Austin Arnold (Order #44005359)

CR EDITS

Editing: James Spencer, Annie Percik

Writing: Ed Greenwood, Andrew Peregrine, James Spencer,
Ken Spencer
Creative Director: Ken Spencer
Layout and Graphic Design: Krystal Faller Spencer
Business Management: Krystal Faller Spencer
Marketing: Krystal Faller Spencer

Copyright ©2018 Why Not Games

Check us out at www.whynotgames.com.
Disclaimer: This product is a work of fiction. Any and all
personages are fictional and do not bear relation to any
existing or past people.

Austin Arnold (Order #44005359)

Austin Arnold (Order #44005359)
Austin Arnold (Order #44005359)
 CONTENTS

Spies, Lies and Allies

By Andrew Peregrine

Casey Chester – Rocket Corps On Mars

By Jim Spencer

Emancipation Knights
By Ken Spencer

Three Aces For The Dancer

By Ed Greenwood

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 Welcome to the Rocket Age!

This anthology features four short stories set in the Solar System
of Rocket Age, a retro-future sci-fi radium punk extravaganza. It is
a Solar System of exploration, danger, and intrigue where heroes
of all stripes can face off against nefarious plots and hopefully
come out on top. Set in a 1938 that never was, Rocket Age, well,
let’s just cut the chatter and get straight to the action.
The Solar System
In Rocket Age there are nine planets in our Solar System, though
once there were ten…
Mercury
This planet is a hot barren ball of rock that sits too close to the sun
to be of much use to anybody. Few explorers have bothered with
it as the riches of Venus and Mars are nearer at hand and far more
evident. Thus, Mercury is the perfect place for a secret Nazi base.
Venus
The jungles and savannas of this hot and humid world lie
on mountaintops or high plateaus that rise above a vast sea
of mist. Below the mist line the pressures and temperatures
rise to the point where not even a rocket ship can safely
fly. Venus is the home to the ape-like Venusians, three-
meter tall hairy sophonts who are the only mammalian life
native to their planet. Aliens in the form of Earthlings and

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 Martians have flocked to Venus to hunt for radium, gold, and
psychic crystals.
Earth
Earth of the Rocket age in 1938 is much like Earth of our own past,
save for the influence of aliens and technological advancements.
Politically, the planet is largely divided by the Great Powers,
France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Soviet Union, the United
Kingdom, and the United States. Other nations, enriched by their
off-world colonies, are on the rise, and Brazil is on track to be
the newest Great Power. Tensions are increasing and it is only
a matter of time before a spark starts a war that will not only
engulf Earth but the entire Solar System as well.
Mars
The Red Planet is a world in conflict. Millennia ago the Ancient
Martians, possessing technology far in advance of anything in
use today, ended their conflict with the natives of the planet
Eris by destroying that world. The blowback from that event
destroyed the ecology of Mars and caused the Ancient Martian
civilization to fall. Today, Mars is a desert wasteland interrupted
only by the water carrying canals that crisscross the planet. The
Martians are divided into hundreds of city-states and minor
principalities. The coming of Earthlings to Mars has resulted in
war, disorder, and disruption. Not only have the Great Powers
of Earth staked their claims to sections of Mars, but Earthling
ideas have fostered a slave revolt leading to the creation of the
city-state of Emancipation and a Communist Revolution that has
swept through several principalities.
The Asteroid Belt
Once the planet Eris, the asteroid Belt is now a jumble of rocks
that has attracted miners and artifact hunters from across the
Solar System. Secret battles are being fought between the large
corporation backed mining enterprises and small independent
miners. Of course where there is wealth there are those who
wish to take it away, and piracy is growing to be a serious problem.
Jupiter
There is life in the skies of Jupiter, but not as Earthlings or
other aliens understand it. This life floats in an endless sea of

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 clouds and gases, forming short-lived sky islands that float on the
currents until they are pulled apart by the titanic forces at work.
If there is great wealth to be found in the skies of Jupiter is yet to
be determined, but these very skies are the witness to struggles
between all the Great Powers of Earth as well as the Europans and
native Jovians.
Jupiter’s Moons
The moons of Jupiter form a smaller system, often referred to as
the Jovian System. Even the fastest rocket ships take weeks to
reach out as far as Jupiter, and many who come here to explore
or conquer find it easier to remain. Europa is by far the most
famous for it is home to the technologically advanced if rather
odd Europans. Ganymede is a forested moon where plants behave
like animals and the boundaries between the kingdoms of life are
called into question. Io is a blasted wasteland where the Ioites try
to just stay alive amidst the ruins of their once great civilization.
The other moons range from Metis, home to the Europan clients
the Metisians, to the tumbling airless moonlets that circle the
Jovian giant.
Saturn and the Outer Planets
Few explorers have pushed their way out to Saturn, and even fewer
beyond. The edge of the Solar System is a great unknown, for
even those who have ventured out that far rarely return. What is
known is that something lurks in the clouds of Saturn that eats
rocket ships, that it is deadly just to enter an orbit around Uranus
and Neptune, and that there are faces carved into the icy surface
of Pluto.
Sophonts of the Solar System
Our Solar System is home to seventeen species of sophont, though
one has not been recognized as such by the others. From the
Jungles of Venus to the blasted moon Io, intelligent beings have
formed cultures, built homes, and sought meaning in their lives.
Each of these seventeen is a playable species (in Rocket Age we
use species as opposed to the more common race used in role-
playing games).

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 Earthlings
Earthlings are the species that invented the radium rocket drive
and launched themselves into dominance, at least in their own
eyes. From the steaming jungles of Venus to the rings of Saturn
and beyond, you will find Earthlings exploring, fighting, trading,
or simply living. The species from the third planet have become
a ubiquitous sight in the Solar System of Rocket Age.
Europans
Enigmatic and eccentric, the Europans possess advanced science
and technology, as well as strong psychic abilities. Despite their
threats and posturing, they have yet to disintegrate the Earth,
just a few ships here and there. In an effort to understand better
the ‘lesser species’, the Europans have sent out Emissaries to
learn and understand by participating in the cultures of other
species.
Ganymedians
Biologically the strangest of all the sophonts, Ganymedians are
a symbiotic organism made up of different species of plant and
fungus. Although primitive, they possess a strong sense of honor
and a fierce loyalty. Just don’t be around when they flower.
Ioites
Savage and feral, the Ioites are all that’s left of their once glorious
civilization. Their home world blasted into an apocalyptic
wasteland by the Europans, the Ioites struggle to survive. Yet, as
disgusting as their eating habits are, they have an intense drive
and are incredibly resourceful, making an Ioite a fine addition
to any crew.
Jovians
The depths of Jupiter have many secrets, but one has been
uncovered. The Jovians, ancient enemies of the Europans, have
surfaced from their centuries long exile. These winged aliens,
long thought extinct by the Europans, were just hiding and
waiting for the time to emerge. Their culture is based around
competing philosophies of martial virtues and pragmatism,
and they promise to change the balance of power in the
Jovian System.

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 Lizard Monkeys
From Venus comes the Lizard Monkeys. Not even the Venusians
have figured this one out, largely because the Lizard Monkeys do
not possess the vocal apparatus to reproduce the speech of other
species. That, and as far as the Lizard Monkeys are concerned
they live in a paradise and do not need to make permanent tools,
big buildings, or any of that stuff. What they do need to do is
Name and Behold the Solar System, for their religion demands
that all things must be Named and Beheld to have a soul.
Martians
The natives of the Red Planet can be considered one species
but they are divided into castes that are physically distinct and
reproductively incompatible. According to most Martian legends,
the Ancient Martians created the castes eons ago in order to
form a perfect Ladder of Being. Today most Martian cultures
treat the castes as forced into specific roles in society, roles
defined by tradition and reinforced by biology.
The princes and nobles of Mars, the Silthuri caste rules the
majority of principalities (the Kastari rule the balance). Living
lavish lives of wealth and privilege, the Silthuri range from
grasping politicians, magnificent monarchs, to indolent and idle
sybarites. The priestly caste of the Kastari is divided into hundreds
of sects, some large like the Orthodox Fellowship, others small
but influential such as the Order of the Sacred Hamaxe. Maduri,
the warrior caste of Mars, are fearsome and alien, tusked, and
muscle bound soldiers whose loyalty and ferocity are legendary.
The craftsman caste of Mars, the Talandri, have long been limited
by tradition and are divided into highly specialized sub-castes.
Lowest of the free castes, the Pilthuri merchant caste are more
than simple traders, they are the diplomats and administrators
who make sure goods and favors flow across the sands. Slavery
exists on Mars in the form of the Julandri caste, divided into the
brutish laborers and elegant Courtesans. Finally, we have the
nomadic Chanari, the masters of the desert wastes of Mars who
live outside of the caste system of other Martians.
Metisians
Perhaps in response to the return of the Jovians, but more likely
for reasons that outsiders cannot comprehend, the Europans

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 have made a new alliance with the Metisians. These six-limbed
underground dwelling cephalopods serve as the newest arm of
the Europan Navy, the Metisian Guard. Warlike and encased in
advanced fighting suits that both armor them and support their
gelatinous bodies, the Metisians are the Europans newest strike
force, the entire species having sworn oaths of loyalty to their
strange masters.
Robomen
More and more Ancient Robomen of Mars have been dug out of
the sands, rebooted, and taken to other worlds. These artificial
lifeforms do not have much memory of their lives amongst
the Ancients, but they do have an urge to follow millennia old
programming. As machines, they face different obstacles, and
have different abilities, than flesh and blood beings. However,
they still leak fluid if pricked and have something that passes
for emotions.
Venusians
The top species on Venus and the only mammal native to that
jungle world, the Venusians are a species of hunters and gathers.
Their tradition of the Harvititor, or wandering period, has spread
the species nearly as far and wide as Earthlings. Although seen
by many to be primitive, the Venusians have a long tradition of
philosophy, oratory, and logic.
The Stories
In this volume we offer four stories to introduce you to the Rocket
Age, taking you from Earth to Mars and into the Asteroid Belt.
Spies, Lies and Allies by Andrew Peregrine
Join inventor Marian Carlyle as she field tests her home built
rocket ship in a race to stop a Nazi plot that threatens the peace
of Earth and the Solar System as well!
Casey Chester- Rocket Corps on Mars by James Spencer
While in pursuit of a lost medallion, Lieutenant Casey Chester of
the US Rocket Corps stumbles upon a Nazi secret, battles a fierce
storm on the Great Silt Sea, and comes up against his deadliest
foe yet.

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 Emancipation Knights by Ken Spencer
Ed and Frank Knight, brothers but obviously different mothers,
are on the case as the pair of P.I.s hunt down a stolen Deutsche
Marserkorps war walker, murderers, and Emancipation’s crime
boss, Slate Mac.
Three Aces for the Dancer by Ed Greenwood
The Ghost Aces, an elite team of operatives, must lose a rocket
ship, but not lose it too easily, in order to stop a Martian prince
and his diabolical plot.
Want More Rocket Age?
Rocket Age is more than fiction; it is also a tabletop role-
playing game and expanding intellectual property. You can
learn more about the Solar System of Rocket Age and join in the
adventures with the Rocket Age Corebook, and explore further
with Blood Red Mars or Lure of Venus, plus the small Booster
Series sourcebook, Asteroid Belt. If adventure is what you are
after, check out Trail of the Scorpion, six Rocket Age episodes
designed to take your heroes from Venus to the reaches of
Saturn in pursuit of the Red Scorpion crime syndicate, as well as
several small adventures such as Bring ‘Em Back Alive and Slaves
of the Earthlings.

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Austin Arnold (Order #44005359)
 Spies, Lies and Allies
Andrew Peregrine

Marian Carlyle felt she owed herself a cigarette for today’s work,
but with her overalls and fingers covered in rocket fuel, she
thought better of it. Nevertheless, she did take a moment to stand
back and admire her work. Sure, there was plenty more to do,
but the rocket ship was mostly finished at last. It should finally
fly. It stood proudly on its hastily paved landing pad, glaring up
at the sky, almost as eager as Marian to blast off into the stars.
With luck, it wouldn’t fall apart before it landed.
She had bought the hull of the rocket a few years ago from a
military scrap yard. It was actually a missile casing, but large
enough for two people to essentially sit on several gallons of
explosive fuel and launch themselves into space. It had taken
over a year just to make sure the casing was properly sealed
for space travel. Then the engine had to be built piece by piece
inside. Nothing she could buy would fit properly in the space or
squeeze through the door. The control systems were easier to
install, mostly being steering wires and fuel management valves.
However, precision was still key, and now the inside was a spider
web of pipes and steel wires. Thankfully they had secured the
old carriage seat inside first or there would be nowhere for the
pilot and passenger to sit.
But for all the time and trouble, Father had been the biggest
obstacle. If he hadn’t allowed her to build the launch pad on
the estate, and spend even her own money on rebuilding it, she
would not be standing here now looking at her dream. While

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 Tales from the Rocket Age

he hadn’t picked up a spanner and joined her, she knew it

was from him she got her love of machines. He’d spent many
afternoons watching her work and chatting about what was in
the newspapers, grumpily insisting that he would clearly have
to come out to the bottom of the garden if he was to spend any
time at all with his only daughter. She could tell he wanted to get
his hands dirty, but no number of offers would get him to join in.
He’d been brought up to be the lord of a manor, and it was too
ingrained that engines were for the lower classes. Not fitting for
an aristocrat or his heir, but acceptable for a daughter to have as
a hobby, if she must, as long as she got it out of her system.
While Father had been a tough sell, the escapade was not without
compromise on Marian’s part. Mother had seen to that. The first
rule was that she turned up for dinner on time and dressed like
a lady not an engineer. To be fair, Marian felt quite guilty on the
first day she started stripping down the engine when she ruined
a favorite tablecloth with her oily hands. Then there had been
the dates of course. All through the summer she was expected
to attend a number of eligible gentlemen who took her out on
almost identical excursions for picnics, boating or to the cinema.
She dressed up and played politely, but these engagements never
really came to anything. The gentlemen were as disappointed
in her as she was in them. The few she showed the rocket ship
to either insisted they shouldn’t get dirty before going out, or
deeply objected to being told how an engine worked by a woman.
It had all been worth it. She had a rocket ship. She could go to
Mars, to Venus, maybe even all the way to the moons of Jupiter
whenever she wanted. The stars were hers at last, as long as she
could get off the ground. That would have to be after lunch. She
was sure that it would take a few goes to get the fuel mix right.
Nevertheless, she would enjoy this moment a little longer before
the realities of engineering clouded her dreams again.
As she wiped her hands on a rag, Marian heard a honking sound
from the country lane that ran by the estate. An automobile
seemed to be powering down the road at breakneck speed,
sounding its horn at extremely impolite intervals. As Marian
watched a car rounded the bend in the road and barely braked
as it swung onto the estate drive instead of carrying on down
the lane. The open-topped car didn’t go up to the house. The

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 Spies, Lies and Allies

driver pulled it into a hard turn again and powered onto the
lawn towards the rocket ship, leaving deep tracks through the
grass. Without waiting for the car to stop, the single occupant
abandoned his vehicle by jumping out over the small door. He
dashed towards Marian, his greatcoat flapping around him as the
car gradually rolled to a stop and dug itself into the lawn until
the engine stuttered and stalled.
“You, boy,” he shouted, and then stopped himself. “Erm, miss,
ma’am, sorry. Erm, Is this your rocket ship?” He was wearing
a military uniform, a Captain if Marian recollected correctly,
having been paired with a fair few officers at dinner.
Marian sighed, and untied her hair with her greasy fingers to
underline her apparently lacking femininity. “It is sir, although
the lawn belongs to my father, Lord Carlyle”, and she glanced
pointedly at the gouges in the grass from the forgotten vehicle.
The captain followed her gaze, but only out of curiosity, and
began to inspect the base of the rocket ship without a word of
apology. “Will it fly?”
“Of course”, Marian replied, annoyed that he should ask, but
then remembered her father’s policy of honesty. “Well, it should,
I think so. To be completely truthful I haven’t tried it yet.”
“Then I need you to take it on a test run, right now.”
“Who on earth do you think…?”
“I represent the British Crown in a matter of utmost importance,
Miss Carlyle. You can either pilot this ship right now or I’ll
commandeer your vehicle and find someone who will.”
Marian glared at him. No one was taking this ship away from her,
not now, not anytime. But she also knew Father was not keen on
her actually flying the rocket. Perhaps this service to king and
country was actually a way to circumvent his objections. She
wasn’t however going to allow this captain to order her about.
“Say please,” she said.
“I’m sorry?”
“Ask me politely if you might make use of my rocket ship and I
would be pleased to include you on its maiden voyage.”

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 Tales from the Rocket Age

“Young lady, Nazi spies have stolen vital British intelligence and
are right now on their way to Mars!”
“Then a little British politeness should prove no problem to such
a dedicated officer of the crown, now should it?”
“Miss Carlyle,” he said through gritted teeth. “May I please
borrow your rocket ship to save the world from the threat of a
Nazi plot?”
“Why, Captain, of course you may”, Marian replied with a perfect
smile and climbed the short ladder to the entry hatch. “Do clear
those mooring lines before you come aboard, won’t you? Thank
you so much.”
With a growl, the captain set about untying the ropes that kept
the rocket upright. As he clambered into the ship after her, he
kicked away the ladder. Marian was already sitting in the carriage
seat. He closed and sealed the interior airlock door that took up
even more of the inside space. He climbed up amidst the control
wires with surprising agility and sat beside her. He watched as
she checked various dials and pressure gauges.
“What can I do?” he asked without any sarcasm.
It seemed he had accepted her command of the vehicle; at least
for now he had what he wanted. She could see that behind the
bluster that he seemed genuinely worried. She decided to give
him the benefit of the doubt, for the time being at least.
“You could tell me your name for a start, Captain.”
“Chase,” he said. “Captain Richard Chase. Rick. Miss?”
“Marian. Now, I need you to watch those two dials while we take
off, and adjust those two valves to make sure the readings don’t
pass seventy.”
“Certainly. What happens if they do?”
“We explode” she smiled. “But I’m sure you can handle it, Captain
Chase.”
“I’ll do my best, Miss Carlyle.”
“Ok,” said Marian, turning a dial and pressing the ignition button.
“Let’s go!”

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 Spies, Lies and Allies

Her words were lost in the roar of an explosion beneath them.

The rocket ship shuddered and flared into life. Flames licked
up the sides and washed against the portholes, until Marian
turned a few valves to focus the hellfire directly below. Then
the rocket began to move, lifting painfully slowly up into the
sky, making Marian want to scream with elation. There was no
time to relax; thrust was one thing, but control was another. The
rocket was top heavy and desperately wanted to flip over and
drive at the ground. Marian pulled the control levers, to redirect
the momentum, causing it to sway back and forward. Each tiny
movement she made overcompensated. She glanced over at the
captain, but his attention focused on the dials in front of him.
The ship wove its way into the sky, shivering and shaking with
every foot, until the blue sky vanished from the glass portholes
and the silence of the gaps between the stars rolled over the tiny
arrow like a veil.
In the silence of space, everything seemed so much calmer.
Marian eased back on the thrust and used it to adjust the
rocket’s trajectory towards Mars. Looking through the tiny front
porthole, she nudged the nose of the ship towards the small red
dot ahead of them.
“Now, Captain”, she said, gently moving his hands off the valves
which he was still gripping like grim death. “Perhaps you’d be so
kind as to tell me what we are doing.”
“First I should offer you an apology, Miss Carlyle. I realize I’ve
been somewhat brusque, but this mission is of vital importance.”
Marian thought this was an excellent start so gave him an
encouraging smile before checking further valves to make sure
they had enough oxygen for the journey.
“As you may know, the Nazi territories on Mars are a continuing
threat to not only Britain, but the continuing peace of planet
Earth. Unfortunately, the men we are chasing managed to steal
secret documents that detail a British endeavor on Mars that
might change the balance of power considerably. They took off
in an advanced rocket ship before I could catch them; hence my
rather immediate need to borrow yours when I saw it poking
above the treetops on my way back to London.”

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 Tales from the Rocket Age

“But what is so important about these documents?”

“They give the exact coordinates for an archaeological dig being
run by British Intelligence.”
“I suppose the nature of what they are digging up is rather hush
hush.”
“Completely confidential I’m afraid, Miss Carlyle. I can tell you
it would be disastrous if the Nazis get their hands on it. The dig
is barely protected at all to maintain secrecy, so if the Nazi war
machine is mobilized they will have no trouble taking control of it if
we don’t stop them.”
“Well, Captain, that is quite a lot to take in. But it is nice to know
I’m on the side of the good guys”.
The captain smiled back at her in reply. She hadn’t seen him
smile before and the change was quite charming. She decided
to pay close attention to one of the side portholes in case she
began to blush a little. Outside, the stars blinked back at her,
welcoming her out into the void. She felt a wave of excitement
wash over her now the immediate danger of exploding was past.
She had done it! She was on her way to Mars in her own ship.
She wanted to jump around the cabin like a schoolgirl, but as
she was in company decided that looking out of the porthole
would have to do. Even so, she couldn’t resist beaming from ear
to ear, as she stared out at the lights and patterns of the great
darkness. Interestingly though, one of the stars ahead seemed
to be moving.
“Captain, might I ask how much earlier the rocket you were
chasing set off?”
“More than two hours before we did, I think. Why do you ask?”
Marian did some quick calculations in her head. “Well, I think that
might be them over in the distance. I may have over emphasized
the thrust we needed to break atmosphere, which means we’ve
caught them up quite substantially. Their ship might be advanced
but mine is faster. It might even get us to Mars in hours instead
of days.”
“Do you think we can get closer?”
“I can try, but I should remind you that matching their speed will

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 Spies, Lies and Allies

be very difficult, and this ship isn’t armed.”

