“I didn’t realize that thing was so big,” Eddie announced in an awed whisper.
“Yeah that’s one word for it I guess,” Dan replied, just as stunned by what he saw.
The ship that faced them was akin to a small city. It was tremendous, dwarfing the giant battleships that even now fought above the Earth.
“How come we didn’t realize how large this thing was earlier?” Red asked.
“Too many other ships around it at the same time I suppose, plus we were in battle. Some of its mass had to be hidden. At least that’s what I’m going with, for now.” Mark replied.
“So what do we do now? This thing is so big it’s ridiculous. I mean it’s almost the size of Manhattan Island.”
“I know Dan, I know. It’s probably got ridiculous firepower as well.” Mark paused a second before continuing, “But so do we.”
“Ariel put me through to the heavy ordinance bay please.”
She looked at him warily, narrowing her eyes to slits, and then she clicked a few buttons on her virtual control panel. “They’re up, Mark.”
“Gentlemen I need the Planet Buster weapon readied for immediate firing.”
All heads on the deck turned to stare at Mark when he spoke.
“You’re going to use it?”Ari asked incredulously.
“Yes I am. I don’t care if I have to take Mars down to do it either. It’s a lifeless rock, and Earth is all that matters right now. Everyone on the Earth is counting on us to save them, and we are about to.”
Everyone on the command deck stared first at Ariel then at Mark, then back to Ariel once again.
Finally she spoke, “Mark, I’m not arguing with you on this. I’m not trying to be your conscience, not at all. I want this to work, if it’s going to save our world.”
“So do I Ariel, so do I. I don’t just want this to work, I expect it to.”
She nodded then, setting her beautiful jaw firmly, before answering, “Good, then let’s blow these bastards straight to hell, where they belong.”
“How are you gonna do this boss?” Dan asked, “You gonna fire it into the planet or directly at the ship?”
“Danny, I have to get through their shields first to nuke ‘em outright, which with our nukes payloads shouldn’t be a problem, it’ll probably disintegrate that ship instantly, but I don’t know that it will definitely. If I sacrifice Mars, its larger mass will cause them to be sucked in to the black hole or singularity that will exist there temporarily.”
“What about us? We’ll be sucked in too, won’t we?”
“No, Eddie. If we hyper-warp the instant that missile is away, we’ll be fine.”
“I say open the singularity up in their faces. Use their ship for the mass.” Everyone turned towards the sound of Ariel’s voice. “What? It’s the logical thing to do. Hit them straight on. After everything these bastards have done to us this past few weeks, they deserve to be nuked.” Her voice was vehement as she finished.
Suddenly the Cagliostro rocked hard as a klaxon went off.
“We’re under attack!” Red shouted.
“No, really?” Eddie replied.
“They saw through the reflective skin,” Dan announced.
“Shields full strength, double front, damage control I need assessments yesterday,” Mark commanded.
The Cagliostro began to weave through space, energy blasts sparking on its shields as the great ship swooped and dove to and fro majestically under Dan’s deft manipulations.
“Heavy ordinance, what’s your status?” Ariel shouted as the ship shook again from another hit.
“The weapon is being loaded now, command.” A static filled voice replied frantically.
Again the ship rocked violently as Dan flipped it over and shot away from the planet at an angle. Dan’s face was tense as sweat dripped down his brow, even though the command deck was cool, which he wiped with the back of his hand.
“How’s our hull integrity?” Mark questioned, exuding calm and confidence even though it seemed like hell was exploding all about them.
“Hull integrity is strong but dropping steadily with each hit,” Red replied, “Shields are taking a beating from that thing. We’re down to fifty eight percent now.”
“Just keep that ship within range, Danny. We’re only going to get one shot at this.”
“Understood, boss-man,” Dan replied nervously as he fought the controls.
“Mark!” Ariel shouted, “We’re being hailed by the enemy ship.”
Mark looked at her sideways at first, and then nodded. Instantly the same yellow skinned alien with the large black eyes they had encountered earlier appeared on the view screen, “Greetings human Captain,” the alien began. “You will immediately surrender your crew and your ship will, of course, be destroyed. That is the only ‘deal’ that will be put forth.”
“Here’s the only answer you’re ever going to get, you mass murdering sonuvabitch! This one’s for General Abruzzi!” Mark replied as he punched a glowing red button on his virtual control board.
Instantly the missile carrying the war head leaped from the underbelly of the manta-ray shaped vessel, streaking across space towards its intended prey. A heartbeat after the missile left its launch tube, the Cagliostro disappeared in a burst of light.
***
Aboard the Agalum command ship, the alien commander shouted, “Battle stations!” then continued with, “Shields at full! Brace for impact!” as the missile streaked unerringly towards the huge ship. “These foolish humans dare to fire a missile at our vessel? Surely they underestimate us.”
