Return of The Red Devil Read online

  Return of The Red Devil

  An Ecliptic Story

  Book One

  Shannon T. Abrams

  Acknowledgements

  Ms. Barnning for ideas, proofreading and use of her created characters:

  Fang Silverclaw, Executive Officer, Commander Easton, and

  Captain Kyp Epsilon.

  Mr. Bunston for the use of his character: Miranda Winchester.

  Ms. Erb for patiently acting as editor and proofreader.

  --And many more for the inspiration without which this book could not have been created.

  Return of the Red Devil

  (An Ecliptic Story)

  Book One

  by Shannon T. Abrams

  Copyright © 2019 by Shannon T. Abrams

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters have no basis in reality or depicting any persons living or otherwise. Any similarities are purely coincidental.

  Any inquiries regarding the use of characters or situations should be addressed to the publisher.

  No unauthorized reproduction is allowed without written consent, unless for review or other journalistic purposes.

  If you decide to not heed this warning then we will have no choice but to put out a contract on you with Team Destructo, Cindy and Linda. They will hunt you down with their black space craft and abduct you. Once free of the atmosphere they will have you dipped in bilge and then keel hauled in hard vacuum. When they are done with that they will cut you loose near a planetary gravitational field where you will be pulled in and burned into cosmic dust from atmospheric friction. With nothing left of you, no one will care.

  Then you'll be sorry!

  Cover art by Valdas Miskinis

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One: Breakdown in the Dark

  Chapter Two: An Unwelcome Reunion

  Chapter Three: Lost!

  Chapter Four: The Alarm goes Out!

  Chapter Five: War Stories:

  Chapter Six: The Tow Truck Arrives:

  Chapter Seven: The Ambush:

  Chapter Eight: What Transpired at Asteroid 279 Thule:

  Return of the Red Devil

  Chapter One: Breakdown in the Dark

  Kyp Epsilon sat at the command console of her ship,the Dragon Lady, gazing absentmindedly at the bridge view screen, her long fluffy tail with distinctive rings of beige and rusty red twitched behind her; the only indication of her current irritation and contemplation.

  She was not of tall stature, at about 5' 10” tall, although bit tall for a hybrid of the genus Ailurus, or red panda hybrid.

  She stood straight and flipped her blond hair with the tips layer dyed blue and purple, that settled and flowed down to the middle of her back.

  The bridge Epsilon was currently keeping watch on was more of cockpit as it was barely five paces to between the port and starboard bulkheads and jammed full of equipment some of which was military grade and not legal on a civilian ship, courtesy of 'Rocco's Bolt Hole', one of the shadier dry docks in the Gleise 667 colonies.

  She had on her standard ship's work coverall and did not seem to carry air the of a duchess at the moment.

  Dragon Lady was once a 250 foot long military interstellar transport, converted to a personal use by her owner. In spite of her humble origins she looked more like a sleek pleasure yacht, but appearances were deceiving. The 'Lady had a 75 foot beam and was well equipped to defend herself against any lightly armed pirates, but she was not a true warship since she did not carry heavy armoring and larger caliber weapons. But she was fast and maneuverable for her size, just in the case she might have to run from a deteriorating situation. Kyp had personally overseen her more special modifications at Rocco's establishment.

  Kyp frowned and rubbed under her chin in deep thought, as she stood on the bridge. Dragon Lady was motoring along on the sub-light engines while the engineers were repairing the main hyper warp drive. Six light years out from the Gleise 667 colony, the main warp drive had gone offline into fail safe mode. There were over five hundred light years to go before making landfall at the new Kepler 186 colony, it was looking to be a long trip.

  She keyed her com unit, “Mr. Easton, how goes the repairs, shall we be underway soon?”

  After a minute she got her answer from her loyal First Officer, “So far, so good, Ma'am, Mr. Cleco is replacing the AE-35 module that was defective. We should have the warp engines back online in a few more hours.”

  She winced at the answer but replied, “Thank you Mr. Easton. I'll keep a full lookout watch going just in case.”

  “Yes Ma'am!”

  Non-critical indeed, thought Kyp, If it breaks down, the fuel doesn’t get to the reaction chamber and the whole drive is inoperative. If it is defective you run out of fuel at the corner of Nowhere and East Bumblefuck. What’s more Cleco assured me that we still had several thousand parsecs left on it. Cleco is not prone to making mistakes like this; something else is afoot! She thought, brushing strands of her blue and purple dyed bangs from her face.

  As if on cue the ship’s intercom chirped, Kyp flipped the toggle answering, “Bridge, go ahead.”

  “Bridge, engineering, Cleco here.”

  “What’s the verdict, Cleco?”

  “Well Skipper, I was right, we still had over a five thousand parsecs left on our AE-35.”

  “Then why are we coasting, dead in space?” Kyp asked, a bit annoyed.

