The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration (28 page)

“Not even when a
trained soldier could take over?”

“What’s really going on here
, Nagata? Why the sudden interest in leading this mission? Yours and five other ships appear out of nowhere offering me exactly what we were looking for, and now suddenly you decide you want to run the show. Perhaps you all were sent here by Bright to keep an eye on the renegade nut job who got lucky a few times out here?”

“The reason I’m out here, Johnson, is to help, not you
, but our planet. I’m here to make sure we win.”

“Perhaps you are
, Nagata, but I find it interesting how after I request Admiral Bright send me a fleet to aid us out here and he refuses me, you suddenly show up with five other ships in tow ready to jump right in. That is until you find out basically what’s at stake, then you want to move in and take over. It’s a little too pat for my tastes. A bit too contrived.”

“So what, you think I’m some kind of spy for Admiral Bright? That we all are? Let’s not beat around the bush, Johnson. Do you think we’
re here to somehow undercut you? Or to keep you in line? I have to remind you, we’re all on the same team here, all on the same mission.”

“Yes
, I would like to think so, Nagata. If this was a military operation that we had flown in on to aid you all, not that the little
Cagliostro
could be so much of an aid to the power behemoths of EPIC’s fleet, I would gladly do what was asked of us and follow yours or whoever’s lead. But that is just not the case. This is a delicate situation. One we’ve been deeply engaged with for the past week plus. I’m asking you to trust me, Nagata. We need a scalpel here, not a hammer.”

Nagata sighed and seemingly deflated
. He leaned back in his desk chair and stared at Mark silently for a moment.

Nagata pointed at Mark.
“You better be right about this. I’m putting my faith and my trust in you. Don’t make me regret this.”

“I won’t Captain. Trust me. I won’t let you or the
Earth down. But I have to ask you one other favor, a minor one at best. I’d prefer to get your word that you or any of the other Captains or crews will not contact Admiral Bright until after the mission is over.”

Nagata bristled at this, but
then relented. “Very well, Johnson. You have my word. We’ll play it your way, because, whether you believe it or not, I
do
respect you and what you have done.”

“Thank you
, Captain.”

Mark and his command crew sat in the command deck ready room staring at each other across the table.

“Do you trust them?” Ariel asked.

“I think I have to.
What other choice do I have?”

Dan shrugged.
“Well we could just blast outta here so fast they’d never catch us and go back to Chakix. We could settle things up ourselves once we’re there. Don’t forget, we’re still the fastest ship in the fleet, and so far from what we’ve seen the fastest ship around period. Don’t sell that short.”

“No, Danny, I won’t
. But I don’t want to believe our own organization would turn against us for no reason.”

“Maybe Bright’s been compromised
,” Eddie commented. “It is possible.”

“I know
, Eddie, it is. Even with the screening systems we’ve been able to come up with to defeat their clones and shape shifters they could just have come up with something new.”

“Or we’re all just getting a little too paranoid
,” Red allowed.

Mark nodded solemnly.
“You’re right. Or that.”

Ariel turned toward Mark.
“Mark, when they were here I didn’t break into their minds and scan them. But I didn’t get any latent feelings of deception off of them either. Every one of them seemed genuine enough while they sat at this table.”

“I understand, Ari. I don’t know what to think at the moment. I just know we’ve been out here for a long time. When this is over I want a vacation,” Mark sighed.

“Yeah
Boss, you ain’t the only one,” Dan noted.

Red looked around at everyone seated at the conference table
. “So what do we do now?”

“We’re going to put our plans in concrete, Red. Let’s decide right now how we’re going to do this
.”

E
ddie waved his hand toward Mark. “Hey, you’re the boss, Boss. You come up with it and let us know what you wanna do. Like always. You command we’ll follow. If something doesn’t look kosher, we’ll let you know.”

Mark grinne
d. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eddie.”

“What? I was bein’ serious
.”

“I know
, DiGenovese, I know. That’s the best part of it.”

Dan gr
unted, “Now you guys are gettin’ loose? When things are goin’ to be their worst?”

Mark smiled.
“C’mon, Danny, you know how I work. When things are at their worst I’m at my best.”

“It don’t always work out fer the best
, man,” Dan replied.

“I’m aware of things
, Dan. You know that,” Mark countered.

“Ah, you know I’m just
playin’ devil’s advocate.” Dan grinned.

“I do Danny, and actually I tha
nk you for doing that once in a while, just not too oft-“

A
frenzied voice cut through the ship’s comm system. “Emergency on the landing deck, repeat emergency on the landing deck.”

Mark’s face immediately
turned grim as he toggled the comm unit built into his tech suits sleeve. “This is Captain Johnson. What’s the emergency and who am I talking to?”

A voice immediately replied
, but in the background shots could be heard firing from blasters all about him. “Th-this is Phillips. I-I’m a tech working on the
Stargrazer
repairs. Th-these things started growing out of the f-floor. Th-they’re unstoppable.”

“What kind of thing
s, Phillips? What are they?”

N
o other reply came.

Red exited the conference room and ran straight toward the maglovator. Eddie and Dan looked at Mark, who then turned and followed Red.