“That won’t be a problem”, said the captain as he slipped off the
seat and took off his greatcoat. He swung his way over to the old
environmental suit that was hanging at the back of the ship and
started putting it on.
“What on earth are you thinking, Captain?” asked Marian. “I
should warn you I’ve never tested that suit, and I didn’t pay very
much money for it, second hand.”
“I don’t intend to be out there for too long. If you can pull
alongside, I can make a mess of their engine from the outside.
Without it, they’ll never be able to land.”
“I’m sure someone will come out to collect them.”
“Quite possibly. By then we’ll have had a chance to warn the
British they are on the way. They’re keeping radio silence to
maintain secrecy, unfortunately.”
“I suppose you are going to tell me that daring plans are all just
part of a normal work day for you, Captain.”
“Well, as you mention it, Miss Carlyle... Look, if we are careful in
our approach, they won’t know we’re there until I’m back again.”
The captain winked at her as he zipped up the space suit. “Trust
me. I’m quite good at this sort of thing.”
Marian wasn’t quite sure if this was bravery or just bravado.
She was also unsure if either made him excitingly attractive
or witheringly disappointing. His plan might just work, if her
untested and jerry built rocket ship decided to behave. As
Captain Chase put on the suit, carefully checking seals and the
air supply, she began a series of short engine burns to accelerate
and maneuver the ship. With little instrumentation, it was all
about instinct, but Marian took her time with tiny adjustments
to their course. Each burn increased their speed and they began
to gain on the other ship. Luckily, the rocket had a full tank,
but they’d need some fuel to land if they didn’t want to smash
straight into Mars.
It took several hours to match the course of the other ship and,
by the time they got close, Mars loomed ahead of them in the
void, turning the black into rouge embers. The other rocket ship

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 Tales from the Rocket Age

was more than twice the size of Marian’s but much the same
shape painted a nondescript green color, plain and functional,
but thankfully without any apparent aerials or scanning dishes
that might detect their approach.
The two rocket ships lanced through space side by side, Marian
trying to stay a little behind her quarry in case she drew alongside
one of its portholes. Captain Chase had been watching the Nazi
ship intently as she maneuvered, obviously finding the waiting
frustrating. Marian didn’t need to tell him when she was as close
as she dared to get. He was already putting on the suit’s helmet
and doing a final seal check before she even turned around. She
was rather nervous that the suit was untested, but the Captain
had enough to worry about so she decided not to belabor the
point. She ran a quick eye over the suit to make sure he was
set. Before he stepped into the airlock, he looked at her with a
remarkably serious expression.
“Miss Carlyle. If they capture me, I’d like you to do something
for me.”
Marian could only nod; she was ready to take over the mission
for king and country if need be. She might not be an intelligence
agent, but she was British, Goddamn it and she’d not stand by
and let the Nazis lay claim to any more horrific weapons of war
if she could help it. If she was all that was left to stop them, then
she jolly well would and there was an end to it.
“I want you to get away from here and not try to follow me,”
continued the Captain. “Just inform the authorities what
happened and they’ll take it from there. I don’t want you getting
further into this than need be.”
Then he slipped into the airlock and closed the inner door before
a slightly dumbstruck Marian could reply that she would bloody
well not just go home and make a cup of tea! It was too late. She
could hear the clanking of metal clips as he attached a tether line,
and then the hiss of air as he opened the outer door.
Marian occupied herself paying close attention to the ship’s
trajectory. Tiny movements were still required to keep pace
with the enemy rocket, even when it was on a perfectly straight
course. The chances of Marian getting an exact course match
were astronomical, so she had to stop the ship edging too close

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or slipping away. She let a small gasp slip out as the Captain came
into view, climbing along the nose of the ship and launching
himself across the void towards the other rocket. For a moment,
he was suspended in nothing until, with an inaudible clang, his
heavy boots connected with the hull of the other ship.
He began to make his way toward the back of the ship, intending
to interfere with its rocket engine. It seemed they did not have the
element of surprise as they had expected. As Marian watched the
captain work his way around the outer shell, another spaceman
appeared, his advanced suit glistening black in the light of Mars,
emblazoned with Nazi sigils. Captain Chase had his back to
the enemy spaceman, forcing Marian to watch helplessly as the
soldier snuck closer, a knife poised to tear open Rick’s suit. In
desperation, Marian ineffectually banged her fist on the porthole,
willing the Captain to turn around as the Nazi approached.
At the last moment, Captain Chase turned around. He blocked
the Nazi’s attack with his arm, and the two men began grappling
for advantage against the fins at the rear of the ship. Rick
managed to free his own knife from a scabbard at his waist, but
with a brutal strike, the Nazi smashed it out of his hand with a
mailed fist. Marian watched helplessly as the knife gently floated
away into the void. In return, Rick pulled back his fist and drove
it into the soldier’s stomach. He doubled over and stepped back,
as he did so, the knife he held slid back along the arm Rick was
using to block. It only made the smallest of slices, but it caught
just enough of the sleeve to put a tiny hole in the captain’s suit.
As the soldier picked himself up, Rick stole a glance towards
Marian in the ship. She couldn’t see his face clearly, but she
could imagine his expression as a thin cloud of pressurized
oxygen poured out of his suit and condensed in the ice of space.
Rick had no option, and he raised his hands in surrender. Marian
knew what he wanted her to do, but she wasn’t going to run.
There wasn’t much Marian could do, given the captain had the
only suit. However, she was in control of a large pointed object
full of explosives, and she figured that might be some sort of
use. Buckling herself into the control seat, she began opening
valves and adjusting the steering fins as quickly as she could.
Then she opened up the engine and powered the rocket straight
at the Nazi ship.

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Marian’s craft rammed into the other rocket with a crunch. It

sideswiped the other vessel before they could even prime the
engine, deeply denting both ships and throwing both spinning
off course. Rick and the soldier were thrown off the Nazi ship
by the impact, their tether lines quickly pulling taut before they
each vanished into the void. The rockets tumbled apart, as Mars
loomed ever closer to snatch at them with its greedy gravity.
Marian desperately needed to reclaim control of the ship if she
was to land with any degree of success, but she couldn’t do that
with the captain struggling at the end of a tether line dragging
him behind the pitching rocket.
So Marian put into play the second part of her hastily conceived
plan. Blasting the tiny attitude jets, she sent the twirling rocket
into a lateral spin. As it turned, the tether line began to wrap
around the casing, behaving like a reel and winding the captain
in. Thankfully, it wasn’t long before she heard the thump on the
outer casing of the captain hitting the hull.
Moments later, the inner airlock hissed to announce the captain
climbing safely inside. He did not look happy to have been rescued
but Marian decided she was too busy to argue for a thank you.
The rocket continued to tumble, hopelessly out of control and
caught gently in the iron grip of Mars’ pull. Through the tiny
portholes, the stars spun around them, a whirlwind dance of
the cosmos that Marian was trying to ignore as it reminded her
what the rocket was actually doing. They were essentially falling
out of space and, while the twisting of the spacecraft wasn’t too
uncomfortable yet, as the power of Mars asserted itself a sick
feeling was growing in Marian’s stomach.
“What the hell…?” shouted Rick as he tore off his helmet.
“I recommend you strap in and help me get control before we
crash, Captain. If you’re not too busy.”
“That was the most dangerous, ill conceived, irresponsible…”
“Captain, we will be experiencing Mars’ full gravity very soon, at
which point we will be more than aware of the way this ship is
spinning. You will want to be strapped to something by then.”
Muttering under his breath, Rick climbed in next to Marian
and buckled the small belt around his waist. She continued to

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check the readings of the valves, with the apparent urgency of

someone deciding which cake to enjoy with lunch.
“Are you intending to do anything, Miss Carlyle, or are you
considering crashing just to prove a point? As I understand it,
rockets don’t land especially well upside down.”
“Captain, there is no possible way for us to control this spin with
the attitude jets,” said Marian, casually. Rick quietly gulped.
Before he could retort, she put a finger to his lips.
“But, we are about to hit the outer atmosphere of Mars, which
will create some resistance against the shell. At that point we
have a chance to regain enough control to land.”
“That doesn’t give us much time before we hit the ground.”
“No, Captain, it doesn’t, and if we survive you are welcome to
continue that speech about how irresponsible I was in saving
your life.”
Rick harrumphed, but there was no time for anything else as they
were both beginning to feel the spinning of the rocket. Marian
was having trouble focusing on the valve readings, making sure
she had the right pressure in the right place to get the ship stable
at the right time. She felt sick with dizziness, and then the whole
ship began to shake as it scraped across the atmosphere of Mars.
The portholes blinked between red and black as the rocket spun.
Marian tried not to think about how close the ground might be.
As the shaking grew, the spinning lessened. She tried to feel
the rocket, imagining it was her falling through space instead of
rattling inside a tube. With a small prayer; she opened the valves
and blasted the attitude jets against their momentum.
Slowly, the light outside the window stopped tumbling so much
and the sick feeling began to settle. However, the rocket was
still falling and turning. Through the portholes, Marian could
see the turning landscape and began to count. Sky, ground, sky,
ground, sky, ground, and just before the ground swelled into
view once more she fired the main booster rocket, cutting it
again in moments. Marian could see they were slowly righting
themselves, but was it enough. She gulped down the nausea
once more as the cycle turned again, and just as the sky swung
back, she fired the booster one more time. The sky settled into

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view and she thought for a moment that the sky of Mars was so
beautiful it wouldn’t be the worst thing to see before quitting
this mortal coil. Then, with a sickening thud, the rocket hit the
ground. Rick and Marian were thrown about in their seats, but
found a moment to glance at each other in elation when it became
clear they had landed and lived. Then there was a cracking sound
and the whole rocket gently tipped over and fell sideways with
a horrible thud. For a moment, Rick and Marian sat utterly still,
waiting for the next thud or bump. When nothing came they
both burst out laughing with relief.
“Well, welcome to Mars, Miss Carlyle,” said Rick.
Thankfully, the rocket had not fallen on the side with the airlock,
so Rick and Marian were able to crawl out of the craft and take
stock. The rocket lay like a beached whale, the sand around it
blacked with fire from the landing. For once, Marian wasn’t
interested in her ship. She was on Mars, breathing Martian air.
The landscape spread out around her with alien grandeur, red
sand in every direction and a sky made of smoldering embers.
The only thing that spoilt the view was the group of clearly very
upset Martians coming towards them.
Rick had noticed them too. “Chanari,” he said to her. “Desert
Martians.”
“Are they dangerous?” Marian asked as nonchalantly as possible,
although the way they were waving spears did not look especially
friendly.
“Well, that rather depends on us, I suspect. But don’t worry, I
speak a little of the Martian tribal trade language.”
With that, his hands held up prominently, Captain Chase walked
towards the approaching tribesmen. There were around ten
of them, with a couple riding some sort of lizard-like horse
creatures. Marian was almost disappointed with them. She had
hoped her first brush with an alien species would be more, well,
alien. This group was quite human in many ways, sporting two
arms and two legs in all the correct places. Their skin appeared
thick and ruddy, with an almost armored ridge around their eyes.
But otherwise, their appearance was no stranger than any of
the Bedouin tribes you might meet in the depths of the Middle
East. All the tribesmen appeared to be male, perhaps some sort

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of hunting party. Their jagged spears certainly suggested that,

although it was unclear what they might actually be hunting.
Marian hoped it wasn’t a larger version of their riding animals.
They looked like some sort of frilled dinosaur, each standing on
powerful hide legs, with a mouth full of very sharp teeth.
Rick reached the group without being stabbed with anything,
which Marian took as a good sign. There was a lot of pointing
and angry looks from the tribesmen, in response to which
Rick seemed to be apologizing. The tribesmen calmed a little,
apparently mollified, but indicated the Captain’s clothes, in
answer to which he pointed out certain insignia on his uniform.
This appeared to further calm the tribesmen, who began smiling
and lowering their weapons. Marian relaxed, especially when
the Captain risked turning back towards her with a smile. He
pointed her out to the tribesmen, who continued to look pleased.
She managed a small curtsey to prove she wasn’t a threat and
this elicited more approving looks from the Martians.
After a little more laughing and bonding, Rick turned from the
Martians and made his way back to Marian. The Martians began
to follow behind him, reorganizing some of the supplies they
had harnessed to the lizard creatures.
“That appeared to go well,” said Marian guardedly.
“Yes, well, I think so.” Rick seemed less certain for some reason.
“It turns out we landed in their territory, but only a few miles
from Neu Berlin, the Nazi stronghold on Mars. It’s where the
spies will be heading. If we’re lucky, we might even be ahead
of them if they managed to land too. As you might imagine, the
Nazis don’t treat the locals very much, so they were worried
about my uniform. But once they understood I wasn’t a Nazi,
they were willing to help.”
“So they are giving us some supplies to help us get there?”
Something in the Captain’s tone was making Marian nervous.
“Well, yes, and one of their mounts. But I had to make a trade.”
“What sort of trade?”
“I’m not sure you are going to like it.”
“What sort of trade captain?”

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“I gave them your rocket ship.”

“What?” Marian was incensed! “It isn’t even yours to trade. How
dare you, Captain!”
Marian’s outrage was unnerving the tribesmen and as they
gathered around, they used their spears to separate Marian and
Rick, more for the sake of the captain’s physical well-being. He
took a step backwards from the fuming Marian and caught the
reins to one of the lizard creatures as they were handed to him.
“Don’t worry,” he shouted towards her. “You’ll have plenty of
time to not only make repairs but renegotiate with them.”
“And why is that?” replied Marian, noticing with growing horror
that the Captain seemed to be ready to make off without her.
“Well, I traded you to them, too. Sorry, old girl, but I have a
mission.”
With that, the captain leapt up into the saddle of the lizard
creature and, after a brief wobble, turned it towards what Marian
could only assume was the direction of Neu Berlin and set off at
a gallop. The angry scream Marian sent after him made all the
assembled warriors take at least two steps back.
It was a long walk back to the Martian encampment, a loose
collection of tents flapping in the cooling wind as twilight
gradually fell over Mars. The Martians had thankfully behaved
like gentlemen. Not a single one had threatened her when she
initially refused to return to their camp. Soon Marian’s livid
anger gave way to pragmatism and she realized she would not
survive for long in the middle of an unfamiliar desert with no
supplies or rations. The Martians had been very careful with the
rocket, too, harnessing their lizard creatures to it like oxen so
they could drag it back across the sand.
At least the sunset was beautiful. The sky gradually melted into
a mixture of orange and mauve. The red sea of sand shifted
into shadow and color as the light ran away like liquid. Had it
not been for the circumstances, Marian would have enjoyed it
immensely. Instead she busied herself with more comforting
and somewhat unladylike thoughts of exactly what she would do
to Captain Chase when she finally caught up with him.

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At the Martian camp, Marian was herded into one of the tents,
whose only other occupant was an old Martian woman. She
looked Marian up and down and only tutted before handing her
a bowl full of unfamiliar vegetables. Several bowls littered the
tent, all full of the same strange tubers. The old woman picked
up a small knife and plucked a tuber out of Marian’s bowl. She
expertly peeled the vegetable by way of instruction, then handed
Marian the knife and indicated she should get on with it. Her
expression made it clear that she would not be intimidated by
Marian’s lineage as the daughter of an Earl, should she attempt
to object.
There was little else for it but to do as she was told. Kitchen maid
was certainly better than harem girl, a rather unromantic option
Marian had been somewhat concerned about on the journey. It
was actually quite restful to peel the tubers, although she clearly
was not going fast enough for the old woman, who managed to
communicate her annoyance even through the language barrier.
In lieu of anyone else to talk to, Marian began to complain to
herself about her treatment, and so was surprised when the old
woman replied.
“You humans really are quite repugnant,” she muttered in a heavy
accent to no one but Marian.
“You speak English? Why didn’t you say?”
“I had nothing to say to you of course! But if you insist on sitting
there and proclaiming my shortcomings, I thought you might
like to hear some of your own, young lady.”
Marian remained aghast, and somewhat embarrassed she had
been bad mouthing the old woman with the sort of remarks one
should only make in the privacy of one’s own mind.
“It’s disgusting, that’s what it is,” continued the old woman.
“Martians don’t sell each other like common slaves. I don’t know
what the men were thinking, agreeing to this. But I suppose
you’re here now.”
“But, how do you know English?” asked Marian, fixating on the
wrong part of the conversation.
“English missionaries, of course, you stupid girl. They were all
over the place years ago, teaching their new languages. German

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would have been more useful here but those pigs like to make
slaves of the ones they can talk to, so I have the sense to keep
my mouth shut.”
“Hang on”, said Marian, beginning to catch up. “Your people
don’t take slaves?”
“Of course not, that’s barbaric.”
“So, I’m free to go,” replied Marian with elation, dropping her
bowl as she stood up to make for the tent flap. But the old
woman was in front of her, brandishing a knife with surprising
speed and agility.
“We don’t take slaves, but a deal is a deal. Your man took a mount
and two days’ worth of supplies from our tribe. That needs to be
worked off by you. So you can sit right back there and get peeling
until we find a better use for you.”
With a grimace that would have put a sulking schoolgirl to shame,
Marian reclaimed her bowl and settled in for more tuber peeling.
She took a certain enjoyment in imagining each one was the face
of Captain Chase.
The evening wore into night as Marian gained new respect for
the life of a kitchen maid. The old woman came in and out
of the tent, mainly, it seemed, to tut at how little Marian had
done. Eventually she seemed content with the number of tubers
Marian had peeled and pointed to a thin mat in the corner where
she could sleep for the night. Then she threw a pile of Martian
clothes at her and left her a bowl of water.
“Your clothes are filthy and you smell disgusting. Drink what you
like of the water and use the rest to wash. You can leave your
clothes outside the tent to be burned when you’ve changed. They
are no use to anyone and the fire will keep the guards warm
tonight.”
The old woman was gone before she could see Marian make a
face. While she felt insulted, the idea of being able to wash, even
in cold water, was a relief to Marian. She did as she’d been told;
putting on the Martian clothes the old woman had left. It was a
simple loose dress gathered with a belt. There was a shawl too
that she presumed could be used to cover her head during the
hot part of the day. The whole ensemble was very plain, but a

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little more comfortable, and a lot cleaner, than her dirty overalls.
While the fabric was coarse and scratchy on the outside it was
softly lined on the inside. She began to feel a lot better for being
clean with a change of clothes. However, she was sad that they
would burn her overalls. Outside the tent, the temperature was
dropping and she could see some of the tribesmen building a
small fire not too far away. As she resignedly bundled up her
overalls, she began to hatch a plan to escape.
A look outside at the camp showed her how difficult it would be
to run. She’d need one of those lizard creatures and they were
fully guarded. She knew now that all she had to do was bide her
time. After a few minutes, one of the tribesmen came past to
pick up her old overalls. She nodded a greeting but he ignored
her. Once he was gone, she grabbed a few of the tubers for
supplies and slipped back to the tent flap to watch the fire. She
saw the tribesmen throwing various pieces of refuse onto the
fire, which had grown a little since she first saw it. She braced
herself as each silhouetted item was thrown into the pyre, until
her overalls finally made their début. There was a flash and the
fire erupted to five times its size. It was only for a moment but it
was enough to throw the nearby tribesmen backwards and catch
light to two of the nearby tents. There were shouts and screams
and the guards by the lizard creature pen came running to help
control the blaze. Marian giggled as she slipped away, glad that
she was such a messy engineer that her overalls were covered in
rocket fuel.
While the lizard creatures were unguarded, it wasn’t a simple
matter to steal one. Marian was a reasonably skilled horsewoman,
but these were entirely different creatures. One of the beasts
was still saddled and harnessed, but it wasn’t especially keen to
let Marian ride it. She tried to slide up into the saddle twice, but
it moved away just as she made to climb up, dropping her on her
backside both times. The lizard apparently had a sense of humor,
but Marian was losing hers. In desperation, she made a lunge
on the next attempt that put her half in the saddle and half just
holding the creature’s neck. This seemed to be a sensitive area
as it reared up angrily and plunged off in to the desert. Marian
managed to hang on as it powered away in fright, to the sounds
of the Martian tribesmen shouting behind her. She really hoped
the lizard knew where it was going as it was clearly the one in

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control.
Unsure of who was really riding whom, Marian shuffled into
a slightly better position and hung onto the lizard creature for
what seemed like an age. As the first glimmer of dawn began
to rise, she saw a city silhouetted against the horizon. Great
towers and factory chimneys rose up like greedy fingers into the
Martian sky. The sight inspired Marian to try to heave herself up
a little more to see, which turned out to be a mistake. The lizard
took the opportunity to buck sideways and threw her off onto
the sand. It barked at her in admonishment before turning back
the way they had come. Marian was too tired to try to capture it
again, and the sand was soft and comfortable, mostly because
it wasn’t moving. She rolled over onto her front and pulled the
shawl over her head, falling asleep in moments as the colors of
sunrise began to appear on the horizon.
A shuddering thump not dissimilar to an earthquake awakened
her. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep but the sun was
fully risen, heating the sand around her uncomfortably. Taking
care not to move too much, Marian pulled the shawl down from
her face to see what was going on. Standing above her was a huge
machine. It was essentially a cannon mounted on two formidable
iron legs. Whoever was driving it was encapsulated in an armored
cabin, safe behind thin slits in the metal that allowed them to
see out. Black smoke poured out of a small chimney at the back,
and the brutally red Nazi flag flew arrogantly from the back
of the cabin. It was one of the fabled War Walkers, the feared
German machines that had changed the face of war. Powerful as
a tank, agile as cavalry and with the defenses of a castle, it was
worth a whole battalion, so it was said. She’d wanted to know
more about them from an engineering point of view, but hadn’t
intended to get quite this close.
With a grinding of gears and a renewed puff of smoke, the
frightening machine turned and began to move away from her.
Lying half covered in sand in her plain Martian clothes, Marian
had been practically invisible. The machine must be on patrol,
which could only mean the city before her was Neu-Berlin, the
heart of Nazi operations on Mars. If he’d got himself captured,
she was sure to find the Captain there, and the opportunity to
give him a piece of her mind.

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Once the war machine was gone, Marian picked herself up and
made her way towards the city. It was an industrial nightmare,
hung with Nazi flags. Most buildings were factories of some form
and several lines of Martian workers were being herded to work
by bored looking German soldiers. Dressed as she was, no one
was taking any interest in Marian, so she covered her head with
the shawl, as many of the other Martian women did, and joined
one of the work queues. Luckily for her, the men were being
herded towards the factories while many of the women were led
towards what appeared to be some of the few office or apartment
buildings. One building in particular stood out. It was grander
than the others, dominated by a huge Imperial Eagle statue and
more flags than she could count. She tried to maneuver in the
crowd towards it, which turned out to be quite easy as most of
the women were trying to avoid that particular detail. As Marian
was prodded inside by the guards, she shuddered under the gaze
of the Eagle, which seemed to be watching her as she passed
into the heart of Nazi Mars.
Once inside the building, it seemed the other woman knew what
to do. They began to scatter, gathering mops or brooms to begin
the work of cleaning the place. The guards here were quite picky
about standards, it appeared, regularly slapping or prodding any
Martian they felt wasn’t doing her best, although it was likely
this was how they all behaved. Marian took a cloth for herself
and moved her way into the building, polishing brass as she went
and staying clear of the guards where at all possible.
There was no doubt she was in Nazi headquarters. Several
German men and women in uniform moved purposefully up and
down the elegant halls, carrying files from one office to the next.
The whole building looked like it had been taken brick by brick
from Berlin, and maybe it had. Everything was designed to show
off the grandeur of the Nazi regime, with red flags, shining brass
and polished mahogany everywhere you looked. Everything
seemed designed for maximum efficiency, from sending reports
to beating the servants.
While Marian had a good grasp of conversational French, her
German was sadly lacking. She did recognize the word ‘Haft’
as detention, given she had not been very compliant in her
German lessons at school. Therefore, she reasoned that the sign

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reading Haftzellen possibly meant detention cells. At least one

good aspect of a Nazi regime was that the building had proper
signposting. Her guess turned out to be a good one and it wasn’t
long before she found a set of stairs leading down to a row of
holding cells. There were only two guards in the area, and both
ignored her as she cleaned her way along the corridor until she
was out of sight.
Making her way along the row of iron cells, it wasn’t long before
she came across the Captain. Most of the cells were unoccupied,
as it seemed the Nazis didn’t take prisoners very often. So the
unconscious body of Chase was easy to spot through the lines
of bars. She rushed over to his cell, some of her anger melting
a little at his apparent injury. His uniform was torn and he lay
on the bare floor at an odd angle. She thought for a moment he
might even be dead, but he stirred as she hissed his name at him
through the bars. He opened his eyes to look up at her, and she
prepared to unleash the long speech she had been saving up for
just this moment, but the Captain seemed less than pleased to
see her.
“What the hell are you doing here?” he whispered through gritted
teeth. “I left you with the Martians.”
“Sold me, you mean!”
“I was going to come back, you stupid woman. That Chanari tribe
is honorable and decent, you were perfectly safe.”
“How dare you call me stupid after all I’ve risked!”
“Damnit, Marian, you are about to ruin everything!”
“That is Miss Carlyle to you, Captain; I think you lost the right to
treat me with any familiarity when you sold me to tribesmen!”
“Please keep your voice down,” whispered the Captain loudly as
he stood up far more easily than Marian expected. “Look, just
get out of here before they capture you!”
“Don’t you dare play the hero with me! I’ve come here to rescue
you so we can complete your mission. But I suppose you’d
rather fail in your duty to King and country than be rescued by
a woman!”
“It is nothing of the sort,” replied the Captain, pulling a piece of

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wire out of the sleeve of his jacket and picking the lock.
“What on earth?” said Marian. “If you could escape why…”
“Because I’ve been trying to get captured, but you keep bloody
rescuing me!”
“Oh.”
“Yes, Oh! And now you’ve come here, I’m going to have to get you
out before you get hurt.”
“Oh.”
“I tried to tell you to leave when we caught the other rocket. I
left you with the tribesmen so you’d be safe until I got back. But
no. You have to go out and be bloody well brave and resourceful,
don’t you?”
“Oh.”
“Damnit, Marian, you are the most impossible, courageous, clever
and annoying woman I’ve ever met.”
They stood there in the cells, their eyes locked together with a
mutual respect and the sort of anger that can only be inspired by
someone you have begun to really care about. Marian was not
going to apologize, but it seemed the Captain was ready to forego
the whole mission to see to her safety. She found that rather
charming, even though she was perfectly capable of looking
after herself. Unfortunately, their moment was disappointingly
broken by the shout of a Nazi guard. It seemed they hadn’t been
whispering as quietly as either of them thought.
The guard took one look at the pair of them and decided that the
situation was way above his pay grade. He frog marched Marian
and Rick at gunpoint through the building to the office of the
commandant, picking up a few more guards on the way for good
measure. There was no doubt that they were in serious trouble.
The commandant’s office was as grand you might expect for
the commander of such an impressive building. Not only did it
play host to a large oak desk and a plethora of Nazi flags, it even
had its own bathroom and bedroom, as well as a commanding
view over the whole city. The commandant himself was less
impressive. He was a round man, held tightly in an immaculate

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grey uniform that displayed enough ribbons to be impressive but

not so many it appeared they were earned too easily. He had
an odd squint that made it appear he was missing a monocle.
Marian and Rick were marched in front of his desk, and their
guard rattled off the situation in German. The commandant
nodded and dismissed all but two of the guards, who were left in
the room with their weapons trained on Marian and Rick. With
an arrogant grin, the commandant indicated that they could put
their hands down.
“I am impressed that you can even cause trouble from inside a jail
cell, Captain Chase. Perhaps you’d introduce me to your friend.”
Marian made to speak for herself, and give the commandant a
piece of her mind too, but Rick cut her off.
“She’s nothing to do with this, just a civilian. Under the terms of
the…”
“Under any terms of any treaty, espionage agents are subject to
execution, and this lady, however charming, is clearly a spy.”
Marian had noticed a certain look the commandant was giving
her and it was not as complimentary as he seemed to think it
was. “However, I may make an exception if you choose to be
cooperative, Captain Chase.”
Rick looked crestfallen. “What do you want?” he said with a sigh.
“As long as you don’t hurt her, I’ll do what you want.”
Marian was incensed these two men were deciding her fate
without any reference to her, especially as she was standing in the
same room! While the Captain’s concern for her was endearing,
she was also disappointed he had capitulated so easily. Before
she could explain to both gentlemen how rude they were being,
the Captain squeezed her hand and gave the most imperceptible
shake of his head when she met his gaze. She decided to play
things his way, for now at least. If the worst came to the worst,
she reasoned she could probably rescue him again.
The commandant got up from his desk, with a little effort, and
turned to look out of the huge window. Outside, the whole city
seemed to be gearing up for something. Troops were marshalling
and War Walkers were heaving themselves around the streets
into formation.

