. We had a nice talk, let him know that I'll be leaving later today. He's cool with it."

"'Cool with it?' Are you sure he didn't do something to you?" Tomkari peered closer again as Critock swung the body that now felt more like his own around, placing his feet on the floor.

"He actually did the opposite. He's backed off completely, Tom. I've got full access. I can tell you about everything in this room, everything in the house. I even dreamed."

"What's a 'dream'?" Tomkari caught the shortening of his name again. While he had suggested it earlier as a way to get accustomed to the planet, he found it a little unsettling coming from his partner's mouth.

"I know! I've never heard of it either." Critock stood up unsteadily, noting the fatigue still in his body. "Apparently when humans rest, their brains pull up things that happened to them in the past? It wasn't pleasant."

"That's...I'd probably sleep more often if I could do that. Wait, how did we not know that?" Tomkari followed as Critock grabbed a few items of clothing from his closet and dresser and began to leave the room.

"I didn't know anything about Earth, you're supposed to be the expert." He opened the door, noting a loud snoring coming from a room down the hall. Apparently Richard had the day off today, and well deserved. Critock left Kyle's room, and moved towards the bathroom.

"I know general makeup of the planet. Basic animal and species stuff, nobody's ever heard of something like this before! This is huge! Actual ways to experience your own past! Can you imagine what the Empire could do with this?"

Critock crossed into the bathroom. "Yeah, unfortunately." He began to close the door, and Tomkari tried to rush forward before it shut.

"Where are you going?"

Critock put up a hand. "It's going to be a big day, I'm taking a shower. Lets give the kid some kind of privacy, okay? This is going to be awkward enough." The door closed in front of Tom, who was left to float in the hall.

"Okay! I'll just wait here! The world only ends in a few hours!" He flew back to Kyle's room, muttering things about wasting time.

The missiles stood tall, shining their silver reflections from the two moons currently present in the Marconian sky. Qua'roti Alpha stood, grimacing, as he looked at the time left until the Shards woke from their dormant state for roughly the thousandth time since Critock and Tomkari took off. To this point there had been no further contact from either of the pair, and he feared the worst, especially after a routine security search had taken place a few kliks after their departure, and had uncovered coded messages being sent back and forth to an unknown location. That was all it took for the military queue to double their presence, and all engineers that hadn't already gone off shift for the evening were currently going through intense screenings.