The Cagliostro Chronicles

by Ralph L. Angelo Jr.

  The maglovator doors opened and the two men walked back to their stations, Dan eyed Mark silently.

  Ariel looked first to Mark, then to Dan, yet said nothing. Sitting in a chair at the back of the deck, General Abruzzi creased his brow as he folded his arms across his barrel chest and exhaled thoughtfully.

  Suddenly an alert siren blared to life, then quieted to a less jarring volume within five seconds. “We’ve got contact, Mark.” Red advised. “One ship, currently one hundred million miles ahead of us and losing ground quickly.”

  “Slow down to match speed to theirs. I want to be on the outskirts of our sensor range.”

  “Roger, Mark.” Dan confirmed.

  “Eddie prepare all weapons. When we do intercept them I want it to be done quickly. Also we’re going to have to be ready to go on there and get our people back from them.”

  “What if they already dropped our people off somewhere?”

  “Then Red, we’ll find out where they are before we destroy that ship.”

  “Sounds like a plan.” Red agreed.

  “How do you want to do this?” Eddie asked.

  “Very simply Eddie, hard and fast. Keep all solar cannons at full power and fire tight beams. I want to punch holes in their shields and then their hull.”

  The General smiled silently, in his seat behind Mark.

  “Red, can you pick up any of the uniform tags?”

  “No, nothing yet, we are pretty far off though.”

  “What’s this ‘tag’, Johnson?” the general asked.

  “The uniforms we all wear have various properties built into them. They can protect against small arms fire as well as energy resistance to anything short of a heavy energy rifle. They also have a locator transponder built into them, as well as a communicator in the sleeve.”

  “So these tags as you called them are broadcasting a signal all the time?”

  “No general, it’s a passive system, meaning we have to scan for them. If you don’t know what to scan for, you’ll never find it.”

  “Ingenious, but it must be limited to the range of your ships sensors then?”

  “Yes, but these sensors are the best built on Earth.”

  The General smiled, “And since you said that son, I believe it, knowing the magic you can engineer.”

  “Thanks General, I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.” Mark smiled without looking behind him where the General was sitting.

  “Well don’t get used to it. I wouldn’t want to ruin my reputation,” the General replied with a smirk.

  “You two lovebirds can stop your mutual admiration society,” Red broke in, “that ship’s starting to slow down.”

  “Danny, Eddie, are we ready for action?”

  “Yeah, chief, we are. As ready as we’re ever gonna be I think.”

  “Do they know we’re here Red?”

  “I don’t think so, Mark. It’s not what they slowed down for.”

  “What’d they slow down for then?”

  “That.” Answered Red as he brought up an image on his display, an image of a sprawling space station, a great wheel spinning slowly, majestically in space.

  “Wow.” Dan exclaimed, “That’s some piece o’ Engineerin’.

  “Yes, it is, Danny. Okay we have to stop that ship from docking with it.”

  “I think we should get out of here,” Red announced.

  “Why?”

  “I’m counting thirty eight ships exactly the same as the one we’re following that are docked there.”

  “That ain’t good,” Eddie replied.

  “Dammit!” Mark punched the arm of his chair angrily, “I’m not leaving our crew in these creature’s hands.”

  Ariel turned towards Mark and began to speak, her voice loud, “We may not have a choice. There are thirty eight ships there. How can we even hope to take them all on?”

  “I want that one. That ship.”

  “We don’t even know if that’s the one that took our people.” She countered.

  “It is, logically it has to be. It waited around the longest. The Cag’s engines may have been powerless, but the sensor system still retained the barest amount of energy in its own emergency back-up battery pack. We all know three ships left from the video replays, and one remained. That one.” He stood up and pointed from his chair at the view screen, “If they don’t have our people anymore, they know where they are.”

  “Mark,” Red began, “we’ve been following this ship for days now. But we’ve always been at least a day behind them. They could have dropped our people off anywhere along the way before we caught them.”

  As if in reply to Red’s comment, a small alert began to blink and buzz on his own virtual display.

  “Ummm, okay, scratch I said that. That’s the ‘Tags’ being read by our sensors. That ship was shielded but that space station not so much. Sixty tags just appeared.” He turned back to face Mark, “You were right boss, they’re all here.”

  “Not for long.”

  “Johnson,” The General began, “You can’t really be thinking of taking that thing on can you?”

  “I thought you of all people would be behind me here, General.”

  “I don’t believe in fighting losing wars, son. There’s no way you can win here and save your people.”

  “I disagree with you, General. I’m just working out the kinks of all this right now.” Mark sat back and rubbed his chin pensively.

  ‘I hate when you look like that,’ Ariel commented telepathically.

  ‘Why is that?’ Mark replied.

  ‘Because it usually means trouble that leaves me questioning why I started dating you.’

  He looked at her and grinned boyishly, ‘Probably more for my looks then my brains.’

  ‘Actually it was probably more for your money.’ she smiled gently back at him.

  “Well? Are you two going to stop the mental love making so we can get back to what’s at hand?” Eddie cut in.

  “Already back on it, Eddie. Just crunching the numbers, and seeing where things are going to land.”