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“Today, your failure will prove the catalyst for a new era of German
superiority. While we captured you easily, you also failed to stop
our agents delivering your secrets. They are now reaping the
rewards of their dedication and loyalty as heroes of the Third
Reich. You, on the other hand, will only be rewarded by playing
witness to our victory. Look out there–is it not marvelous? The
German war machine in all its power, gathering like a storm to
take everything from your decadent British Empire.”
“You may have the reports, but you’ll never decode them…”
“Oh, but we already have, you fool. We have had the details of
that code for several months already. All this time we have been
waiting like a spider in a web for you to give away your greatest
secrets, and now we have them.”
“You don’t understand the forces you are playing with…”
“How dare you, British swine! There is nothing the Nazi Regime
cannot conquer. The mysteries of the ancients will fall to us as
easily as your simple codes.”
Marian really didn’t want to interrupt the posturing of either
man while there were in full flow, but her curiosity got the better
of her.
“Look, just what on Earth is it you are both after? I can’t believe
archeology is going to win any wars for either of you.”
The commandant smiled like a Cheshire cat as Rick shook his
head.
“So, he has told you nothing? How amusing that I, a German
officer, know more about this operation than does a pretty
British spy. This is why you always fail, Captain, you don’t trust
anyone. Perhaps as your own government seems content to leave
their agents in the dark, it is fitting that the Reich should be the
one to illuminate her. The British have found more than just a
site of historical curiosity. They have uncovered another ‘Uber
Rakete’, a second ancient rocket like the one that turned the
planet Eris into the asteroid belt. With that in our possession,
no one will dare to challenge us! The Reich will reign supreme
across the solar system!” The commandant descended into
maniacal laughter, which Marian considered a blessing as only
a heart attack from his exuberance might have otherwise have

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stopped his tirade.

“So, what do you plan to do with us?” said the Captain, once the
commandant’s bluster had passed.
“Oh, we have a simple punishment for you both. As you seem
unwilling to remain in a jail cell, you, Captain, will accompany
us with the invasion force and watch as your failure leads to the
deaths of your countrymen and the ultimate victory for Germany.
You, miss, will remain my guest to ensure the Captain doesn’t
have any clever ideas.”
At a nod from the commandant, one of the guards stepped
forward and grabbed Captain Chase roughly. “Take him,” said
the commandant, and the Captain was dragged out of the room.
The other guard brandished his gun at Marian as she made a
move towards him.
“Lock her in the bedroom,” the commandant told the guard,
utterly ignoring Marian. “And see she finds something civilized
to wear. I’ll not see a human woman, even a British one, wearing
the primitive rags of a Martian slave. It’s disgusting.”
With that, the commandant strode out of the room, leaving the
guard to herd Marian into the small bedroom. He indicated a
wardrobe across the room, which Marian opened to find a large
collection of very elegant dresses between the commandant’s
formal wear. Marian guessed he liked to see his escorts well
attired. As she picked out something under the watchful glare
of the guard, she considered for a moment why it was that evil
villains did appear to have excellent taste when it came to ladies’
fashions. She settled on a knee length blue satin gown, and as
she pulled it out of the wardrobe, she glared at the guard. He
got the message and respectfully stepped out of the room and
closed the door, locking it with a decisive click.
Marian lost no time at all. Looking out of the window, it seemed
the entire German war machine was already leaving. There was
a din of engines and gears as nearly the whole base was being
evacuated. The commandant was clearly taking no chances his
forces would fail to overcome those at the dig site. Pulling several
sheets off the bed, she knotted them into a short rope. It wasn’t
long enough to reach the ground, but it would get her down to

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an awning she could jump off. Before she climbed out, she did
grab the blue dress from the bed. Waste not want not, after all.
Thankfully, the guard was a gentleman, and Marian was out of
the window and into the city before he wondered why she was
taking so long to change and sounded the alarm. Still dressed
as a Martian, she was ignored until a siren began to sound and
she noticed the guards start targeting Martians with searches.
Thankfully, she had another disguise. Putting on the blue dress
in a back alley, she nervously made her way through the streets
again and was met with only the odd nod of appreciation from
the guards. No well-dressed German woman was required to
show her credentials here, it seemed.
Just escaping wasn’t Marian’s plan. The Captain was in need of
rescuing again, for real this time, and she’d need a vehicle to
have any chance of catching up. She passed several elegant cars,
but she needed something that could deal with the terrain. By
the time her wandering reached the center of the city, she was
almost beside herself, but just at that moment, to her amazement,
she saw a huge warehouse building containing several German
War Walkers. It looked like a repair bay, judging by the lack of
guards and the fact that all the working machines would be
out on the grand excursion with the commandant. But all she
needed it to have was functional legs. Sneaking towards the
entrance, she picked up a lab coat from a peg by the door and
slipped it on, collecting a random clipboard as she did. Then she
walked out into the vast repair bay, looking thoughtfully around
her and appearing to make notes as she moved along the rows of
workbenches and machinery.
There were several guards inside the place but there were also
plenty of scientists, both male and female, so they barely gave
her a second look. Any who gave her more than a glance turned
away quickly when she glared at them and made a mark on her
clipboard. The equipment here was amazing. She would have
built her rocket in half the time with what they had just lying
around here. She couldn’t help but be impressed at the War
Walkers as well, even the ones in pieces. Even if she didn’t need
transport, Marian ached to get inside one of the machines and
see what it could do.

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Which one to pick? Anything here was clearly in need of repair,

but she didn’t need one that was fully functional. Luckily,
German efficiency saved the day, as she noticed the repair bays
appeared to be organized in order of damage, with the least
damaged standing patiently by the entrance. Picking up an
engineering manual (out of curiosity as well as necessity) from a
workbench, she climbed up into what she hoped was the most
functional machine. Thankfully, the other technicians seemed
too busy with their own projects to notice.
Squeezing into the small control compartment, Marian looked
around in wonder. The design was stark but highly efficient,
allowing either of the two operators to reach any button or lever
between them. The armor casing provided only a series of slits
to see out of, and the cabin was dominated by the back end
of the huge cannon that was mounted on the machine. Marian
noted there were a couple of shells stowed neatly between the
seats, but decided to leave those well alone for now.
Opening the huge engineering manual on her lap, she was
thankful to see it was fully illustrated, being as it was otherwise
entirely in German. Like many military vehicles, it was designed
to operate very simply, as long as you followed the correct
procedure. To an engineer of Marian’s talent, this proved quite
simple to work out. Which pump to prime and how long to
engage a fuel line before firing the engine and all of that. The
fascinating details of the War Walker’s systems, such as the gears
for driving the walking motion, kept distracting her and she had
to force herself to concentrate on the more mundane aspects of
getting the machine moving.
Eventually, she was ready. She put the book on the other seat,
open at the right page, and began priming the systems. Then
she fired the ignition and - nothing. Through the view slits,
she noticed several guards were starting to give her their full
attention. She fired the ignition again. Still nothing. Then she
saw the string of numbers next to the fuel instructions and
realized you needed to count to ten to let the chamber fill. She
fired the ignition one more time and, after a brief pause, the
machine roared into life. The whole thing rumbled almost loudly
enough to cover the excited shouts of the guards and technicians.
The next problem was how to drive the beast. It appeared the

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system had been designed to run like a tank, with a lever for
each leg, forwards or backwards. Marian grabbed both and
pushed them all the way forward, pulling back on one to execute
a turn that should have taken her out of the entrance. Instead,
the War Walker barreled forwards with enthusiasm, smashing
through a workbench and executing the barest of turns before
powering through the wall of the building. Having curled up
into a ball as the wall loomed before her, Marian looked up to
see she was tramping heavily towards another building and so
pulled hard on one of the levers. Blissfully, the machine turned
into the street, almost sighing at Marian’s underestimation of its
turning abilities.
Thankfully, the roads in Neu-Berlin were rather straight so, once
she had evened up the machine; she pushed it into high gear and
set off in pursuit of the Captain. She was picking up a tail of cars
and even a small tank, but the city was painfully underequipped
to stop her with their forces committed elsewhere. Simply put,
there was nothing that could catch her and less that could stop
her as she gleefully ran out into the desert in her prize.
In any other circumstance, Marian would have no way to track
to forces of Neu-Berlin and the Captain. Not only had such a
large force left deep tracks in the desert floor, but a thick cloud
of smoke betrayed their position on the horizon. Given they
could only go as fast as the slowest vehicle; it wasn’t long before
Marian was catching up to the huge array of walkers and troop
transports. Luckily, most of the heavy firepower was at the front
of the column, and bringing up the rear was a small motorcade
of German staff cars, bearing what looked like the commandant
and the captain.
From what Marian could see through the view slit, it appeared
the captain was under armed guard in the back seat of one of the
cars, while the commandant rode in the lead car. It seemed word
of her escape had reached the commandant by radio, though, and
as soon as she drew near, the guards in the cars began shooting
at her. Bullets chimed off the armor but otherwise proved utterly
ineffective. The gunfire ment that climbing out in any way was
going to be impossible. Marian decided the best thing to do was
to cause a further distraction to allow the captain to get free,
and then maybe see what happened. It wasn’t an especially good

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plan but she had to admit a desire to put what she had read about
the cannon on the journey into practice.
Opening the back of the cannon, she hefted one of the heavy
shells into it and closed the lid. There was some sort of target
crosshairs in an awkward place to one side so, leaving the walking
levers pushed forwards, she shuffled across and began turning
the wheels that aimed the cannon. As the walker bounced up and
down, roughly matching the speed of the colonnade, she took
aim at the lead car and pressed the firing button. Unfortunately,
she had forgotten that the cannon needed to recoil into the cabin,
the reason the crosshairs were so far from it. The barrel smashed
backwards, glancing off her shoulder, but it was still enough to
spin her in the seat and throw her painfully backwards. Her legs
swung out and struck one of the leg levers, causing the whole
machine to lurch sideways.
While the shell missed its target by some margin, it caused
the cars to make a sharp turn. But what did more damage was
Marian’s foot unintentionally turning the walker, causing it to run
straight over one of the cars. The car behind it powered into the
wreckage and flipped over before it exploded. Thankfully, that
wasn’t the one with the captain. As Marian recovered her wits,
she could see him standing up in the back of his car, grappling
with one of the guards. Her shoulder was in agony, but hopefully
not broken. The sleeve of her dress was disappointingly sliced to
pieces, which Marian thought was especially unfair.
Recovering control of the machine, she turned towards the
captain’s car and, as she pulled alongside, she swung the
cannon assembly around. It felt like she was driving sideways,
which was disorientating, but it put the barrel of the cannon
right over where the captain was fighting hand to hand with
a guard. He took the hint and, with a desperate punch at his
assailant, he leapt for the cannon barrel and swung himself up.
His weight caused the whole walker to pitch, swinging the barrel
down, knocking the German guard on the head and out of the
car. Marian heaved on the controls to try to right it as the captain
hung helplessly on the end of the barrel, trying to get a foothold.
But Marian had what she’d come for and started running away
as fast as she could. Through the view slits, Marian could see
the captain waving as best he could and pointing behind them.

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She turned to look through another set of slits to see two war
walkers had detached from the column and were coming after
them.
Marian tried to turn the cannon around to fire on their pursuers,
but quickly discovered why this machine was being serviced. The
controls had locked. Not only could she not swing the cannon
towards her enemies, she couldn’t bring it forward again to
properly see where she was going! She heard a dull thump as both
pursuing walkers opened fire on them. Their crews were much
more skilled than Marian was and the first shell smashed into
the side of the cabin. The whole sidewall twisted as it absorbed
the blast, crushing the space next to Marian. The second shell
exploded against one of the legs, pitching the machine forward
with brutal momentum. The whole cabin began to spin, red sand
spraying in from every vent. Marian was pitched painfully over
and over until she eventually lost consciousness.
Marian woke to the screeching sound of the captain levering open
the cabin with an improvised crowbar. He looked scratched and
bruised but otherwise quite well. The look of concern he had
on his face convinced her to reward him with a smile. However,
her smile didn’t last long, as almost every part of her body hurt.
“The Germans?” she muttered.
“They’ve gone,” the captain replied. “I suspect they thought we
couldn’t survive the crash. Anyway, they are much keener to get
to the archeological site and they may have suspected you’d
warn the British. Can you move? We’d better not stay, in case
they change their minds.”
Marian tested the idea of levering herself up. It was a painful
operation but a possible one and she nodded at the captain in
affirmation.
“But what about the mission?” she lamented. “We’ll never stop
them now.”
“Well, I may have exaggerated the scale of the British archeological
expedition.”
“What do you mean?”
“There used to be a dig where they are going, but it was abandoned

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years ago and no one ever found a rocket there.”

“You were lying? Again!”
“I had to sell it.”
“So we haven’t failed the mission, because there was no mission.
What on earth have we been doing?”
“Well, there was a mission, but I’m afraid we have failed it. All
of this was a ruse to get the Germans to pull out of Neu Berlin
so I could steal what we really wanted. But some damn clever
woman kept rescuing me.”
“Well, if I’d known…”
“I’m sorry; it’s my fault for underestimating you. But we don’t
have time to get back and steal what we really need.”
“And what is that? What were we really after, Captain?”
“The plans,” he said looking at the broken remains of the War
Walker, “to one of these”.
“Oh, well,” Marian said with a smile. She reached over, grimacing
a little at the pain, and pulled the engineering handbook from
the floor of the cabin. “I imagine you’ll find this quite useful,
then.”
It took the Captain a moment to realize what she was passing
him, but then a broad and not unattractive smile rose over his
face.
“My God, Marian, you are amazing. Damnit, I could kiss you.”
He leant towards her, and she sat up a little to meet him as
they wrapped their arms around each other. But Marian stopped
before anything more than their eyes met.
“You would be most welcome to kiss me, Captain Chase, but I
can’t help remembering that you owe me a rocket ship. Maybe
when you’ve reclaimed mine, I might feel you’ve earned it.”
“That sounds fair.” The Captain grinned at her. “But maybe I
could at least call you Marian from now on.”
“I think that will be acceptable.” Marian smiled back. She had
no doubt that she and the Captain were going to get into a lot

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more trouble before they left Mars. But she was pretty confident
now that if the fool got himself captured again she could always
rescue him. That is, if he behaved.

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 Casey Chester – Rocket Corps On Mars
Jim Spencer

Rocket Corps Scout Rocket Hawkeye (SR-7), Casey Chester

commanding, hove to and dropped into Mars’ third parking
orbit sequence 5. Chester had requested an orbit closer to the
planet, but Scout Rockets were low man on the Rocket Corps
totem pole.
Lieutenant Chester ordered his gig prepared, an I-beam with a
radium rocket on one end and two tandem seats on the other.
The pilot sat in the front seat behind a small instrument panel.
He strapped into his saddle and then keyed his microphone.
“Chief O’Neal, the ComScoutRon3 flagship, if you please.”
A gentle braking maneuver began their drop to parking orbit 2
sequence 13, the position of Rocket Corps cruiser Halsey (C-23),
flagship of Commander Scout Squadron 3. Chief Boatswain
Mate O’Neal checked in with Approach Control. The gig from
Hawkeye assumed a holding position above the Halsey. Ship’s
boats from corvettes and destroyers came and went, then a
docking bay opened up. Using short, precise thruster bursts.
O’Neal positioned the gig against one of three docking stations
and let it settle onto the landing skids. Both men dismounted
and moved across the airless landing bay to a lock.
“Chief, stay out of trouble. The Chief’s Club is OK, but no booze.
Get a burger or something. I don’t know how long this is going
to take. I’ll call the Club when I leave the XO.”
“Aye, Captain. Club only and no booze.”

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The Halsey was a cruiser, a fast, missile launching, RAY cannon

firing, mine laying, pirate chasing, attack ship, but today
functioned as an administrative center for destroyer and scout
squadrons. Officers and enlisted bustled briskly up and down
the wide main passageway.
Walking slowly toward him, a Rocket Ranger Captain. The
Ranger’s uniform was perfect, not a thread out of place, all its
colors bright, and nothing faded from exposure to raw sunlight.
Traffic parted in front of the Ranger as if a force field preceded
him. Chester snapped a smart salute when they passed and
received a proper salute in return. Rocket Rangers, thought
Chester, and once again felt the humiliation and shame of his
dismissal from Rocket Ranger training.
He hesitated in front of the door labeled Scout Squadron 3,
then pushed it open and entered. The short, narrow passageway
ended with a door labeled “Captain Harold F. Pettigrew,
Commodore, Scout Rocket Squadron 3”. The door to his left
bore the inscription “Scout Rocket Squadron 3 Administration”.
The door on his right read “Commander Arlen B Nogales,
Executive Officer, Scout Rocket Squadron 3”. Casey sighed,
tugged at his coveralls, caressed the Commanding Officer Star
on his chest to remind himself that he too had a command, and
then entered.
A yeoman first class looked up from her desk screen. “Can I
help you, Lieutenant?”
Chester looked at her nametag. “Yeoman Kelley, the XO wants
to see me. Lieutenant Casey Chester, SR-7 commanding.”
“Just a minute, Captain.” Kelly tapped a key. “Sir, Lieutenant
Chester is here.” She looked at Chester. “Go right in, Sir.”
Casey stepped into the office and came to attention, braced
straight and rigid as his gig’s beam. “Lieutenant Casey Chester
reporting as ordered, Sir.”

The XO sat back in his upholstered chair. He studied Casey

from hair to space boots. Nogales saw a young lieutenant, fresh
from CO school. A trim, dark-haired, brown-eyed man, a little
less than six feet tall. Lieutenant Commander Nogales marveled

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 Casey Chester -- Rocket Corps on Mars

that such a non-descript person could have shaken the hierarchy

enough to pull a scout rocket millions of miles back to base. He
suspected that the current political situation, with the Great
Powers balancing on the knife-edge of war, had played a part.
“Take a seat, Lieutenant.”
Nogales flipped through several pages of a file, nodding at
some pages and scowling at others. He clasped his hands atop
the open file and looked at Casey.
“Gambling got you booted out of the Rocket Rangers. Yet, here
again your gambling proclivity has gotten you in trouble. Except
this time not only are you in the soup, you managed to take the
Rocket Corps and the United States government into the soup
with you. Anything to say for yourself?”
“XO, the only gambling I have done was two months ago, just
before Hawkeye was ordered out on asteroid patrol and that
was at a place outside of Mircanok, just a little place.”
“Did you win, Lieutenant?”
“Yes, Sir. I usually manage to win.”
“Did you win a medallion?”
“I did, XO. A very nice piece, with diamonds, rubies, and
sapphires, all mounted in gold. Uh, how did you know?”
“Lieutenant, do you remember from whom you won that piece?”
“It was a German fella named Freddy.”
The XO leaned over his desk. “It was a German fella, named
Prince Frederick Charles of Prussia, the youngest son of the
German Ambassador and, before Hitler, that nice medallion
was part of the Crown Jewels of the German Empire, given
to Freddy’s father as a gift for services rendered. A gift to
Frederick Augustus II, Grand Duke of Oldenburg, our erstwhile
German ambassador. They want their medallion back.”
“Oh,” said Casey. “But XO, I won it fair and square.”
“I know, Lieutenant, fair and square, but Prince Frederick
Charles of Prussia stole the blasted medallion from his father.
The Germans want the medallion. They are claiming it is a

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State Treasure. At the same time, since one of their own stole it,
they want to avoid publicity about the whole thing. You have to
return the medallion.”
“Well, Sir, seeing as how it was stolen property I can see
returning it, but I don’t have it.”
Nogales sank back into his chair. “Where is the medallion?”
“Don’t really know. I sold it to a Loscanit trader. Got almost
seven hundred.”
“American dollars?”
“No, sir. Marks. About eighty-six hundred dollars.”

“Oh my God,” Nogales said and rose from his chair. “We need
to see the Commodore.” Nogales led Chester out of his office
and into the Commodore’s.
Once announced, the two men entered the Commodore’s office.
“Sit,” the Commodore said.
“Boss, we have a problem getting that damned Kraut medallion
back. The Lieutenant here sold it to a Loscanit trader.”
The Commodore leaned back and looked at the overhead,
swiveling his chair left, then right, then left, and right again.
Lieutenant Chester fidgeted with a seam on his trousers,
crossed his legs, examined a loose cuff thread, and uncrossed
his legs while the Commodore thought.
The problem hurriedly got kicked upstairs, resulting in a quick
decision and further orders. The Commander Rocket Corps
Forces, Mars’ Admiral Carstairs, ordered the Captain of the
Hawkeye to report to him at Headquarters in Kostrast.
Admiral Carstairs issued orders for Lieutenant Chester and
a SLAM team consisting of a First Class Gunner’s Mate, a
Second Class GM, a Gunner’s Mate Rocketman and a Second
Class Corpsman. They were to proceed covertly as a civilian
party hunting along the edges of the Silt Sea near Loscanit
for a Kisnet, a rhino-sized animal. The orders also included
instructions to proceed to Ventalika, then to that city’s port on
the Silt Sea. At the port, they were to locate a native captain

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 Casey Chester -- Rocket Corps on Mars

named Mandilla who was under a Navy transportation contract.