“Commander!” one of his subordinates shouted in obvious fear, “That weapon is nuclear!”
“What?” The commander leapt from his seat and stared incredulously as the nuclear warhead exploded upon their shields, spreading light as great as a newborn star out behind Mars
***
A hundred thousand miles away the Cagliostro stood stationary and all aboard watched as the nuke exploded, sending cascading waves of radiation across the Agalum command ships shields, instantly collapsing them.
“Boom.” The word escaped Mark’s lips as he watched the second component of the planet buster begin to work. Built to destroy a world, the quantum singularity generator had no problem using the mass of the city-sized ship itself to create a smaller, but still powerful artificial black hole that sucked the Agalum vessel into its maw, crushing it like wadded paper.
The enemy command and control ship disappeared into the event horizon of the black hole, crushed to less than one tenth its size. After he watched it disappear, Mark touched another button on his console, which fired a second missile that streaked towards the artificial singularity and impacted upon its spinning maw, exploding just as brightly as the first had, only this missile held a component that reversed the flow of the artificial singularities direction, effectively shutting it down.
Dan, Red and Eddie all turned and looked at him with their jaws dropped and their faces white.
“When’d you discover how to do that?” Eddie asked.
“A while ago, to be honest. Discovering how to shut it down was the hard part. It had to do with varying radioactive frequencies and such. It’s all very complicated.” He waved his hand dismissing it.
“Dan, get us back to Earth pronto,” Mark ordered. “We have a war to finish and fires to put out.”
The Cagliostro spun on its axis in space and disappeared into hyper-warp, leaving streaks of light behind it.
Seconds later it emerged above Earth, as battles raged all about space above the blue-green planet.
“Ariel, put me through on every damned frequency we have.”
“All bands are activated,” she acknowledged.
“Agalum vessels, this is Mark Johnson aboard the Cagliostro. Your command and control ship is destroyed. You are ordered to surrender and prepare your ships to be boarded.”
A moment passed with no reply, then a voice crackled over the communications unit.
> “We will still destroy your entire fleet and then rain death on what is left of your world.”
Instantly the Agalum ships that were able to, began to line up as the dual prongs on each ship’s bow extended and began to glow.
“I seen this show before,” Dan growled. “I hope you got a trick up yer sleeve fer this one.” The powerhouse pilot/engineer turned towards Mark hopefully.
On the main view screen before them, the remainder of the earth fleet continued to bombard their enemies relentlessly.
“They’re not even firing back on our ships anymore.” Eddie commented as he turned toward Mark, “You better hurry boss, I think this is the final round and these guys are going for the knockout.”
Mark was staring at his display as he punched buttons and entered figures into a virtual pad that was suspended over the desk on his command chair.
“Boss, hurry!” Danny implored.
“Working on it,” Mark replied quietly, as he concentrated.
“Not to put too much pressure on you boss, but now would be good,” Red added.
“Working…”
Eddie turned nervously and looked at Mark, “Boss, you gotta hurry, if these guys fire that thing again, every earth ship will be destroyed, or de-powered. If this line of defense goes down, the planets a goner!”
In space the prongs on each of the enemy ships glowed brighter and then energy began to arc across their bows, connecting one ship to another.
“Dan, check this quick.” a display opened above Dan’s desk showing the mathematics Mark was working on.
Dan wasted no time, nodding his approval almost immediately. “Looks good.”
“Eddie, fire!” Mark ordered.
Eddie found a button glowing on his console and his aiming reticle was already up and ready. He didn’t hesitate at all as he aimed and fired in one precise motion, instantly a beam of energy streamed from the ships forward weapons array, directly at the energy stream that was now arcing through space connecting the Agalum ships. The ray from the Cagliostro interrupted the arcing energy as it reached between the Agalum vessels and suddenly, spectacularly the enemy ships connected by the arcing stream shuddered for a nano-second before simultaneously exploding brightly, spraying near space with untold tons of debris from the enemy ships, which had exploded one after another straight down a many miles long line.
“Wow,” Eddie DiGenovese almost whispered.
“Yeah Eddie, that just about sums it all up.” Mark replied stoically as he flopped back into his chair and watched the small particles begin to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere, leaving small fiery trails towards the planet’s surface, but disappearing as they turned to ash long before they would ever reach it.
The command crew continued to stare at Mark with a combination of relief and shock upon their faces.
Mark saw this and continued,
“What? You guys were actually worried? We had eleven seconds, I measured the time it took to fire that thing from the last time they used it at the asteroid belt.”
“And how long did that take?” Eddie asked.
Mark grinned, “Ten point two, we had plenty of time.”