  Mark leaned forward in his chair then, “Red, where are our crew, can you pinpoint them?”

  The view screen changed to a grid type pattern before their eyes, blotting out the view of space and the station. Then it zoomed in and overlaid a schematic type diagram of the station itself. “This appears to be a subsection of the station that I have to assume is a jail. There are what I would call cells here, and in six of those cells are our people.”

  “So ten to a cell, nice, jam them together, very hospitable of these aliens.”

  “How close are they to the ships that are docked?” Dan asked.

  “The ships are docked along the outer rim of the wheel of this station. The crew is being kept at the hub, it seems most of the population is at the hub. The ‘spokes’ of this wheel are tubes they use to travel to and from the ships docking ports. The outer part of the wheel seems to be maintenance areas as well as defenses and the docking ports themselves.” Red finished.

  “This gets worse and worse,” Eddie commented, and shook his head disgustedly.

  “Not really, the problem just changed, that’s all Eddie. They are keeping everyone together, at least for now, and that’s a major plus for us.”

  “So what are we going to do? We can’t just charge in there, guns blazing, to use your own terms. We’ll be annihilated.”

  “You’re right Eddie. But we still have to get our people back.”

  “So what are you thinkin’?”

  “Bait and switch.”

  Everyone turned towards the General sitting behind them on the Cag’s command deck.

  “What are you suggesting, General?” Mark asked.

  “You draw them off, while some of us go onto the station as close to our people as possible and free them.”

  “How do you expect to pull that off?”

  “Your other ship, the smaller one.”

  “The Stargrazer?
What are you talking about?”

  “Listen Johnson, you make a run at them with this bird, while the Stargrazer sits hidden behind a moon in stationary orbit, like you did earlier. Then when all their attention is on this ship and they leave to chase it, you have someone go in with the Stargrazer, punch a hole in their hull and get our people out.”

  “Wait,” Eddie began, “You want to stuff sixty people into the Stargrazer? They’d be packed in there like Sardines.”

  “Maybe so, but who’d notice they were gone with all the mayhem this ship would be causing?”

  “That’s a valid point, General, but we’d have to work out shield generator emplacements on the station as well as the ships.”

  “No Mark,” Dan interrupted, “We’d need to work out where their engines were the most vulnerable.”

  “What’re you thinking Danny?”

  “We wound as many ships as possible as quickly as possible, in as many ways as possible. Get the number of ships cut down as far as we can, then hightail it out of there. The remainder will be chasing us, hopefully and leave the Grazer free to attach itself to their hull near the cells. We cut through the hull grab our people and hyper-warp out of there to meet up with the Cagliostro at a pre-determined place.”

  Mark turned towards Abruzzi, “What do you think, General, it was your idea?”

  “I think it’s a solid plan. I also think we’ll need some luck on our side.”

  “Red? You’re my security man, what are your thoughts?”

  The burly security chief shook his head with downcast eyes and then looked up at his boss. “I really can’t think of a better idea. I think it’ll work. The Cag is heavily shielded, and if they try their power draining weapon with the modifications we came up with, I think we should be able to handle them.”

  Dan Sledge nodded in agreement, “Even without the ‘Grazer here, we’ll be fine if they hit us with that thing again.”

  “Only thing that remains is who goes with what ship?”

  “I’m staying with you, wherever that is.” Ariel demanded.

  “Son, I have a suggestion as far as your teams go. Your two big men and the sharp shooter have to go rescue those civilians. Being that your pilot is super humanly strong and fairly invulnerable will make him plenty useful in that raid. The born warrior with the red hair will be very helpful in that firefight and the marksman is a necessity. That leaves you, me, and your girlfriend as the crew here. That’s my recommendations, as a military man I think that’s the best plan.”

  Mark nodded slowly and began to grin slightly, “I’m learning more from you every hour, General.”

  “Ha! I’m just a bull headed old fool who has seen a few missions under fire, son. I picked up a few things along the way, that’s all.”

  “All right. Let’s get this show on the road. We need a technical scan of one of those ships.”

  Red touched a virtual button and a display went up before Mark and Dan on their consoles, “Already done when we were following that behemoth in.”

  “Good man, Red. Now we have to look over their engine design for flaws and weaknesses while the rest of us get ready.”

  “You do know we have a better chance of being blown away then we do of succeeding, right boss?” Eddie asked.

  “Yes Eddie, I do, just as well as you do, but we have no choice in the matter. Too much is riding on this.”

  “What about the people back home?” Ariel asked.

  “The Earth is safe, Ariel. There are almost two hundred destroyer class war ships between the outer edge of the solar system and Earth.”

  “Only problem there, Mark, is the General’s clone,” she replied.

  “Which only means we have to get back to Earth before any of these ships do.”

  “Once we attack, and they realize who we are, you know they are definitely going to make a beeline towards Earth,” Red commented.

  “Yes I do, Red, so that just means we’ll have to beat them there.”

  “Don’t worry boss, I know this will work.” Dan acknowledged.