Captain Mandilla would conduct Lieutenant Chester and his
party to Loscanit.
Lieutenant Casey Chester read his orders three times to makes
sure he understood the ramifications. All he had to do was sail
on a native Silt ship, find a Loscanit trader to determine who
bought the medallion and convince whoever had it to sell it
back to him. Once the medallion was secured, he was to deliver
it to the American State Department in Kostrast.
“Piece of cake,” he thought. “Unless of course it isn’t.”
Lieutenant Chester and Chief O’Neal walked across the Navy
Headquarters parade ground and into the Special Operations
building. A Marine Lance Corporal stood behind a high counter.
The Lance Corporal straightened. “Can I help you, Sir?”
“I am Lieutenant Chester. I need my security detail.” Chester
extended the portion of his orders requisitioning the security
detail. “This explains what I need.”
“Gunny, I need some help,” said the Lance Corporal.
A Gunnery Sergeant rose from behind his desk and came to the
counter. “How can I help you, Lieutenant?”
Chester pointed to his orders. “Security detail,” he said.
“Yes, sir. The men are ready. You will have to go to the armory
to draw weapons.”
“Very well, have them fall-out in front of the building. My
Coxswain will take charge.”
“Lieutenant Chester, you understand these are not your usual
rocketmen? They are part of a SLAM team.”
“SLAM team?”
“Yes, sir, they are trained for operations in Space, on Luna, in
the Asteroids, and on Mars.”
Outside, Chester stood, hands clasped behind his back,
apparently studying the Headquarters building’s façade. He
heard shoes on wooden steps, then the scuff of leather soles
on asphalt. He continued studying base architecture until the

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voices and shuffling behind ceased. He turned. Chief O’Neal

had formed the four men into a single rank at attention.
The Chief saluted Casey and said, “Detail standing by for your
inspection, Sir.”
“Very well,” Casey said.
A First Class Gunner’s Mate was first.
“Name?”
“McLeay, Sir.”
He inspected McLeay; everything squared-away, regulation
working uniform of dungarees and a chambray shirt, no loose
threads, shoes well blackened as per regulations. Casey saw
that McLeay was about his own height but heavier and looked
more muscled and fit. Casey stepped in front of the GM2.
“Name?”
“Jonah Ahab, Sir.”
Another squared-away sailor. Ahab was muscular and seemed
fit, a shade shorter than McLeay. A side step to face the next
man. “Name?”
“Frederick Barbarossa, Sir.”
Casey looked him up and down. “Shoe shine,” he said.
Casey had to look up to see Barbarossa’s sharp featured face
and piercing black eyes. Another side step took him in front of
a Second Class Hospital Corpsman. “Name?”
“Igor Tchaikovsky, Sir.”
Again the up and down inspection.
“Haircut, Corpsman. A little trim.”
Chester pointed to the leather satchel slung across
Tchaikovsky’s chest. “What is that?” he asked.
“Medical bag, Sir. The bag stays with me always.”
“Are you a Fleet Marine Corpsman?”
“Yes, Sir.”

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 Casey Chester -- Rocket Corps on Mars

“Chief, column of twos, route step, to the Armory.”

“Aye, Sir. You heard the Lieutenant. Forward march.”
Casey went to the front of a Special Operations briefing room
and stood before a map of Mars.
“We will jump to Ventalika, proceed to the port. At the port,
find a Chanari skimmer owner named Mandilla and take a silt
skimmer to Loscanit. In Loscanit, I will do some business then
we follow a canal northeast to another canal that goes south
to the Kalond canal, which we follow home to Kostrast. All
told, about a month. We are supposed to be a Kisnet hunting
party. We wear civilian clothes, and eat civilian food, and such.
Questions?”
GM2 Ahab raised his hand. “How are we going to be
organized?”
“Chief O’Neal is my XO. Gunner McLeay is senior SLAM team
member. You are second, and the others are worker bees. That
will do until we get into civilian clothes and see how we look
as a group. Now, get your gear ready for a month’s journey and
be back here in two hours, in your civilian clothes.”
To Chester’s eye, they looked a strange party. His own kaki
Safari Jacket, riding breeches, and knee-high brown boots were
elegantly simple even with a tan pith helmet. Tchaikovsky and
Barbarossa looked like something escaped from a Wild West
show in jeans, boots, and wide-brimmed hats. Tchaikovsky’s
medical bag hung from his shoulder. His GM1, less lavishly
attired, appeared in working man’s clothes, dark pants of thick
cloth, a buttoned denim shirt, a working man’s cloth cap, and
sturdy brogans. Last in the door, GM2 Jonah Ahab wore a
lightweight cream-colored linen suit, white shirt, and red and
white striped tie. On his feet, highly polished brown shoes.
BMC O’Neal looked like something out of the Main woods,
outfitted by L.L. Bean. Flannel shirt, corduroy pants, and the
classic L.L. Bean boots.
Chester led them into the briefing room to pack their weapons.
The long guns, BAR and Springfield, each went into a gun case.
A Thompson broke down to fit into a brown leather satchel.
Handguns went into shoulder holsters.

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“OK, he said, “we are supposed to be hunting a Kisnet. A Kisnet

looks like a rhino, without the horn. They have the size of a
rhino and are as mean and fast as a rhino. They are somewhat
lizardly looking, and the same color as the Martian sand. What
makes them dangerous is that they are territorial and protective
of their own. A Kisnet with young is the most dangerous single
animal on the planet.”
“If we are undercover, what do we call each other?” asked
Tchaikovsky.
Casey thought a minute. “Call me Captain Chester. Chief will
be The Chief. Gunner, you are John. Ahab, you are Mister
Ahab.” He gestured to the cowboys. “And you two use your
last names. In this game, I am the rich earthling looking for a
trophy. The Chief is my batman. Mister Ahab is my assistant
and fixer. Gunner, you are in charge of our cowboy worker bees.
Try to remember your names and roles.”
At the rocket port, Captain Chester waved his party forward to
begin loading their baggage into a Jump rocket. One by one,
they filed aboard. The Jump rocket arched up and over, then
glided to a landing.
Once on the tarmac, Chester ordered McLeay to see to
the baggage, while The Chief and Mister Ahab lined up
transportation. Two hours later, they returned to the terminal
aboard a Bahmoot cart driven by a sullen Julandri. The Julandri
sat slumped, reins held loosely in his hands.
“Load up,” The Chief said. “Kondor here doesn’t speak much
English so don’t bother trying to talk to him. I want his
concentration on keeping that two-legged monstrosity he is
driving under control. Board the cart.”
Ahab shook out a square of cloth and bent to swipe at the
dust and fresh Bahmoot dung clinging to his shoe, soiling the
handkerchief in the process.
“Mister Ahab,” said John, “I would appreciate it if you could
jettison that hanky. Bahmoot shit gets pretty strong after a bit.”
Ahab hesitated. In reality, McLeay was a paygrade senior
to him but in their undercover roles, Ahab was the Captain’s
representative while McLeay was a labor gang leader and the

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handkerchief cost a week’s pay. Kondor resolved his dilemma by

pinching a corner of the cloth between thumb and forefinger and
flinging the handkerchief to the ground.
“Bahmoot baca make Earthers sick. Puke gut out.”
He slapped the reins against the Bahmoot and they began their
four-hour journey to the port. Thirty minutes into the trip, the
cart was full of aching butts and cramping legs. Their suffering
lasted three hours and forty-five minutes.
“John, offload the cart. Mister Ahab, pay Kondor,” ordered
Chester.
Chester watched as Barbarossa and Tchaikovsky piled the
baggage against a warehouse wall and assumed guard positions
on each side of the pile.
“Mister Ahab, you and I will find this Mandilla character. Chief,
I think some food and drink are in order. See what you can find.
No booze.”
“Aye, Sir. Food and drink, no booze.”
Chester and Ahab began their search for a Green-Yellow Chanari
silt-sailor named Captain Mandilla. The wharf stretched a mile
or more toward the open silt. Ships, moored two deep, covered
every foot of that mile or so. Supervised by Chanari crewmembers,
Julandri laborer gangs carried boxes and crates across the wharf,
loading or unloading ships. None of the Chanari they addressed
spoke English but they understood the name Mandilla and each
pointed toward the far end of the wharf.
Chester looked down into the ship. It seemed a confusion of ropes
and heavy poles and Chanari. None of the Chanari appeared to
be in charge and not one was at all reputable-looking. “Does
anyone speak American?” Casey asked.
The Chanari looked at each other and then at Chester. None of
them spoke a word or changed expression. One eased the heavy
pole from his shoulder and straightened. Chester saw that this
Chanari was bigger than the others.
The Chanari tossed back his braided hair. “Deutsch. Sprechen sie
Deutsch?” he asked.

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Casey reached deep into the emptiness of his fund of German

and said, “Nein. Sprichst du Englisch?”
“Of course, old man. I speak English, the King’s English, not this
American you mentioned. I also speak French, Italian, Russian,
and a bit of Europan, plus most Martian dialects.”
Chester sighed and said, “Thank god. I have flat run out of
German, except for ordering beer and such. Are you Mandilla?”
The Chanari puffed his deep chest out and struck a buccaneer
pose, one foot on the pole he had been holding. “Captain
Mandilla of the ship Madraan. The fasteest and fineest ship on
the Great Silt Sea. And you my pale friend?”
Casey did a little puffing and posing himself, then said,
“Lieutenant Casey Chester. Captain of the United States Rocket
Corps Scout Ship Hawkeye.”
“Das ist gut. Bring your people and dunnage to the ship and I
will get this Gott schreckliche durcheinander cleared away.”
The Madraan fell away from wharf side onto a port tack,
headed for the horizon. Silt-skimmers looked more like square
barges than Earth’s sailing ships. They sailed almost upright
rather than angled away from the wind. The standing rigging,
running rigging, masts, booms, and controls were similar to
those used on Earth sailing vessels. Except when not moving,
therefore not skimming on its skis, the skimmer settled to rest
its hull on the silt.
Each day Mandilla plotted the Madraan’s position on a leather
chart that showed the coastline to the East and a few small
islands that they avoided. The Chief made sure to check their
daily position. Mandilla estimated arrival at Loscanit four days
hence. Fine weather let the passengers loll about the deck,
taking their ease as they saw fit. The third night out from
Loscanit found Chester and The Chief lying on seed sacks,
watching the stars.
“Captain, remember when you pulled that fat Italian off my
back?”
“I remember that you had just cold-cocked his friend, who was
trying to puncture my belly with a stiletto. Why?”

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“Well, Sir, I got to admit that I kind of pissed them off before
you arrived on the scene. It wasn’t exactly like I told you at the
time that they were trying to rob me.”
“And what, my friend, did you do to piss off the I’ties?”
“Had to do with a sister. Theirs, that is. A pretty lass, but way
more generous with her time than her brothers thought she
should be.”
“I would never have guessed, what with all the hollering and
cussing and jumping around going on. You didn’t explain
anything or even to introduce yourself. Moreover, when
the brothers Luigi saw me hurrying out that door, they just
naturally thought I was running to your rescue. They didn’t see
the very upset herd of Frenchies behind me. Well, Boats, water
under the bridge, over the damn, and all that. I am glad to have
you in my Hawkeye crew and on this hare-brained mission.”
“Thank you, Sir. Glad to be of service. I had best go check on
the others so they don’t get in trouble.”
The Chief lumbered away to find his charges and remind them
of their roles on the mission.
The next morning, The Chief noticed an orange haze hiding
the Northwest horizon. Mandilla was at the masthead with
binoculars. He slid down the backstay.
“Morning, Captain”, The Chief said. “What’s with the haze?”
“Seems we are in for a spot of bother.” Mandilla pointed to
the Northwest. “That is the harbinger of Force 12 winds, a
mantouth. We have about two hours to get everything tied
down and batten the hatches, so to speak, turn to the south,
and begin our prayers. Please warn your Captain.”
The Chief turned and hurried below. “Captain,” he shouted.
“Captain, we got a hurricane coming.”
Chester looked up from cleaning his .45. “Hurricane?”
“Yes, Sir. Mandilla says Force 12 winds, which means hurricane.”
“I’d better talk to Mandilla.”
On deck, Chester noticed the haze and hurried to Mandilla.

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“Captain, how bad is it going to be?”

“Can’t really tell, old man. Usually the darker the haze the
bigger the storm, more dust in the air, you know.”
“That looks pretty dark.”
“Haven’t seen darker. I suggest you prepare your men and make
sure that your baggage is secure.” Mandilla placed a hand on
Chester’s forearm. “Captain, this going to be bad, really bad.
The ship may not survive.”
Chester looked again at the haze. “Tell us how we can help,
Captain.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
The wind behind the haze sucked millions of tons of silt from
the sea’s surface into the air, darkening the sun. Silt tornados
danced in the gloom and the Madraan ran before the storm.
By dark, her main mast had crashed over the side, taking the
mainsail and jib into the silt. Mandilla managed to get a scrap
of sail rigged on the mast’s stump, allowing a small amount of
steering. The Earthlings clung to whatever would keep them on
deck. Their cabin was not an option when the ship could roll on
its beam-ends at any moment.
An hour before sunrise, the storm had not lessened and the
Madraan was losing more pieces to the fierce wind and hard-
driven silt. A tornado leapt out of the darkness, caught the
Madraan, and rolled her. The ship became a maelstrom of
broken timbers, shattered bodies, and flying debris. Chester
found himself atop one of Madraan’s broad skis. Lying flat, he
quickly pulled Tchaikovsky from the silt. A hand rose from the
silt. Chester reached and hauled Mandilla onto the ski to lie
face down, unconscious. Faint against the wind, a cry caught
Chester and Tchaikovsky’s attention. O’Neal and McLeay, riding
another ski with Barbarossa clinging to the shattered strut,
appeared through the flying silt.
“Hold your shirt open like a sail,” shouted O’Neal. The shirt-
sails propelled them downwind through the silt, bouncing
against ship parts and bodies. By dragging one foot then the
other, The Chief guided his ski next to Chester.

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“Skipper, I think we can go across the wind and maybe get out
of the worst of this.”
“Tchaikovsky, lash Mandilla to the strut. Let’s try it, Boats.”
They angled their shirts to take the wind more on the side
rather than from straight astern. Excruciating hours passed as
the men took turns holding their shirts in position, dreading
the coming pain when it was their turn to stand and hold.
Tchaikovsky, from his standing position, shouted, “Captain.
Something is ahead.”
Chester rolled to his knees and peered through the swirling silt.
“Looks like land.” Boats-”
The skis hit a rocky shore at the same time. Tchaikovsky flew
into Chester, knocking them into a tangle. A pained cry from
the other ski indicated someone was injured.
“To me, to me,” screamed Chester above the blasts of wind.
O’Neal stumbled out of the gloom, rubbing his left arm.
Tchaikovsky went to help him to Chester’s side.
“You OK, Chief? Where are McLeay and Ahab?”
“Here, Captain,” McLeay said. “I haven’t seen Jonah since the
ship rolled.”
“Has anybody seen Ahab?”
“Captain, I don’t think he made it off the ship,” said O’Neal.
Chester paused, then took a breath. “OK. There is Mandilla and
the four of us. Move off the beach and find shelter. I want out
of this wind. Chief, can you carry Mandilla?”
“Got him, skipper,” The Chief said.
The four men climbed a small bluff to a shelf in the cliff face.
An overhanging lip provided shelter and they piled loose rocks
into a breastwork against the wind. The wind howled, whistled,
and groaned around them but their shelter kept them safe.
“Tchaikovsky, you have your bag. Chief, what is in your bag?”
“Dried Galantalope.”

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“Good. Everybody rest. We need to find water and where we

are, but first rest.”
Chester lay down on the floor of their cave. The Chief nestled
Mandilla against the back of the shelter, out of the dust
and wind. The others lay or sat with their backs to the rock.
Tchaikovsky noticed a wet stain on The Chief’s left thigh.
“Chief, did you hurt your leg?” he asked.
The Chief looked down. “I might have bumped it.”
Tchaikovsky knelt by The Chief’s side. Gently he pulled back
the torn pant leg. “Chief, you must have bumped against
something sharp. This laceration needs to be cleaned and
bandaged.”
“How you going to clean it?” asked The Chief. “We don’t have
any water.”
“Anybody got a full bladder?” asked Tchaikovsky.
“I do,” said McLeay.
“Good. You know the drill. I will hold open the edges and you
piss into the wound. When we get as much sand and crud out
of it as we can, I will pack it with sulfa and wrap it. OK, go.”
McLeay directed his stream into the wound as Tchaikovsky
used a cotton swab from his medical bag to flick out debris.
McLeay ran dry before Tchaikovsky was satisfied.
“That will have to do for now,” Tchaikovsky said as he wrapped
a bandage around The Chief’s thigh.
Tchaikovsky woke from a restless sleep. He stood and peered
over the rock wall, then climbed out of the shelter. The low-
lying sun lit the land enough for him to see that silt deposited
by the storm filled every rocky nook and cranny. Carefully he
climbed to the higher ground behind the rock shelf. He sat on
a large rock and scanned the flat silt sea. Nothing moved as
far as he could see. Nothing, as if the storm had never passed
this way. Standing, he looked east. Thick, heavy, eight feet tall
brush stretched from horizon to horizon. To the north, a mile
away, a sand colored column rose above the ubiquitous brush.
“Captain Chester,” he shouted, scrambling down the bluff.

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Chester struggled to his feet as Tchaikovsky slid to a stop in a

cloud of dislodged stones and silt. “What is it, Tchaikovsky?”
“A building, skipper. There is a building about a mile north.”
“Building? A human building?”
“No, Sir. Seems to be a Martian ruin.”
“Chief, stay here and watch for anything unusual. Tchaikovsky,
show me what you found.”
Chester and Tchaikovsky clambered up the slope.
“Right there, Skipper.”
Chester looked around. He surveyed the horizon. Sure enough,
he thought, a Martian building.
“Let’s get back to the others.”
In the shelter, Chester explained Tchaikovsky’s discovery.
“We need water and food, and I bet whoever built that ruin had
water.”
Chester gestured towards the Chief, who was holding
something he couldn’t make out. “What is that”?
The Chief held up a huge black talon. “I went down to the
beach and found this. It came off a black critter about a yard
around, with six legs. Kind of looked like a big spider.”
“Dead, I presume.”
“Aye, Captain. Probably killed by the storm, thank goodness.”
“Sounds like a black silt spider. Let’s head over to that ruin.
McLeay, take charge.”
McLeay organized them so that Barbarossa had the point,
The Chief and Tchaikovsky came second, with the Captains
bringing up the rear.
Chester knelt by Mandilla. The Chanari’s eyes were open.
“How are you, Captain Mandilla?”
“Not well, Captain, not well at all.”

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“Can you walk?”

Mandilla, with Chester’s help, struggled to his feet.
“I can walk if we don’t need to move very quickly.”
The party thrashed through the brush until the ruins were in
clear view. Mandilla staggered to a rock and sat heavily. He
hung his head, breathing deeply.
“See anything?” Chester asked The Chief.
“Nothing.”
“McLeay?”
“Nothing. Just quarried rocks and silt and a few timbers.”
The coughing start of a diesel engine followed by a puff of
black smoke drew their eyes to the west. Clanking tracks
moved in the distance.
“Captain Mandilla, do you know where we are?” asked Chester.
“Not exactly. This area is far from my accustomed travels.”
“Ok. Saddle up. We need to find out who is pushing around
dirt. Be careful and quiet. We have had enough surprises today.
McLeay, this is a SLAM kind of thing, so you take charge.”
Single file, with Barbarossa again on point, the party made
its way through the dunes to a belt of thick brush. McLeay
motioned them to stop and lie down. Barbarossa drifted
noiselessly out of the brush to kneel next to McLeay. After
a hurried conference, Barbarossa went back into the brush.
McLeay crawled to Chester’s side.
“Captain, there is a bunch Nazis doing some kind of major
digging. Barbarossa thinks it is an ancient ruin.”
“What do you think, Gunner?”
“We should clear the area, find a place to layup and figure out
what to do next.”
“Captain Mandilla, how far does this brush go to the South?”
“I don’t know, Captain, but it commonly borders all of the sea
and extends several kilometers inland.”

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“Ok, let’s do it. McLeay, lead on.”

McLeay made a grunting, whistling noise that brought
Barbarossa out of the brush again. He explained the plan
and Barbarossa disappeared into the brush in the opposite
direction. Tchaikovsky and Chester helped O’Neal and Mandilla
bring up the rear. They covered a slow five kilometers before
McLeay called a rest halt. Tchaikovsky took the opportunity to
change O’Neal’s dressing and treat the wound with more sulfa
powder before applying a clean bandage.
Tchaikovsky approached Chester. “Captain, The Chief’s leg
is infected; not bad but it will get worse if we don’t get to a
genuine doctor.”
“Is he going to be able to keep up if we have to walk a while?”
“No, Sir. He walks much longer and we will have to carry him;
make a stretcher, or sling.”
“OK. Thanks, Doc. McLeay, how soon can we stop for the
night?”
“I would like another five klicks, but I could live with two.”
“Find a good spot after two and we will bed down.”
McLeay turned away to find Barbarossa. “Aye, Sir. Two klicks
plus.”
Three kilometers of weary travel, through what on Earth would
be briars and brambles, brought them to a clearing.
McLeay pointed to the ground and said, “Here, Captain.”
“It isn’t the Ritz, folks,” said Chester, “but it’s better than a jail
cell. Settle in for the night. McLeay, do you and Barbarossa
have some kind of SLAM trick to make a shelter and keep us
warm tonight?”
“No, Sir,” Barbarossa said. “We will have to huddle together
to keep warm. It’s not comfortable but it will keep us alive.
Though sometimes you’ll think you’re about to freeze to death.”
“Ooo-kay. The Chief goes in the middle and we cluster around
him. Let’s get a fire and heat us some Galantalope.”

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“Sorry, Captain. No fires. The light might be seen,” said

McLeay.
The party sat around the meat backpack, chewing on cold
Galantalope and discussing their future. Chester stated that
he was taking The Chief to the Nazi base to get medical help.
The SLAM team could make their escape or come with him.
Mandilla choose to make his way down the coast in hopes of
sighting a ship, well aware of the Nazis’ penchant for enslaving
Martians.
“Captain,” McLeay said, “Tchaikovsky tells me that if we had
more sulfanilamide, a suture kit, and more bandages, he could
fix up The Chief well enough to go with Mandilla.”
“Where would you get these medical supplies?” Chester asked.
“From the Nazis. They must have a supply shack, or tent, or
something. Look, Sir. Barbarossa stays with you and The Chief.
Tchaikovsky and I slip into the base, find the supplies, and haul
out of there. We link up and head down the coast, carrying
The Chief, until we find a spot where Tchaikovsky can patch
him up. We rest a few hours, and then start South with Captain
Mandilla.”
“You really think that is better than getting them to help us?”
“Well, Sir. They are digging around looking for old stuff. I
expect the Krauts don’t want visitors. I wish we had Jonah. He
was our best sneak and peek man.”
Chester thought a moment. “What do you think would happen
if The Chief and I just walked into their camp?”
“If whatever it is that they are doing is something they don’t
want anyone to know about, why, I expect that they would just
shoot you.”
“OK. Do your sneak and peak. Know that if you get caught we
can’t help you, and The Chief and I will have to depend on the
goodness of their hearts.”
“Gunner,” said Barbarossa, “let me and Tchaikovsky go. I am
not as good as Jonah, but I can sneak and peek pretty well and
I am better at it than you.”

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“Your call, Gunner,” said Chester.

