The Cagliostro Chronicles (9 page)

“I think they’re gone.” Mark announced, as he turned and faced Ariel, who sat next to him.

For eight long hours the chase had continued, with the Stargrazer running its engines full out, overrunning the specs they were designed for, just to ensure the crews survival.

Ariel
nodded, and smiled slightly, “Thank God we lost them. That was getting to be tedious.”

“I don’t know if I would have termed it that way, but yes
, I get your meaning.” Mark replied and relaxed a bit in his chair.

“How’d you know?” Ariel asked
Mark, who sat at the ships controls flying the Stargrazer while Danny took a few minutes rest.

“Hhmm? How’d I know what?”

“That Red was alive. You weren’t the least bit surprised when he came bursting in guns blazing.”

“
Eight hours later and now you ask me this? That’s easy. The suits we’re all wearing. I told you they were bullet and blaster proof, at least to small weapons fire.”

“What about the burning holes I saw after he got hit?”

“That’s how the uniforms work. They convert energy and displace it. It’s all part of the design. With bullets it’s a matter of converting the kinetic energy, with blasters it’s displacing the energy and shunting it off. It’s a great system.”

“Okay I get that now, but what about
that alien boss back there, he said the guy we shot with the Stargrazer’s gun was his ‘predecessor’. What did that mean?”

“Yes what did that mean?” The General asked as he entered the cabin from the sleep quarters in the back
.

“Not sleeping General? I’m surprised.”

“Believe me, son, I’ve gotten enough rest the past few months in that hell hole. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but I heard you talking about that little gestapo wannabe. What was that about?”

Mark grin
ned and took a deep breath, “He was a clone. So is your replacement by the way.”

“What? What are you talking about? They cloned me? When?”

“Probably months ago, maybe longer. All they needed was a stray hair or some skin follicles. They made another you, without a mind of course, and programmed him to do their bidding. That’s how they were hoping to stall us, and stop my FTL drive from ever being completed.”

The General sat back in his seat, looking stunned. “Bastards
,” was all he said.

“What was all that with the terraforming about?” Eddie asked as he entered the control cabin.

“Think about it, what did that mountain range look like to you? At least a small section of.”

“I don’t know.” Ariel answered.

“Virginia.”

“Huh?” Eddie barked.

“Virginia. The Blue Ridge Mountains, west of the seat of our government. They recreated the Blue Ridge Mountains and built a base under them. Guaranteed that same base is under the real Blue Ridge and has been there for a long time. Far enough from DC to avoid detection, unless it’s under close scrutiny, but there’s been no reason for that, and close enough to feed the fake General orders and for him to have a place to report to only a short distance away.”

“My God, we’ve been infiltrated.” Abruzzi groaned.

“It’s worse than that General, if they replaced you this was just the tip of the iceberg. They could very easily have replaced the President, the joint chiefs, congress, anyone. This was a carefully orchestrated assault that took years to implement. That means they have been watching us for a very long time.”

“But who
are “they”? Surely not the inhabitants of that backwater world.”

“No, I don’t believe it was anyone commanding their forces out of that dust bowl either, General. Somewhere else out there, very well hidden, is our enemy, our
true
enemy. We have to get back home, and begin retrofitting the fleet with my magno-disc engines but only after we find how deep our doppelganger problem is.

You were right
before General, when you said this adventure is far from over. We have a lot ahead of us yet.”

“So what now? Red asked as he rejoined everyone and slid into one of the control seats.

“Find the Cag, that’s where we have to start.”

“Uh, I think we just did that.” Ariel turned in surprise to face Mark. She touched a control on her virtual panel and suddenly the display screen zoomed in and showed an image of the Cagliostro, listing sideways in space,
motionless and dead, smoke trailing into space from her hull.

“What the hell…” Mark rumbled.

“What do you think happened here?” Red asked Mark.

“No idea, maybe they were overrun by enemy forces. I could
see the Cag holding its own and beating one of those big war ships, but against two or three?” He left the question hanging pregnant in the air.

“You think that’s what happened?” Ariel asked.

“See the scarring along the hull?

She nodded
in the affirmative, her face stern.

“The Cag was in a battle
, and a prolonged one too, against several ships. Are you getting any life signs?” Mark turned and asked Red.

“Looking now. Doing a scan. Nothing so far, also no power anywhere on the ship it’s completely out.”

By now the Stargrazer had slowed out of hyper-warp and slowly pulled up near the much larger ship.

“She doesn’t appear damaged, M
ark, not badly at any rate, just powerless.”

“When we first battled that war ship as we were heading to the sand planet, they hit us with something that drained our power and energy stores. Multiple hits
of that from multiple ships would have drained her dry.”

