The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration (13 page)

“It’s Danny an’ Red. We wanna seeya, Mark. We need ta talk to you. Open up.”

Mark sighed and tapped the remote on his table top near where he was seated. The door hissed open and both men cautiously entered.

“Mark…” Dan began, before Mark raised a hand to stop him.

“Look
, I know you two mean well, but I need to be alone. After what happened, I can’t think straight right now. This whole mission has been one disaster after another, and now this. My poor beautiful Ariel.” He sunk his head into his hands and began sobbing again. “Boss…” Dan started again.

“No
, Danny, I-I’m all right,”

“Look I need to talk to you about Eddie
,” Red cut in. “He feels terrible. He said his gun was only on stun. She shouldn’t have died from it. I checked everything including vids of the command deck and he’s right. He used a low stun.”

Mark raised his head, his eyes were red and he had
a day old stubble. His hair was unkempt, and he had been in the same uniform at least a day and a half.

He look
ed at his friends incredulously. “I’m not holding Eddie responsible for this. He saved Troiano’s life, maybe yours and mine as well. I know he didn’t mean to kill Ari. I know he didn’t,” he repeated.

Dan fidgeted uncomfortably. “Look, Boss
, we need ya to take command again. I mean if you can’t Red or I can do it. But this ship, this crew needs you, not Red or me,
you
. You get me? You’re its heart an’ soul.”

“You’re our leader
,” Red added.

“Yeah, you are. An’ right now we need ya to lead
,” Dan finished.

“Guys…”

“Look, man, I know yer hurtin’, we all are. Everyone on the ship. Not just the command crew. Everyone loved Ari. The five of us were a team. We were like a family of dysfunctional siblin’s.”

“What the illiterate Jovian ape is saying is true, Mark. I’m not a guy who can talk about feelings and
stuff so easily.” Red fidgeted. “But Danny’s right. We all loved her. Eddie’s tearing himself up over this. Troiano is like a robot since it happened. The crew is barely speaking to each other. The
Cagliostro
is like one huge mausoleum right now. We need our captain back. All of us do. We’re not going to be able to get off of this rock without you.”

“All right.
Let me clean up. Wait for me in the kitchen area. I’ll be out in ten minutes. Make yourselves coffee or something. In fact make me something. I haven’t eaten in two days. But I have to get out of this room. Danny, what’s the status of the repairs to the engines?”

“Everything’s done
, Boss. Everything’s complete. We just need to run a few tests and we can get the hell away from this place.”

“I can’t believe a simple exploratory mission turned into this nightmare
,” Mark murmured.

“I know
,” Red agreed. “All we were doing was looking for a mineral rich planet close to Earth, relatively speaking to establish a base on.”

“Yeah these Agalum bastards beat us to this one
,” Dan Sledge added.

Both men turned and looked at him
with furrowed brows.

“What?” Sledge asked, surprised.

“Nothing, Danny. You’re right. They beat us here” Mark replied.

“This place would have been perfec
t too. I bet we could’ve even come to some kind of an agreement with the natives or that Chakix thing.”

Mark looked at Red and agreed with another nod.

“Where is Ari?” Mark suddenly asked.

“Med deck
, in a suspended animation pod. You know how that works. We bring bodies back to Earth if we can for burial there. Hell, you wrote that rule.”

“Yeah
, I know,” Mark replied glumly, and then continued, “I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Fifteen minutes later the three men walked onto the command deck from the maglovator, a newly shaven and showered Mark Johnson at the forefront, wearing a clean blue and silver tech suit.

“What is Mr. DiGenovese’s status?” He turned and asked
Lori Westin, who was on comm duty.

Shocked at seeing Mark there and trying to hide it she answered
, “Dr. Troiano thinks he’s fit for duty. But he c-can’t bring himself to come up here since the, um accident,” she finished in almost an inaudible whisper.

“I don’t care. Tell him if he wants to keep his job I need him on the command deck of this ship
.”

Mark turned to a young black man who was
sitting at the weapons console. “No offense Hoskins, but I need DiGenovese back up here.”

The young man smiled
. “None taken, Sir.”

“Good. I have to get this ship and crew back to running order as fast as possible. By throwing DiGenovese back into the fire
may be the only way to do it. We need familiarity on this command deck today.”

“Sir,” Lori Westin called him quietly. Mark turned to look at her
. “Sir, I-I know I can’t replace Miss O’Connor, but I’ll do the best I can to serve this ship until we get back to Earth. Lilly feels the same way. W-we both wanted you to know.”

Mark relaxed a
bit, he softened as he looked at her. “I know that, Lori. I never doubted you or Miss Wallflower for a moment. I’m sure both of you will perform your jobs with professionalism and grace.”

“T-thank you,
Sir.”

“No
, Lori, thank you.”

The maglovator doors hissed open behind Mark and Eddie DiGenovese
uncomfortably walked in. Hoskins saw him and stood immediately, clearing the weapons console for Eddie, who immediately sat and adjusted the seat and controls for himself.

Mark Johnson cleared his throat,
and then began to speak slowly. “Systems check, Mr. Sledge?”

“Engines are started, an’ runnin at nominal, Mark
.”

“
Security?”

“
We moved the indigenous species away from the ship earlier today. We’ve also supplied them with more food and cold weather gear until they rebuild their village the Agalum destroyed,” Red answered.

Mark nodded, “Weapons systems, Mr. DiGenovese?”

