Return of The Red Devil Page 5

  Kyp was not a little put off so she opened the dialog with a very curt universal dialect, “Ah, so you ARE Pirates then!”

  Circe giggled, “Well no, Captain. Sorry. These outfits were just ment to strike terror into our adversaries, and we were expecting hostiles. Your arrival has been a complete suprise! Request permission to come aboard?”

  “Permission granted,” Kyp grumbled, somewhat resigned, “Pirates with strong psi talents.”

  Fang was totally awestruck, and was mumbling to himself about the beginning of time and prophesies but shook himself off.

  “Oh yes, in Galactic. Greetings! Noble guests! I am afraid you have us at a great disadvantage though. How can we make your visit more pleasant?” Fang spluttered out.

  The large procyonid climbed in through the airlock hatch, straightened up to her imposingly tall stature and spoke, the ceiling was a bit low, so while Kyp and her bridge crew watched in awe, a blue glow surrounded the figures and the were immediately made short enough to not hit their heads on every low hanging pipe.

  “Pleased to meet you, Noble Dragon, Fang Silverclaw. I am Circe Smith and this is my sister, Diane Hunter.”

  Diane nodded in greeting and gave her large lapine ears a flip. Mal was totally blown away with Diane's attractive appearance. A striking tall hybrid of rabbit, cheetah spots and tiger stripes in the fur pattern. She had blond wavy hair just a bit longer than shoulder length!

  Circe continued, “Welcome to the Sol-Terran system, my sister and I are Emissaries of Sol, we are not pirates as such, but Privateers for the Sol System. It is truly a great honor and privilege to meet you travellers. I did not think I'd have the chance to meet one of the dragon's race any time soon. Though I wish the circumstances were better.”

  Fang coughed a bit uncomfortably, “Thank you, Madam Circe, Madam Diane. I see that you conceal your eyes, is that an indication of any truth to our old legends, that your eyes will enchant or bewitch any mere mortal with your gaze?”

  Circe smiled, “Perhaps, but then again, you are not a mere mortal are you, Mr. Silverclaw.” she lied and took off her dark shades, nodding to Diane to do the same.

  “Well actually, we do have normal eyes, as you can see. But if I anticipate meeting an enemy. I prefer to wear the shades for certain tactical reasons.”

  Circe then reached into a pocket and proceeded to pull out several gold dodecahedrons with engraved runes on each facet while the onlookers gaped

  .

  “We were expecting a force of Kinty in this system so, here. A gift for each of you and your crew.” she handed the trinkets to Fang.

  “Keep that with you, and if you are ever captured by Kin T'haar, show that to them. The engravings have my signature in Kinty, and will inform them that if they harm you or your friends & relatives, or detain you in any way, I will come for them and turn them to back into the stellar dust from which they were formed.”

  Fang nodded nervously, “Oh my! What fantastic sorcery is this? Then uhm, ah the oldest of dragon legends must be true, you are of the Forrunner Ancients? The..uhm...uhm”

  “We do not deal in sorcery, Mr. Silverclaw. We are not the Forrunner-Ancients but the Galactic ones did have something to do with us being here.”

  “The Galactic Ones...?” Fang pondered.

  “Yes, they predate the Forerunner Ancients by several million centuries, they don't exist even in our space time. They existed before this universe even came into being.” Circe stated very matter of factly.

  “Oh my, my! Fantastic! --The pre-Forerunners are only just a wild theory. --Is there more proof?” Fang spluttered.

  Circe just responded, “Yet I stand before you. Don't I reinforce what you learned from the Zarinthian libraries?”

  So Circe skipped expanding on the subject and continued, “But I digress, My sister and I are only here to protect this system from being ravaged by these incoming marauders. We have information that the Kin T'haar are on their way here.

  We were expecting them. That is why we received you in such brusk fashion. I apologize again for that.

  But I wish to make a proposition that may benefit us both hopefully!”

  Fang's jaw fell open as did Mal's.

  Kyp chimed in, “Really? What could we possibly have that you'd want?”

  “Captain! Forgive my being rude. After all this IS your ship! And Commander Easton, first officer! Let me explain your that exploits are well known to us, in general.

  Could we share our proposal with you?” Circe chirred happily and smiled giving her large ringed raccoon tail a flip.

  Fang snapped out of his gawping and pulled himself together again, “Then let us sit at the conference table and talk of alliances perhaps, ah, it seems we may even have a common enemy anyway.”

  “Of course!” Circe smiled, Diane nodded approvingly.

  They all proceeded down the corridor to the conference room and all stepped in and sat down in the comfortable chairs provided.

  Circe broke the ice again with opening statement, “Alright. Let me see if I can summarize this situation. First of all, I know you are marooned in our system. Pardon my being blunt, but there you have it.”

