The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration (16 page)

“It’s good to be reminded
, Mark. This stuff is important for all of us to know inside and out,” Eddie added.

“What are you havin’ the probe do now?” Dan
queried.

“Following that black eyed bastard back to his den if possible and see
ing if we can get any more info out of what’s going on here.”

All eyes upon the command deck focused on the view screen when a warning light began to blink
on Red’s station. The big security officer refocused to his own console and his eyes went wide.

“Mark, you better see this
.” Red touched a virtual control and the view screen split in half, the left side showing the view everyone had already been watching, the right side showing space from the view of the probes they had sent out days earlier and into close orbit. In the blackness of space several large ships had already appeared and were locking into orbit. But an instant later a massive cruiser, bright and gleaming, appeared from hyper-warp and settled into orbit, the other ships encircling it protectively.

“What the hell is going on here?” Eddie
asked.

“That’s someone important
,” Red replied.

“I think that ship holds someone far more than
just important,” Mark announced. “I believe that ship holds the Agalum supreme leader.”

“We’re in trouble with all that firepower above us, never mind the base they already established here,” Red offered.

Mark Johnson leaned back in his command chair on the command deck of the
Cagliostro
and for several very pregnant moments steepled his fingers in silent thought.

“No
, Red, I have to disagree with you on this one,” he finally replied. “That base is our number one priority right now. It’s going to be our best way to survive all of this and maybe, just maybe end the Agalum threat once and for all.”

“What are you
plannin’?” Dan grinned.

“I need sixty five armed and ready
people prepared to go to battle.”

“We only have thirty security people on this ship. The rest are going to be techs and
people from all over the ship,” Red offered.

Mark
nodded. “I know but just about everyone who serves on this ship is ex-military as you well know, no matter what position they may be filling right now. Thirty five people left aboard the Cag will allow us to operate normally if need be. Right now we need ground soldiers who hopefully will not have to fire a shot. Red, I want as many men as you have suited up in heavy battle armor to lead the charge. I need to speak to Chakix. She’s going to have to do her part as well now.”

***

“You wish me to put my children in harm’s way? No I refuse.” The native alien who housed Chakix’ mind spoke in the same hollow, eerie voice they had all heard emanating from Ariel’s mouth when this adventure had begun over a week and a half ago.

Mark, Red and Dan
stood opposite the Chakix Alien, varying degrees of annoyance playing across their faces.

“You don’t have a choice
, Chakix,” Mark rebuked her. “This is no joke. I need every able bodied native you have upon this world. If they want this world free from these invaders, they have to be willing to fight for it.
You
have to be willing to fight for it. We can’t do everything.”

The bare chested, red skinned male who housed
Chakix’s mind snorted derisively but did not refuse Mark’s request a second time.

“You say this will eliminate these invaders from my lands? Why do you now agree to help so quickly
?”

Mark shrugged.
“I told you before we would help you get rid of the Agalum. But the situation has grown more dire.”

“You speak of the recently arrived vessels in my orbit
.”

“Yes I
do, and the one vessel that gleams like a polished diamond amongst the rocks up there? That’s a yacht of some type; someone very important to the Agalum is on that vessel. From the looks of things I’d say that’s the Agalum supreme leader’s vessel. They want this planet, of that I have no doubt. This world, your world is meant to be a staging ground in their attacks on my world, Earth.”

Chakix bristled with what could only be described as rage
. “I will reach out and destroy that ship and all of those around it.”

“That’s all well and good, Chakix, but why haven’t you done the same thing with the invaders who are here in that base they created?”

“I cannot. They have my children captive,” the native Chakix was speaking through simply replied.

“I wish I could get word through to the Earth Protectorate Interstellar Command,” Mark mused. “We’d have a fleet of space navy ships here in a day.”

“You could do such a thing?” The native eerily asked.

“I could, but not here. They would be upon us in minutes. We have to be far enough away from here to not draw attention to ourselves.”

The alien native cocked his head sideways and asked
, “Why?”

“
Kinda thick, aintcha Chakix?” Dan asked with some annoyance.

“Because they would destroy us on this spot.
They would decimate us before we could get space bound.”

“
So?” The alien continued, “You do not matter; only my children do.”

“That’s not how it works
,” Mark angrily replied. He stood and punched the conference table for emphasis. “We’re partners in this. You have to work
with us if you want our cooperation. It’s reciprocal.”

“What is ‘reciprocal’?” the alien world-mind asked.

“It means you help us, we help you,” Eddie added.

For a moment the red skinned, bare chest
ed alien Chakix possessed sat quietly in his seat. Then it raised its head and its eyes met Mark’s.

“
I do not like this ‘reciprocal’. I order you to do as I command, and you obey. That is how it has always been, and how it will always be.”

Mark leaned back in his chair and locked his steely gaze with
Chakix’s host. “No. That’s not how it’s going to be. Not this time. You’re not calling the shots and sacrificing us, Chakix. We’re not your cannon fodder. We are partners in this endeavor, nothing less.”

“I will crush you and your precious ‘
Cagliostro
’,” the alien leaned forward and sneered.

