Chrystal Bones (Finding Home Book 1) (33 page)

“Are they doing this now because of me?” Blue asked in disbelief. All eyes turned towards her.

Jayden, who would never lie to her, simply said, “Yes.”

Idris left his station to stand with her. “It is not all about you,” he gave Jayden a nasty look. “Ragillian has been wanting to conquer Shillidon for years. When he found out that the chrystals are dying he was content to wait. Now we know that he also knows about the legend of the Chrystal Woman. He cannot afford to take the chance that the legend is true and let you get home to heal the planet,” he told her.

Sparks added, “Without the chrystal shields he would have an easier time taking what he wants.”

“Which is taking over the universe,”
Dro added with a mental snort.

Jayden laced her fingers with his. “He would have done this or something like this sooner or later. Your presence just made it sooner and that is not all bad. At most he has known of your existence for maybe a month. That has not given him a lot of time to plan this out completely. Which means that we can beat him and get a chance at him in the process.”

“And just how do you plan on doing that. In case you weren’t listening the planet is surrounded by ships that would just love to blow us up,” Blue pointed out.

“Dala, sneaking into places where we are not wanted is what we do and what you did on Earth,” Jayden’s grin flashed.

Blue smiled back, “Damn right. Let’s go kick some Ragillian ass.”

Sparks hooted. There were answering nods and hoots of agreement from everyone.

Sparks took the Trilleion out of hyper twenty four hours away from Shillidon. As soon as he did Idris engaged the stealth field with split second timing effectively hiding the ship in plain sight.

Once again everyone was in the control room and they all watched the view screens. They were set to maximum magnification with all screens on. Blue loved the illusion of floating in space that the full screens gave her but for once her mind was not on the view.

She watched as the screens lit up with red and green dots. The red dots out numbered the green by a factor of four and as she watched they were joined by three more.

“How did he get so many ships here so fast? The King’s message said there were only sixty?” she wondered aloud.

Jayden answered even though she didn’t really expect him to. “He must have been sending them here from the minute he heard you were alive.”

There were according to the computers over a hundred enemy ships circling the planet.

The planet itself was a glowing ball surrounded by layers of pink and yellow gasses. It was too far away to make out any details even with the sensors at maximum but this first sight of it had her spellbound. This was the planet she had spent her first years on. She had walked its streets, played in its gardens and swam in its ocean.

That she didn’t remember any of it gave her a deep sense of regret. She felt no sense of home and the part of her that held a secret hope died a quiet death. It was only when she heard Jayden’s voice in her mind that she realized she hadn’t bothered to block her thoughts from him.

“You were a child when you left. I doubt that you ever saw it like this.”

He was right
, she thought as the hope flickered back to life.

“How are we going to get through them?” she asked out loud.

“Very carefully,” Jayden said at the same time as Sparks’s “Piece of cake.”

Sparks had learned some of the slang phrases of Earth and took great delight in using them whenever he could. Some of the mistakes he made in using them were hilarious. Blue shook her head and gave him a stern look that she then ruined by smiling.

She didn’t think it was going to be the piece of cake he thought but they were as ready as they could be. The plan was to work their way through the blockade with the stealth field on. It would leave them unable to fire the weapons if they were discovered but it would not be the first time for this group to sneak onto a planet in a covert mission.

Granted they usually didn’t have to go through a blockade of hostile ships and it was usually to rescue someone or blow something up. They were confident enough in their skills and in the ship designed for this, that they believed it could be done.

The tricky part was going to be getting a message to the right people to drop the shields long enough for them to get through. The people on Shillidon were not going to like that idea. It was a good thing the prince was on board and had the authority to order it done.

The next several hours were tense for everyone as Sparks flew them closer to the waiting enemy. The inaction was stringing everyone’s nerves taunt. Dro monitored communications closely and was able to tap into the less secure systems on the Ragillian ships. So far they were just sitting there and waiting, for what no one was sure.