“OK. You and Tchaikovsky go.”
The two men noiselessly disappeared into the brush. McLeay
began nervously patrolling their perimeter. Three then four
hours passed. McLeay patrolled tirelessly around the camp.
The two SLAMs stepped out of the brush.
“Got what we needed, Captain,” said Tchaikovsky. “I can patch
up The Chief now.”
With Tchaikovsky working on The Chief’s wound and
Barbarossa explaining what the saw, McLeay kept look out.
Suddenly, he straightened and turned his head. “Captain,
something is moving around in the brush to our East.”
“Battle stations,” said Chester.Barbarossa, Tchaikovsky, and
McLeay dropped to one knee, facing outward. Casey knelt in
the middle next to the wounded O’Neal.
“Movement,” said McLeay.
“Me too,” said Tchaikovsky.
A voice called in Martian.
“Talk to them,” Casey said to Mandilla.
Mandilla spoke to the shadowy forms.
“I told them. We are peaceful and mean no harm. One of us has
a wound. We need assistance.”
Slowly, arms wide and empty hands visible, two Chanari
stepped from the brush. Mandilla rose and approached the
strangers. They chattered back and forth, then Mandilla turned
to the Earthers.
“These are Yellow-Reds from the mountains. The Yellow-Reds’
mountains are two thousand miles from here. They are on a
quest or mission…the word has no translation. They will take
us to their camp.”
The Martian urgently said something else.
“Captain, he says five grey-black Earthers are coming from the
Earthers’ camp toward us.”

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“Barbarossa, Tchaikovsky. Go see what the Germans are up to,”

said McLeay.
The two men rose.
The leader of the Yellow-Reds spoke. Mandilla raised a staying
hand. “Captain, he says his warriors are waiting for the
Earthers.”
“Barbarossa, Tchaikovsky. Go see what the Martians are up to,”
said Chester.
The two men rose and filtered into the brush.
From nearby came screams and gunfire, even the stutter of
a sub-machine gun, then silence. Martians in brush-colored
capes over Yellow-Red trimmed tunics emerged. Each Martian
carried a rifle and a tan bread bag. Barbarossa and Tchaikovsky
followed the victorious Chanari out of the brush.
They stopped next to The Chief and McLeay. Barbarossa
carried two 98K rifles and ammunition pouches. Slung over
one shoulder was an MP38 and spare magazines; tucked into
his belt was the German Officer’s P38. “Captain, I got some
weapons and ammo,” he said. “You wanna distribute them?”
Tchaikovsky had salvaged five ration bags and a medical
kit. He sorted through the medical kit and said, “I see a
rolled bandage, two field dressings, an eye patch, scissors, a
thermometer, a rubber strip tourniquet, and a glass bottle
labelled Sepsotinkur, which looks like iodine. Not much
there to work with. The ration bag is gold. In each bag, we
have Zwieback hard biscuits, canned meat, I think, the can is
stamped KM R 10/37 850Q, and finally maybe some canned
soup. It isn’t American but it isn’t Bahmoot or whatever we
been eating.”
“Gunner,” said Barbarossa, dropping to sit on the sand, “these
Yellow-Red guys are something else. They hid under the brush,
not in it, but under it. At the boss man’s whistle, each of
them grabbed a guy’s foot and threw him down; they are a lot
stronger than they look. A spear in the throat and the guy was
done.”
“What about the gun fire?” asked Chester.

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“Reflex,” said Tchaikovsky. “Let’s eat.”

Using stone knives and boots as hammers, they tore open the
ration cans. Crackers crumbled into the soup and eaten with
a bit of meat brought grunts of approval. Later, Chester and
Mandilla sat with the Chanari leader.
Chester looked to Mandilla. “Captain Mandilla, can these
people help with The Chief?”
“Yes, Captain they will. Nevertheless, we must hurry. The
Leader tells me that they have what must be a small war walker
at the Nazi camp.”
McLeay took Chester by the elbow. “Captain, we got to go.
Those scout walkers can run at 65 miles-an-hour. We got to go.”
Three yellow-red Chanari on bahmoots, leading eight more
bahmoots, rode into the clearing.
“Get The Chief onto one of those bahmoots,” ordered McLeay.
Then to Chester, “Can you ride, Sir?”
“Horses. I have ridden horses.”
“It is the same idea,” said McLeay. “Let me help you onto this
black.”
Once mounted, Chester watched Barbarossa and Tchaikovsky
hoist The Chief onto a bahmoot. “How do you know how to
ride bahmoots?” he asked McLeay.
“SLAM training.”
The Yellow-Reds mounted and led the group away from the
Nazi camp. Riding hard, they quickly covered three miles. The
yellow-red leader ordered a halt.
“Why are we stopping?” asked Chester.
“Need to rest the animals,” said Barbarossa, “and my butt.”
Chester limped around, trying to recover from his first
bahmoot ride. Barbarossa approached him.
“Captain, I don’t know if you want that Nazi officer’s Walther,
but you need to be armed.”

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“I can’t shoot worth a damn, so give me the machine gun.”

Mandilla found Chester. “The Leader says that we will rest for
half a day. Then we ride, slower to save the animals, to their
main camp, about a half day ride.”
Fourteen Yellow-Reds and the Rocket Corps party made up
the column moving across the Martian deserts. The Leader
carefully placed guards ahead, to the flanks, and a substantial
rearguard watching for the scout walker. They rode unmolested
to the main camp of the entire clan of this group of Yellow-
Red Chanari. Shelters dug into the sand and roofed with brush
housed the clan. Most shelters could hold four or five and a
larger shelter a dozen.
The Earth party stepped down into the large shelter to find
six Yellow-Red Chanari in yellow-red trimmed cloaks and
another dressed in a yellow-red leather cloak with odd symbols
decorating its shoulders and breast. The Chanari sat on a shelf-
bench that ran around the circumference of the shelter. The roof
kept sunlight from penetrating. Smoking bahmoot-fat lamps
relieved the darkness. In the center burned a low bahmoot-
dung fire. Its smoke was dispersed by the brush roof before
rising into clear air.
Mandilla motioned them to seats on the bench, seating himself
next to Chester. “These are the elders of this clan of the
Yellow-Red. The older gent in the fancy cloak is their shaman,
or maybe seer is a better translation. He is their contact with
the next world. They wish to discuss the grey-black Earthers,
the Germans, and their intentions. They do not like Earthers
but, as of old, enemies of my enemies are my friends.”
“Captain,” Mandilla said, “the Elder wants me to sit at his feet
and translate.”
Seated in the dirt at the Elder’s feet, Mandilla spoke for the
Elder. “I am Ganderet of the Yellow-Red Chanari. We have
traveled many days from our home in the high woodlands. It
is in this place that our Seer Jornar knows that the grey-black
Earthers seek a terrifying Ancients’ weapon. A weapon that
with a great flash will destroy a city. We have traveled these
many days to stop them and keep the Ancients’ secrets for the
Chanari. How are you Earthers different from the grey-blacks

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that were going to kill you?”

Chester turned to McLeay. “This in your SLAM training?”
“No, Sir. We are just sneak and peak, shoot and scoot. You are
on your own here.”
“Tell the Elder that the grey-blacks are often brutal killers and
have enslaved many Chanari. My companion Earthers do not
kill without reason and do not enslave. The Germans would
have killed us if you had not intervened. I thank you for saving
us.”
“Why are you here?” asked Ganderet.
“A mantouth destroyed our ship and we are here. I want to go
to Loscanit. I have business in Loscanit.”
Ganderet looked at Chester. “We do not know this Loscanit.”
“Captain,” Mandilla said, “these Yellow-Reds have come about
two thousand miles. They don’t have any idea about anything
around here. Best I can estimate from star positions is that
Loscanit is four hundred miles to the North.”
McLeay leaned in. “Captain, I think we better follow up on this
old guy’s terrible weapon.”
“You are right, Gunner. Terrible weapon then Loscanit.
Remember their Seer saw the terrible weapon. Jornar doesn’t
know for sure about a terrible weapon, he just saw a vision.
There might not be a terrible weapon.”
“Well Sir, I don’t know how we got the RAY tech if not from the
Ancients’ designs.”
“Ok. We help these Chanari, then go on to Loscanit and
complete the mission. Mandilla, find out what we can do to
help them get the terrible weapon.”
“Good,” said Ganderet, “We eat, and then plan.”
The meal was more Bahmoot roasted over Bahmoot dung and
seasoned with something bitter. The Chanari ate heartily, the
Earthmen sparingly, except Tchaikovsky. He had saved a little
of the German rations and mixed that with Bahmoot. Planning
went into the afternoon. With Chanari weapons against guns, a

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sneak and peek tactic seemed the best plan.

In the fullness of night, with no moon to relieve the darkness,
Barbarossa and Mandilla bellied their way under a large
bush within ten feet of a guard. Small low lights, providing
enough illumination to prevent a pedestrian from falling into
the excavation, ringed the camp and outlined paths. They lay
quietly until the next guard change. The new guard lasted
as long as it took the relieved guard to disappear into a
tent. Quickly they rose and sped silently to the side of a tent.
Keeping in the darkest shadows and moving quickly when
necessary, they went from the tent to a bulldozer to the trench
excavation.
Morning brought a breakfast of cold roast Bahmoot. In the
council dugout, Barbarossa and Mandilla told Chester and
McLeay what they had seen in the trench. “Captain, it was a big
metal box, about ten feet long by eight wide. There was some
weird carving on the top,” reported Barbarossa.
“Yes, Captain, a metal I have not seen before. The carvings are
from the Ancients. I have no facility with Ancient script, but I
could make out the words ‘city’ and ‘revenge’. Jornar the Seer
could be right.”
A voice shouted, “You are surrounded. Come out with your
hands on your heads.”
“What the hell?” said Chester.
“Come out with your hands on your heads. I will not order it
again.”
Mandilla looked at his companions. “I think we should do as he
says.”
Men and Chanari filed out of the dugout. Chester saw an SS
officer with his P38, three sergeants with MP38s and a dozen
men with 98Ks. The soldiers holding the weapons all wore the
SS Death’s Head on their caps.
“In line. Face me.”
The Earthers stood shoulder to shoulder and the Chanari stood
a little apart from the foreigners. The Hauptmann ordered his
men to fix bayonets and empty the shelters. The Germans

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poked and prodded the Chanari into a tight group.

The officer looked around, then addressed the Earthers. “I am
Hauptmann Weber. We found our patrol. Do not expect me to
be generous. Who is in charge?”
Chester stepped forward. “I am Casey Chester, American, as
are my companions. We were shipwrecked by a storm and
these Chanari offered us shelter. Your English is excellent, sir.”
“My English is not the question. Nein. We know you infiltrated
our camp. Why? Who sent you?”
Chester looked at his men. “I am hunting kisnet, and they are
my porters and a medic.”
“There are no kisnet in my camp. Who sent you?”
“No one sent us. I am a hunter and need a kisnet to add to my
trophies.”
Weber barked orders. Two sergeants and six soldiers forced
the Chanari into the brush. MP38s stuttered and 98Ks cracked,
followed by screams and more gunfire, then silence.
“Now,” Weber said, “who sent you to spy on our camp?”
Muzzle flashes burst from figures in the dark brush and
German soldiers began falling. The Germans returned fire but
a bolt-action rifle is no match for a machine pistol and soon all
were dead or dying. Giving no quarter, the Chanari dispatched
wounded Germans and shot the dead again. They gathered
around their chief. Ganderet spoke in Martian to his people.
The males headed for the bahmoot herd and the females began
loading baskets and packs with their possessions.
“Gunner,” Chester said, “gather all our stuff.”
“Captain,” McLeay said, “they have that scout walker. I bet that
when the second patrol doesn’t show up, that scout walker will
be looking for them.”
Mandilla turned to Chester. “The Yellow-Red are going to
escape to the west, hoping that the Red-Black clans along the
coast will aid them.”
“Do you want to go with them?” asked Chester.

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“Truly, I do, Captain. However, I have a contract with your

Rocket Corps to convey you and your party to Loscanit, and to
Loscanit we shall go.”
“Is Loscanit the closest city?”
“If we are where I presume, yes. However, Ventalika is almost as
near, perhaps four hundred-fifty miles.”
Chester thought a moment, then said, “Ventalika. The British
control Ventalika and we have to alert the Allies that the
Germans are digging in ruins a couple thousand miles from
their base”.
“Very well, Captain. There is a Red-Blue caravan route from
Loscanit to Haviling, no more than two hundred miles away.
The caravan route is smoother and marked.”
“Hauptmann Helmuth. Hauptmann Helmuth,” squawked a
walkie-talkie looped over a sergeant’s shoulder. “Hauptmann
Helmuth, Hauptmann Helmuth,” followed by a flood of German.
“That is their base asking for a report,” said Mandilla.
Mandilla tugged the radio free of the sergeant’s body. He spoke
into the radio, trying to sound like a German officer. He signed
off and dropped the radio to the ground.
“They are sending Scout Walker 2 to investigate and Walker 1
will follow as soon as it is refueled,” he said.
“Then that scout walker will be on us for sure,” said McLeay.
“I don’t know squat about Marskorps walkers. Enlighten me,
Gunner.”
“All I know is what we were told in training. They showed
us intelligence photos of all the walkers and pointed out the
weaknesses. The scout walker moves on just two legs. A pilot
drives the walker and another guy is the gunner. Scout walker’s
armor protects them from small arms and shrapnel. Cabin
glass is bulletproof. A gasoline engine drives a generator that
provides electricity. We assume legs operate by hydraulics
because photos show hydraulic lines running up the backs of
the legs.”
“Are the legs armored?” asked Chester.

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“Just the front. The back has crosspieces about four inches
wide spaced two or three inches apart. Intelligence thinks the
hydraulics get hot and the gaps let in cool air. The hydraulic
lines are a scout walker’s greatest weakness, other than
stopping up the engine intake or cooling. If you break or
damage a line, the leg won’t work.”
Chester looked around the clearing. “Barbarossa, Tchaikovsky,
search the kraut bodies for grenades. If we can wedge a
grenade into the walker’s legs, that will stop them cold.”
“That would work, Captain, but how are we going to get them
to stop long enough to wedge in the grenades?”
“Yeah,” said Chester, “we need bait. Barbarossa, Tchaikovsky,
drag all those bodies over here, into the center of the clearing.
Get the ones in the brush, too. Lay them out side-by-side.
Gunner, collect all the weapons and sprinkle them on top of
the bodies.”
When they had finished, fifteen soldiers lay across the clearing,
each with a weapon.
“Now, everybody take two grenades. We will spread out around
the clearing and hide. Dig a hole if you want. When the walker
gets here, whoever is closest crawls up to it and uses the
grenades. Converge when it hits the ground. If the crew puts
up a fight, shoot them; otherwise we take their boots and turn
them loose. Questions?”
“Am I included in this plan, Captain?” asked Mandilla.
“Yes. Yes,” Chester said. “Grab a couple of grenades, and hide.”
The group scattered in five directions. Chester chose a large
likely looking bush and began scooping out a hole with a
German helmet. He settled into the shallow hole. He looked
and listened for the others, but they had hidden well. He leaned
back and closed his eyes, just to rest them, and promptly fell
asleep.
Trembling ground woke Chester. He heard muffled thuds
from the darkness. The sounds grew closer. The scout walker
passed twenty yards to his left. A few more steps and a
floodlight illuminated bodies and weapons in the clearing. The

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walker stopped a short sprint away. Casey saw the ladder-like

crosspieces on the back of the legs. He slithered out of his hole
and stole to the walker. The grenades fit snuggly behind the
braces. He looked up to the walker’s cab.
“Well, hell,” he thought. ”I would rather ride this thing than a
bahmoot.”
Quietly but quickly, he climbed the walker’s leg. Being careful
not to let metal hit the top of the cab, he rolled onto his side
and drew his machine pistol across his chest. The crew hatch
stood out against the floodlight glare. Chester inched to the
hatch. The handle turned easily. Gripping the handle firmly,
he rose to his knees. The machine guns under the cab’s front
began to chatter. Chester looked into the floodlit area and
caught a glimpse of Barbarossa diving for cover. He slid his
feet into the hatch and dropped to the cabin floor. A deafening
burst disabled the gunner. The pilot, astounded at gunfire in
the cab, threw his hands up in surrender.
“Down,” said Chester. “Down. Put this thing on the ground.”
The pilot just stared at him. Casey made a two-fingered walking
gesture, then collapsed his fingers.
“Ja. Ja,” said the pilot, and manipulated a control to sink the
walker to the ground.
Chester stuck his head out the hatch. “Mandilla, Tchaikovsky,
get up here.”
Tchaikovsky climbed atop the walker first.
“Wounded gunner,” said Chester. “Captain Mandilla, tell this
German fella that he is captured.”
Casey, the SLAMs, and Mandilla sat with the Yellow-Reds as
they ate. The Chanari ate native food and the Earthers wolfed
down German field rations from the walker.
Mandilla spoke. “The pilot, Karl Sorge, wants to defect, to
change sides. He didn’t volunteer to be physic-linked to a
machine and wants out. Karl swears that he will do anything
we ask of him to escape his torture.”
Chester spooned some soup into his mouth. “Will he fight

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Germans?”
Mandilla asked Sorge.
“Yes. In addition, he will help us escape.”
Chester, struggling to open a can of meat. said, “We will have
to fight Scout Walker 1. Can he do that?”
He says, “Yes, but he needs a gunner.”
Chester looked at McLeay. “No, Sir. Armored warfare isn’t
something we are trained for.”
“I guess it is more like ship-to-ship combat than anything else,”
said Chester. “I’ll be the gunner.”
“Tchaikovsky, will the Nazi gunner make it?”
“He will be hurting when I run out of morphine, but he will live.
You didn’t actually shoot him, Captain. All three shots missed
and bounced off the wall. A ricochet broke a couple of a ribs
and his right ankle is injured. No direct hits.”
With Mandilla clinging to the gunner’s seat, Sorge maneuvered
Scout Walker 2 out into the deepest brush. Sorge positioned
the scout walker as low in the brush as he could.
Sorge explained through Mandilla. “We will hide here with
all active systems off and watch for Walker 1. I should be able
to surprise Hedrick and get behind him. Hedrick and I have
danced this dance in training, but now it is for real. The only
place our guns can hurt Number 1 is as you determined; the leg
hydraulic lines. You, Captain, will fire the side guns and I will
fire the front ones. Fire if you think you have a target. Bullets
hitting the amour and glass can be distracting, so pepper the
walker.”
Walker 1’s radio squawked German. Sorge motioned for the
microphone.
“He is taking to Walker 1,” explained Mandilla. “The pilot
is Helmuth. Sorge is trying to convince Helmuth to defect.
Helmuth says he cannot abandon the Fatherland and his Fuhrer.
If Karl defects, he will have to die.”
They lay doggo, hidden by the heavy brush. Two hours passed

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and still no Walker 1. Chester squirmed in the gunner’s chair,

needing to relieve himself. He had Mandilla tell Sorge that
he was going to step outside for a moment. On the walker’s
roof, he could see the horizon. Stepping to the edge, he sent
a stream into the Martian dust. Walker 1 rose from the brush
two hundred yards away and fired a burst at him. Chester dived
for safety. Bullets striking the walker’s side drowned out the
clang of the hatch slamming closed.
“Walker 1 is—” Chester started.
“We noticed,” said Mandilla.
Sorge flung Walker 2 to its feet, turning hard right to face
Walker 1.
Chester fired a burst from all side guns as Sorge fired the
forward guns. Walker 1 lit up with sparks from bullet strikes.
The walkers began a deadly dance. Walker 1 sidestepped to
the right and Walker 2 countered by pivoting left. For every
quick dash to one side, the other merely turned in place. Bullets
sparkled all over the front of both machines until the gunners
began conserving ammunition. Move followed countermove
and soon both walkers stopped, facing each other as if resting.
Behind Walker 1, Chester saw a dark figure sprint across a
clearing in the brush. The figure crouched and then ran to
Walker 1’s left leg, inserting something in the cross-braces,
and then escaping back into the heavy brush. The grenade
explosion blew a mist of hydraulic fluid into the air. A bullet
spark from Chester’s guns ignited the fluid. Walker 1 fell onto
its left side, burning.
“Cease fire, cease fire,” Chester ordered.
Barbarossa emerged from the heavy brush and ran to the
downed walker. He wrenched open the hatch and helped the
crew escape their doomed vehicle. Walker 2’s guns pinged and
crackled as they cooled.
They followed Mandilla’s plan. Six hours of the scout walker
thumping through dust and brush, lurching around obstacles
and stumbling in potholes. Everyone but the pilot and Chester,
in the gunner’s seat, hung on desperately. At the caravan

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route, they rested. The rest period let Tchaikovsky tend to the
wounded and everyone else’s minor scrapes. Sorge climbed
back into his pilot seat and Chester strapped into the gunner’s
position. Mandilla wedged himself onto the floor. The SLAM
team helped The Chief and the German gunner find a secure
place on the walker’s roof. Fourteen hours of smoother travel
brought them to Haviling.
Haviling to Kostrast was two days by official Government
transportation. Another two days found Chester in Admiral
Carstairs’ office. This time Chester sat in an upholstered chair,
a glass of fine brandy at his elbow.
“Well done, Lieutenant Chester,” said Admiral Carstairs. “With
your report, we confirmed that the Germans are conducting
operations outside of the treaty bounds. We had to give that
SS gunner back, but the pilot was most informative. The brainy
types are studying the scout walker before we give it back. It
is sad, the loss of your man, but the information enables us to
contain those thugs to the agreed limits. The terrible weapon
the krauts are looking for may dovetail with some research
being done on Earth.”
“So, you didn’t get the medallion?” asked General Patton.
“Uh, no, Sir. We didn’t make it to Loscanit.”
“Well,” said Patton, “it should be safe enough hanging around
the neck of a Silthuri’s concubine. We can recover it another
time if we need to. Overall, Lieutenant, what do you ship types
say? Ah–well done, Lieutenant.”

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 Emancipation Knights
Ken Spencer

It was raining over Emancipation. Not water, water never

falls from the sky here, at least not like back on Earth. Some
wackjobs upset about Earthlings on Mars had blown up a
freight rocket over the city and ash was falling all around. It
whipped through the streets like snow and covered the Canal
District in a greasy grey blanket.
The thirty crewmen dead up there wasn’t my problem, just the
Silthuri lying face down in the canal. He’s why I got called out
of a warm bed in the middle of the night. I stood outside the
cordon of cops as two Julandri laborers fished the stiff out of
the water.
Inspector Mullen waved me over. “You know this guy?”
“Yeah, that’s why you called me out.”
“How?”Mullen, sorry, Inspector Mullen had come out from
Earth to teach the newly freed Martians of Emancipation how
to do police work. He didn’t like Martians and didn’t like Mars,
but the pay was more than a chief of police back on Earth. He
also didn’t like private dicks, yours truly especially.
I didn’t like him either.
“Former client can’t tell you much else.”
“Try.”
“Confidentiality.”

