The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration (22 page)

Mark shook his head in disgust.
“I wish I could have. I swear if this thing gives me any more of a headache I’m going to throw the native host out of an airlock.”

“I don’t think anyone would blame you for that
,” Eddie chortled.

“
I think you’re right, Eddie.” He stood from his command chair and grimaced, stretching his back painfully in the process.

“
Are you okay, Mark?” Ariel asked, concern written all over her beautiful face.

“I’m just tired, Ari. I think I’m up about thirty six hours now, without any kind of break
.”

“You have to rest, Mark.
Not only for yourself, but for the rest of us as well.”

“I know kiddo, I know. After I talk to EPIC and see to Chakix I’m going to get some rest. In fact, where’s Marek? Let’s get him and his secondary command crew up here as long as nothing critical is facing us
at the moment. Everyone take a few hours off.”

Ariel nodded and called the secondary crew to come to the command deck.

***

A few minutes later she and Mark were exiting the maglovator and entering the medical bay. Troiano’s medical deck was loaded with people. There were
many of those who were held within the strange cylinders of the alien ship.

“How are they?” Mark asked.

“They seem to be okay. I’m not seeing anything going on with them that’s out of the ordinary.” Dr. Troiano replied with a shrug.

Ariel looked
at a few crewmembers she recognized and smiled warmly to several before turning back to Troiano and Mark. “So what were they doing to them in those cylinders?”

“As far as I can tell they were storing them
.”

“What does that mean?” Mark asked, suddenly angry.

Dr. Troiano locked her eyes with Mark’s. “They were storing them like pickles in a jar, Captain. Like you would with any type of food.”

Mark’s lip twitched in disgust.
“That is not what I wanted to hear.”

“What about Chakix?” Ari asked.

“The native housing its sentience is still unconscious from the sedative I’ve been giving him. I can bring him out of it at any time though.”

“Can you do it gradually? I don’t want this thing back to its full insanity at the drop of a hat
.”

Tr
oiano nodded in the affirmative. “Yes, I can. I can make the native host barely cognizant, if need be. I can also give him something to keep his body almost paralyzed but his mind fully functioning.”

“Ann
, I don’t want this thing to be dangerous. I want to be able to speak to it calmly.”

“What are you planning, Captain?” Troiano asked suspiciously.

“Something that will benefit all of us, Chakix and Earth alike.”

Ariel
squinted her eyes slightly while looking at Mark. “You’re planning on making a deal with it aren’t you?”

Mark grinned slyly.
“You know me better than you think, Ari.”

“No,
” she shrugged her shoulders and then added, “I just know what to expect from you at this point.” She returned his grin.

Mark feigned surprise holding his right hand acro
ss his chest and over his heart. “What do you mean, oh fair Ariel?”

“I mean I expect the unexpected
”

Mark
leaned over and kissed her gently. A moment passed and they separated.

Ariel smiled, “
Mmmm, I like kisses…” she cooed softly.

Mark
moved his head sideways, smirked and replied, “Well they’re better than a punch in the mouth.”

She slapped him playfully.
“You are such a jerk sometimes.”

He laughed.
“Hey as long as it’s not all the time.”

Troiano cleared her throat.
“Excuse me, but if you two children are finished, what would you like me to do with our guest?”

“I need Chakix awake and lucid but not in control of that body. Can you do that?”

Troiano nodded. “Give me five minutes and you’ll be able to talk to it.”

Mark and Ariel sat at a table in a small closed room. The red skinned alien that bore Chakix’s intelligence sat facing them. Behind the alien stood two security men, guns at the ready, just in case.

“
What is it you want now, MarkJohnson? You have separated me from my body, my world, and children. What more can you do to me to humiliate and hurt me?”

“Hey
, Chakix, let’s be honest. You attacked us first. You possessed Ariel, you tried to cause death and destruction on my ship and to my crew. None of that was necessary. We were willing to negotiate, you wanted to demand.”

“I am Chakix, demanding is what I know. None have ever refused me before
,” the alien blurted out.

“That’s not my problem, Chakix. If you want to play in the big boy pool you have to learn the rules of the game. Now I’m still willing to negotiate
getting rid of the Agalum
with
you.”

“With?”
The alien went wide eyed and exclaimed.

“Yes, with.
Like I already previously explained to you, we’re not your slaves, or your weapons to point at your enemies. If you want allies to aid you in getting rid of the Agalum, we can do that. But it would be you entering into a long term contract or deal with our world, Earth.”

The red
skinned native looked perplexed. “What is this…deal?”

“It basically means we will aid you as your allies, and you will aid us as ours. We will require some concessions in exchange for ridding you of the Agalum
.”

“What kind of…concessions do you seek?”

“We will help you in driving the Agalum from your world, but we get to use the base they already created. We will turn that base into a forward command for the Earth forces. Your people will be freed from slavery by us. We will supply our own people to work the base. We will require natural resources from you, in exchange for freeing your people.”

“What are these…resources?”

“Minerals, oil, any other items we can find of use to us that will aid in the war against the Agalum conglomerate. Once we defeat them permanently we will leave your world if that is what you want. If you want us to remain that can be arranged as well, but that we can discuss when the time comes and only if you so desire our presence here.”