Sparks maneuvered through the narrow line of space between one ship’s sensors and another’s slowly and steadily. Blue thought of it as threading a needle. If he miscalculated he would run into the sensors of one of the Ragillian ships. Even though they couldn’t see the Trilleion there was no way to completely mask the the ship. If they were looking closely they would see an area of black space the size of a small ship.

They definitely would look if Sparks ran into one of their sensors. Since the Trilleion was a prototype and the only one in existence with this stealth field, they should be okay but no one wanted to take the chance. Everyone gave a sigh of relief when they slid past the last enemy ship.

Using a secure whisper line of communication Idris spoke into the com unit, “This is Prince Idris I need you to lower the shield for a nanosecond on my mark.”

A pompous voice came back after a few minutes, “This is Commander Azael of the Shillidon Space Navy. I am in charge of the shields and I will not lower them for anyone. We are surrounded by enemy ships.”

“I understand your concerns Commander but as I stated I am Prince Idris and I order you to lower the shield on my authorization. That authorization is Two Three Ten One Nine Nine Zero Shila Four Bata Ten Three Two Aaliyah. Now lower the shields on my mark.”

“I do not care who you are. I am not lowering the shields on anyone’s authority.”

“I out rank you and I am giving you a direct order Commander. Lower the shields now!” Idris barked.

Instead of answering the Commander shut down the signal from his end.

If the situation had not been so serious Blue would have laughed at the total shock on Idris’s face. He tried for several minutes to reopen the connection but his hails were ignored. That was it. With the shields up there was no way to land on the planet. They were dead. Oh they could sneak back out but no one was willing to do that and leave Shillidon to their fate despite what the King had asked.

While Idris continued to try to get someone to answer him, Blue was thinking. The chrystal at her throat was pulsing and sending information to her. In her Astral form she would be able to get through the shield but that left the ship and her body on the other side.

The chrystal was telling her that she could get the ship through too. She went closer to the forward view screen and made out the faint ice blue glow surrounding the planet. She knew she could get them through it, she just was not sure how. Using instincts she didn’t know she had, she placed both hands on the wall of the ship and concentrated.

Jayden watched Blue walk closer to the view screen and hoped she was not going to do the same thing she had the first time she had done that. Now was not a good time for her to go space flying. She put her hands on the ship and he saw the chrystal at her throat glowing and pulsing in time to her heartbeat. The ice blue glow quickly spread to encompass her whole body.

He watched in disbelief as the part of the ship she was touching also started to glow brightly. The glow spread throughout the ship, encompassing it entirely. Jayden heard her voice in his head.

“Tell Sparks to go through the shield.”

When he hesitated, she added, “Quickly Jayden. I don’t really know what I am doing but you have to trust me. Tell him to go now.”

Jayden looked her, then around the control room. He did trust her with his life, with all of their lives.

He turned to see everyone staring wide eyed at Blue and the glowing ship. “Sparks, Blue says take us through the shield.”

That Sparks did not question him told Jayden that he too trusted Blue enough to do as she asked.

“You have any Idea what she is doing?” he asked Idris.

“No, I can honestly say I have never seen or heard of anyone doing anything like this,” Idris shook his head. “How does she think to get past the shield?”

“You are the one from Shillidon. If anyone should know it is you. You said she was the Chrystal Woman. You know, the one from your legends,” Jayden said with more than a little sarcasm.

“I also told you that there was not much information on what they could do. When she was born my parents had the archives searched for any information they could find. I assure you that there was not any mention of something like this,” Idris said as he waved a hand at his glowing sister who had become almost lost in the center of the bright light. Her strange and beautiful eyes with the pink and blue pupils were swirling with storms while the irises glowed. She looked like nothing any of them had ever seen and they had seen a lot of strange things in their travels.

Vihan’s rough, gravely voice asked, “Is anyone else at all concerned about the fact that the ship is glowing so bright that there is no way the Ragillians are not seeing us along with everyone else?”

