The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration (33 page)

‘Stop it Ann. I’m, okay I can do this. The team needs me. I can rest when we get home to
Earth. I’m okay, really I am,’
Ariel retorted, again telepathically.

Mark walked up to her and placed both his hands upon her s
houlders.
‘Are you certain? We can get out of here and back to the ship. I don’t want to lose you. That almost happened once already on this trip. I don’t know how many lives you have left, kitty.’
He smiled, hugged her. and patted her head.

‘Let’s get outta here,
’
Dan grunted.
´We’re in this one spot way too long.’

‘You’re right, Dan. Move out. Dorn, Crosby back on point. Follow my directions. We’re almost at the base
leaders office.’

‘What if he’s not in there?’
Eddie queried.

‘He has to be. This place is not run like an
Earth base where the commander gives orders surrounded by his subordinates from one central command center. These Agalum leaders give their orders from their private quarters linked to others by their comm system. I learned that much from watching the probe’s readouts.’

Mark motioned to Dorn and Crosby
, and both moved out heading toward their destination that was hidden far beneath the false and inactive volcano.

‘This is it.
’
Mark halted them. He pointed at a dark wood colored door before them.

Dorn raised his gun and fired. T
he bolt blasted the door to kindling.

Everyone rushed into the office
behind him and Crosby. Then all hell broke loose.

Outside the base
, Red’s phalanx of heavy suited crewmen continued to move invisibly through the edges of the deep forest. The Agalum had now begun to try to track their movements through trampled brush and disturbed tree limbs.

But it was to no avail, for each time they came near a member of the
Cagliostro
’s invisible crew, a blast would ring out, killing the Agalum soldier where he stood.

“Now we’re cooking with fire
,” Malcom Joiner hissed. He had a smile plastered across his face within his heavy armored suit. The helmets they each wore obscured the wearer’s countenance but Red knew it was there just the same.

“Keep your head in the game, Joiner
,” Red admonished through the armored suit’s comm link.

“Will do, chief
,” Joiner replied immediately.

“Good man
,” Red added.

The Agalum stood outside the edge of t
he forest. The heavy suits’ sensors depicted them within the helmets.

“What are they doing?”
Bennet, one of the other crewmen, asked.

Red didn’t answer, but something was wrong and he knew it.

“Back up, all of you. Fast, something’s going on here.”

The men ran backward, holding their weapons at the ready
. What came next they weren’t ready for. Over four hundred Agalum troops raised their weapons and fired into the forest, burning it to the ground.

“Run, move!”
Red shouted.

En masse the crew retreated back as laser blasts lit up the dense foliage.

“Oh no,” Red murmured.

He heard
it coming before he had seen it.

The woods about them lit up with laser fire from an Agalum Predator. It swooped down from the heavens and unleashed hell on the
Cagliostro
’s camouflaged troops, decimating the forest. It was reduced to kindling in seconds.

“Damn it
,” Red growled. He dragged Joiner to his feet from where he had fallen next to him. “Get up, Mister. Shake it off. This armor protected you as much as it did me. Now move out, all of you!”

Moving swiftly through the group, Red grabbed men and shoved them
forward, pulling many to their feet. Joiner and Bennet aided him now, as did more and more of the stunned crew. They roused those who received more of the damage from the attack than they did.

“Is everyone okay? This armor should have protected us at least that one time, though I wouldn’t count on it a second. If that refractive coating gets burned off we’re goners
.”

The men all nodded or called out their
continued existence.

“Okay everyone made it through, which I figured. It’s time to back up, maybe draw these bastards back with us.
They still don’t see us. At least the camouflage is working yet. But I-”

Screams intruded upon Red’s speech and without hesitation he ran straight for the sound
. To a man his troopers followed him as closely as possible.

But Red Robinski was a unique individual. He was
already strong and athletic. The suit he was wearing only added to that. He leaped through the tough, packed woods like an Olympian sprinter, leaving the others almost immediately behind.

“Whoa, look at him go!” Bennet exclaimed
over his communicator.

“Keep your head in the mission, Bennet
,” Red ordered from up ahead.

“You got
it, Sir,” Bennet replied.

Red pulled up short when he entered a familiar clearing.

“My God
,” he muttered.

“What is it
, Sir?” Joiner queried.

“They killed the natives, all of them. The ones we had restrained here, including Chakix
.”

“What about the guards we left behind?” Joiner asked.

“Here, but stunned. I think their armor protected them as much as it did us.”

“That Predator is circling back around for a second shot
,” one of the other men shouted.

Red spun and immediately pinpointed the incoming craft.

“Everyone back beyond the tree line now. I want all weapons fully charged and aimed at that thing when it gets into range. You fire on my mark!”

The crewmen scrambled back to the trees on the opposite side of the clearing. They all lay down amongst
thick foliage that was left standing and was not a burning disaster.

“We’re only going to get one shot at
this. If this thing fires on us we’re as good as dead.” Red propped up his canon and began overloading it, bypassing the safeties and pushing its charge well beyond the safe level, as he had done earlier aboard the
Cagliostro
against the robots that had been left there. “This bastard is too close to the tree tops to be running with his shields on. He’s strafing us and the natives. He can’t see us yet. Without his shields that ship is vulnerable to a concentrated attack.”