  “You’re more confident than I am, Danny.” Mark turned and looked about the command deck, then smiled like a predator, “Let’s get moving. It’s time to go hunting.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  The Cagliostro dropped out of hyper-warp directly in front of the space station, so quickly that no one on board had time to react. The ship streaked around the huge wheel in space, firing all its weaponry at different ships docked at its huge hull.

  Missiles, as well as energy blasts, leaped from the manta ray shaped starship, every weapon was precisely aimed, and all found their mark. Within two minutes, thirty five ships had damaged engines or shield generators. The cannons aboard the space station glowed brightly, their energy discharges began to come closer and closer to finding their mark as they explosively seared space all about the Cagliostro, which under Mark’s deft hand flipped and spun through space, diving and ascending rapidly.

  Then the Cagliostro suddenly flipped over and reversed direction in mid-course and sped away, disappearing into hyper- warp. Instants later the remaining three ships that were undamaged were in pursuit, also disappearing after their prey in explosive barrages of light.

  That was when the true mission began.

  The Stargrazer dropped out of hyper-warp, literally on the bottom of the station. The flash of hyper-warp curtain being dropped should have been unseen by anyone, who would have been more concerned with the damage the station and the ships docked to it had just been subject too.

  The Stargrazer attached itself via its magnetic belly hatch as a hole was quickly and quietly cut into the hull of the station itself and Dan, Red and Eddie advanced quickly to the prison level.

  “So far, so good,” Red whispered.

  “Yeah, don’t jinx it,” Dan growled almost imperceptibly.

  “I got movement heading our way,” Eddie advised while looking at his handheld scanner.

  All three men wore armored suits now with see though helmets. Like their regular uniforms, the armor was blue and white.

  Eddie ducked low and peered around a door edge as several blasts of light seared the walls above his head. He looked up and gulped hard before returning fire.

  Now it was a pitched fire fight between three men and an army.

  Red looked down at the scanner in his hands, “Our people are behind them. We have to get through these guys before we can go any further.”

  “Yeah leave that to me, you two keep firin’” Dan ordered as he ran into the hallway, suddenly taking two huge, bounding steps then hurling his armored form into the amassed troops with a loud ‘Boom!’

  Even as Dan cleared the enemies out of the way, another wave of the stations guards came rushing down the hallway at him. As he braced himself for their assault, a blast of energy flew past him and exploded into the converging guards, scattering them like leaves in a hurricane.

  Dan spun around and saw Red standing there in his armored suit holding what could only be described as a small cannon. It hung from a strap over his shoulder and the end was still smoking as Red grinned behind his plexi-steel face mask. “Mark VII energy canon. Perfect for crowd dispersal.”

  “You’re tellin’ me?” Dan replied as he turned back and began running to the cells.

  Eddie had set up where they had cut the hole in the floor with a tripod mounted energy rifle. He looked at his scanner as Red did the same.

  “We got incomin’ Red.”

  “I know, slick. You ready?”

  DiGenovese smiled and snapped his head sideways for half a heartbeat then back upright. “Mamma DiGenovese didn’t bring up a boy who wasn’t.”

  “I pity yer mamma.” Red grumbled, as he wrapped the strap to the handheld cannon tightly in his right hand.

  Behind them, along the sides of the hallway, Dan Sledge raised both his powerful hands above his head and brought them crashing down upon the force field holding the crew within the cells so powerfully the floor shook
and those within the cell were knocked off their feet. Despite all his might though, nothing happened.

  “Uh-oh.” Sledge remarked

  An auburn haired beauty ran to the bars out of the crowd of blue and silver suited captives. “Nothing can take that field down. We think it’s a kinetic energy field.”

  “Scientists,” Dan grumbled disdainfully under his breath, “Get back Reynolds,” he addressed her,” This is gonna make a mess.”

  Sledge walked away from the force field, to the wall next to it where its controls were mounted. He stood against the opposite wall then charged the one he was facing, head down, like a maddened bull. The wall shattered into dust and crumbling debris as he charged through it. A half second later his fists tore through the wall of the cell, shredding the stone and steel cell like tissue paper.

  “Ever’body out!” He roared. “Head down to Eddie and Red, they gotcha covered. Go!”

  He repeated the same actions with the cells next to the first one and within seconds sixty people were rushing down the hallway towards the hole in the floor where the Stargrazer was docked.

  “Move it!” yelled Eddie as he fired blaster beams into the now smoke filled hallway before him. On the opposite side of the hallway from him, ducking behind a protrusion in the wall Red waited for his hand cannon to recharge. An instant later he stepped from behind the protection and braced his legs as the cannon fired a massive pulse of energy through the air towards the gathered guards. The deafeningly loud ‘Whoomp!’ sound it roared made the freed captives cover their ears while some squealed in surprise as they dropped through into the Stargrazer.

  “Things’re gonna be tight in there, so get as far back as you can,” Eddie shouted.

  Reynolds, the female scientist who had spoken to Dan a moment earlier grabbed his shoulder as she was running past, ducking down behind him. “Where’s the boss?”

  “On the Cag, runnin’ interference, now get on board hon, we ain’t got time ta waste.”