“We have to get inside.” Red growled.

“What’s going on?”

Everyone turned to find Danny standing in the doorway, rubbing his head dry with a towel. Then he
stopped as he saw the view screen and cursed almost silently.

Dan slid into his chair and Mark
returned navigation control to him. “Line up our belly hatch with the side of the Cag right there.” He pointed at a spot as Dan slowly guided the smaller ship up to the side of the much larger one. The Stargrazer turned sideways and floated in, securely bumping into the side of the Cagliostro.

“Magnetic locks activated.”
Dan called out.

Mark was out of his seat in an instant and walking towards the center of the small spacecraft. Then he changed his footing to the wall of the ship standing on it and activating the irising portal that
was on the floor of the Stargrazer.

The portal irise
d open and revealed the blank wall, which was actually a hatch on the outer hull of the Cagliostro. Mark picked up a heavy cable from a supply outlet on the Stargrazer and began to attach it to a mating port on the side of the door on the Cagliostro. Dan walked over and joined Mark. He took the heavy cable from Mark’s hands and finished the attachment, twisting the cable until it snapped into place.

“All set.” Dan nodded at Mark.

“Good. Ariel, begin power transfer.” Mark called to the front of the ‘Grazer. The General walked over to join them.

“Do you men need any help?”

“When we get aboard we’re going to have to go through ten decks one at a time to make sure we didn’t pick up any passengers, so yeah, you’ll be needed General. Grab a gun and sit tight for a minute or two more.”

Mark tapped a staccato pattern on a flat keypad under the same cover that the power conduits inlet was hiding beneath. After a second a retina scan read his eyes, and a DNA scan read his hand. One final code was introduced on the flush keypad and then the door slid open with power supplied by the Stargrazer.

Within the Cagliostro was darkness. Mark tapped out a pattern on the sleeve of his uniform and immediately his sleeve produced a beam of light that cut through the darkness.

The General snorted, “Too bad you couldn’t make that thing into a weapon.”

Mark turned to him and smiled grimly, “Who said I couldn’t? Problem is too many men would blow their hands off if I did. I would probably forget from time to time myself.”

The old man nodded grimly in agreement, “Valid point.”

“So do we all go? Does someone stay with the ‘Grazer? How do you want to play this?” Eddie asked.

Mar
k Johnson did not answer immediately as he read one of the small handheld scanners they had used earlier on the planet itself. “Atmosphere reads normal. Eddie, you stay here. Close the hatch behind us and be ready to open that hatch at a moment’s notice if we come running.”

“You think there may be some surprises left for us?”

“I wouldn’t doubt it, but you never know. I’m probably just being overly cautious, which in this case is not such a bad thing. When we make it to the command deck, I’ll power up the magno-discs again and restore power to the ship. Once that’s done we’ll open the docking bays and you can get the Stargrazer back onboard. In the meantime, hang tight.”

“Sounds like a plan
, boss.”

“All right, General
Abruzzi, Dan, Red, and Ariel with me. Ariel are you okay enough to scan for survivors mentally as well as linking us? I know you took a beating these past few days, but I have to rely on you hon, I’m sorry.”

She smile
d as she looked at him, “I’m fine, don’t ‘Mother Hen’ me. I’m really okay, I’m not just saying it, I promise.”

He leaned forward and kissed her quickly. They both smiled
before turning and walking into the ship, flashlight beams from their uniforms sleeves were brightly illuminating the corridor they walked through. Everyone had taken a pistol before they left the Stargrazer, including the General. They all walked with their pistols drawn and ready now through the pervading darkness.

Nothing stirred.

Red took point as they walked, Dan stayed at his shoulder scanning right while Red looked left. They looked at each other and shrugged, then made a right turn down a corridor that led to the command deck.

By now enough power had been
drawn from the Stargrazer to operate doors and minor systems before restarting the magno-discs. As they approached the maglovator doors to the command deck they slowly slid open. As with the rest of the ship so far, the command deck was empty.

“They
fought to the very end here.” Red commented while he was looking at blaster burn marks along the walls and ceiling.

“Yes, but gratefully I don’t see any bodies left behind.” Mark replied as he seated himself in the Captain’s chair. Dan sat down in the
engineers’ seat and began touching virtual controls that dimly sprang to life before him.

“It’s amazing they even drained the emergency energy storage cells with that weapon of theirs. If not for the Stargrazer being hooked up to us
, we wouldn’t even have power for the control interfaces.”

“I know Dan, and I purposely gave those their own power supplies when I designed this ship.”

“Let’s try a re-start; we should be able to do it now. It’ll be just like jumpstarting a car, with the ‘Grazer attached.” Dan replied.