Red slung his cannon off of his shoulder and began readjusting the settings on the digital interface
. “All of you set your weapons to one hundred and ten percent.”

“Aren’t they going to explode like that?”
Bikowski, a female security trooper, asked.

“Not if we discharge them first.
All rifles and blast cannons skyward. We have to hit him before he hits us. That means we can’t wait for him to get directly above us. Aim for the belly of this thing. Hold onto your pistols, they’re not going to be any good here anyway. Here it comes!”

The Predator circled overhead and then finally began its strafing run
.

“Don’t fire until I order you. This bastard still can’t see us and thinks he’s finishing off the natives
.”

“What about the rest of the enemy soldiers? Are they still heading our way?” Bennet asked.

“Forget them for now. Here he comes, weapons up and hot!”

The Predator swooped low
, beginning its strafing run. Before it could attack Red shouted, “Fire!”

The fifty men and women from the
Cagliostro
fired their overloaded weapons as one. The energy blasts leaped from their weapons and slammed into the Predator. So powerful was the concentrated blast that it tore the underside of the craft open and sent it careening into the forest tumbling end over end and trailing smoke until it came to an abrupt stop at least a mile away.

“What happened? Why
’d that ship attack the prisoners here? Some of their own people were among them,” Bikowski asked. She pulled off her helmet and a mane of blonde hair fell out.

“Because the Agalum are animals, Bikowski.
Life doesn’t mean a damned thing to them, not even their own. Now get your head gear back on. We’ve got hundreds of Agalum back beyond that ridge line and probably heading our way now that their ship went down.”

“Why aren’t they here already?” Joiner asked.

Red snapped his gloved fingers. “Of course. Mark took out their communications center. These guys are firing in the dark. They have no idea what to do because they can’t get in touch with their superiors.”

“That doesn’t make them any less dangerous though
,” Bennet added.

“No, but maybe it’s time we used their tactics against them
.” Red keyed his comm. “Robinski to the
Cagliostro
, do you copy, Marek?”

Instantly Matt Marek replied, “Yes Red, go
.”

“Matt, we need an airstrike on our position. We’ve got four hundred and change Agalum thugs heading our way. We just took out a Predator and are down to our hand guns. Can you
fulfill the airstrike?”

Without hesitation Marek replied, “We’re on our way
.”

“How long do you think till they get here?” Bikowski asked.

“I’m not sure, Robin. It could be five minutes, it could be less,” Red answered.

“I hope
it’s sooner, because here they come,” she added.

Robin Bikowski
shook her blonde mane of hair out and dropped her helmet to the grassy forest floor beneath her feet. Red grimaced at that but kept his attention focused on the quickly approaching oncoming horde.

“On my mark
,” Red ordered.

The Agalum soldiers stepped closer, brandishing their own laser weapons
. Red grimaced beneath his helmet and barked, “Now!”

The fifty crew
members fired in unison, sweeping their blasters from left to right together. The first group of Agalum went down screaming, but there were still over four hundred enemy warriors approaching the mere fifty on the ground.

“Keep firing
,” Red commanded. “Back up after each wave. Bikowski, get that helmet back on your head now!”

She stooped low to pick it up and was instantly hit in the shoulder by a stray laser bolt.

“Aaagghh!” She shrieked, grasping her smoking shoulder as she fell.

“Her armor’s compromised, get her out of here
!” Red shouted. Two more troopers picked her up and carried her moaning form out of the line of fire and dragged her deeper into the woods.

“C’mon Matt, where are you?” Red growled.

He reached into a compartment on his armor and retrieved a grenade. Without hesitation he hurled it at the troops in front of him. The resultant explosion knocked a dozen screaming men into the air. Before Red could enjoy his small victory another dozen attackers surged forward and opened fire on his camouflaged position.

“Shit!” he exclaimed and began scrambling backward while laser blasts fell all about him.

The entire fifty man crew was now in full retreat as almost ten times their number was gaining on them and pushing their advantage.

“We’re dead if the
Cagliostro
doesn’t get here now,” Joiner commented.

Red said nothing, but continued to back up and fire his blaster. He reached back into his suit and produced three more grenades, throwing each of them
whenever the Agalum got too close.

All too soon he was out
. Like an angry pack of wolves the Agalum approached their invisible enemies, firing their weapons indiscriminately.

Many more of Red’s people
fell, wounded. The refractory coating was clearly burned off their heavy suits by the powerful Predator ship’s attack. Still, those able to stand and fight did so.

“We can’t back up any further. We’d be leaving people behind and I refuse to do that. Keep fighting.
It’s do or die!” Red shouted.

The Agalum kept coming toward them, slowly, methodically firing their lasers. Some of the heavy armor suits
’ camouflage units were beginning to fail from the damage wrought by the Agalum.

Then the sky exploded in fury and thunder from behind the backed up group. With a blinding blast of heat and light
the
Cagliostro
flew overhead, strafing the ground and burning the Agalum forces to ash where they stood. The shadow cast by the thousand foot long ship stunned both sides of the fray. The
Cag
spun around in midair and lowered itself until it hovered twenty feet above the ground. From its bottom a telescoping maglovator reached down and kissed the ground. “Ten at a time please,” Lily Wallflower’s voice advised.