“No.
No you won’t. Do you think I sat quietly and awaited you to order my crew, my friends to our deaths? Especially after what you had done to Ariel? Not only can you no longer affect us, but I can also destroy you if I was so inclined.”

“You would de
stroy me and all my children?” The alien stood and shoved the chair he was sitting on out from under himself, banging it against the wall behind him.

“I didn’t say I would
, Chakix, only that I could. Oh and by the way, I could do it easily too.”

“I -I do not believe you
,” the alien stammered.

Mark stood and everyone followed his lead
. “Fine. Prepare for lift-off.”

“
I will detain your ship,” bellowed Chakix.

“N
o, no you won’t. Not anymore,” answered Mark. He turned and exited the conference room. An instant later Chakix followed them all out to the command deck.

The command cr
ew relieved the secondary crewmen and took their seats. Ariel was already there, having not been part of the meeting. Mark didn’t want Chakix anywhere near her.

“Red?”
Mark queried. A moment later two security men appeared and stood on either side of the possessed alien.

“You will not leave, I will not allow it!” Chakix screamed belligerently.

“You don’t have a choice this time.”

The
Cagliostro
began to rise off of the thick forest floor. The gigantic trees that had hidden it up until now swayed and snapped as the ship rose.

“No
, I will stop you!” The Chakix possessed alien closed its eyes and concentrated. Instantly the
Cagliostro
felt like a hand had closed around it.

Mark looked at Dan and nodded.

A wave of energy passed through the hull and out of the ship. Simultaneously the alien host for Chakix fell to the ground as if it were a puppet with its strings cut.

The
Cagliostro
rose upward once more, now completely free of its confines. Its hull seemed to shimmer, almost as if it were hard to see. To the naked eye it looked as if it were almost liquid and not a solid star cruiser.

“What did you do?” Chakix asked weakly.

“Something you won’t understand or be able to defend against. You may have great powers and abilities as a living planet, Chakix, but my great ability is finding solutions to problems. It’s what I do best. I found the solution to you, and it was right under my nose.” Mark nodded to the security personnel who were holding a severely weakened Chakix up by the arms. They walked the alien to the maglovator and entered it together, heading toward the security cells.

“What’d you do, Mark?” Ariel asked.

“We went to hyper-warp without any forward motion. You see, hyper-warp is not a speed related state. We actually slide a small part of our mass into another dimension.”

“Is that why it looks like we’re in a star filled tunnel when we’re in hyper-warp?”

“Yes. Usually we only enter this other dimension with about point zero three percent of the ship’s mass. We effectively stand between dimensions and are immaterial in both of them, for the most part. All of this is accomplished with the magno-discs. The other dimension is one of insubstantial nothingness. We are never seen or perceived by anything that might exist there. As of now I believe it’s a dimension without any form of life existing within its confines. I’ve never seen anything, and believe me I’ve spent many hours searching through it via probes, right, Danny?”

T
he big Jovian smiled and nodded. “That’s right, Ari, an’ always made me help him out with the calculations, just to make sure he was right.”

“So what just happened?”

“I slid us seventy five percent into the side dimension. Danny and I worked it out over the last few days. We have more of a hold in that one than we do in our own at the moment. That’s why Chakix collapsed. Its tether to its own flesh as it were, the planet itself, was severed.”

“Is it dangerous?” Ariel asked.

Mark nodded slowly, his head leaning to the right. “It could be, if we stay this way for too long.”

E
ddie pointed to the view screen. “How come I’m still seeing the planet, and nothing looks different?”

“Our eyes and brains are used to our own dimension
and have not acclimated to this dimension of mist and fog, which is all I ever see in this place. There appears to be no up or down. No ground or planetary mass. It’s a purple colored void, which if you notice now, things have begun to take on a purplish hue, even though we still see Chakix, the planet, itself.”

“So we’re not going to need those sixty five crewmen anymore?” Red asked.

“No. Now I’m going to bring an army from Earth instead.”

Mark turned toward Dan.
“Take us into space, Mr. Sledge.”

Dan grinned and nodded.
“With pleasure, Boss.”

The great ship rose completely upward and engaged forward thrust, bursting free of the planet
’s gravity field and flying unseen past the Agalum fleet massing there.

“Take us away from here
, Danny. Red and Ariel, find us a nice empty sector of space with no Agalum vessels within a few light years. I want to send EPIC all the information we’ve attained.”

“You got it, Mark
,” Dan agreed.

The powerful Jovian engaged the hyper
-warp fully and in a burst of light, like a new star bursting to life, the
Cagliostro
glowed blindingly bright and then slowly blinked out of existence.

“Uh oh
,” Danny rumbled, “I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Mark.”

“What the hell…” Mark trailed off. He was staring at the view screen in stunned silence as was the rest of the command crew. Even the extra
command deck personnel that were constantly coming and going from the command deck stopped in shock and stared at the view screen.

On it was pictured a thick, cloying purple fog as far as the eye could see, which was not very far at all.

“W-what happened?” Eddie DiGenovese stuttered.

“We must have been pulled into this other dimension completely
,” Mark hypothesized.