The Cagliostro Chronicles II: Conflagration by Ralph L. Angelo Jr. Read Free Book Online Page A

name games. That’s what.”
    “Look , Red, sometimes you need a few moments of levity to lighten the mood in a bad situation.”
    “I’m not seein’ it , Mark, especially not now. Things are looking pretty grim to me.”
    “Things are always lookin’ grim to you ,” Eddie smirked.
    “Maybe that’s because I’m the only one not looking at the world through rose colored glasses .”
    “Okay enough ,” Mark blurted out. “Here’s why I’m not that concerned, Red. Things are not that bad. The ship is being repaired. Even though we may have some time stuck here as of yet, we will get off this planet. Secondly we just befriended the natives, who are even now eating more of the food we provided to them. Thirdly, somehow we lucked out and fell upon a major Agalum base only a day or so from Earth, their most forward base.”
    “That we know of ,” Red amended.
    “ Yes, that we know of. Though I’m pretty secure in saying it’s probably the closest one, period.”
    “Okay I’ll go with that .”
    “ Alright Red, so tell me in your estimation, since you are security, what happened to us out there? How come we were attacked first by a fast attack ship we managed to defeat in a pitched battle and then by reinforcements that just happened to be in the area? The G’Kor class ship is another matter entirely.”
    “As far as I’m concerned the whole cluster muck up is just coincidence. That fast attack ship was probably on patrol in that sector, scanned us and went on the attack because we were relatively close to their base. Or it was returning there and its crew knew it had to stop us.”
    “Okay, what about the other ships?”
    “The fast attack called for help, those others responded, which would explain why small two man vessels would be out this far in the first place.”
    “Because it wasn’t really that far with this hidden base smack dab in the middle of everything ,” Eddie added.
    Red nodded. “That’s right, short stuff. You got it exactly. Those guys were the back up.”
    “Fine. What about the G’Kor though?” Mark pressed.
    “What about it? It may not be here for us at all. It could be on a supply run or something. Or it could simply be passing through.”
    “Do you believe that?” Mark inquired.
    “Not for an instant, but I had to put it out there because it is a possibility,” Red finished.
    Mark nodded. “Understood.”
    “So what do we do about this base?” Eddie asked.
    “I don’t know,” Mark replied. “To be honest I’d rather be able to get the hell out of here and back home, and then point the Fifth Fleet out this way to clean that thing off the face of this planet.”
    “What’s stopping that from happening?” Eddie queried.
    “It depends. I can’t send a signal from here, even a fast encoded one. They’ll find us instantly. One thing we’ve been able to learn is that a lot of their tech has gotten very good of late.”
    “Yeah , they’ve probably been stealin’ our stuff,” grumbled Dan.
    “Of that I have no doubt, Danny. There’ve been lost ships on both sides of this mess. I’m sure, no matter what precautions we’ve taken with self-destruct mechanisms and other anti-tampering devices that they’ve gotten their claws into our stuff.”
    “Okay , so they stole some tech you and the other big wigs developed. What does that do for us in the big picture?” Eddie asked.
    “Real easy , Eddie. There are several ‘fingerprints’ I’ve put into my own tech. Things that could help us if the situation gets dire enough.”
    Dan growled, “But it ain’t anything you wanna rely on unless ya have to, huh?”
    “I don’t want to play that hand unless we’re really in dire straits , Danny. That’s an endgame gambit that we could go far with. We hold that in reserve as long as possible.”
    Dr. Troiano’s voice interrupted over the comm.. “Mark, you better get down here. Something’s up with Ariel. Bring Red with you.”
    “On our way ,