  Kyp bristled visibly, “You seem quite sure of yourself--”

  “I have given your ship a *very* good looking over,” Circe ticked off items on her fingers.

  “Your warp engines are offline because your fusion injectors crapped themselves and you're in a system that is about to become battlefield for an interstellar clash.

  If the bad guys, the Kin T’haar, catch you here, they will --EAT-- you. Just like they will try to eat us. When they either eat us all or get tired of -us- beating the crap outta them, they will come *to your system*.

  You need to warn all your home systems to be ready for them.

  But, from here, you can't call for help from home because your coms are down and a message drone will take too long to get there.

  Your hydrogen intakes are fouled with gunk and need to be cleaned out and restarted.

  Your Mobian drive will have to be replaced with something much better.

  It's a deathtrap. Try to use that again and you'll most likely disintegrate the ship. I'm sure the ride was not comfortable.

  If you are going to mess around with quantum subatomic astrophysics you need to do it safely. We can fix that for you.

  To sum it up, you'd like to get repaired and refueled, so you can get on your way and out of this upcoming battle zone.

  Good news is: my sister and I are engineers with new technology. We have some of the best techs and we can help you make repairs...and marked improvements!” Diane smiled and nodded.

  Kyp and Fang both looked perplexed for a moment on the mention of the Kin T'haar but kept on listening.

  Kyp chimed in at this point,“A Question --well a few actually. The first; you did say this was the SOL system correct?

  That then leads to my second question, what in hell are you all doing here?

  Almost three hundred years ago the few remnants of Earth departed in a large ark ship. The planet was in the throes of being totally destroyed.

  We managed to survive.”

  Circe answered, “Ah! Yes. From our point of view the existence of an ark ship was not well known. It was just a legend that no one really believed could have existed, but now meeting you, I know it did.

  I assume it was the rich over privileged upper crust that took off in it to leave the rest to die. That is usually what happens, in cases like that. That was a long time ago.

  Piecing it together, there was a faction of rich humans here, that wanted to stay behind. But all the old humans here were annihilated here during the time of the Great Obliteration.

  Only a few mammalian hybrid species survived by retreating underground for some time. Life was very harsh for several decades, but once the poisons cleared we came back out and began rebuilding with the technology that had survived. We were able to jump start ourselves out of our own New Dark Age.

>   Those were bad times for us. But you, Captain, are special, because you were on the ark ship when it launched! So you must have marvelous regenerative faculties!

  So I could ask, what are YOU doing here?

  Your mind has a few very hard blocks in it and is very resistant to telepathic traffic.

  The point of your being here was not clear to me.

  Were I unscrupulous I could have crushed your will and found out even more about you, but that would have reduced you to a mental vegetable so I just made a light psychic threat evaluation on you all as to not attack you outright.”

  “What am I doing here? Can you keep a secret?” Kyp answered.

  “Yes, of course,” Circe replied.

  “Good. So the Hell can I!”

  Circe and Diane blinked at each other and shrugged.

  Kyp narrowed her eyes, “Next question, Ms. Smith and Ms. Hunter, Fang tells me you have a handle on tremendous power of which this little gold medallion is just a small sample. Shouldn't we be talking to the Grand High Exalted Poohbah, Supreme Potentate of Terra or something?”

  Circe showed a trace of embarrassment, “Oh yes, of course!”

  She continued a bit abashed at this point, “That would be me and my sister. I'm afraid we kinda --had to quickly, get the system governments on the same page in order to crank up a wartime economy to build all the weapons needed for this up and coming invasion.”

  Fang bowed and blurted out, “Oh! Do Forgive us your Majesties! We did not know we were in the presence of emperesses!”

  Circe looked very tired, “It's quite alright. Mr. Silverclaw. I suppose my sister may be the system emperesses by technicality, but we are not royalty.

  More like a police force. I didn't want to do that. I did it only because I had to. I let them all be free to govern as they wish, but if they start warring among themselves, they know I will make some really BAD things happen to them.”

  Kyp looked non-plussed, “So what is to keep you from building an invincible armada and taking over the whole galaxy?”

  Circe let out another deep sigh, “Captain Epsilon, I appreciate your concern. We could indeed take over the galaxy if we wanted to. However, the logistics of keeping this small band of privateers going is staggering at best. I would most certainly lose my mind with all the paper work. Just think! Nothing at all would get done! And the most important reason is that I wasn't looking for this job when it found me! Running the galaxy? I think not!

  Let me re-iterate, we have no hunger for power or wealth, we can make anything we need. We could even make ourselves wealthy beyond dreams and live elsewhere, but we are still of Earth. We are beholden to defend the home system. So --No, Thank You!” she smiled.

  Kyp scratched under her chin for a moment, unsure of these newcomers, “But you are absolute rulers of this system. Doesn't absolute power corrupt?”

