“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.”
Eddie 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 grinned. “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 grunted, “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 thank 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 things, Phillips? What are they?”
No 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.
In 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 from 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 wh
at 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 with 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.
Instants later the doors to the maglovator sighed open and Red along with more security men entered. Red was holding his favorite energy cannon, which was strapped to his back in a harness.
He lifted it, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion. The blast rocketed from the cannon’s maw and slammed into the nearest robot, sending it careening into another shuttle.
“Wonderful, yet more damage,” Mark groused.
‘Ariel?’ Mark questioned mentally.
‘I’m here.’ she replied.
‘Get upstairs. I don’t want you involved in this. This is turning ugly.’
‘No. I’m part of this command crew. If you’re all here, then so am I.’
Mark shook his head angrily. ‘Okay, just stay out of the way and near a maglovator in case you have to escape from here. If you’re going to stay then link us all up telepathically.’
‘That I can do.’
‘And Ari, be careful. I almost lost you once on this mission. That was one time too many.’
Ariel smiled and blew him a kiss, then ducked low and made her way to the nearest maglovator. From there she reached out with her mind and linked the command crew up.
‘Everyone here? Check in please,’ she asked.
‘Yeah. I’m here,’ Eddie answered.
‘Ditto,’ grunted Dan.
‘I’m a little busy now,’ replied Red.
‘We all are,’ Mark finally commented.
Red turned toward Eddie, who was ducking down behind a shuttle, and threw him a rifle.
‘Here, squirt, try that.’ Red’s mental voice flooded the mental link.
‘Thanks, big man,’ Eddie replied while catching the rifle deftly from the air.
Spinning it like a toy Eddie brought it up quickly and fired in a blur. The first blast spun the robot nearest him around, but it did not go down.
Red meantime was hammering at the second robot with his blast cannon aligned with about half of the security force in the hangar deck. Red’s cannon was making progress, certainly more than the hand blasters were and even more than the rifles. But even so it was a slow uphill battle.
‘I can’t believe Red’s cannon is not tearing that thing apart,’ Dan critiqued.
‘Neither can I. All I can think of is that it’s made of our armored hull material,’ Mark replied. ‘Are you okay, Danny?’
‘Yeah, boss. I just need a minute to catch my breath.’
‘You got it, pal.’ Mark ran off crouched low across the landing deck toward Eddie and some of the security personnel.
The group Eddie was with fired continuously at the robot. So much blaster energy was being thrown at the thing that it glowed bright red in spots.
‘How the hell did these things get oils and lubricants inside of them?’ Eddie asked.
‘It’s from the shuttles and what’s stored here. Don’t forget this is a maintenance bay; everything they need to run on is here. The damned things must have absorbed it slowly somehow.’
‘Mark,’ Ariel interrupted, ‘what the hell are these things? What kind of science is this?’
‘I don’t know, baby. I’ve never seen anything like this. This scares me,’ he admitted.
‘Everybody clear away from my target,’ Red barked, ‘I’m ramping the cannon up to a hundred and ten percent.’
Mark answered immediately, ‘Red be careful, you’re bypassing the safeties. That thing could explode in your hands and take out half the landing deck.’
‘Kinda hoping this works out, Boss,’ was his terse reply.
The cannon hummed dangerously loud in Red’s hands, its sound starting at a low rumble and spiraling upward to a screeching, ear-splitting crescendo.
“Try this on, tin can,” Red shouted.
He fired, and the cannon’s kick back knocked him from his feet and slammed him into the bulkhead behind him. But the blast of energy it emitted was shockingly powerful, akin to a comet being released within the Cagliostro’s landing deck. The ball of fury exploded upon the robot’s chest, searing a hole clear through it before dissipating. The robot stumbled a step, then two and finally fell over, a melted heap of scrap metal, totally destroyed.
Red dropped the cannon. It was blisteringly hot to the touch and ruined by the powerful blast itself.
‘Red! Are you okay?’ Ariel shouted telepathically.
He waved her off, as he fought his way to his feet, trying to catch his breath and wincing from the pain he was in.
The last robot now moved steadily toward the group of security men Eddie was with. Their weapons were slowing it down, but not doing enough damage to stop it.
