The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration (18 page)

Once free f
rom it the ship spun about completely and moved away from the burning quadrant of the purple void.

“Are you seeing any more of those creatures, or anything similar?” Mark inquired.

“Not as of yet,” Red replied cautiously.

“Are our sensors clearing up at all? I’d like to get a better idea of what we’re flying through
.”

“Yes Mark, the sensors are recalibrating
on their own. It’s just taking a bit longer than usual because of whatever this is around us.”

“That’s what I want to find out, what this…muck is we’re surrounded by
.”

“All I can tell you now is that this stuff
is not space. It’s not a vacuum, Mark. It’s got mass to it,” Dan said.

“So what is it?” Eddie asked.

“Well judging by those space-rays’ movements through this void, it appears to be a gaseous environment of some kind,” Mark concluded.

“How do we get out of here?” Ariel asked the question everyone feared
the answer to.

Ma
rk tipped his head to the right. “I’m not sure yet. The simple thing would be to just reverse our mass, swapping between dimensions back to our own. But to be honest when we slid out of hyper-warp we should have simply reverted back to our own universe already. I’m really not sure why we haven’t.”

“Well that’s just great, because if you don’t know I don’t know who will,” Ariel nervously replied.

“Hey we’ve gotten out of tough situations before. We will this time as well. Don’t sweat it
.”

“I know Mark. But we always seem to go from frying pan to fire
.”

Mark looked at his girlfriend and sho
ok his head slowly in agreement. “You’re right, Ari. We do. Especially the last two years. But that will stop once we drive off the Agalum once and for all.”

He turned toward Dan.
“Danny, any other anomalous readings out there within our buffer zone?”

“You mean like more o’ them space-ray things?”

“Yes, and whatever else might be out there.”

“No
, Mark, nothin’ else is out there. At least not anywhere near the ship that I can see.”

“Ari, Red, what about you two? Are you picking up anything we should be wary of?”

“It’s nothing but dead space as far as I can see,” Red confirmed.

Ariel shook her head.
“No, Mark. I’m not picking up anything on any frequency. It’s like those things are the only creatures alive in this entire universe.”

“
Which means they must feed on the purple clouds somehow.” Mark leaned back and rubbed his jaw in thought.

“So what are you thinking
, Mark?” Eddie asked.

“I want to run some projections. Danny, make sure we’
re in the same area we entered this dimension in. I don’t know how much our straying will affect us back in our own dimension.”

“Right,” Dan agreed.
“We could end up light years away.”

“Yes, and that would not be a good thing
.”

“No
, Mark, it wouldn’t,” Ariel commented.

Mark Johnson stood.
“Okay here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to go down to the engineering lab and run some projections. Dan is going to accompany me. The rest of you are going to get some rest. I’m calling in the secondary command crew for the next six to eight hours. When Danny and I are done we’ll call the rest of you back and we’ll get the heck out of here. I just want to make sure we’re doing this as safely as possible. The next eight hours may end up meaning nothing when all is said and done, but I want to take every precaution before getting us back home, and you notice I said ‘before getting us back home’, and not ‘trying to get us back home’.”

Mark and Dan exited the command deck
onto the maglovator and headed to the engineering level.

Mark turned toward his friend.
“What do you think?”

“Hhmm?
About what? Gettin’ us outta here?”

“Well what else?
Of course getting us out of here. Am I being overly cautious by not just reversing what we did on Chakix’s world? Or am I doing the right thing making sure we’ll be safe?”

“Look
, Mark, I ain’t never second guessed you before an’ I ain’t gonna start now. You come up with what you think will work an’ I’ll run the numbers, makin’ sure it’s all safe. That’s the way we’ve always done it an’ that’s the way it’s always worked.”

Mark nodded and grinned.
“Agreed, big guy. I keep thinking if we just reverse what we did back there the ship will blow up.”

“Nobody’s gonna know the chances o’ that
happenin’ better than you. If you got a gut feelin’ about this whole thing then I’m a hundred percent behind you takin’ the cautious approach.”

“I know you are
, pal. Let’s just get this over with. Have you gotten any progress reports on the
Stargrazer
’s repairs?”

“The ‘
Grazer
was hammered, Mark. I’m not sure we can repair her onboard.”

“Okay we still have shuttles that are working anyway
.”

“Yeah, that’s true, but unless we need ‘em I’m gonna keep those repair crews on the ‘
Grazer
anyway, Just in case we need ta reach home an’ not aboard the
Cag
, if ya know what I mean.”

“Understood, Danny.
I always like having the
Stargrazer
ready for a mission involving a smaller ship, just in case we need something a bit less conspicuous.”

“To hell with not bein’ conspicuous, Mark.
If we need ta get the cavalry or even if we have ta go back ta Earth ta get some parts or equipment the ‘
Grazer
gives us another option. You know, just in case this baby is in bad shape.”

Mark laughed.
“Danny, we’ve never been in as bad a shape as we just were a few days ago. Yet you put the
Cagliostro
back together and even created replacement parts in the machine shop. I doubt this ship can be waylaid permanently, especially with you here taking care of things.”