“If they are no one is shooting at us yet,” Idris said after checking the sensors. “In fact no one seems to be paying us any attention.”

“Jayden you sure about this? In about ten seconds there will be no turning back,” Sparks broke in. Jayden looked at his men and each of them nodded their heads.

Jos said, “We all have to die sometimes.”

“Brace for impact in three..... two..... one..... impact,” Sparks called out.

Only there was no impact. The ship met the shield and melted into it like a finely honed blade sliding through flesh. The shield flowed over the ship as they moved through, molding to it as they passed then sealing back up behind them. It was smooth and over in less than a second.

Blue felt infused with the energy pouring into her. She was connected to the shield in an intimate dance of give and take. As soon as she felt the ship connect with the planetary shield all the energy she was using to merge the ship with the shield came pouring back into her twofold. She could feel herself growing stronger with the energy pouring into her.

The contact lasted for less than a second before they were through but during that second she became part of it and felt every chrystal that was connected to the shield. Controlling it was easy since she was the shield for that one moment. She bent it to her will and let the Trilleion slide through.

Once she was no longer in contact with the shield the energy coursing through her body was still more than it could hold. She knew she had to release some of it before it consumed her. Concentrating on releasing the energy back to the shield she pushed it through her body into the ship and out in a stream to the shield. She slowly released the extra energy back into the shield. Never having dreamed something like this was possible, she was in awe at what she was doing.

Gradually the energy left her. The glow died down and the ship returned to normal. She felt giddy, almost drunk. She remembered once when she and Riley had decided to get drunk just to see why so many people chose to.

The alcohol had no effect on her but Riley had described feeling like she could do anything. Blue had to keep her from jumping off the cliff because she had been convinced that she could fly. Now Blue wondered if this is what she had felt. If it was she now understood why someone would choose to get drunk.

She felt wonderful. Healing the ice blue chrystal had drained her to exhaustion but this, this was something else. She had become one with the chrystal shield. She had felt the heartbeat deep within the planet’s core.

Removing her hands from the ship she turned around to face the guys. Jayden was the first to speak, “Well princess, you are just full of tricks.”

“Yeah….. This is probably another one we want to keep to ourselves. Right?” she said.

“Not going to happen this time Princess. There is a whole planet full of people who are going to know we got through the shield.”

“But they do not know how we did it,” Idris pointed out.

“That’s right and if no one tells them it will be just another mystery,” Blue said with enthusiasm almost dancing across the room to hug him. He laughed and hugged her back.

“You alright sis?” he asked, puzzled by her behavior but thrilled with the hug. The first one she had given him since she was a little girl. Blue threw up her arms and twirled in place.

“I am wonderful,” she pronounced.

Dro walked over to her and ran a scanner up and down her body.
“She is fine. This must be a side effect of whatever it was she did to get us through the shield,”
he sent to all of them.

Blue boogied over to Jayden and jumped into his arms. The surprise on his face made her giggle and kiss him. As always when she was in his arms her blood heated and she whispered loudly, “Let’s go to our room and rock the ship.”

Sparks snickered and Vihan laughed aloud. Blue’s mouth dropped open and she looked at him, “You can laugh.” She jumped out of Jayden’s arms and went to him and gave him a hug and kiss on his scared cheek.

Jayden pulled her away from Vihan saying, “Save your kisses for me princess.” He was just as delighted as Idris was in her open display of affection and hated to put a damper on it.

“Where is my hug?” Sparks said still snickering.

“I’m sorry are you feeling left out?” Blue went to him and leaned down and gave him a hug but no kisses. Jayden sounded serious about that.

“Are you aware that you are still glowing?” he asked her.

Blue looked down at herself to see. Yep, sure enough, she was glowing. Not brightly but more than she usually did after soaking up lightning on Earth. “Wow. That’s kinda cool,” she said. Leo nudged her and she reached down to scratch behind his ears.