“Crap!” Eddie shouted dropping his rifle. It had begun to overheat and glow in his hands.
‘Clear the deck,’ Mark commanded through their link.
Everyone looked around for him but he was nowhere in sight.
‘Move it all of you,’ he ordered once more.
“C’mon, back to the maglovator.” Eddie moved the men with him. He met Dan who was holding Red up and the unconscious Phillips in his other arm.
“Where the hell is Mark?” Eddie shouted over the roaring sound of the advancing robot combined with the continued gunfire.
Before anyone could answer, the Stargrazer came to life and lifted up into the air. It spun itself into position between the men and the advancing robot, which stopped in its tracks to assess this new threat.
“Fire in the hole!” shouted Mark over the ‘Grazer’s comm system.
The Stargrazer’s twin solar cannons fired, obliterating the remaining robot instantly. All that was left was a steaming pile of unrecognizable metal.
The Stargrazer hovered slowly back into its landing berth and settled down. Its engines powered down and the ship shut down. Mark exited the ‘Grazer’s doors at a run toward his crew.
“Everyone okay?”
“Some bangs and bruises but for the most part we’re all fine,” Ariel answered.
“Good. I was able to use a low powered setting on the Stargrazer’s cannon’s, otherwise that might have turned into more of a mess on this deck then just the robots attack. The last thing I wanted was to blow a hole in the side of the Cag. I’m glad repairs on the Stargrazer got as far as they did. At least I was able to get it off the ground. I want a cleanup crew down here immediately. Make sure our remaining shuttles and the Stargrazer are locked down securely. Then from the landing deck I want those piles of junk sucked out into space. Open the deck doors and force field. Let them all be sucked out. Once that’s finished I want this deck swept for any more surprises the Agalum might have left behind.”
Red nodded. “You got it Boss, I’ll get right on it.”
“No,” Mark interrupted him. “You’re going to the medical deck to see Dr. Troiano. You’re hurt from that harebrained stunt you just pulled. Someone else can take care of this. Security team, whoever’s not injured stay down here while the cleanup crew gets this place in order. Let’s move it people, we’ve got a planet to free.”
Chapter 34
“That’s what I have for you, Captain Nagata. This is totally new technology. I have no doubt there’s a new player aiding the Agalum now. Feel free to relay my findings to the rest of the fleet captains. Since you seem to be the leader of our impromptu fleet I wanted to talk to you first.”
Nagata sighed resignedly on his side of the view screen. “That is awful news, Captain Johnson. I am relieved to hear none of your crew was seriously injured. What about repairs to your ship?”
“Engineering is taking care of that now. It’s mostly minor damage to the landing deck. I have them reinforcing the deck floor where it was weakened.”
“And you say there’s been no sign of any more of these miniaturized robotic weapons systems?”
“No Captain, none to be seen. The ship is clean.”
“Very well, Captain Johnson. Are you satisfied with your attack plan?”
“Yes, I am. I think it’s the most advantageous plan we can put into motion. What are your thoughts, Captain Nagata?”
“No, I have to agree. Use our strengths in the best manner for each situation. I believe your plan is sound. When our part of the battle is completed we’ll join you with your beachhead assault upon their base. Godspeed, Captain Johnson.”
Mark saluted, “To you as well, Captain Nagata. Be careful out there.”
Nagata nodded and broke the connection.
Mark slumped back into his chair in his conference room. He closed his eyes momentarily and breathed slowly.
‘How’d it all come to this?’ he thought to himself.
‘Don’t worry about it, Mark. We’ll be fine.’ Ariel’s mental voice replied.
‘Sorry, Ari. I didn’t realize you were listening in.’
‘I really wasn’t but your last comment sounded almost painful.’
Mark laughed. ‘That wouldn’t be far from the truth, but you understand what I mean.’
She sighed telepathically. ‘I do, Mark. But you are the best man for the job, you know that.’
‘Sometimes I wonder though, Ari. Sometimes I think these big starship Captains should be running this show instead of me.’
‘Mark, you know that the President has the utmost confidence in you.’
The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration Page 19