Return of The Red Devil Page 3

  Under these circumstances an experienced engineer would shrug and confess, “Results may be unpredictable.”

  The 'Lady was built very strong and held up under the incredible punishment.

  Dragon Lady's Artificial Intelligence, Minerva, was intact. She was designed to activate under various kinds of dire emergency conditions and noticed the astrogator was offline, assumed damaged, so she made some quick integrity checks, noticed the ship was tumbling so she stopped the ship's tumbling with thrusters, then tried to contact any of the crew members for manual assistance. There were no replies. It was going to be a long day for a ship's A.I.

  Return of the Red Devil

  Chapter Three: Lost!

  Aboard Dragon Lady:

  The Dragon Lady barely survived the trip into the mobian expanse, following the near disaster encounter with three of the Assasins’ Guild fighters.

  The mobian expanse was an enigmatic quirk of subspace discovered by Doctor Arwan J. Schneider which connected all points of the universe simultaneously, at least, mathematically speaking.

  He theorized that a special drive incorporated into a conventional matter/antimatter power plant would allow a ship to enter this expanse and traverse the galaxy in a matter of seconds.

  The drive was built but was never tested as the major backer pulled out after a flaw in the theoretical math was discovered.

  Kyp ran across the device during one of her fleet budget audits and discovered the device in mothballs. Upon further investigation she was intrigued by the device’s potential and commissioned a group to solve the equations to allow the device to work and had the device routed to Rocco’s Bolt hole to be fitted to her personal ship.

  It had finally been tested after all that but some ships never returned from their trip out.

  With no manual input into the ship’s controls, the ship’s A.I. activated and began its standard system checks and navigational scans.

  “Ship A.I. activated. Ships time stamp number seven bravo niner two. If anyone is alive, please call me Minerva. Beginning standard ship system diagnostics and navigational scans. Alert! Damage to port pylon and gravitic nacelle. Damage to ventral hull, no breaches detected. Pressure doors on standby. Foreign object detected on ventral hull. Matter/Antimatter reactor on standby. Gravitic systems offline AE-35 module not found assumed damaged. Mobius drive active. Attempting Deactivating of Mobius drive. Deactivation Failure. No navigational data entered into main computer. Astrogator offline, assumed damaged. No navigational hazards detected bringing ship to drift. Crew life signs detected. Any non-incapacitated crew-member please respond. Message repeats….”

  Malcolm woke to the A.I.’s drone intonations, “Erf, my head! Remind me never to do any of that kind of whiskey again!” He muttered to himself as he surveyed his surroundings.

  He was in the cargo bay still wearing his EV suit and strapped to the ship’s main gun. At least the safeties engaged and retracted the gun when the Mobian drive activated.

  “First officer, Easton! Welcome back sir!” the ship’s A.I. chirped cheerfully into his helmet’s comm system. “We have extensive damage to the ship starting with…”

  “Who in Hell is this?” Mal asked not recognizing the voice on the comm.

  “My apologies, Sir! I am Minerva, the ship’s computer and A.I. emergency system. I activated when the ship became disabled and required course corrections. I am required to report damage to the crew. We seem to have injuries in abundance.”

  “We don't have an A.I. named Minerva.” Mal protested painfully.

  “But you do, Sir! I am Minverva and I have stabilized the ship from its random tumbling.”

  Mal gave up, “Spare me the damage report for now Minerva, is the ship safe and what are other casualties?”

  “The ship is presently in safe mode, we are adrift at unknown galactic coordinate set, and a device called the Mobian drive requires manual input. Casualties detected: but I am unable to contact any other crewmembers. Please report to the medical bay for an evaluation…”

  “I can walk, Minerva, I’ll check on the rest of the crew.” Mal said as he unfastened his restraints.

  Mal left the cargo bay and walked to the lift that would take him to the command deck contemplating the state of the ship and Epsilon’s high risk maneuvers.

  He thought better of taking the lift incase the power was unstable so he painfully climbed the ladder up.

  After a short detour to the engine room and finding all was well with the engineer and his mate Mal made his way to the command deck, revealing the unharmed but unconscious crew. Kyp was seated in the captain’s chair slumped over.

  Mal approached and and removed her helmet so he could check her face for signs of heavy bruising. She always fought to keep the ship and crew safe, he mused as he checked her for more serious injuries, I just wish she would take better care of herself.

  Finding nothing more serious than some light bruising he deployed one of the anti-grav stretchers and prepared Kyp for the short trip to the medical bay.

  “She is going to pitch a hell of a fit if she wakes up anywhere but the bridge.” Fang stated simply.

  Mal almost jumped out of his skin, startled by Fang’s unexpected appearance, “Damn it, Fang! Don’t sneak up on people like that!!”

  “Apologies, sir. But I wished to check in, as you call it and report my unharmedness as well as remind you of the captain’s sense of duty.”

  “You let me worry about her temperance. Now --I’m pleased you are unharmed, how is Sparky?”