Chapter Twenty Nine
The fighting was not over yet. For two more days above Earth’s surface, as well as upon it, the battles raged. In space, Earth’s fleet, as well as her space stations harangued the remnants of the enemy fleet. Taking whole ships captive and destroying others. Mark Johnson and the Cagliostro led and coordinated those efforts, driving the enemy away, or decimating them where they tried to make a stand.
Earth’s fleet was now less than half of the size it had been, ship repair and reconstruction would commence immediately. The remaining ships would be placed in close proximity to Earth and her artificial satellites where ship building would be taking place.
On the evening of the second day a message was received from deep space. The president immediately contacted Mark Johnson and spoke to him behind closed doors.
Mark exited his conference room, rubbing his chin in thought as he sat down in his command chair. Ariel noticed the look on his face, and then nudged him mentally.
‘What is it?’ Her mental voice rode through his mind.
He looked at her and answered through their psychic link. ‘We just received a threat from the Agalum high command. Basically a ‘This is not over, we’ll be back.’ type of message.’
‘So why’d President Scaleia want to speak to you about it?’
‘He figures I have as much of a stake in this battle as anyone else planet-side. He even offered me the opportunity to respond to our ‘friends’ out there.’
‘Are you going to?’ Her mental voice sang across his mind.
‘Yes. I’m just trying to figure out what to say.’
‘How about ‘Don’t bother, we’re coming for you.’?’
‘I sometimes forget what I find attractive about you. Besides the obvious, I mean.’ He smiled, lasciviously.
‘And here I thought it was just my looks all along.’ She returned his smile.
‘Well, that too,’ he shrugged and winked.
“Will you two cut it out?” Dan Sledge interrupted, “Everyone here can see you’re having one o’ your psychic conversations again. At least clue the rest of us in on what’s goin’ on.”
Ariel stood up, walked two seats down from her post to Dan’s and kissed him on the cheek , then said “We were just commenting on how cute you were behind your little desk.”
The big Jovian turned red, then smirked, “Get outta here Ari,” and laughed as she took her seat again.
Mark sat back as the chuckles on his command deck died down about him. The tension was beginning to ease from everyone after the past few days and weeks of hell. Starships of both fleets lay about earth’s orbit, floating in haphazard positions, with energy trails sputtering out of ruined power cores. Many more just floated in place, dead. The destroyed enemy ships would be hauled off to Mars where they could be dissected and melted down, their metals made ready for re-use as part of new ships that needed to be built to replace destroyed ones. Captured and functional enemy ships would be taken apart and put back together, replacing key systems with Earthly components, and then those ships would also be made part of the new fleet.
“Ari,” Mark began, “get ready to record a message for our newfound friends out there.”
She nodded indicating she was ready. Mark stood and faced where he knew the command deck camera was placed and began to speak. “To the Agalum race, if that is really what you call yourselves, this is Captain Mark Johnson of the Earth Protectorate Interstellar Command, hereafter known as ‘EPIC’. As of now you are on notice. You claimed that we were seen as a threat to you and your interests in deep space, and yet you live and exist almost a week away from Earth at top hyper-warp speed. You claim that you fear our weaponry, and our so called savagery, and yet you attacked us, seeking to exterminate or separate all life upon our world and scatter it across the universe. You infiltrated our society at the highest levels of government, replacing our highest ranking leaders on God only knows how many fronts and sought to destroy us from within. You kidnapped and tortured those selfsame individuals as well as members of my crew. Then, you committed an even higher crime against my entire world. You sought to raze it out from under us while we watched.
But that was your last mistake. Your first was getting involved with us at all. You should have greeted us with open arms and palms up, welcoming us, as part of the greater universe. Instead, you sought to destroy us supposedly based on your own fears.”
“The problem with your reasoning is you did not act as a fearful people. You acted as conquerors and tyrants. Tyrants always hide behind words like ‘We know what’s best’ and ‘Disarm potential threats’. You don’t understand, or perhaps you didn’t look deep enough to realize, that we, as a race, have a history of dealing with tyrants and conquerors. A very definitive history.”
Mark walked across the command deck as he
continued to speak, “So you may ask yourself what am I getting at here, and why am I taking so long to get to the point? Well that’s a reasonable set of questions and I’m going to indulge you on those questions. The reason I haven’t gotten to the point is that, well, let me put it this way, on my world there’s a couple of old sayings that really bear paying heed to, especially by you and right now at this time and place. One is ‘Let Sleeping Dragons Lie.’ The other is ‘Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.’ I’m not going to wait for you to figure out what either of those sayings means. The bottom line is, we’re coming for you.”
Definitely NOT
The End
The Cagliostro Chronicles Page 21