Old Mars

Picture me if you will, Majesty, standing the wide bridge of the Serkeriah. Captain Carina Meer stood frowning down at the wide pool in which our vessel and our enemy’s were charted in light as if by angelic hands. The smell of burning flesh still hung in the air, mute witness to our previous engagements. Gentle La’an and Mister Kopler stood their stations beside me, each coordinating one-half of the great organism that our combined crews had become. And then we were joined. Through what magic I cannot say, but the wide pane of crystal before me shifted and changed, and like an enchanted mirror from fairy tales, the glass reflected not my own visage, but Governor Smith’s. The years had treated him gently. His mouse-brown hair was only touched by gray at the temple, his skin taut with the fat of rich feasts. His smile was the amiable one I had known once and allowed myself to count, however mistakenly, among my friends.

“Captain Lawton,” the governor said, “I was hoping to find you home.”

“Governor,” I replied.

“Your captor’s cause is lost. The criminal Carina Meer will be taken into custody by my allies, and her crimes will be answered. The only question remaining is how. I see that our guesses were correct. You and your men have been pressed into Captain Meer’s service.”

“I am no slaver,” Carina Meer said. “It is the Ikkeans who take slaves and force others to their will.”

“Be that as it may,” the governor went on, “I have a proposition, Captain Lawton. My allies would prefer a clean transfer of the prisoner and her stolen goods. The ship itself is of no interest to them. If you and your men would be so good as to secure the person of Carina Meer and open your locks to our envoys, the Serkeriah will be yours by right of salvage.”

“I cannot believe you are sincere,” I said.

“On the contrary,” the governor said. “I give you my word of honor, and as we both know, I never break my word.”

It was true, Majesty. However devilishly he might construct his promises, however Mephistophelian his skills in breaking the spirit of a bargain, Governor Smith’s word of honor had not been sullied, not even in the act of destroying mine. If he promised me the great ship that traveled between worlds in exchange for Carina Meer and her alloy, then the ship would be mine. I had no doubt.

Shall I say, then, that I hesitated? It is, after all, the action expected of a man of my repute. Shall I say that given the prospect of defeat on one hand and freedom and limitless power on the other, that my base nature swayed me? It did not. My reply to the governor was immediate, crude, heartfelt, and medically improbable.

The Ikkean boarding assault began at once.

To board a vessel in the abyss between the worlds is no easy thing. The attacking craft flew toward us, their infernal engines burning at the full. Cruel mouths pierced the ship’s skin and spat out their warriors into the halls and domes of the Serkeriah. A great many, I believe, were lost in that first hour as my men and hers cut down the invaders even as they spilled forth. They were massive creatures, Majesty. But their vast arachnid bulk belied their terrible speed. From devices carried on the ends of their legs, they produced rays of purified light that could burn a man down in a few moments. And beside these devils from the pit were the colonial guard, in duty servants to the crown, but in truth the creatures of Governor Smith.

We fought them in the corridors and halls, the radium stores and the ship’s vast eight-chambered heart. Doctor Koch drove them briefly back to their ships with a noxious gas he fashioned with the Manae engineer Octus Octathan. And Quohog, young Carter, and Mister Darrow contrived to salvage a cannon from the ruins of the Dominic of Osma that blew a dozen Ikkeans into yellow sludge and cracked bits of carapace. It is with great pride that I report my men, ruffians and blackguards all, fought like heroes of old. Their guns fired without pause, and their swords wove a flashing net of steel through which even the Ikkean horrors feared to pass. But such vigorous defense also left us terrible losses, and again and again we fell back. Near the end, I stood with Captain Meer, my own cutlass in one hand and a contrivance of glass and silver that burned with emerald light in the other, holding back the enemy. To this day, I can feel her back against my own as we stood our ground. For one moment, the stench of smoke and death parted and the scent of magnolia came to my nostrils. I hope when my time comes to die that will be the last memory my failing mind recalls.