The Cagliostro Chronicles Read Online Free PDF Page B

honest I do not know what we are facing out here in the slightest. What lies in store for us is a mystery for me as well as for you. What I do know is that there will definitely be more trouble ahead of us. But there is no turning back. I know, we are not a military ship, but at the moment we are all that stands between our planet, Earth, and I don’t know what. I do know there is something going on, and whatever it is, it’s big. Big enough to be a danger to all of us and our families. No matter what, we have to see this through. Back home, everyone is counting on us, even if they do not know it. We have a mission to complete, let’s do it as safely and smartly as possible. Johnson out.” He motioned, and Ariel clicked off the comm unit, then Mark Johnson slumped back in his chair for a moment, steepling his fingers in front of his eyes while deep in thought. Out of everyone aboard Mark knew the most about what they were getting into, and as he had just begun to realize, in truth, he knew very little indeed.
    The battle they had just fought did do one thing, and that was to raise his level of trepidation for what lie ahead.

Chapter Four
     
     
     
    The Cagliostro sa t in stationary orbit behind a moon on the frozen outskirts of an unknown solar system. The command crew sat within the command room, as Johnson began to brief them. “The fourth planet from this sun is an Earth-like world. It is in fact slightly hotter than Earth, and appears to be somewhat arid. It also seems to be a hub of activity. We have scanned dozens of ships coming and going from that planet. It is some sort of hot spot for activity. We have been monitoring all sub space communications in and out of that planet, and what we’ve been able to ascertain is that this planet is a commerce site for this galaxy. It’s sort of a galactic hub. There is a large area that appears to be a military base located half the world away from the commerce area. As far as cities go, the commerce site is smaller than, say, New York, but it has a large space port nearby, on the outskirts of the area. We’ll be taking the ‘Stargrazer’ there. The Cag will remain here behind this world hidden from that planet.”
    “How will we gain access to this place?” Red asked, pensively.
    “Ariel’s been scanning frequencies and through our translator we’ve been able to ascertain what we need to be allowed access. That part of it won’t be a problem.”
    “Well that brings up another thing, how are we going to communicate with these people?” Eddie asked.
    “I can answer that,” Ariel interrupts, “Our suits have a translator circuit built in. we’ll speak English, they’ll answer in their language and we’ll hear it in English. They will hear their language. Whatever the heck it is.”
    “How’d you come up with something like this, Mark? Heck how’d you even know where to begin?”
    “Mark grinned boyishly, “ Eddie, do you remember the old SETI program that had been searching for alien life for about five or six decades? The ‘Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence’ had been sending queries into deep space over that time, and had been getting some replies, but didn’t realize it until much later. I fed their data for the past half century through a mainframe I had developed that’s sole purpose was language skills. It ‘learned’ everything SETI had ‘heard’ for years and was able to decipher certain things based upon what could be considered verbal punctuation. That same technology and what was deciphered previously is in our suits nano-computers, which are of course made of nano-bytes.”
    “What kind of place are we going to? You say it’s a commerce spot, but what else do we know about it?” Red changed the subject.
    “We really don’t know anything about what we’re walking into. Everyone packs a weapon, but keep them under your jackets, for now. If they try to take them from us, we reconvene at the Stargrazer and wait for everyone