  “This is where it gets interesting Skipper, the serial number on the module does not match the one in my records. The only thing I can figure is that one of the technicians servicing the ship in Gleise, swapped ours with a worn out one.”

  “I see.” Kyp replied. “Can we get underway again soon?”

  “I don’t have a spare module in the ships manifest but I have some other items that I can jury rig together that should get us to the Kepler System. We'll be looking at several hours at best, Skipper."

  “Very good, Mr. Cleco. Carry on but please keep me advised of progress.”

  “Aye-aye, Ma'am!”

  Many technicians had access to the Dragon Lady while on Gleise, some one must have replaced the AE-35 with a high time one and sold the good one to another client. An all too common but shady practice.

  Kyp made another entry to her ship's log: “Progress delayed by non-approved critical parts being replaced at last port of call. AE-35 unit has failed. Remind me to murder someone the next time we make landfall there.”

  Marvelous. It would be really annoying to be set upon by pirates, scrappers or junkers at this time, even though a chance meeting in interstellar space is extremely unlikely.

  She thought to herself, Who could possibly know the flight path of the Dragon Lady since we made our last planet fall under a false transponder and hull number?

  The pressure door to the cockpit hissed opened interrupting Kyp from her reverie.

  She jumped from her seat, fur bristling as she trained her pistol at the intruder. “Don’t you ever knock!!??” she groused, as she holstered her pistol, recognizing the only other red panda morph that embarked on the Dragon Lady, Fang Silverclaw.

  “Oh Dear! My apologies, Madam! I suppose we are apparently expecting unfriendly company then?” Fang replied making a slight bow in reverence, “Might I assume our current engine trouble is related?”

  “Perhaps, Mr. Silverclaw, but its most likely that we picked up a defective part that wore out prematurely. But there are too many coincidences with this chain of events,” Kyp stated flatly.

  Fang tilted his head and noted the stress Kyp was under, “Uhm. I see. Most unsatisfactory. Perhaps milady would care to head below for some rest while the repairs are completed. I can keep watch until then.”

  “Very w
ell, Mr. Silverclaw, you have the watch. Please be so kind to have Mr. Easton wake me when repairs have been completed and we are ready to get underway again?”

  “It shall be done so, Milady.”

  “Thank you. You are most generous with your time,” Kyp said with a lopsided smile betraying how exhausted she truly was and made her way below to her quarters.

  Once inside her quarters she keyed up her personal comm device.

  After a short pause the familiar voice of her first mate sounded through the speaker.

  “Easton here. What can I do for you, Captain?”

  “Mr. Easton, Mr. Silverclaw has the watch.”

  “I understand ma'am I shall pass the word to the crew in the usual manner.”

  Malcolm Easton was an excellent first mate and had been at Kyp's side through many of her adventures and exploits.

  Kyp awoke to an incessant chirping in her ear waking her instantly she instantly flipped the nearby switch to open the comm channel.

  “Captain here, go ahead,” she snapped.

  “Sorry to wake you, Ma'am,” Mal started.

  “Are we ready to power up the warp drive?”

  “Negative, Captain, we are still in the process of rebuilding the replacement module. Cleco estimates another four hours to complete.”

  She winced at the answer but replied, “Thank you Mr. Easton. Please let me know if there are any further disasters tonight.”

  “Which is why I contacted you Captain, Sparky reports bogey contacts at extreme sensor range.”

  “Understood, I’ll be right up, please have the crew suit up.”

  It was going to be a long day--

  Kyp rousted herself and scampered up to the bridge.

  She had just settled into the captain's chair and the ship's intercom chirped.

  “Captain, Sparky here, passive sensors are picking up three bogies, bearing one eight three degrees. Range two five zero thousand klicks.”

  Great. Lets hope they don't see us and they will motor on by so we can slip away into the dark.

  She barked out an order, “Helm! Turn left forty five degrees and then kill the sublight engines but keep them warmed up!”

  “Helm, Aye-aye Captain. Coming to new course and sublight engines go to all stop,” replied the grey cat acting as helmsman.

  Kyp snapped out, “Mr. Sparky, what are the bogies doing now?”

  “Bogies are turning to match our new course, Ma'am. The seem to be following us and closing.”

  “Ok Mr. Sparky. Try and get a read out on their signatures with passive as soon as you can. ”

  “Aye, Ma'am. We're on it.”

  Marvelous. They are either pirates or...the Assassins Guild, Kyp lamented to herself.

  Kyp leaned over in her captains chair, removed the safety cover and tapped the now exposed red button. Alarms went off all over the ship for thirty seconds.

  She spoke the words over the ship's PA system.

  “All Hands! All Hands! General Quarters! This is not a drill! All personnel to battle stations!”