The bare chested red skinned alien spat,
“I do not need your help to defeat these…Agalum. I can do it myself.”

Mark smiled as he
walked around the captive alien. “No, you cannot. If you could drive them from your world you would have done so already instead of demanding we do it for you. So think on that a while if you must. I’m offering you a very fair deal. It’s time to wake up and grow up, Chakix. You can’t keep acting like some all-powerful spoiled brat who’ll stamp her feet if she doesn’t get her way. If you want to win the freedom of your children or people or whatever, you’ll have to join us, and come into a long lasting agreement with us that will benefit both of us. That’s what I’m offering you.”

The Chakix host hesitated.
“I…do not know. I do not trust you. Others like you; they have done much harm to my children and myself.”

“Those others, the Agalum, are
not
like us. Not at all. We’ll leave if you tell us to, once this is over. Though I’m counting on you to be a creature of your word and to allow us to stay and use this already constructed base to keep our mutual enemies at bay. What say you?”

The Chakix host stared
up at the blank ceiling a moment, then exhaled before finally answering, “You will allow me to make my mind up when this war is over?”

“Yes
, Chakix, once the war is over you can either welcome us completely as your permanent tenant, or tell us to leave.
But
if you choose to tell us to leave after we defeat the Agalum and before the war is over, effectively double crossing us… well, let me put it this way. You’ll wish the Agalum were still your tenants and not us. What I’m saying is don’t betray us, Chakix. We want to be your allies, not your enemy.”

The red skinned alien
stared at its feet, then the ceiling again momentarily before returning its host’s glare upon Mark Johnson. “You will aid us in driving these Agalum away?”

“Yes
, Chakix, as I have said already. They are your enemy, not us. We seek to build a relationship with you.”

Chakix looked at them hesitantly
. Mark extended his hand, waiting for the alien to take it and shake. Hesitantly the red skinned alien reached its hand out and grasped Mark’s, clumsily shaking it.

Mark grinned and released
the alien’s hand after a moment. “That’s great, now let’s get to work.”

The
Cagliostro
dropped out of hyper-warp and slowed to a stop. Its position was deep in the void between solar systems.

“Maintain shields at maximum. Red, any contacts?”

The big security man shook his head negatively
. “Nada, Mark. I’m running hyper-warp as well as regular space scans. There’s nothing and no one even close to our position.”

“All right
. I’m going to send a coded message to EPIC about our situation and what we need out here. I’ll be in the command conference room. Ariel, join me please.”

Ariel thumbed a control on her console and spoke, “Lilly Wallflower to the command deck please
.” She then rose and followed Mark to the maglovator.

The
y exited the maglovator outside the command conference room a minute later.

“After you
,” Mark offered. The door slid open before them and both entered.

Sitting down across from each other, Mark began
talking. “Are we doing the right thing?”

“What? What are you talking about?” Ariel asked in total surprise.

Driving the Agalum off of Chakix’s world. I mean the Agalum are our foe, no doubt about it, and Chakix agreed to our terms, but you know as well as I do that Chakix can’t be trusted. What if this is all a ploy to get a large number of our vessels out here far enough from Earth that the Agalum can attack and do us some extended harm while we’re trying to free Chakix?”

Ariel continued to look at Mar
k with astonishment in her eyes. “How many ships are you going to request out here?”

“We’re going to need at least one carrier and several battle
dreadnaughts to take down that fleet they have around Chakix. Plus how do we know they are not going to pull more ships in as reinforcements once the battle begins?”

“You think they would, right?”

“Of course I do Ariel. I have no doubt once the alarms start going off they are going to pull every ship they can into place about Chakix and start trying to protect their investment.”

“You’re right. They’re not going to go easy
, I guess.”

“No, of course not.
In fact this may well be the bloodiest battle of the war, even surpassing what happened two years ago above the Earth when we drove them off.”

“What if we could
do this, I dunno, maybe stealthily?”

Mark smiled.
“Do you have a suggestion, Ari?”

“Well you want to use a ground force to take out that base
, right?”

“I don’t
even know if that’s possible. That’s a functioning base with hundreds of personnel at least, perhaps thousands. I don’t know what it will take to breach their defenses and take over that place. I know we don’t have enough manpower to hold it even if we do succeed in taking it.”

“What if we really do?”

“What are you suggesting, Ari?”

“That you’re overlooking the natives
.”

“I know.
I had considered them earlier, but they’re savages with sticks and flint point knives. They’re not exactly a major fighting force, all things considered.”

“What about the giant red ape?”

“Well, we only saw one of those, and any blast from one of our cannons would have killed it. So unless there’s a few hundred or thousand of those things floating around, they’re really not going to be a major force that can’t be taken out fairly easily.”

“Mark, wait. Think about it. T
he natives under Chakix guidance were pretty formidable, and Chakix already proved that the red ape is under her dominion too. She had it talking in her own voice along with the natives, remember?”

“How could I forget? That was more than a little disconcerting.
It was downright eerie.”