  “Under most circumstances, Yes it does, Captain, and of course, Absolute Power also Rocks.

  However, my sister and I have the benefit of the wisdom of those who survived over five million centuries, so corruption is of no temptation to us. It just won't work. We have transcended that irrational attitude.” Circe admitted.

  The opposite side of the table looked nervous at that remark.

  “So, Captain...a question to you and Mr Silverclaw?”

  “Yes, your Highnesses?” Fang blurted out.

  “Were my sister and I corrupt with this power, we would not be talking here. I would have eradicated the crew on board and picked the ship clean! How can this be?”

  Kyp snapped that one up, “I can't imagine! Maybe you want MORE than just the scrap metal in this ship?”

  Diane started drawing little paw finger circles in the air, “Oh yes, it would be Sooo much more amusing to just turn you all into our personal meat puppet thralls, and melt down the whole ship, just out of sheer petulance. Being a Goddess is such hard work you know!” she giggled.

  Kyp, Fang and Mal looked even more nervous, exchanging uncomfortable glances now.

  Circe smiled, hoping to put them back at ease, “Please pardon my sister's droll humor. Though there is some truth to what she jokes about. We would have already done all those things by now. if we wished.” Circe grimaced at the memory and took a harder tack, “I don't put up with fools gladly however.

  The President of North Am tried to double cross me and had her secret service open fire on me.

  I don’t know about you, but getting shot at really pisses me off. They shouldn't have done that. Did I vaporize them all? No, I let them live, --with a lasting impression though. Now they can't do enough nice things for me and right now that is probably a good thing for us all.

  The day before that meeting I was accosted by a street gang, I had to knock some sense into them but one of the group was a hardened killer and his motive was killing for pleasure.

  I evaluated him as uncurable then I did vaporize him while I made the rest of his gang watch.

  Now they are all a neighborhood watch group helping aging folks to cross the street and perform useful civic duties like carry groceries for folks.”

  Fang shuddered and spoke up, “Oh, my...how distressing...most distressing indeed!”

  Kyp looked defiant, “So who's to say you won't just waltz into our little star kingdom and take over there too? No one could stop you and you could take anything you want there. Are we to look forward to your friendly brand of tyrrany as well?!”

  Diane looked a bit perplexed at that question and flicked an ear back and forth.

  Circe tilted her head and reflected a second, “Good question, Captain.

  My sister alone, could have single handedly done that already, with her bare hands. But she hasn't nor will either of us.

  Right now, you can not know ahead of time if Sol-Terra will take over your system or not in the near or distant future.

  I give you my word of honor that we will not. We will always respect your sovereignty. We will not try to buy you out with beads, trinkets or blankets.

  Perhaps you worry that we may covet your mining operations.

  I assure you we do not. We have our own mining and there is no mineral wealth you have that we can't get elsewhere in our own system or in the nearby interstellar space.

  Indeed the Kin T’haar however do covet your system. Your problems will be with them. Not us.”

  Fang turned to Kyp, “Madam, I believe our noble guests have been more than honest with us. I think we should feel comfortable in forming some kind of alliance with the new leaders of Sol.

  Being a dragon, I can sense any dishonesty immediately. And I do not see any at all here. Uhm, ah, most unusual in fact, folks do tell a few little lies here and there but that was not apparent this time!

  They are indeed the most sincere folks I have ever met, oh that is except for one tiny detail.”

  “Oh? Just how tiny, Fang?”, Kyp looked dubious.

  “Well, forgive me, Majesty, but your aura is not that of a procyonid, but looks distinctly feline.”

  Circe raised an eyebrow, “Very observant, Mr. Silverclaw! I will not try to deceive you on that subject.

  I am a shape shifter.

  My 'true' form must remain secreted to enable me to work effectively in the shadows as well. Then again if the connection were too well known, then everyone who knows that other person would have their life in constant jeopardy.

  You know how that works already. I entrust you with this in that I am confident that you won't talk. ”

  “Ah! Uhm...yes, indeed so your Majesty! Your situation is understandable,” Fang nodded in agreement.

  Circe added, “Please don't call me or my sister, Majesty, kind sir. If you insist on addressing either of us formally, then just call my sister and I, Ma'am or Madam, please?

  --Now, If you are assured that we mean you no harm, should we not try to strike an agreement to our mutual benefits?”

  “Ok, so you wish to do something like one hand washes the other?” Kyp perke
d up, “What could we possibly do for you? It seems you have everything you need, and I can't imagine what you could use from us.”

  “Let me explain at length.

  We are building our own destroyers but it will still be several months till those get ironed out.” Circe elucidated.

  “Right now, we need a squadron of destroyers, just to tide us over until we can finish up building our own of course.

  But what is even more important is perhaps something intangible. We need to know we have you as friends and allies out there who will help watch our backs and in return we will watch yours.