Mark touched his sleeve, “Eddie
, do you copy? We’re going to restart. Be prepared.”

“Will do
, boss,” came his crisp reply.

Sledge touched a few buttons on his slightly brighter glowing control panel and suddenly there was a slight rumble as the great ship flared to life about them.

Instantly everything came online as the magno-discs powered up and began supplying energy to all the systems.

“Air filtration and life support back online.” Dan advised.

“Which brings up another curious point,” Mark noticed, “The air in here was not stale. This couldn’t have happened too long ago.”

Dan and Red both nodded in agreement.

“Eddie,” Mark spoke, “disconnect the Stargrazer from the Cagliostro and proceed to the docking bay.”

“On my way, boss.” Eddie’s voice replied clearly.

“Red, you and General Abruzzi start making a deck by deck sweep of the ship. Holler the instant you see anything out of the ordinary.”

“Danny get down to engineering and make sure everything there is
okay. I felt a small rumble when the magno-discs kicked in. Let’s make sure everything is still aligned properly. If you need help, I’ll be there immediately.”

“
Eddie, when you get back on board make your way directly to the command deck, I want to go over weapons command with you to make sure everything is okay here as well.”

They all agreed and within a few seconds only Ariel and Mark were left aboard the
command deck.

“What do you think happened to our people?” She asked quietly while staring straight ahead.

“Whoever did this took them. That’s what you and I are going to work on right now. Access the command deck’s cameras and begin displaying content from about twenty four hours ago.”

She nodded and touched a few controls
. Upon the main view screen a video of the command deck began to play.

“Nothing there.” He fingered his chin and the stubble that had grown upon it the last few days. “Move ahead two hours.”

Silently she complied.

“Still nothing.” He remarked after a few minutes. “Move ahead two more hours, please.” Ariel nodded
silently and did so. This happened several more times until finally at the ten hour mark they discovered the command deck had been in a state of bedlam.

They both watched silently as the secondary
command deck crew fired weapons against enemies displayed upon the view screen as four of the same war ships that had attacked the Cagliostro previously.

“Every time they hit us
, our power reserves were emptied.” Mark spoke quietly. “How long did this go on for?”

“Recordings stopped about six hours ago.” Ariel answered.

“So all power reserves were run dry by then. That means they fought for four hours against four ships. They must have put up a helluva fight,” he remarked grimly.

Eddie exited the maglovator then and quietly took his seat at his weapons console.

“Everything okay, Eddie?”

“Yes boss, at least as good as could be expected considerin’. The Stargrazer is secured and clamped to the
landing deck floor. I also checked on the shuttles they’re locked in place as well. They were never touched.”

“All right
, thanks for the information. Go over your weapons console. We need to be prepared for these aliens when we encounter them again.”

“What are you going to do about that energy draining ray or weapon or whatever it is?” Ariel asked.

“I’m going to study what information the sensors were able to gather on it as well as the video of its use and come up with a counter measure.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes Ariel, just like that.”

“Pretty sure of yourself again aren’t you? We are out in the great unknown out here.”

“Yes sweetheart, I am sure of myself, I have to be. I have to be damned sure of myself because everyone’s life depends on me now.”

“I wonder where they took our crew?”
Eddie asked.

“We’ll find out. The external sensors should have been able to pick up a hyper-warp trail from our friends out there. That should have been done before the fighting even started. If we can find that trail we can follow them right where we need to go.”

Ariel swiveled her seat to face him, “You have this all figured out don’t you? Aren’t you worried about ever being wrong?”

“I was wrong already, Ari. Look about you for the wreckage I left behind by being so wrong.”

She hesitated then and sat up taller in her seat, pushing against the back of it, “Mark I didn’t mean anything- I- I, This isn’t your fault,” she stammered out finally.

He sighed and slumped slightly in his chair, “Ari, of course it’s my fault. These people weren’t military people. Most were
scientists and engineers with a small security detail. If my people are dead it’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have agreed to do this.”

“Boss,” Red’s voice, uncharacteristically hollow and distant came over the internal com
m system, “You better get down to the gymnasium.”

Just by the tone of Red’s voice Mark knew it was bad. He ran
from the command deck and into the maglovator, which sped him to the recreation deck. As the doors opened he smelled the stench of death. He knew what he was running to face before he even saw it, and he despaired.

The doors to the gymnasium slid open as he approached and he found Red staring at him, while the General looked away, his face a mask of solemn resolve.

Along the walls of the basketball court that comprised this section of the gymnasium were hanging the bodies of forty people. All tortured, all dead. And there, hanging at the foremost spot was the body of Miles Jefferson, his second team commander. Mark sank to his knees; his vision swam as despair washed over him, followed by blackness.