  “I’m ok commander, but it was one Helluva ride!” Sparky shouted from across the bridge.

  Sparky was silver tabby shorthair hybrid with light tan scalp hair under his baseball cap. Kyp picked him up at one of the Gleise Neotown shopping bazaars where he ran a repair business. He showed talent for all things electronic. Kyp saw he was adept and spotted him as a favorable mutation after a short interview so she picked him up for her crew.

  “Ugh, I swear if y’all don’t stop shouting--.” Kyp grumbled as she regained conscious.

  Malcolm turned to face the captain to inquire of her condition, but the A.I. beat him with her report.

  “Captain! I am relieved to see you are awake and pleased as punch to give you the damage report! The A.I. began to rattle of its list of damaged ship items and components Kyp turned to Mal giving him a look of annoyed befuddlement.

  “Mr. Easton, is that what I think it is?”

  “Afraid it is, Ma’am. Captain, meet Minerva. Minerva, meet Captain Epsilon.”

  Mal had to suppress a smile here. “Remind me to have a talk with Rocco next time we see him and please stow that stretcher.”

  “As you wish Ma’am. I have already been to engineering, in spite of some bumps and bruises Cleco and his engineers’ mate are fine, and are resuming repairs.”

  “At least there is some good news! Good work, Mr. Easton,” she said and keyed the intercom, "Engineering, Bridge."

  “Aye, engineering here, Skipper.”

  “Mr. Cleco, Mr. Easton reports you are all alive and well down there.”

  “We are at that Skipper. We are attempting to resume repairs but we have a problem with the mobian drive.”

  “I figured as much seeing as we are still in mobian space, or where ever this is. Can we make the translation to back to N space?”

  “Well Captain, we can but I don’t like the computers report of the object that is attached to the ventral hull and I have no way to remove it just yet, somehow it has fused to the ship’s plating.”

  “I see, Minerva. I think that was a grapple that our unwanted guest left behind. It is likely spot welded to the hull.

  Do we have enough power to extend the structural integrity fields out?”

  “Aye, Captain we do and if you give us a half hour we will have the gravitics up giving us more control of our momentum when we enter N space”

  “Sounds like a plan Cleco, please inform me when we our systems are ready.”


  “Alert! Mobian drive capacitors overheating. System failure in ten seconds.” came the AI announcement over the shipboard speakers.

  “Please fasten your seat belts or find some secure structure hold downs to restrain yourselves with, failure in...four...three...two...one...MARK!”

  Dragon Lady crashed out of mobian space, falling back into N-space tumbling violently. Stabilization systems came on line and the hammering of thrusters firing resounded through the hull as her autopilot fought to kill her tumbling. After four or five more turns she slowed her tumble and stabilized.

  Out in the Sol-Terra Kuiper Belt:

  Miranda and Michelle were deploying the last of the Passive Automated Listening System. Everyone was out doing EVA this time. So everyone was watching each other's backs. In hard vacuum one rarely gets a second chance after a mistake.

  Michelle was acting mission commander for this job. The whole crew was out here as light discipline after a daring rescue they made the week before.

  It was one of those rescues that they probably shouldn't have done so they did it anyway. But that is another story.

  Michelle bit slight in stature at about 5' 4" in height with flame red hair that she mostly wore in a pony-tail.

  Being a red vixen hybrid, she was wiley by nature and was often used for deep cover operations but, this was just a one shot job they had setting up all the new early warning buoys. Everyone often called her Mike for short.

  “Ok, check comm and sub space radio links, Mira?”

  From the cargo hold in the large MULE came, “You got it, Mike.”

  The MULEs were a special breed of spacecraft. For the mining mining colonies they were the workhorses. These craft depended on modular unit construction throughout. They were the dump trucks, ore carriers, pick up trucks, ambulances, crew and cargo transports.

  The entire center section could be changed out in a few minutes with one that would suit the need at the time. There was an enlarged crew cabin in the nose and huge engines as well as over size fuel tanks. They were all fitted with extra heavy duty landing gear to withstand heavy landings with massive cargos. Needless to say they were not pretty like most craft that are designed strictly for use outside any atmosphere. Later on MULE modules were being created to carry heavy guns and ordinance. They were sometimes used as gunships as well.

  While in her space suit, Miranda flipped on the quick test circuits and stepped through the pre-deploy PAL checklist.

  Miranda or Mirra was a striking lady, part lapine, part skunk. Very British. Very friendly and polite, but one did not enquire about her past or how she got in this outfit.

  Tiggy was out in the depressurized cargo module to act as safety man and EVA assist.

  His proper name was Winston, but friends didn't call him that, opting for Tiggy since we was a tiger hybrid.

  Geeky type but when in the seat of a Scorpion fighter he was all business and an extremely agressive player.

  He was often sought for wingman or flight leader because of this.

  “Sub space comm link?” Miranda chirped.

  “Check.” came the reply from Michelle.

  “N-space radio data link?”

  “Check.”