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We glared at each other. All two hundred and some pounds

of meat going to flab stared down at my buck eighty of flesh
going to booze. The flatfoots inched away and looked like they
wanted to be anywhere else. All of them were Martians, and all
from the former lower castes. They might be free, but master
and master butting heads was trouble they didn’t want to deal
with.
Mullen grunted and blinked first. “Stay where I can find
you, and get outta here.” The sap still thought like an Earth
side copper, which was the bluff I was angling. Emancipation
was too new to have many laws on the books, and client
confidentiality probably hadn’t made it in. Or not. Better have
Roberta check on that.
I took one last glance at the corpse, tipped my hat to all and
sundry, and slouched off back home. Dawn was coming in a
few hours so I just showered and put on a fresh suit. A dead
client wasn’t anything I wanted, and despite what I had told
Mullen, ex-Prince H’illistat’s case was still open. The office
wouldn’t be open until nine, and no one expected me there
until ten at the earliest. That gave me some time to think.
H’illistat wanted me to find a woman, supposedly so he could
pay back some gambling debt. He was in sad shape for a
Silthuri, having pawned most of his gems and jewels just to
stay fed and housed. He didn’t even have an entourage. Not that
unusual on Mars these days, what with the Americans, Brits,
Frenchies, Italians, Nazis, and who knew who else toppling
city-states and setting up their own governments. Hell, when
the Lincoln Brigade came and freed Emancipation nearly the
entire royal caste got axed and the rest ran for the hills with
nothing but what they could carry.
By my third cigarette and second shot of bourbon I had figured
that anyone could have wanted to off a down at the heels
Silthuri with a raging gambling habit and no friends. Especially
one that claimed a title to a place no one had heard of.
Drinking and thinking on an empty stomach was a piss poor
way to start the day, so I ambled across the street to Eloi’s. I
sauntered in past the early morning working crowd and took
a spot at the counter. Stana, Eloi’s daughter and the counter

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waitress most mornings, dropped an ashtray and a cup of

something coffee-like in front of me. I waved her off when she
pulled the flask out from under the counter.
“Working today?”
“Yeah, got a case to solve.”
“I’ll bring over the usual.”
She winked and went down to the other end of the counter
to refill some mugs. As she went she made sure to shake her
caboose a little. Stana was a sweet girl, and pretty, even for
one of the Talandri. She was also a flirt and had her eye on me.
Not that I minded, but Eloi was one of my few friends on this
rock and I didn’t want to upset the apple cart. That and since I
helped him out of a jam with a two-bit protection racket I got
free food.
Someone had left a paper out so I scanned the headlines. The
Reds were having another crackdown in the Jade Triangle,
trying to make the Martian Worker’s Paradise come about
through guns and grenades. The 31st Seal was claiming
responsibility for the rocket ship bombing. Alyssa Hart had just
won the Solar Cup.
Before my bahmoot steak and stigia bird eggs had arrived my
partner edged into the seat next to me. He reached out his hand
and levitated a mug over the counter. The folks in Eloi’s were
used to seeing a seven-foot gangly purple-skinned alien in ill-
fitting suit pull parlor tricks. No one batted an eye but the stunt
brought Stana hurrying down.
“That’s enough of that!” She swiped the mug away and put it
back on the stack. “What do you want you overgrown tannick
bush?”
“My apologies beautiful server of food and drink. You appeared
too busy to be bothered so I choose to help myself.”
“Don’t. Now, what will you have?”
“Water from the dishes and a raw slice of canal fish.”
Yeah, it was sometimes hard to enjoy your breakfast with an
Europan eating next to you. The regulars at Eloi’s were used to

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that and nothing was said, they just turned away and focused
on something else. That’s why my reserved seat was at the end.
I sipped my coffee substitute and Frank gurgled through three
mugs of dishwater. “What are we going to do about the rigid in
the canal?”
‘Stiff Frank, its called a stiff. Nothing, we got paid up front and
the case is closed.”
“We did not solve it, brother, and that leaves an open file on our
desks. Roberta is not pleased about that.”
“Will not be pleased, Frank, unless you already told her. Look,
its trouble we don’t want and don’t need. The money was all
right and covered bills for the next week. It’s better to spend
our time on cases that will pay, not one’s where the client
can’t.”
“I see. Also, I used the correct tense, Roberta does know. She
can read the newspapers. Also, I theorize that I have found the
woman. Also, that she may have killed our client. Also...”
“That’s three ‘alsos’ Frank.”
‘The fourth is that she is in the office waiting for us.”
Well that ruined the meal worse than my partner’s eating
habits. Not that this potential murderer was waiting for me, nor
that Roberta knew about the case before I could spin it, but
that she had opened up the office early. I liked to ease into
my mornings quiet like. Since most mornings I didn’t have any
clients, most afternoons as well, an empty office suited me just
fine.
I waved Stana over and had her package up my breakfast to go.
Frank just distended his jaw and sucked in everything on his
plate. Held it in some pouch in his throat, working away at it for
the next hour. Europans.
We walked the three blocks to the office, dodging the early
morning traffic. Julandri laborers, their powerful bodies
already sweating in the heat, pulled rickshaws down the street.
A few cars tried to make it through the press, but Emancipation
was built without sidewalks and the Martians were still getting
used to vehicles being part of the traffic. The whole scene

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turned to a farce when a palanquin carrying a courtesan tried

to make a left on to Egality from Libertad and tangled with a
rickshaw.
The office wasn’t much. Three flights up in a former Silthuri
office building with no elevator. The air conditioning had
been broken since before Columbus crossed the Atlantic and
the lights turned on most of the time. The phone lines were
brand new, and that drove the rent up to something we could
barely afford. Frank turned down the hall to the front door but
I thought really hard about him following me and we took the
side entrance around the corner. Like all Europans Frank was at
least mildly psychic, he couldn’t read minds but could pick up
thoughts you sent his way, at least most of the time.
The side entrance was the feature I really loved about the place.
Down a dead end hall with no other doors— you wouldn’t
expect it was there. It really wasn’t a door at all, but a locked
panel that slid back and led through a small passage to our
shared office. It was narrow and low, and I had to slouch down
to get through. Frank whacked his head as we made our way in.
Every time. Every damn time.
The office was large with room for two desks, two sets of
chairs for clients, two filling cabinets, and a hutch filled with
bric-a-brac and books (and a hidden drawer with a bottle of
vodka). Large windows looked out onto Libertad below and let
in plenty of light, as well as whatever breeze stirred. Some days
the smell of the bahmoot yards across town.
I snuck in and started to pick up the place, if anything Frank
was even messier than I was. I hoped to gobble up the rest of
my breakfast before Roberta realized we had come in the side
door when Frank flipped the light switch. It was like he had
pulled the pin on a grenade.
The door to the reception room flung open and Roberta
charged in. Most places hire receptionists based on looks first,
and so did I. Except Roberta wasn’t a looker to anyone but
another Maduri. Like all females of the warrior caste she was
tall and built like a refrigerator with a head, all muscle, with a
face like a cross between a warthog and a feral ox. She kept the
riff raff away, which let me get in a nap most afternoons.

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“You have a client dead and another in the waiting room”, she
rumbled using what she considered her inside voice. “There is
no time to waste eating; you will clean up this pigsty while I
entertain the client with coffee and fried dough. She is a lady
and you will treat her with the respect she deserves as such
and as your client.”
Frank froze, a plate of last week’s raw fish in one spindly hand
and a wad of papers in the other. He turned a different shade
of purple, brownish like the wall behind him, and slid softly
into a corner. That left me to suffer Roberta’s full glare. I was
her boss. I had stared down a charge of Chanari raiders on wild
bahmoots. Once I fought off a Metisian assault squad.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Between Frank and me, it took the better part of an hour to
clean up. Outside we could hear soft words and Roberta’s
rumbles. When we were finished I buzzed Roberta and told her
we were ready. It was still thirty minutes before we officially
opened for the day.
“Miss Kalithir to see you Mr. and Mr. Knight”, the intercom
barked.
Roberta opened the door and in walked beauty. Soul grabbing,
essence crushing beauty. Even Frank was moved, turning a
redder shade of purple. With one huge gulp he swallowed
whatever was left in his throat pouch. Miss Kalithir was a
Julandri courtesan, the Martian caste created to be companions,
artists, entertainers, and philosophers. She was tall, maybe
as tall as me, and slender. Her every movement was that of a
dancer, her eyes looked at you and into you and through you,
and…
I remembered the other thing courtesans had besides grace,
beauty and brains. They let off pheromones, scents into the
air, which could affect the mood of most sophonts. It was
worse if you touched their skin. I glanced over at Frank, he was
lost in some hazy dream of whatever Europans find beautiful.
Probably thinking of calamari.
“A pleasure to meet you Miss Kalithir.” I almost didn’t hold out
my hand until I noticed she was wearing gloves. “I’m Ed Knight

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and this is my partner Frank Knight.”

“Brother also.” Great. Frank was a lost cause.
“Different mothers”, I shot out my pat reply. Frank was an
emissary, sent by the Europans to study other species.
Somehow he decided that we had to be brothers and he firmly
believes it. I try to play along.
Kalithir looked puzzled. “Of course. Mr. Knight, and Knight,
I would like to hire your services. I understand you resolve
mysteries the authorities are either unwilling or unable to.”
I glanced over at Frank. He was coming back from wherever he
had gone and staring intently at me. The thought, ‘killer’ came
into my head.
“Well Ms. Kalithir, what exactly is the problem?”
She sighed and the world tried to explode on me again. I wasn’t
having any of it and lit a cigarette to put something in the air
other than her scent. Frank too the cue and lit one as well.
“I am a free Julandri and have been since my city-state fell to
the British Earthlings. Yet, my former prince was not a bad man.
He never treated me poorly and I must admit there was some
affection in our relationship. He has been murdered and I want
you to find the murderer before the authorities can.”
“That’s a tall order and probably illegal, interfering in a police
investigation and such.”
“I had my people look into that, there are no laws in
Emancipation about interfering in a police investigation. I can
pay, and pay well, and provide whatever information you want.”
She certainly could pay well. Her dress was a blend of Earth
fashion and the barely there see-through gowns that Martians
dressed courtesans in. The silk alone cost more than my rent,
and the jewels hanging from her neck and wrist could buy a
rocket back home and have enough left over to make me for life.
I stalled. Greed and the lingering effects of her pheromones
muddled my thoughts. Frank thought she was the killer, and
getting a pair of down on their luck types to bungle into the
cops’ way would keep her out of Execution Square. Plus she

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was a courtesan, and in Emancipation they were becoming

the big powers. Brains, beauty, and long practice playing the
political game, plus those pheromones, had put them on top of
local politics.
Frank, bless his hearts, came to my rescue. “How do we know
you didn’t kill him yourself and just want us to dial interference
for you.”
Her face never changed from a slightly bemused smugness as
she turned to the Europan. “I can provide solid evidence it
was not me nor any of my associates. H’illistat has, had many
enemies; I was not one of them. True, when he was deposed I
took my opportunity for freedom, who would not? But I had
no ill will towards him. Quite the opposite, truly, I have been
covering his worse debts the past months.”
“Then whom have you turned off?”
Kalithir looked confused, so I helped out. “My partner means
offed, as in killed.”
“Oh.” She appraised Frank with a glance. “That. Well. I am not
in the habit of sharing my secrets with strangers.”
“If you want us to help you…”
“Yes, you need some information.” She paused to gather
herself, or at least looked like it. Her demeanor was perfect for
whatever emotion she was wanting to express, but being an old
hand with liars and bunko artists I knew an act when I saw it.
What I didn’t know was what she was covering, and what was
true. Every good lie has some truth in it.
“I committed no crime in this city-state. Last week I was forced
to kill a Maduri I was working with when he turned on me
during the pay off. The deed weighs heavy on my heart.”
I glanced at Frank, he looked satisfied, so I took the bait. “Tell
us what you know.”
“You will take the case?”
“You got a hundred US dollars, fifty a day, plus expenses?”
“Of course.” She reached into her little clutch purse, Earthling
style but made from Royal Karn feathers pressed into

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velvet and withdrew a roll of cash. Real greenbacks, not an

Emancipation dollar in the bunch, and laid out a hundred fifties,
plus a stack of twenties. “This should engage you for a week
and cover expenses. If you need more of the latter you can
reach me at my hotel, the Arms, room 416.”
As casually as I could I scooped up enough cash to keep the
lights on and me in bourbon for the rest of the year. I got
Roberta on the intercom and told her to come in to take notes.
She banged through the door and stood against the wall
behind our new client. “Tell us what you know.”
Kalithir spun a story about how she split up from H’illistat
after he was deposed, ran with some freebooters, and made a
fortune selling Ancient Martian artifacts on the black market.
Nothing too illegal and nothing I hadn’t heard before. She ran
into the ex-prince in Kostrast last year, down on his luck and
living in a flophouse. She gave him some money, used her
contacts to get him a position with the US State Department
as a translator, and slept with him one last time. She didn’t
see him again until a month ago when he found her here and
begged for more money. Seems he had skipped out on his
cushy job and went back to gambling.
“He wanted to raise enough money to buy an army and retake
his city-state. I couldn’t allow that, but I could keep him from
living in degradation. I gave him enough money to live on for
several months, even with his gambling, and promised to look
out for a chance for him to earn more. He thanked me and left.
That was the last I heard of him until this morning.”
“When you saw his name in the papers?”
“No, when another of his former slaves came and told me that
the Prince was dead.”
“Who was that?”
“Samsilikir, but he calls himself Sammie now. He works at the
Rocket Cat as a dancer. H’illistat and he found each other and
shared a room on Down Street. Samsilikir was always more
loyal than me.”
That was one lead, plus the gamblers and the usual crowd that
just want to off a Silthuri. Maybe the State Department didn’t

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like folks leaving them, especially if they knew too much.

“Anything else Miss Kalithir?”
“No.”
“If you think of anything just call. We have a service for after
hours.” I stood, Frank stood, Roberta opened the door, and our
new client glided out of the office. Once she was gone Roberta
hung around until I told her to type up the notes. I waited
until the sound of meaty fingers punching the old Remington
portable told me she wasn’t listening, and judging by the racket
it made, couldn’t if she wanted to.
“I could not tell if she was lying. Also, the lead she gave may be
a covering. Also, we were going to investigate this anyways.”
Frank kept looking right at me, his mouth moving in a sideways
grinding motion.
“And?”
“You said stop after two alsos.”
“Just lay it out”
“We might have been mentally suborned into taking this case.
Al-, as well the money might be counterfeit or hot.”
“The money is hot alright, but it looks real enough. Like you
said, we were going to look into this anyways. Would that tape
deck in your chest tell you if you had been brain twisted?”
“No, my brother, I have no access to it. Doing so would activate
the security devices. I would go, gooey.”
“Can’t have that. Here’s the plan. You hit the morgue and get
Roberta checking the record office. I’ll look into gambling dens
and try to find that girl H’illistat was looking for. We’ll meet up
at Eloi’s at nine and go to the Rocket Cat.”
“Excellent. Shall I position myself against my contact?”
“Yeah, go lean on that little weasel, see what he has to say.”
I open the locked drawer in my desk and got out my piece.
Taking this as a clue Frank did the same with his. Things might
get hairy from here on out.

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As we grabbed out hats and headed for the stairs, front door
this time, Frank asked, “Did you find her attractive?”
“Yes, who wouldn’t? I think she even got to Roberta.”
“I could not maintain clear thoughts. Also, it was not just mental
subordination or pheromones.”
“Could you and her even…”
“No my brother.”
“Ah, different species different parts.”
“Do you want to hear an uncomfortable truth?”
“Not really.”
“I am an emissary and being male is who I must be and what I
am. Also, biologically speaking, I do not possess male organs.”
“You’re a woman?”
“No, I am a man. My biology is not like anything your language
has a word for. I am neither made like a man or a woman. Also,
I have decided to be male and also I am.”
“Well, you’re all man to me Frank.”
“Also, I made a device that I wear under my suit.”
“That’s enough sharing Frank.”
“I would like to test it one day.”
We hit the streets and parted ways. Thankfully. I headed down
to the docks canal side. H’illistat was a degenerate gambler and
down on his luck. I didn’t see him as the type to hit the big
casinos downtown on Freedom Square. The little dens along
the canal that served the boat trade had lower buy-ins and less
scruples. A few hours of hoofing it in the heat made me thirsty
so I stopped in for a drink and remembered to get some food
since I was on a case.
After the midday break, Martians tended to stop business for a
few hours at noon and then again around six, I headed down
to the tracks. So far I had turned up nothing, which surprised
me. H’illistat should have been well known at the seedy joints.

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Maybe I was wrong, maybe his former slave had given him
enough dough to get himself thrown out of the classy joints.
I was about to hail a rickshaw when I smelled bad cologne and
spoiled milk. A large hand clamped down on my shoulder and
steered me into an alleyway. I went with it, I knew this palooka,
but not what he, or more accurately, his boss wanted.
“Easy now big fella, I don’t want any trouble.”
I was spun around to look into the chest of a bad suit. Big
Timmy was a Julandri laborer, bred to be dumb brutes by the
Ancients and worked to death by the current, and increasingly
former, rulers of Mars. A lot of them were free now and
making a life in Emancipation. Big Timmy had chosen to be
muscle for a particularly foul crime boss called Slate Mac.
“Boss want talk you. You come now or I punch in head.”
“Can’t argue with that offer.” Big Timmy looked confused for a
moment and then fell back on his training. Keeping one hand
clamped on my shoulder he hailed a rickshaw and shoved me in
before climbing up himself. The wood and plastic cart strained
a bit before he settled in. A few words were exchanged with the
Julandri puller, but it was in the slave caste dialect so I had no
idea where we were going.
I needn’t have wondered. Four blocks later we were climbing
out in front of the Rusty Harpoon, the dockside’s scummiest
joint. It was where Slate Mac held court for the lowlifes and
thugs he called his organization. Big Timmy pushed me inside
and guided me towards the back room. We waited by the door
for a few minutes until a Maduri in full armor and crossed
pistol belts opened it and let a motley crew of freebooters out.
She gestured for us and my escort steered me in and gave me a
push.
“Now, now, Timmy, no need for that. Mr. Knight is here to help.”
The toad behind the table was an Earthling, though I hated
to be lumped in with his kind. Slate Mac, an alias with no
known legal name, was two hundred pounds of raw beef in a
tuxedo. Why he wore a tux when doing business no one knew
or wanted to ask. It was a nice one though, with a fresh red
carnation in the lapel (four hundred bucks and flown in from

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Earth). His stubby fingers glittered with gold and diamonds,

his hair was greased to a flat helmet across his head, and his
mustache was trimmed to a perfect line across his upper lip.
“What do you want, Mac?”
“Uncivil, and so early in the afternoon.” He waved to one of the
floozies hanging around in the room. “Clear out sweets, and
bring Mr. Knight a drink, he probably could use one.”
“No thanks, I just ate.” Even if I trusted him not to spike the
drink the bartender was spitting in the glasses to clean them as
we went through.
“Suit yourself.” The floozies left and it was just Slate, his pair of
twin Maduri bodyguards, and me. “I understand you have been
asking about a certain Silthuri gambler, a man with a habit not
unlike yourself.”
“Yeah, he was a client and he wound up dead. Seemed prudent
to ask about that.”
“Ah, so we have a business partner in common. I have long
wanted our relationship to be on firmer ground.”
“Sure.”
“No need for that. H’illistat came to me with a business
proposition, one that I truly wanted to help him with but sadly
could not in all good conscience participate in.”
“You with a conscience?”
“I am trying to help you Mr. Knight. Yes, even for me there are
some things that go beyond the pale. The former prince wanted
to be a prince again and offered me free reign in his city-state
if I helped him to regain it. Sadly, that would put me at odds
with many of my freedom loving associates here, so I declined.
I find slavery so abhorrent, and unprofitable.”
“So you said no and he left?”
“I certainly didn’t kill him. Before you interrupt with some rude
comment, I did not want him killed either. We conducted some
other business, which was not completed before the ex-prince’s
untimely demise. Since you are performing, surprisingly, due
diligence in your work I thought you might help with tying up

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your late client’s loose ends.”

“Like what?”
“A man of few words. I shall have to send you one of those
calendars that offer a new word to learn every day. You might
find it useful. I arranged a purchase on behalf of our late friend.
The seller has arrived to make delivery, but the buyer is dead
and his money is missing. That leaves me in a bit of a pickle,
does it not?”
“Yeah, you don’t get your cut.”
“No, well yes, but more importantly my reputation is tarnished.”
“Shame that.”
“Indeed. I can arrange a finder’s fee if you locate H’illistat’s
money and return it to me.”
“I don’t work for criminals.”
“You do all the time. You just either fail to ask or look the other
way.”
While that was true, at least on a few occasions, I didn’t want
to get into bed with a slug like Slate Mac. “Alright, I don’t work
for you.”
“You fought to free Emancipation.”
“Yeah, so did a lot of Earthlings around here.”
“Before that you fought in Spain against the fascists. And before
that you were a Rocket Ranger, oh, and then they threw you out
for what I am sure was a misunderstanding.”
“So I made some bad calls.”
“You seem to be like a man who wants to change the world.
Save the innocent. The purchase in question is a Deutsche
Marskorps war walker. If I do not buy it someone else will.
Someone unlikely to simply sell it on to someplace else.”
Slate had me. A war walker was a to a tank what a tank was
to a grunt with a rifle. One of those loose in town would be a
bloodbath. True, the city-sate had its own military, but they
didn’t have much that could take down a war walker. I couldn’t

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trust Slate, but I could count on him to know where his bread
came from, and a wrecked city would be bad for business.
“Where’d H’illistat get that kind of dough?”
“Where do you think?”
As I left the Rusty Harpoon I had a lot of thinking to do. Sober
thinking, the hardest kind. I hailed a rickshaw and headed
back to the office. Hopefully Roberta had turned something
up at the records office. If Kalithir was handing out war walker
money, that changed things. Maybe she wasn’t on the up
and up about not wanting to see the old hometown back in
H’illistat’s hands. Maybe Slate was just lying through his yellow
teeth. Maybe it was all on the up and up. I thought about the
rocket freighter than had been blown up. Maybes might not cut
it.
Roberta wasn’t back in the office yet, but the lights were on
in the reception room. I took the side entrance and eased
across my office to peak through the keyhole. There was an
earthling sitting in the reception room in a clean and freshly
pressed suit. He held his hat on one knee and skipped through
the newspaper, humming some marching tune. Between the
neatness of his clothes, rigidness of his posture, and close cut
blond hair I pegged him as a soldier.
Did I need a drink? Yes, and no. I looked at the hutch and its
hidden drawer. I looked back through the keyhole at the man’s
crotch. He knocked on the door.
“Mr. Knight? I would like a word.” The accent was slight but
unmistakably German. He knocked again.
I stood up and opened the door. “May I help you?”
“I would hopes so. My name is Gunter, Heinrich Gunter, and I
need you to find something.”
“That’s the business I’m in. Sit down and tell me about it.” I
slid behind my desk and tried not to reach for my piece. Gunter
casually sat into a chair, his back ramrod straight. His eyes took
in the room at a glance, especially the windows. With too much
casualness he reached into his jacket and pulled out a cigarette
case and a matchbook. No holder. He lit, took a long drag, and

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started in.
“I see no need for a preamble, Mr. Knight. I know who you are
and you know whom I work for. We have lost something of
great value and believe the thief is in this city trying to sell it.
We know your client was the buyer. Find the stolen item and
return it. That is all we ask. You will be well rewarded, shall we
say a thousand US dollars now and another thousand when you
are successful?”
“What was stolen?”
“A large crate containing a valuable piece of military hardware.”
“A war walker?” To his credit he didn’t bat an eye, just sat there
dragging on his butt before mashing it out in the ashtray.
“Yes. Another thousand for your discretion in this matter.”
We eyed each other for a bit. He picked a bit of lint off his suit.
I shuffled some papers around so that the light bill landed on
top. “Sure.”
“Excellent. Here is a number where you can reach me.” He stood
up, drew an envelope from his inside his suit and dropped it on
the table before taking his hat and walking out. I looked at his
card; the number was for the Arms hotel, room 422.
The envelope was stuffed with cash, at least a thousand. I put
my lighter to it and dropped it in the wastebasket. I might be a
broken down two bit private dick, but I didn’t take money from
Nazis.
A second later I bolted into the reception room and grabbed the
carafe of water Roberta kept on her desk. Money is still money.
What, you thought I would use the bourbon?
I put the pitcher back and cleaned up the water I had spilled in
the reception room, Roberta would have tore me a new one if I
hadn’t. It was nearly six and the city was shutting down for its
second nap. I wanted to go native and help out with that, but
I had work to do. I called the service and left a message for
Frank to meet me an hour earlier and hailed a rickshaw to the
Rocket Cat.
The place wouldn’t open for a few more hours and most of

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the staff was having their afternoon meal and nap. On the
way I bought a bouquet of flowers and just walked in the
side entrance. A mean looking Venusian ambled up to me
but I brushed him off with a story about delivering flowers
to Sammie the dancer. The ape-man pointed me towards the
dressing rooms and I tipped my hat to him. Maybe her. Hard to
tell with Venusians.
Sammie wasn’t a feature dance and didn’t rate his own dressing
room, so when I walked up and heard voices I wasn’t surprised.
I was surprised to see a pair of Earthlings in matching suits
answer the door. The tall one told me to shove off and
slammed the door in my face, but not before I got a look at
a gorgeous man in feathers sobbing in the corner. I mean
gorgeous. I’m not that way, don’t care who is, but started to
think about it. There was a scent of honey and strawberries in
the air. Damn courtesans.
My fugue was interrupted by a thwack of flesh hitting flesh in
a not so nice way. I kicked in the door to see the gorgeous man
being held by the tall one while the short one worked him over.
He wasn’t trying not to leave bruises. Rude, the gorgeous man
was a dancer.
Tallboy looked surprised; shorty turned around and took my
fist in his face. That got the big galumph moving, he let go of
the dancer I hoped right then was Sammie and reached into his
jacket. Something told me he wasn’t going for an envelope of
money. I kicked shorty in the jewels and tried to leap over the
dancer and tackle tallboy. I missed and went face first into a
mirror.
While I brought my wits back online and shorty sobbed in the
corner, the tall one grabbed me by the shirt collar and spun me
around. He thrust a badge in my face.
“FBI, you’re under arrest for striking an officer. Now sit down
before things get violent.”
Things had already been violent enough thank you very much.
They got more violent.
I twisted and threw the fed into the wall. Giving shorty a boot
to the chin to keep him down I hauled big fed up and slammed

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him crown first into the plaster. That put him out. Turning out
his pockets produced the badge, a wallet with three hundred
US dollars, and some folded up papers. I grabbed the dancer by
the hand and fled.
I came out of it kissing him in an alley outside the Rocket Cat.
Stepping back and straightening up I asked the all important
question, “Are you Sammie?”
“Let me thank you some more for rescuing me.”
“Ah, that was thanks enough.” My head started to clear. I had
dealt with courtesans before they only could do their tricks a
few times before the pheromones or whatnot were exhausted.
Still, I stepped back. “What’s your name?”
“What do you want it to be?” Ok, even without the pheromones
their voices had a certain lilt. Still muddled I decided not to get
rough with this one.
“What is it really?”
“Sammie.”
“Look, I just want some information.”
“I owe you. Who were those guys?”
“Feds, but outside their jurisdiction. We had best get to
somewhere else before they come to.”
I offered Sammie my arm, no reason to be rude, and we
strolled out onto the street. He leaned in and we looked like
a couple out on the town in the early evening. Two blocks
brought us to a café and we grabbed a table from which I could
see the door but was hidden from the front windows.
“Let’s start with your old friend H’illistat.”
Sammie blanched and scooted away in his chair.
“I didn’t kill him if that’s what you are after.”
“Let’s begin again. I’m Ed Knight, private detective. Your former
master was a client and I want to know who whacked him and
why.”
“It wasn’t me.”