Eddie, Dan, and Ariel followed him into the maglovator.

“Red got into the other car ahead of us
,” Eddie mused.

“He’s only
got a few seconds on us,” Mark answered.

Once again he tapped his right sleeve’s cuff
, this time on the run, “All available security personnel to the landing deck. Repeat, all available security personnel to the landing deck.”

The command crew exited the maglovator on the landing deck, bursting through the sliding doors as soon as they parted.

“What the hell?” Dan barked.

Everyone froze for an instant. Three robots were rampaging through the landing deck.
Three robots that no one had ever seen before. Big, blocky things and they were the same light blue as the
Cagliostro
’s landing deck floor.

Red was already ahead of them and sprinting toward the robots
, a blaster in hand.

Mark turned to Ariel.
“Ari, scan them, make sure they’re robots and not men in armor.”

“Already did it
, Mark. I’m getting nothing. There’s nothing organic there. It’s all robot.”

A man bleeding from a forehead wound
stumbled toward them and fell into Mark’s arms.

“Cap-
tain, I-I’m Phillips. Th-those things, th-they grew right out of the floor.”

“What Philips?
How?”

Mark shook the man but he was now limp in Marks arms, unconscious, or worse.

Mark propped him up behind some equipment in the landing deck and angrily turned toward the rampaging mechanicals
.

Security men had exited the maglovator behind the command crew and were now engaging the
three robots. Energy blasters were firing almost nonstop and Red was right in the thick of things, directing his men and firing shot after shot from his own blaster.

“Small arms fire is just bouncing off of them
,” Eddie observed.

Mark nodded.
“We need heavier artillery.”

With a terrible wrenching sound one of the robots flipped over a shuttle like it was paper.

“Great, more damage,” Mark grunted.

“Where the hell did these things come from?” Eddie shouted.

“They had to be left here from that Predator craft,” Mark replied.

“How’s that even possible
, Mark?” Dan queried.

“
Miniaturization. Think about it. Remember what Phillips said on the comm? They came out of the floor. These things were miniaturized and absorbed material from the hull of the ship, or rather the landing deck itself. Look at the floor near where that Predator class ship was being held. See how it’s discolored and it looks almost gouged out? There’s mass missing from there. They built themselves from some pre-programmed code. We’re lucky it’s only three. It could have been hundreds.”

Red’s voice interrupted on the
tech suits comm units. “Mark, I’m heading to the armory to get something with more punch. I’ve got a total of thirty men either engaged here or coming to join the party.”

“Acknowledged
, Red. Bring something powerful.”

“Just what I was thinking
, Boss man.”

Red disappeared back into the maglovator.

Dan turned toward Mark. “I gotta buy these guys some time.”

Without another word he leaped toward the robots. One immediately identified him as a threat and batted him out of the air. Dan smashed into the previously flipped shuttle, and both man and shuttle careened across the landing deck in a heap of twisted metal.

“Danny!” Mark shouted.

“Oh man
, that
had
to hurt,” Eddie moaned.

I
n reply the decimated shuttle split apart. Dan crawled from within its wreckage, tearing the rest of it in two. He ran directly at the three robots, while carrying what was left of the shuttle in each hand. The security men continued to fire gleaming blaster beams at them, which careened all over the landing deck.

Dan leaped through the air, roaring,
“Eat some heavy metal, you brainless freaks!”

He heaved the shuttle halves at two of the robots, knocking them f
rom their feet and crushing them against the bulkhead wall.

“Get this deck cleared of all non-security people
!” Mark shouted.

The other two robots
were closing in on the rapidly firing security team. The machines were heavily shielded and the hand blasters were just not powerful enough to tear through them quickly.

“This is not so good
,” Eddie complained.

“Aim for the joints in the knees and hips. Let’s see if it’s a weak spot
,” Mark ordered.

“Good idea, El Capitan
,” Eddie smirked.

“Red
, where are you with that heavy artillery?” Mark spoke into his sleeve’s comm unit.

“Coming
,” was the terse reply.

Across the landing deck, Dan
traded blows with the powerful robot he had engaged.

“Holy…Will you look at him
go,” Eddie exclaimed.

Dan slammed
his right fist into the robot, and then followed with his left. Each punch was punctuated by a terrible wrenching sound of steel being damaged.

“C’mon
, you pile of garbage, let’s see what you’ve really got!” Sledge yelled.

The robot, in an almost human seeming gesture
, paused as if angry, hesitating a second. Then it threw itself at Dan Sledge, both block-like fists raised above its head.

Dan did not
hesitate an instant. He squatted down, then leaped straight at the robot, both of his fists knotted together. He swung those mighty club-like fists at the instant he engaged the robot. The impact was like a bomb going off in the landing deck. Everyone turned to see what the sound was, even if they did not mean or want to.

The robot
’s head exploded from its shoulders as if it had been launched out of a rocket and slammed against the ceiling of the landing deck with a thunderous cacophony.

Dan landed on the deck with his back to the robot in a crouch. He turned to stare at the mechanical monster wit
h a sneer of utter contempt upon his brutish face.

The headless robot took one step, then a second and fell over, unmoving.
Fluids began to seep from its body.