  “Ok, we are performing final self check. It should pick up our MULE and report it in.”

  Miranda entered the last few code sequences in and was getting ready to close the access door, when her suit radio exploded with traffic.

  “Holy Goddesses, FUCK!!” Michelle exclaimed, “Something just crossed our bow at 50C and it's decelerating!!”

  “Bloody Hell?? What was THAT??!!" Miranda blurted out.

  Switching over to the main subspace frequency Michelle made the call out, “PAN! PAN! PAN! PAN! --PAN! PAN! PAN! PAN! This is MULE, 'Typhoon' any station please respond!"

  The answer came back quickly from main dispatch controller, “Typhoon, Top Hat Control here. State your emergency traffic please?"

  “Typhoon is at Romeo Alpha One Seven Hotel three zero Mike, sector. All of our PALS out here have gone HOT!”

  “Top Hat Control, Typhoon. We copy that and we'll verify data as soon as the signal arrives”

  “Roger Top Hat, we are showing a single bogey, just crossed our bow at about victor five zero charlie and decelerating hard. Heading into system. Copy?”

  “Roger, Typhoon. We copy. Ah, yes. We are getting the readouts now and calculating a course plot for it. Nice job!”

  “Roger Top Hat. We will button this last PAL up and head in. Request a course well clear of bogie so we can steer to avoid. No reason to draw their attention.”

  “We copy that, Typhoon. The plot will be with you in a moment.”

  “Ok, Mirra & Tiggy. Soon as you've secured the access covers on the PAL, you can shove it out the door and we'll get outta here.”

  “Copy that,” answered Winston.

  “Roger, do they know what it was, Mike?”

  “No clue but it was good sized. This can't be good, could be the baddies have arrived, a scouting party perhaps, hmm? Whoever it was certainly wasn't trying to hide their passage, though.”

  Tiggy and Mirra finished up securing the access covers and carefully shoved the long torpedo like device out the open cargo door.

  “Ok, PAL is away. We're closing the cargo door now.”

  Mirra and Tiggy then drifted to the cargo airlock, let themselves in and got pressurized.

  “Welcome back inside. Have a coffee and strap in. Good job guys! We're gonna scram this area in case something bigger follows that last one in,” Michelle barked.

  The bunkie and tiger just nodded in solemn agreement.

  “Ok, we tracked their plot across our nose so we will be going in the long way around in order to avoid them since we don't have our normal ordinance load out. Here we go.”

  The star field outside went into its usual crazy distort as the MULE accelerated away from their PAL site.

  Return of the Red Devil

  Chapter Four: The Alarm goes Out!

  Lunar Farside Station:

  The signal was out and things were going totally crazy back at Lunar Farside Station, the asteroid bases were also flurry of activity. Circe had just given the scramble order to all ready fighters and to load the Mules with Wolverine / Pangolin Berserker marines as well as standard ordinance.

  Only a few close friends knew of her true origins and they weren't about to talk.

  Circe was a tall intimidating lady. She was a Procyonid hybrid, seven feet tall in her standard heel boots.

  Her raven hair fell straight down to the middle of her back, parted down over her left ear, with bangs to just above her eyebrows.

  On her left breast was a gold comet with diamond star clusters, she also wore a sam brown style belt with a gold buckle that had an engraved Rutherford atom on it. Knee high black boots finished the uniform.

  To most of the folks on the lunar station, she just appeared out of nowhere one day dressed in this strange alien, burgundy red uniform with silver and black shoulder marks.

  This storm trooper-like vision appeared inside the mining base in Lacus Mortis during a small funeral reception that had been disrupted by a mysterious energy release that threated to breach the station walls.

  She appeared in a blue flash, shoved everyone back from the dangerous manifestation without actually touching them somehow, then picked up the dangerous article and vanished.

  Video feeds of the incident picked up the gist of what happened but no one on the scene at the time could clearly describe what had happened. It was as if thier minds had been clouded.

  All the rest of the MULEs were being configured as gunships, bombers or missile platforms and any fighters left were being hastily armed.

  Circe had just boarded her makeshift flag ship, Sword of Bastet, another MULE with full ECM / network communications package onboard with full complement of kinetic weapons.

  Diane was already airborne and heading out to rendezvous point out into the asteroid be
lt with Fer-de-Lance.

  The 'Lance was a heavily armed MULE gunship and would fly with an escort of Scorpion fighters today.

  Diane was a similar creature as Circe. Some thought they were cloned, because at times they were hard to tell apart excepting their personalities and hair color

  Circe and Tom completed their preflight checks and made best possible speed out to join the gathering out at the asteroid belt.

  Tom Burton, A powerful, towering cougar standing a good 6' 8" with short brown hair.

  An ex fighter pilot and astronaut, Asterope Mining Corporation scooped him right up and put him to work flying lunar ore from the moon to L5.

  Born in Hondo, Texas, he always gravitated towards the wide open spaces. He decided to go for the biggest spaces of all: deep space. As an EVA expert for the Asterope company.