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“Go on.”
“Look, I hated the guy and loved him at the same time. You
know how the Silthuri can pitch their voices? He was bad at
that. Couldn’t command anyone. He owned me and I always
hated that. When I saw him here I wanted to kill him, but there
were good times and, we were bred to be their toys. Something
inside me just, wanted it.” He broke down in sobs and everyone
in the café glared at me.
I patted his shoulder. “It, uh, it’s all right. We’re all made
twisted like somehow. Just tell me the facts, bare facts, it’ll be
easier.”
Sammie calmed down and we ordered drinks from a glare
filled waiter. Sammie had the local wine and so did I, hey, I
was being friendly and it was just wine. After a bit and some
more calming words from yours truly such as ‘yeah, ‘it’s alright,
and ‘no, you look fine, a pretty inna weepin kinda way’ I got
the whole story.
Sammie had been dancing at the Rocket Cat for a few months.
Making it from backup to line dancer. H’illistat had wandered
in about two weeks ago and spotted his ex-slave. The prince
was with some rich Earthlings and throwing money around
like no tomorrow. He started in pursuing Sammie, flowers,
candy, jewels, promises, the usual bullshit. For his part
Sammie didn’t really fall for it, he knew the prince was a lying
slaving degenerate bastard, but he was Sammie’s lying slaving
degenerate bastard.
Hanging around H’illistat, Sammie picked up that the ex-prince
had some big deal to become a prince again, and the money
to back it up. That scared Sammie more than anything and
he wanted to split, but H’illistat had some goons now. What
clenched it was H’illistat started leaving off Sammie and
spending his nights with an Earthling woman.
“Did you get her name?”
“Esperanza something.”
“Garcia? Five four, long hair, dark skin? Scar over her left eye?”
“Yes, that’s her. I wasn’t jealous but she was scary, and H’illistat

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was doting on her. I was going to skip town and try my luck
down south when my sister found me and paid me to stay and
spy on the, my, that bastard prince.”
“Your sister?”
“Kalithir.”
I choked on my wine. Yeah, I’m great at shaking down
informants. A real professional.
“I know you knew each other, she told me. What does she have
to do with all of this?”
“She was giving money to H’illistat.”
Pieces should have been falling into place, and if they were, I
didn’t like it. I paid the tab and we walked back to the Cat.
There was no sign of the goons and the big Venusian was
waiting at the stage entrance.
“One last thing Sammie, what did those feds want?”
“They wanted to know where to find a war walker. I told them
I had never seen one, praise the Ancestors. Then they started,
started.”
“Yeah, just keep someone around you, like that big fella over
there.” Sammie gave me a kiss on the cheek, no pheromones,
and went in. I figured the feds wouldn’t be back anytime soon
and hoped the Venusian would be a more on the ball with
security.
I headed down to Eloi’s to meet Frank. Before I went a block
I had picked up a tail. Two actually, the feds were following
and not doing a great job of being discrete. I took a sharp turn
at the corner and hailed a rickshaw. The goons rushed up and
watched me ride away, then hoped in their own cart and the
chase was on. A slow perfectly legal and sedate chase as our
rickshaws maneuvered through the traffic. I lit a cig, pulled
down my hat, and took a snooze.
The puller stopped in front of Eloi’s and grumbled until I woke
up. I tipped her well, Nazi cash just runs right through my
fingers, and strolled into the diner. Frank was already there
and flirting with Stana. For her part she ignored him and his

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bad pick up lines, but never gave him the hard shove-off. I took
my usual seat while he gurgled dishwater and professed his
undying love.
“Don’t look but I was followed.”
“Feds?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“Pinky said there was a couple of American goons in town. Also,
they were beating on people. Also, while asking questions
about war walkers.”
“How is the rat?”
“Pinky does not keep pets.”
I let it go, this time. After filling him in on my day, I let Frank
catch me up. There’s an Europan emissary working at the
morgue, he’s also a doctor in the city run hospital. Frank
knows him from somewhere; they’re both pretty cagey about
it. Our stiff was shot in the heart with a disintegrator. Not a
common weapon, in fact the Europan government tries to track
any that get out of their hands. One pop and H’illistat’s heart
simply turned to ash. His stomach had booze and onions in it,
nothing else. He was dead well before he hit the water, at least
three hours according to Dr. Goodfeeling.
“The doc get any of that fancy trace evidence your people can
pick up?”
“Yes. Dr. Goodfeeling prefers to use Earthling or Martian
technologies. Also, he is studying your medical science. Also, a
disintegrator was used and there are only the two of us in the
city. Also, we did not commit the crime.”
“Also?”
“His cerebral fluid was filled with Julandri courtesan pheromone
traces.”
“Sounds like our girl.”
“Roberta is a Maduri.”
“No, our client Frank. The live one. Either her or Sammie, and I

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don’t figure Sammie for the killing type. Let’s skip the Cat and
head over to the Arms. Pay Ms. Kalithir a visit.”
“We should call first, it would be polite.”
“I’m not planning on being polite.”
We finished up our dinner and headed out. The feds had
waited outside like good little goons and followed us
downtown to the Emancipation Arms Hotel and Resort. It was
a fancy place, the royal palace before the revolution. Liveried
servants, mostly Talandri and Julandri laborers stood ready. We
walked in like we owned the place.
We practically did, at least the parts we cared about. The hotel
dick was an old friend of mine. Ben Carlin was on duty in his
office, but he had enough tech and helpers to know who came
through the door. As he stepped out of his office I casually
tapped my hat and we met up in the hall past the elevators.
“You’re not causing trouble in my hotel?”
“Naw, Ben, nothing like that. We just need to drop in on a client
in room 416.”
“Social call?”
“Pure business.”
“You’ll have to tell me what this is about, I’ll have to answer for
any damage you two cause.”
I took a risk and leveled with him, figuring he had heard the
rumors that Frank’s contact had. “I think she is involved with
this war walker we keep hearing about. I just need to lean on
her and get the straight dope.”
“Don’t lean too hard. Take the service elevator.”
The elevator wasn’t a refurbished Ancient Martian design like
the fancy ones in the lobby. This was pure Earthling tech, so
it was slow, loud, and stank. At least it didn’t play music. The
operator didn’t even bat an eye at two strangers riding in his car,
just asked our floor and up we went.
I knocked on 416 and heard two voices, both I recognized,
wonder who was at the door. I ducked back from the peephole

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and gestured for Frank to do the same. The next room had a
food cart in front of it so I slid it over.
Sure enough, like the gentleman he thought he was, Gunter
opened the door. He saw the cart, looked left at me, and Frank
wrapped all fourteen fingers and four thumbs around the top of
the Nazi’s head and lifted.
I moved the cart out of the way, a little too fast tipping it over
with a loud crash, and followed Frank into the room with my
RAY gun out. One foot closed the door and my eyes fell on
Kalithir sitting pretty on the couch. “Don’t move.”
She sat there stunned and letting out honeysuckle and spice.
Gunter struggled out of Frank’s grasp and went to deck the
Europan. You ever punch a Europan? They don’t have bones,
just all muscle, cartilage, and some sort of hydrostatic tube
thingy. Frank deflated along the back of his head and turned
his face into solid mass of compressed meat.
He let go of Gunter and flicked a pain baton out of his sleeve. A
quick flick, it barely touched Gunter, and the Nazi was on the
ground writhing in agony and a pool of his own leaking fluids.
Both ends.
I should have been watching Kalithir. She casually drew
something from her purse and I hoped in that last moment it
was a stunner.
I don’t know what it was, some Ancient Martian tech for sure.
Before I could switch my RAY pistol to stun she hit us with it.
Me, Frank, and poor Gunter all got zapped with a flash of red
light. Well, maybe I don’t feel so bad about Gunter, but even
a Nazi doesn’t need to be hit with a pain baton and that thing
right after another.
I woke up with a hangover like I hadn’t had since I first started
drinking. My mouth felt like wet mice dipped in the sewer, and
one eye could only see the color yellow. Frank was cuffed to me,
and he was cuffed to pipe. We were both in a bare stone room
of some kind with a plastic door and no windows.
Frank was awake and humming. “You have recovered my
brother. They took our weapons but left my medical kit. Also, I
used the transocular injector to revive you. Also…”

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“You stabbed a needle in my eye?”

“Also, it has a side effect of increasing acuity in low light
conditions.”
“What about the yellow?”
“It will fade in a day or two. Usually. Also, maybe.”
“Any idea where we are?”
“A small square stone room. Also, there is no light save for what
is from outside. Also, only one door.” Frank deflated his hands
and slipped both out of the cuffs. I was so happy he hadn’t
jabbed his Europan eye needle thingy into me with his mouth.
We tried the door it was locked. Kalithir, or whoever carted us
down here and cuffed us, wasn’t that great at their job. Frank
has his medical kit, we both had our wallets and keys, and I
still had my lock picks. The door jimmied we edged out into
the hall.
We were in a warehouse, and by the smell of it near the
bahmoot yards. A pile of rags and buckets lined the halls; we
must have been locked in the janitor’s closet. Across the hall
was another door with light coming underneath it.
We split up, Frank went to look for an exit and I listened at the
door. Two women were talking, Kalithir and Garcia.
“No money, no war walker.”
“We will have the money.”
“Where’s your Nazi boyfriend?”
“He is indisposed at the moment. While we wait, alone…”
“No chance sister. I’ve tangled with your kind before. This item
is hot, and if you don’t have the money by the morning I’m
gone. There are a lot of buyers.”
“Slate won’t be happy.”
“Who do you think finds other buyers? Oh, and thanks for
dumping your trouble on me. I liked Ed, shame to have to chop
him up and toss him to the bahmoots.”

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I really wanted to burst in and blast both of them. Kalithir was

playing me for a chump, plus whatever she was planning to do
with the Bahmoot. Garcia, well, we’ve got a history. Yeah, I’m
the reason she has that scar but back in ‘36 she left me to die
in the Empty Quarter and rode off with some weasely punk
named Jackson.
I thought really hard towards Frank and got back an image of a
side door. No directions, just a door. Picking a path at random
I managed to find him and we slipped away. He wanted to go
back and get our weapons, but the chances of the two of us
unarmed against Garcia, Kalithir, and whatever mooks were
working for them were slim.
“It is in the warehouse. There is a big crate covered in Nazi
words. Also, those strange symbols they put on everything.”
“German, it’s the German language Frank. Did you see it?”
“Yes. A large crate.”
“No the walker.”
“It is in the crate.”
I wasn’t too sure about that. Stealing a war walker is a pretty
big deal. Gunter was a German all right, and I figured a Nazi by
the way he talked, but the two don’t always go hand in hand.
If he was looking for a war walker, why was he palling around
with Kalithir? Why did she want me to find H’illistat’s killer?
The only person with a clear motive was Slate Mac, and that
just didn’t feel right. Well, him and Garcia, but she wanted the
money and revenge.
I needed to find the woman that H’illistat was looking for. Up
to now I thought it was a waste of time but there were too
many unanswered questions. I stopped at a pay phone and
called the service. Roberta had left a message that she had info
from the records office. I left one for her to meet us at a bar on
Cotter. Yes, that Cotter. There’s no street named after me here,
even though I took a bullet liberating the place.
Frank and I got there early, but Roberta had somehow managed
to still beat us there.
“You two are late.”

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“We’re early Roberta.”

“And you look like bahmoot shit. Smell like it too.”
“It’s been a hard day, just tell us what you found.”
She eyed Frank and I, snorted in disgust, and pulled out her
notebook. “Three subjects. Prince G’hascar Pilarti H’illistat
formerly of H’illistat, Silthuri male, no known address, no
known employment, three convictions for public drunkenness,
filed for a license to form a mercenary company ten days ago.
Listed one Samsilikir, Julandri Courtesan, as next of kin on
the license. Samsilikir, Julandri Courtesan male, resides at
apartment 19, 341 Kaloth Street, employed at the Rocket Cat as
a dancer, no police record. Kalithir, Julandri courtesan female,
resides at the Arms Hotel and Resort, room 416, no known
employment, listed as a freebooter with warrants in Herscal,
Kostrast, and Tarentia, all for various crimes ranging from theft
to murder.”
“Excellent work Roberta. How do you manage to get so much
information? Also, we smell like bahmoot shit because we had
to crawl under a fence to escape.”
“Of course it is excellent work, Mr. Knight, it is what you pay
me for. It took about fifteen minutes to pull the records so I
took the initiative and found the woman that H’illistat hired us
to look for. Not that either of you actually did any looking.”
“Where was she?” Roberta was getting a raise. Well, no, even
with the money coming in we couldn’t afford that. Maybe
something nice instead, like a new war axe. She’d like that.
“In the morgue.”
“Who was she?”
“Sally Warbler, Earthling female, prostitute, resided at 719
Wheelwright Street. Last seen in the company of a richly
dressed Silthuri along the canal walk. Cause of death was a
single disintegrator shot through the heart. The body was found
this morning stuffed into a culvert under the Freedom Street
bridge.”
“Frank, why didn’t your contact tell you about this?”

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“I am sorry my brother. Dr. Goodfeeling works the night shift.

Also, he says the sun is bad for his complexion.”
“Who is going around with a disintegrator?”
‘I did. Dr. Goodfeeling. Also, Kalithir does. Also, Little Slim
the shoeshine boy.” I blinked at that last one. “Little Slim is an
emissary studying shoe shining.”
“Right.”
“It seems important. At least it does to the High Command.
Also, surprisingly dangerous.”
“Do you all meet up nights and have a powwow? Wait, don’t
tell me. Right now we have to figure out what we are going to
do about this. The way I see it, Kalithir is behind all of this,
the murders, the war walker, the missing money, the whole
shebang. First things first, we need to make sure there really
is a war walker. Garcia has pulled this kind of stunt before, I
know, I helped her do it once or twice.”
We made a plan. It wasn’t a good one; in fact it was the
dumbest thing we could do. It was, however, a plan. Roberta
went back to the office and fetched out backup pieces and the
heavy hardware while I made a call.
An hour later we were back at the warehouse. The place
looked deserted, but it was supposed to. Frank spotted a pair
of Chanari warriors watching from the roof. Garcia employed
the wild raiders of the deep desert as her personal guards, and
there were likely more inside. Our Roberta was not stealthy by
any means, and when there looked like there would be a fight
she puts on the ornate armor she had worn as part of the city’s
legions. She was, however, a good shot, and from a hundred
yards away took down both guards with her arrow caster.
That was Frank and mine’s cue, and we slipped up to the side
entrance and let ourselves in. The inside was dark, the better
for the Chanari to use their Nightvision, but Frank could see
well enough and use his minor psychic talents to spot their
thoughts. Three more guards went down, it was quiet, messy,
personal work.
Once the place was secure we tiptoed to the crate. I found

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a crowbar and pried the lid off. Inside was a bundle of red
Martian rocks, bags of sand, and nothing else. I was right, and
in a few minutes I knew I would feel really stupid.
The stupid came earlier than I thought. A two-foot circle of
crate next to my head turned to ash in a flash of green light. I
rolled to the side and sought cover while Frank did the same.
Someone turned on the lights. Someone else swore in High
Martian.
“That your kill gun Frank?”
“No, the beam is the wrong frequency.”
“How many?”
“I do not know, my brother. There is something blocking me.
Also, I might not be detecting thoughts correctly. Also, it could
be a roboman.”
I sneaked a quick peak around the corner. Two figures were
crouching next to the hall that led to the side door. Kalithir and
Gunter for sure, and both armed with disintegrators.
“Mr. Knight, and Knight”, she called out, “you are not getting
out of this alive. Surrender and your deaths will be swift.”
“No thanks. Hey how about you surrender and confess to a pair
of murders?”
“Nein!”
“I’m not talking to any Nazi bastard!”
Gunter roared and charged, disintegrator blazing. Maybe
he wasn’t as good as he thought, maybe it was getting pain
batonned and stunned earlier in the day, but his shots didn’t
even hit the crate. I plugged him twice with my old Colt
automatic. After the thunder of beams and bullets it got real
quiet.
There was the faintest of scents in the air, but Kalithir had
already used up her pheromones. “A bargain Knight, and we
can both leave here alive and rich.”
“Sure, why not?” I thought really hard at Frank. He didn’t hear,
so I motioned for him to flank her. He didn’t get it.

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“You two back out the main door and I’ll go out the way I came
in. We can meet at a public place and talk money.”
“What about the walker?”
“I can get a cart and get it out of town.”
“Double cross Garcia?”
‘What does she matter? Just some smuggler. I can offer you
much more. My prince is dead; you can be the new prince.
With the war walker leading our armies we can take over
H’illistat. We will live like Silthuri, free and powerful.”
“You shot your last prince.”
“He was a fool. I could have given him everything but he choose
to waste his money on games of chance and his time with
some Earthling whore. She stole from him, by the way, took
the money I gave him and tried to run. You are smarter than
that.”
“What about Gunter, how smart was he?”
“Not very. Just a convenience. You and me, and even that alien
monstrosity you call your brother, we can be kings!”
Frank mouthed ‘Roberta’ to me and held up two fingers. “What
about Sammie, can we keep him?”
“Sure, he dances well enough and knows most of the seventy-
nine erotic blisses.”
I had to keep her talking. Seventy-nine?
“What guarantee do I have you won’t shoot us and dump us in
an alley?”
Frank mouthed ‘canal”. Literal minded alien…
“What do I have to prove you will not do the same? Trust based
on mutual trust and paranoia, it is how Mars has been ruled for
generations.”
“How about we start now with the trust. Slide over my RAY
gun.”
She was quiet for a bit and then I heard the skitter of metal on

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stone. It landed just past my end of the crate. Nice try, but no
dice.
“There it is.”
“One last question before we start trusting each other.”
“Oh why not, its not like Garcia or one of her savages will be
back any minute.”
“What do we tell Slate Mac?”
“Whatever you wa…” She was cut off. Right above the clavicle.
Guess Roberta could be stealthy after all.
“Clean up this place and we can leave, Ed. The Rangers will
be here any minute.” I came around the crate to see Roberta
wiping her sun axe clean. There was Kalithir’s headless body
slumped to the ground and a two-inch deep cut about head
high in the wall.
We almost made it. Frank and I had collected our weapons; he
grabbed the extra disintegrator pistol, and we were heading for
the side door when the roof blew in. Flashing lights and booms
echoed in the warehouse. The back blast of three rocket packs
lit the smoke and a trio of Rocket Rangers in assault armor
came down with RAY guns drawn.
Frank and I dropped our pieces and assumed the position,
and Roberta followed a split second later. Two of the Rangers
patted us down and rudely spun us around.
“Well now, what have we here? Ed Knight, goodness gracious,
when you called I wanted to punch your traitorous mug and
here you are!”
I looked up into the clean-jawed face of Captain Hank Cotter,
US Rocket Rangers. Yes, that Cotter, the one they named a
street after. Cocky bastard showed up at the end of the fight
that time too.
“Cotter, I can explain.”
“Not likely, but grab the shovel and fling the manure.”
“Right. We tracked the missing war walker here where the buy
would take place. Only there was no war walker, no money,

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and Garcia probably skipped town. False alarm, sorry boys.”

“Sorry my shiny metal ass. You called out three Rangers in the
middle of their breakfast, taking them from legitimate missions,
and you didn’t even lay peepers on the target? Shit, son, you’re
dumber than I thought. Who’s the dead girl?”
“Buyer. Wanted to try and retake her home city-state. Killed her
prince, wanted to set herself up as the new ruler.”
“You as well my brother.”
Cotter glared at me for that and I elbowed Frank. “Cotter, I
noticed you aren’t asking about the other corpse.”
“Yeah, Johan Webber, known freebooter, thief, murder, rapist,
and occasional Nazi agent. Don’t care if you did for him or
someone else did it. Bastard had to die. Anything else to
report?”
“No.”
“Still drunk, still surly, still a waste of guv’mint time and money.
Keep up the good work and call if you have a real emergency.
Make damn certain next time.” Cotter touched his bubble
helmet like he was tipping his hat to Roberta, “Ma’am”. The
rangers moved away form us and launched up into the night.
“Was that really Captain Cotter?” If I didn’t know any better I
thought Roberta was going to swoon.
“Yeah.”
“I look forward to telling the girls down at the records office.”
We headed back to our office. It was well past midnight and
the city was starting to wind down. All I wanted was bourbon
and bed, but Roberta made us clean our weapons and fill out
reports first. The sun was peaking up over the city by the time
Frank and I made it back to our apartment. I hate sleeping in
the heat. I do, but I don’t like it.
Frank flopped into his room and closed the door. I pulled
down the Murphy bed and collapsed into it. I couldn’t sleep.
Something was nagging at me. Then it hit me, the money to
buy the war walker was still missing. If word got out. I tried to
come up with a plan but exhaustion finally took its hold.

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 The next day all hell broke loose.

Three Aces For The Dancer

Ed Greenwood

Over here, Crowninshield”.