“E-everything seems okay.”

“Well is it or isn’t it
, Mr. DiGenovese?”

Eddie nodded affirmatively, “It, it is
Sir.”

“Drop the ‘
Sir’ crap, Eddie. In all the years I’ve known you, I can’t remember you ever calling me ‘Sir’.”

“A-alright, sorry Mark
.”

“Are we ready for liftoff?”

“We are Mark,” Dan answered.

Mark leaned forward onto his fist, his
elbow on the console before him. “What about our eyes in the sky? What do they have to report?”

“The two probes saw that Agalum G’Kor
move off several days ago and disappear into space.”

“Yes, I remember the report
,” Mark acknowledged.

“It
musta been a supply run,” Dan offered.

“Probably, but there’s only one sure way to find out
, right? Let’s get off of this planet. I don’t ever want to be back here again.”

“Mark?”
Eddie interrupted,
“What about these people here? We can’t just leave ‘em to the Agalum, can we? They did nothing to us. They’re livin’ in fear. If we leave ‘em behind, the Agalum will scoop ‘em all up for slave labor in no time.”

“I’ll send a fleet of war ships back to free this planet Eddie. I
, no, we just can’t do it, not right now.”

“Mark, think about it before we leave
,” Dan advised.

“Take us up and out of here, Mr. Sledge
,” Mark ordered coldly.

Dan shook his head and touched his virtual control panel.
“You’re the boss.”

The ship began to lift up, but suddenly as if a gigantic hand had slapped down upon its out
er hull, the
Cagliostro
bore back down to the ground.

“What’s happening?” Mark growled angrily.

“I-I can’t get enough thrust to get us off the surface
.” Dan turned toward Mark and answered. “It’s like local gravity has increased a thousand fold.”

“How is that even possible?” Mark rumbled.

“Look!” Lori Westin pointed toward the view screen.

There, in front of the ship
, stood all the remaining natives as well as the giant red ape creature, and all their mouths were moving in unison. They were all speaking, including the giant red ape, and they were all saying the same thing.

“What are they saying?” Eddie asked.

“Lori, outside audio, on.”

“Yes
Sir,” the brown haired girl acknowledged.

The audio came through the speakers and it
instantly chilled them all to their very souls. The natives were repeating, “You will not leave. You are bound to this world by the will of the goddess Chakix. You will not leave until your mission is complete. Such is the will of Chakix.” They repeated what they were saying over and over again, until Mark finally got up and shut off the audio feed at Lori’s console.

The conference room
was almost chaotic. Everyone was trying to speak at once, including Mr. Marek, there at Mark’s order. Marek ran the secondary crew and his opinion was a trusted one. The third shift crew had been called to the command deck and was staffing it now while this meeting was going on. Dr. Troiano sat quietly with her arms crossed over her ample chest. She was not happy.

“Everyone calm down
,” Mark shouted. “This Chakix is holding us here, but that’s a temporary thing. We’ll be able to get out of here, I’m sure of it.”

“How do you know, Mark?” Lori Westin
inquired. “Have you ever run up against anything like a sentient planet before?”

“No Miss
Westin, I have not and neither has anyone here. But that doesn’t mean this is an unattainable position. We’ve been in tougher spots, we’ll get out of this one. The ship is fully functional again and that’s the most important thing right now. That’s what’s going to give us a fighting chance.”

“So what do we do?”
Dan asked. “Do we go out there an’ try to talk to this crazy planet ghost or whatever it is?”

“I don’t think talking to it will do any good at this point. The damned thing killed Ariel and
I was hoping it had died with her somehow. At least that would have been some modicum of revenge. Yet there it is again, this time talking through its natives.”

“How do you want to play this, Boss?” Red queried
.

“What are you asking me, Red
? Should we go guns blazing and try to break free of the planet’s gravity field?”

Red shrugged, cocking
his head to the left as he did. “Yeah that about sounds right.”

Mark leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face before speaking. He sighed and continued, “Oh how I wish
, Red. Right now that’s exactly what I want to do. I want to take this Chakix monster and lash out at it, and don’t kid yourself I still might, but where would that leave the native people here? Would they be able to survive without Chakix?”

“We survive without some deranged guardian spirit
,” Eddie offered.

“You’re right
, Eddie, we do. But will they?
Can
they? Their whole history has this Chakix acting as their guardian angel.”

“Not the way I woulda put it, but yer point is taken
,” Dan grunted.

“So it all comes back to what do we do now?” Red summarized.

“I think we have to drive the Agalum off of this world. I don’t think we have a choice at this point.” Mark summarized.

“How are we going to do that? There are a hundred of us, and there could be as many as thousand
s of them inside that base. We could really be going face first into a wasps nest,” Red barked.

“You’re right
, Red. It’s a no win situation any way you look at it. Unless we get some help.”

“What are you thinkin’, Mark?” Dan asked.

“I’m thinking we get Chakix to help us.”

“Do you think that’s possible?” Troiano joined the conversation, after sitting silently
for the past several minutes.

‘I don’t think we have a choice, Doctor
,” Mark answered. “And I don’t think she does either.”

“I keep thinkin’ this is gonna blow up in our faces
,” Dan exclaimed.

Mark nodded.
“You’re probably right, Danny.”

Red sat back,
rubbed his eyes and then sighed. “Let’s go talk to this Chakix and see if we can strike up some kind of amicable deal.”