Dan shrugged.
“Hey whatever, man. I’m just glad to have been of service,” he answered with a lopsided grin.

The two men
exited the maglovator into the engineering deck.

They headed toward a set of computer interfaces that were back to back with each other. They each placed a he
lmet with a blacked out face screen over their heads and plugged the headsets into the interface.

Mark asked,
“Ready to log in?”

Dan nodded.
“I’m ready for you ta get inta my head if that’s what you mean.”

“I do
, big guy. Let’s go work out these scenarios and see which one is our best bet.”

A virtual control panel popped up before Mark, and he immediately began typing parameters into it. A moment later both
men’s perceptions were radically changed. They found themselves seemingly standing in a barren black room.

“V R
system is working at one hundred percent efficiency. Our mind link is strong. Let’s see the best way to get out of this void.”

“Yeah let’s get to it. The sensors are still
sendin’ us info on this place.”

“I know
, I’m seeing the telemetry.”

***

Seven hours later they removed the headsets and both of them almost collapsed where they sat.

Mark exhaled,
“I don’t think I’ve been this exhausted in years.”

“Yeah I agree,
Boss man. I feel like I’m gonna pass out right here. But at least we got our answer.”

“I know. I
t took us long enough to get the parameters just right, but it was a good thing we just didn’t try to cross back over. C’mon let’s get back to the command deck.”

“I’m
starvin’,” Dan mentioned.

“Yes, me too actually
.”

Both men exited the
engineering deck into the maglovator, and both of them felt the hairs at the back of their necks rising.

Dan turned to face Mark.
“Did you notice…”

“That the engineering deck was empty? Yes I did. C’mon
.”

A minute later t
hey exploded onto the command deck from the maglovator and stopped short as soon as they entered the command deck.

“What the hell? It’s empty
!” Dan exclaimed.

“We have to find out what happened here
.” Mark slid into his seat and activated his holographic control panel.

Dan did likewise an instant later. “Last eight hours?”

“Yes. Start with the command deck, then work our way around the
Cag
.”

Dan nodded stoically.

On the main viewer a vid feed of the command deck appeared and began playing very quickly. Hours passed in minutes as the two men watched silently and intently.

“There
,” Mark shouted at the six hour indicator.

The video instantly stopped
, then Mark rolled it back in increments.

“What the hell
is
that?” Dan asked.

Mark shook his head incredulously
. “I don’t really know. Whatever it is, it’s making a chill run up my spine.”

On the view screen the two men watched as a
roughly man sized amorphous cloud of black smoke appeared and disappeared constantly about the command deck almost instantly. Chalk white arms would dart out and grasp a crew member and then the entire cloud enshrouded mass would blink out only to reappear a heartbeat later at another spot on the command deck to drag someone else unwittingly within its smoky miasma.

Again and again this happened until the command
deck was cleared of all personnel.

“Do you think
it got everyone?” Dan queried, fear coloring his voice.

“Let’s find out
,” Mark growled.

Mark punched a glowing red button on his console
. Instantly the ship’s warning klaxons exploded with sound, a female voice began blaring ‘red alert’ over and over in between the klaxons’ bellows.

In twenty seconds the sounds quieted and Mark spoke into a microphone at the communications console. “All crewmembers check in immediately
.”

After a moment he growled, “Ah
, screw this.”

Mark punched buttons and the scene on the viewer was replaced by a grid pattern with every crew member
’s name upon it. Next to their name was an indicator.

Only a
dozen indicators remained lit. The rest were dark.

Calls started to come into the command deck,
one on top of another. “This is Maxwell on the hangar deck reporting in.”

“This is Dr. Troiano in Medical reporting
.”

“This is
Robinski reporting in,” Red’s voice thundered.

“DiGenovese
reportin’ in,” Eddie’s voice followed.

‘
Mark, what’s going on?’
Ariel’s telepathic voice filled Mark’s mind.

‘We’
ve been boarded by…something and they took most of the crew. They seemed to ignore everyone who was asleep or buried deep within the ship. Best you come to the C-deck immediately.’

‘On my way.’
she replied.

Six more crew members from various secluded positions about the
Cagliostro
replied, with the largest concentration coming from the hangar deck where the
Stargrazer
was being repaired.

“Mark,” Dan began, “Whatever that was slipped through our shields like they weren’t there
. Somehow it teleported in an’ out of here, an’ took our people with it.”

“I know
, Danny. Do a wide spectrum sweep of nearby space or void or whatever the hell this place is. Also check the sensor log at the time of each appearance, I want to know what energy signature to look for. There should be a bundle of it at each appearance of our mystery guest.”

Mark punched up the inter
ship comm again. “All personnel report to the command deck immediately.”

Ariel whisked into the command deck before Mark had finished speaking.

“What happened?”

“We were boarded
. Take your console, Ari. I’ll explain what we know when everyone else is here.”

“Mark, I’ve got it
,” Sledge interrupted.

“What
, Danny?”

“Every time this thing appeared there was a huge burst of
tachyons across the ‘C’ band. That’s the tell we needed.”