  Like the rest of the crew, Kyp stepped over to a small locker and started putting on a pressure suit in case there was a sudden cabin depressurizing incident. Then she strapped herself securely into her captain's seat.

  “Mr. Easton, as soon as you're dressed properly, if you would man the dorsal gun emplacement, please?”

  Mal answered over the com, “Aye, Ma'am. I'm on the way!”

  Mr. Easton, combed his long lapine ears back and secured them with cloth bands to make a better fit for his pressure suit helmet.

  Kyp sighed and looked wistful a moment. Damn. I hope I'm not sending that poor man to his death. It's just that he's such a good shot!

  “Helm, transfer full manual control to my position. Engineering, I want the impulse engines online and ready!” she barked again.

  “Aye-aye Captain!” came the responses.

  “Cap'n, Sparky here. Bogies have closed to seven five thousand klicks.

  Looking like Icarus class heavy fighters, Ma'am.”

  Damn! Only the Assassins Guild drives those ships. They must have set us up and have a mother ship nearby to be lying in wait right here!

  “All hands, there is no candy coating this time. Those are Assassins Guild, Icarus fighters. They mean to kill us. Everyone do your job well and we shall see if we can't singe their tails!” Kyp announced.

  All positions checked in as manned and ready for action except one, so far.

  Kyp unstowed the throttle quadrant on her left armrest and checked operation of the formidable looking flight stick on the right armrest. Then she ran through the checklist with control check of the rudder pedals for her feet.

  “Lets have full tactical displays at captain's position, Mr. Sparky.”

  “Aye-aye, Ma'am,” the response came back.

  Kyp now had a full situational display in front of her suit visor so she could see the sensor readouts Sparky, her ECM officer, had.

  “Thank you, Mr. Sparky”

  “Fire control, Warm up all guns. Slave in the twenty mike-mikes to my targeting,” she ordered sharply.

  On either side of Dragon Lady's nose were four, twenty millimeter cannons in cheek mounts. Their protective covers were retracted now so they were ready to fire.

  Malcolm had just finished his suit checks and was depressurizing the cargo bay.

  He looked over at the formidable gun turret installation that Rocco had installed on the floor of the cargo section. It was a hideous thing that consisted of a quad battery of forty millimeter auto cannons with integrated power chute fed munitions. It did not have a high rate of fire but it would only need one round to impact an adversary's ship.

  The gun mount was bolted to an extendible pantograph type platform, such that once the dorsal cargo bay doors were opened the entire arrangement could be elevated through it so the gimbal mounted gun carriage had full sweep of the entire top of the ship.

  Mr. Easton sighed to himself and clambered up into the gunners seat where he busied himself with the cargo bay door switches, causing the large panels in the ceiling of the bay to unseal and retract inwards onto their guide rails. The doors could then be neatly stored out of the way inside the hull during extensive loading operations. No loading cargo this time though!

  Mal then elevated the gun turret up through the open cargo doors and ran through all the final operational checks and exercised the gun mount through its entire range of travel.

  Over his suit radio the Kyp called, “Mr. Easton. How goes the main gun?”

  “Top gun turret checks out, fully operational, controls are free and full travel on all axes, Captain. Ready for action!”

  The Dragon Lady was girding herself for battle...

  Return of the Red Devil

  Chapter Two: An Unwelcome Reunion

  Assasin Guild Green Flight:

  Captain Zachery Taylor in the lead fighter, closing in on the seemingly hapless Dragon Lady, called his two wingmen, “Green Leader, Green 1, and 2 check your weapons. I think the quarry is suspicious after that last course change.”

  “Green 2, roger.”

  “Green 1, roger.”

  Zachery was hoping they could just put a couple missiles in their target and then go home to collect their contract money.

  He felt a little uneasy though since his employer was offering three times the usual payout for a hit like this one. Zach wondered if it was some high echelon VIP or something. He took the contract anyway. Sounded like another milk run with easy money at the end of the line. The two new kids with him would be getting some good experience as well.

  Zach's comm channel lit up again with a new, soft silky feminine voice that sounded almost human but not quite.

  “Well! Hi there, Zero! Long time, no see! Did you drive all the way out here into the dark because you missed me that much?”

  That voice! No one ever called him Zero --except Captain Epsilon! Goddammit! She must have hacked the Guild frequencies an
d was listening in to our radio traffic all this time! Zach shuddered.

  No wonder the price for this target was so high! If he had known she was the target he would have asked for five times the bounty he was taking now! The Guild didn't bother to tell him they were going up against a professional battle seasoned ship destroyer captain! This situation could go very bad, very fast.

  Zach cleared his throat, “Ms. Epsilon! So good to see you doing well! We have you outnumbered and outgunned. Your ship is a cripple, you can't run away from us. Why don't you just cut your engines and we will come on board and get it all over with quickly and painlessly?”