The murmur was little more than a whisper, yet held that slight
but unmistakable musical lilt—a momentary trill on the softer
vowels—of the Silthuri, the royal caste of Martians.
Not a voice anyone would expect to hear in a dim and cluttered
back storeroom of an art gallery on Earth.
Where large public art galleries tend to be either staid, old-
fashioned display houses of art history, or spaces given over to
the everchanging avant garde of the “trendy edge” of shifting
tastes and movements in art.
The Galaxy View Gallery, as its name suggested, was of the
second sort, so a portion of its cavernous exhibition rooms
were always being renovated; the old being shoved out or
tastefully rearranged to make way for the new.
Which is why, on a pleasant late summer Earth afternoon,
Store chamber A at the back of the gallery was crowded
with temporarily-displaced art exhibits—“junk” to those
lacking sufficiently refined tastes—and had become not just a
repository for the renovation crew’s ladders, paint cans, and
dropsheets, but thanks to its climate control and the ceiling
that kept out the rain, a favorite spot for momentary breaks.
The overseer of the renovation crew was enjoying a coffee
break there now, leaning against one of the more substantial

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discarded exhibits, a tall plinth topped by an old fuel pod

from the early spacing days cut open into a bowl like a giant
trophy. So it could hold a large but odd-looking plant of many
bulbous trailing fronds and vine-like arms, that gave off some
unpleasant but thankfully faint smells.
The construction boss liked that stench for two reasons: it
masked the reek of the cigarettes he wasn’t supposed to
smoke—and for as long as he was near it, it utterly killed the
ever-present odor of paint that clung to his overalls, which was
something that got right up your nose and down your throat.
Taking the last puff of his cigarette, he tossed the butt up into
the plant above him, pondering for about the fortieth time what
its reek smelled like. Vomit from someone who’d consumed
a lot of bruised vanilla in a room dominated by wood smoke,
with a lingering after scent like scorched strawberries and limes.
No, lemons.
Nah, limes after all.
Idly he sipped a little whiskey from the left collarbone bladder
of his overalls —something else barred from the job, but his
paint-raw throat needed it, and he’d long ago learned the trick
of mashing mint leaves into it and telling suspicious clients who
caught wind of his breath that it was mouthwash.
“Crowninshield, are you deaf? I’m not accustomed to repeating
myself.”
Unhurriedly the construction boss cast casual glances at both
doors of Store chamber A to reassure himself no one had just
opened either. He then strolled around behind the plant in its
bowl to the shadows behind it, an area dominated by several
statues of what might have been unclad Earth women if they
hadn’t been so tall and spindly-thin, with great gaping holes
through them in seemingly random places.
“Do I know you” the overseer asked, his voice casual but lower
than was his wont?
“I say ‘yes.’ And I expect the weather to break at the anticipated
time, too.” The musical reply came from somewhere behind
the statues.

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The construction boss didn’t try to peer or go closer. Things

happened to humans who got too close to, or pushy with, fallen
Martian princes. He merely nodded and grunted, “Understood.
And thanks; your betting tips haven’t failed me yet.”
He returned to his favorite leaning spot against the plant-bowl
plinth and took another sip of not-mouthwash, carefully not
looking when one of the storeroom doors softly opened and
then closed again.
He finished and tossed a second cigarette when that door
opened once more, more loudly and briskly this time, and a
slender slip of a girl—were art galleries robbing schools for
their junior employees, these days?—strode briskly through
the storeroom, intent on a note she was holding, her other hand
protectively clutching a diplo-pouch of the sort that betray their
being opened by chemically changing color; this one hadn’t
been.
The overseer admired her long-tressed looks—those big dark
eyes, that little upcurving snip of a nose—and the lithe rhythm
of her walk as she passed, but kept silent. She utterly ignored
him, and it was entirely possible she hadn’t even seen him in
the gloom of the storeroom. Nonetheless, she was the “all clear”
signal he’d been waiting for.
He strolled to the door she’d come in by, and returned through
it to his workday of scaffolds and paint rollers and dropsheets.
Darkness and silence returned to Store chamber A.
The stillness held long enough for the departed overseer, had
he still been lounging against the plinth, to smoke another
cigarette before something moved in the darkness. Fronds
stirred, vines flexed—and the faintly-reeking plant flowed over
the edge of the bowl and down the plinth. Making less noise
than most mice, it headed for the deepest shadows, to make its
own covert departure.
***
Pausert had not died well. The only partner in harness he’d ever
dared trust.
Oh, in this profession—stars and planets, this life—Gunner had
to trust his life with everyone he worked with, but there was

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trust, and then there was deep and true trust.

Pip might be many things, including far easier on the eyes than
Pausert’s stubbled bulldog mess of a spaceport brawler’s face,
but she was no ‘Grandpa’ Cliff Pausert, and never would be.
With a sigh, Gunner turned his thoughts firmly away from one
more replay of Pausert’s gory death and busied himself with
lighting yet another cigarette, using the lighter built into his
fingertip this once.
Just because he could, space it!
Costigan “Gunner” Isherwood was more scars and disfiguring
puckered runs of stiches than unmarred original skin, and
had been for a long time. On his colorful and bruising many-
decades voyage to becoming a weary veteran male human
spacer and former military colonel, he’d acquired more
replacement joints and artificial fingers than he cared to keep
track of, not to mention a myriad of small body augmentations
that kept him functioning. Including the lighter, a metal plate in
one palm he could and had used to try to fend off bullets, and
an internal “rebreather” that could keep him alive and doing
energetic things underwater for seven minutes or so.
Right now, he was submerged only in metaphorical water or
something worse. He was actually quite dry, and sitting in a
chair blowing smoke rings—that chair happened to be the helm,
in the oddly intact and powered-up command cabin of a rust
bucket, long-scrapped planetary shuttle slumped in the sand
at the heart of the old Three Planets Spaceways salvage yard.
Gunner was wallowing in it, as he did too often these days. Yes,
he was getting too old for this.
By wallowing, he meant he was sourly reflecting on past
triumphs and debacles—more of the latter, of course, because
part of being human was that you sorely remembered debacles
—as he awaited the arrival of his fellow Ghost Aces for the
latest urgent hush-hush meeting with the team leader.
One of those debacles had got Grandpa killed, not to mention
earning Pausert’s surviving partner another trio of organ
replacements and ugly scars to go with them, and Gunner had
a bad feeling that this next mission was going to be another

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disaster. It had all the half-baked nebulous planning of

previous stellar shining Ghost Aces runs . . .
Perhaps Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton the Third—stars and
planets, what a name to deliberately pick as a professional
cover; how ridiculously pompous could you get? But then,
Gunner happened to know Hamilton’s real name was Benjamin
Jefferson Franklin, so the man could hardly help growing up
ridiculous and pompous—would provide more solid plans when
he got here. Hamilton would arrive last, of course, to keep the
underlings awaiting his grand entrance. He always did.
No doubt, he has us all on tracers so he knows just where we
are, at all times. Despite the fact we’re supposed to be off all
feeds because we do the too-dirty and underhanded work that
the law-abiders like the Rocket Rangers can’t—won’t—touch.
If anyone ever gets hold of those tracer feeds, we’re all worse
than dead.
That cheery thought carried him almost inevitably back to
Pausert’s worrying replacement, Pip. Miss Penelope “Pip”
Hawker, and that ‘Miss’ was appropriate: she looked young
enough to be a schoolgirl, though the lack of braces and
gawking awkwardness, and the catlike lilt of her gait, told
everyone at even a brief and casual glance that she was older.
Oh, he liked Pip well enough. Too much, perhaps. Her slender
beauty—the long fall of hair, the dark eyes big enough to fall
into, that little snip of a nose—certainly caught the eye, and
her knowing grin, and not to mention her lightning-fast grasp
of unfamiliar tech and how to get it to do things for her! All
of which kept him from thinking of her as a little kid he had
to protect by getting her the flaming, fast-hurtling stars out of
work like this.
But Pip was no Pausert, and never would be. The question of
whether she could ever come close to filling Pausert’s boots
might be answered by their own deaths, if he wasn’t careful. If
they all weren’t clever and fast and lucky. He didn’t feel any of
those things, these days . . .
One of the telltales flickered, and Gunner snapped his head
around to stare at the helmscreen for the external viewcam
that went with that idiot light—and there she was, Pip herself.

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Prancing along amid the hulks of the salvage yard as if she was
out on a jaunty school outing. Think of the devil . . .
He thumbed the access bay doors open for her and took a long,
deep drag on his cigarette, trying to hurry it to an end. She
hated the smell, and he didn’t believe in antagonizing fellow
Ghost Aces. At least, not unnecessarily. Not much.
“Teacher missed you yet?” he greeted her.
“No, I told him I was visiting you in the old folks’ rest home for
my community volunteering credit,” she shot back calmly. “Still
tempting cancer? Or are you trying to burn it away now?”
Gunner shrugged as he stubbed the butt out and flipped the
cabin fan into a ragged and reluctant higher gear. “I doubt I’ll
live long enough to worry about that.”
“Your doubts are probably well founded,” she agreed coolly.
“What with the Ghost Aces reduced to recruiting from cradles
thanks to all the careless losses of world-weary old stitched-
together veterans.”
Ouch.
Then she added a dazzling smile, patted him on the shoulder,
pointed at another helmscreen, and added gently, “Smelly
wants in. Even gruff old-fashioned Ghost Aces sneak up on you
fast.”
“Haw haw,” he replied sourly, and hit the access bay doors stud
again. Every time he nudged her about her youth, she did the
cool appraisal thing, making it amply clear she found Gunner
and Smelly less competent and more old-fashioned than they
liked to think they were.
None of them called the Ganymedian “Smelly” to its wide-
mouthed face, of course. They said “Dran” instead, because
using the thing’s full name, “Dran Tan Irl,” seemed to
insult it almost as much. Gunner guessed doing so felt like
a disapproving aunt or schoolteacher snapping out your
full formal name when you were in trouble, but the gruff
Ganymedian had never said. Nevertheless, they all thought of it
privately as “Smelly,” thanks to the reek that preceded it.
It was preceding the Ganymedian now, up into the command

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cabin, an unsubtle stench that lingered at the back of a human’s

throat. It smelled like sick. Like the breath of someone who’d
upchucked after eating, some sort of scorched or smoked
dessert that had a lot of vanilla in it, and limes and strawberries,
too. Or was it lemons and strawberries? No, limes. Definitely
limes.
Not that Gunner ate such bilge-sludge. Steak and gravy for
him, every time. If a vegetable had to be eaten, well, fries
were vegetables, weren’t they? Dran Tan Irl’s head rose up
into the cabin like a clump of wild plants with two cynical
old eyes peering out from among the greenery and brownery.
The Ganymedian was more mottled brown fungi than green
leafy stuff. It had been away from Ganymede for too long to
be good for it, and the fungi melded together that made up its
gangly-limbed body were decaying with enthusiasm these days,
forever letting off those vanilla-sulphurous gases with little
popping sounds as it moved.
Pop, pop, poppity-pop. Dran dragged itself to a vacant chair
in the far corner of the cabin, its eyes never leaving Pip. Her
ankles, that is.
Gunner looked over at her and saw she’d shucked her highboots
and put her feet up on the padded crash-edge of the command
console in front of the chair she’d chosen, crossing her bared
legs at the ankles. In a deliberate tease, of course. She knew as
well as Gunner did that the Ganymedian had a fascination with
unclad human females. Just their ankles, that is. She carefully
did not wink at Gunner as she met his eyes, but the impishness
that went with any of her winks gleamed in her ghost of a
smile.
Gunner turned to Dran. “How’d it go?” he asked, knowing
what sort of reply he’d get.
Smelly shrugged. “Went.”
As talkative as usual. It had taken Gunner scores of missions
and even more attempts at conversation with the Ganymedian
to drag out of Smelly that it believed Ganymede was best
defended by fighting threats to it out in the solar system, rather
than at home. Fighting against humans if need be, but more

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often and preferably by working with humans and so “steering”

them.
Most of Gunner’s own attempts at steering humans by any
means other than blunt orders and menacing threats had been
such colossal failures that he’d long ago fallen back to “just
killing them is far easier,” and he suspected the Ganymedian
had reached a similar conclusion.
“You seem in a bit of hurry for merely ‘went,’” Pip teased.
“Here for the ankles.” Dran didn’t bother to lift its gaze from
them to her face.
“Oh? Gunner’s, too? They’re probably very shapely—under
those deck boots.”
“Would be a thing”, Smelly agreed gruffly and lapsed into
silence. Pip tried a few more times and by way of reply got
a gruff, deep rumble that somehow managed to be more
emphatic an exasperated sigh than any human could make.
It was almost loud enough to drown out the hum of the
emergency airlock rising to life. The one that could be opened
from outside, overriding all locks set in the command cabin.
Gunner automatically aimed the cabin security needle-stunner
at the inner airlock port, but didn’t expect to need to trigger it;
this’d be Hamilton Third, not some lurking foe who’d tracked
them down.
It was, and as immaculately suited as ever. Not a hair out of
place, face wearing that perpetual half-smile. He might have
been a mannequin modeling a “power executive”. Blast it, he
was a mannequin modeling a “power executive.”
Hamilton Hamilton Hamilton the Third’s smile widened as he
met Gunner’s gaze. As if he knew, precisely what Gunner was
thinking about him.
Smoothly transferring his scrutiny to the other two Aces, he
announced pleasantly, “No time to waste, as usual”, by way
of greeting. “Dran’s report has made our best course of action
clear.”
Gunner nodded wordlessly. He could play mysterious and
urbane too, though he’d never in his life been as well dressed—

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or looked as good—as the Aces’ superior.

Gunner had forgotten Hamilton’s current title, but if one was
being brutally candid, it would have been something like “the
high-ranking security official of the United States who gave
orders to the ragtag trio of secret agents who did the dirty
underhanded work Hamilton’s masters didn’t want to entrust
to the Rocket Rangers or anyone else who might have a qualm
about laws. Or have names and positions that could be found
on an org chart.”
Hamilton went right on wearing that smug not-quite-smile he
always did, except in the rare moments when he was sufficiently
angry or alarmed for his emotions to show through his mask.
When his face turned into hard cold jaw-set steel, complete
with the coldest eyes Gunner had ever seen in a human.
“So,” he continued, pivoting on one gleaming heel to sweep all
of them with his not-quite-smile, “I have orders for you.”
First from his lips, though, came the rationale, because
Hamilton Three might be many insufferable things, but “stupid”
was not one of them.
So . . .
Thanks to Dran’s overhearing what it had, they now knew the
Morgan gang would be trying to seize the Planetary Dancer, a
newly refurbished asteroid mining ship, when next it headed
out into the Asteroid Field in search of metallic riches.
Not because the smugglers needed one more rust bucket
asteroid miner for their fleet, but because word had leaked to
the wrong ears that the Dancer had been fitted with a new,
experimental standby drive that should enable it to outrun any
ship the Rocket Rangers could put into space, if need be. The
Morgan gang was already veteran asteroid miners, because
wandering around space seeking errant chunks of rock was the
ideal cover for smuggling, and smuggling was what Morgan and
his goons did.
Now they did so in covert alliance with a fallen Martian prince,
who deigned to work with them—humans, the very sophonts
the prince most hated—because getting revenge on the

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humanity of Earth was what Prince Laranqir K’Semryl now did,

and trumped all else he did.
His principality had been lost to Earthlings. The Silthuri prince
now believed that for every Martian realm Earthlings came to
rule, Martians—ideally, himself—should subvert, and covertly
control, more than one. Only in this way, could Mars throw off
the yoke of the humans and the Europans, and become the
Supreme Rulers of All they deserved to be.
Proud, vain, and jaded, K’Semryl wasn’t foolish enough to think
he could win in any open conflict with what he’d deemed the
“teeming, ever-energetic, and honorless” humans. Thanks to
his time as a publicly known ruler before his fall, he’d already
learned, cold and hard, the perils of being a clear target.
“So now,” Hamilton told the attentive Aces, “K’Semryl wants
the power but not the profile. He craves ever more covert
influence, and the luxuries, of course, and to be ‘in the know.’”
Dran stirred, but before it could ask what it was rumbling up to
voicing, Hamilton turned to it and said firmly, “And before you
ask what the Morgan gang get out of their alliance with a fallen
Martian prince, the answer is: potent drugs. Arthril, iravree,
and tinglesar, for them to smuggle and sell. In return for
relaying certain orders from K’Semryl to the humans on Earth
who are hooked on the drugs. In this way, K’Semryl gains
unwitting agents—harder for us to trace and stop—to further
his sly revenge on Earth for taking his principality from him.”
Dran’s rumble subsided, and a real smile rose to Hamilton’s
lips for just a moment before he turned to Gunner and Pip and
added, “That brief exchange in Store chamber A wasn’t just
confirmation of the deal, or to signal it was time for the gang
to make their move. It was also the prince confirming that the
gangsters had his permission to poach on his Belt claim. Which
may be a tiny area compared to, say, the claims of Bright
Venture Mining or Saramosa Consolidated, but it’s a tiny area
that happens to be richly crammed with metal-rich asteroids,
and the Prince defends it furiously with small short-range
gunboats—ships almost as heavily-armed as a Monarch-class
dreadnought.”

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Which meant the Planetary Dancer didn’t stand a chance in any

space fight.
“The Dancer,” Hamilton added almost gently, “is already paying
a large percentage of its takings to K’Semryl to mine in his
claim. And is scheduled to make its next run tomorrow.”
Then he gave them their orders, turned, and left. His departure
was as unruffled and smooth as his arrival had been, leaving
the three Aces silently trading glances in his wake. It seemed
the Planetary Dancer was immediately—and very quietly—
getting a replacement crew. Of just three.
One of these missions, three wasn’t going to be enough.
***
Pip pointed wordlessly aft, a moment after that faintest of jolts.
Magnetized boots locking onto the hull, outside the emergency
airlock. The one that could be opened from the outside with
good old elbow grease.
“Them, all right,” Gunner muttered.
Morgan’s boarding party, right on time.
The Dancer had entered the asteroids scudding slow and silent,
with interior lighting out and the hull exterior landing lights
rhythmically flashing to indicate a shipboard emergency, to
make any watching gangsters think they were far too busy to
defend themselves—and so safe to board without doing any
firing or blasting first. A strategy that might work.
They’d didn’t just have to fool Morgan’s goons. Hamilton had
warned them Prince Laranqir K’Semryl would be watching
from one of his warships, nearby among the endless ballet of
tumbling asteroids, so everything must be convincing.
Their orders were to exact as high a toll of Morgan’s gangsters
as they could, but not damage the Dancer in the process, nor
under any circumstances at all power up its new backup drive.
They were to throw the fight—but not seem to do so—and
retreat from the Dancer in its aging planetfall flitter, leaving
the mining ship intact and in the gangsters’ hands. They had
not, in the usual manner of Hamilton’s orders, been told why.

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All power inside the ship was off, thanks to the autopilot Pip
had encoded. They were in the flitter, using its screens to watch
the lightless bay around them, the bay doors already unsealed
and jammed that way and their power leads cut. The autopilot
was drawing on the power of the atmospheric pressure sensor
feed to run itself, which meant that when Morgan’s goons got
the power back on, they wouldn’t get an instant warning siren
from the flitter bay. Or from any of the booby traps the Aces
had set up all over the Dancer, that Morgan’s pirates hadn’t
found the hard way by then. The Aces had torn relay comms out
of three mining suits to set up a crude chain of sensors linking
the flitter with the emergency airlock. If only it went unnoticed
long enough . . .
Lights flared, suit chestplate beams cleaving the darkness as
the airlock slid reluctantly open and the inner lockport’s air
boiled out into space. At least three lights, which didn’t mean
there were only three of Morgan’s space pirates stealing aboard
the Dancer. It meant that at least three of them were wearing
salvaged Rocket Ranger armor; there was only one way to get
armor from a Rocket Ranger.
The pirates were in the lockport now, playing their lights
warily everywhere; they couldn’t help but see the relay and the
visiplate crudely attached to it. One beam shone on a fellow
smuggler until the man snarled something angry and jerked his
armored body around to face away, and that was long enough
to show clearly the man was holding a RAY rifle at the ready.
A Mauser. Presumably, the other gun barrels momentarily
glimpsed amid the flaring beams were more of the same;
they’d likely be carrying RAY pistols, too.
No surprise. That wasn’t the primary reason the Aces had set
up the sensor, though knowing armament wielded against
them wouldn’t hurt. What they really wanted to know was how
many smugglers were boarding the Dancer; and, if luck was
favoring them enough to hand out presents, how the pirates had
arrived here; what sort of ship was outside the mock-crippled
miner, how close, and how many more of Morgan’s goons were
sitting aboard it?
The lights suddenly turned steady. Then blinding. All of them
trained on the visiplate. It had been spotted, all right.

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Pip was already yanking the relay wire; RAY fire destroying
the plate shouldn’t send any serious radiation racing along the
wires, but better safe than . . .
“Nine,” Dran barked suddenly.
Gunner trusted that count; there could well be more than nine
smugglers, but if the Ganymedian had seen nine in or just
outside the lockport, there were nine to be seen, no more and
no less.
“Ranger armor?” he asked calmly.
“Five, maybe six, maybe more. Two definitely not. Something
under their suits. Dueling vests?”
“Any other weapons?”
“Axes,” Pip rapped out.
Gunner nodded; he thought he’d seen one, too. The
Ganymedian was already moving.
“Where’re you going?” he asked, already knowing the answer.
“Out to skulk and fight. We hide in here, we die, mission fails,”
the Ganymedian grunted.
Gunner nodded. “Pip, you stay at the helm.”
She frowned. “I’m faster and quieter than either of you—”
“And far better at working sensors and ship systems,” Gunner
shot back, “so the team needs you here. At the controls of the
sensors and ship systems. We’ll go play. Anyone recognize any
of our guests?”
Hamilton’s array of surveillance images had been vast, but
most of the shots had been from a distance, in bad lighting
and worse focus, and were neither recent nor comprehensive.
Known smugglers avoided surveillance they knew or could
expect was present, and unsuspected smugglers didn’t end up
in Hamilton’s Morgan’s gang file. Not that getting a good look
at someone inside space armor wasn’t—
“Helmuth,” Pip said flatly. Ah.
Well, the bald German had a distinctive misshapen right side of

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his head thanks to long-ago injuries. If anyone in battle armor

was going to be recognizable so briefly in such bad lighting, it
would be him.
So, one confirmed ruthless veteran killer. Morgan’s boarding
party likely all were, though a few might be less experienced
expendables shoved up front to “get experience.” That was the
usual gangster way.
“Every look at them we get,” Gunner ordered, “judge who’s
the most dangerous. We hit them hardest. However this turns
out, the more capable blackhearts we disable or eliminate, the
better for everyone, everywhere.”
“Obvious is obvious,” Dran growled at the ceiling, by way of
reply, and lurched out of the cabin.
The Dancer was neither pretty nor spacious; a command cabin,
a lav, and a sleep closet sandwiched between a vac suit bay, a
toolroom, and two operating cabins for the drill-claws. Aft were
the water and waste tanks and engine and life support rooms;
the flitter bay and various ore-holds took up the rest of the in-
hull space. Which meant magnetic clamps held papers, handikit
grab-boxes, and other clutter on every bulkhead and ceiling,
and most of the handgrabs had untidily added wiring running
through them and spare tools dangling from them. Giving the
Aces a little clutter and handy improvised weapons against the
smugglers—but then, that worked both ways.
Gunner took the other door out of the cabin, moving just as
warily as Dran had. Moving around the Dancer wasn’t safe or
easy just now, thanks to the few traps they’d managed to rig
to greet the intruders. They’d welded up a massive wedge-stop
and fitted it to the cabin side of the bulkhead door leading
to the emergency airlock, so it couldn’t be opened from the
lockport side; Morgan’s goons would have to take a longer way
around, through the ore-holds, to reach the helm. Giving the
Aces plenty of opportunities to play cat-and-mouse with them
along the way.
Pip flipped the comm unit to full open as Gunner and Dran
left, so the Aces, through their earplugs—could hear talk and
sounds from everywhere inside the darkened miner. All three
Aces were masters at mimicry of shipboard warning voice

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recordings, so Morgan’s goons might hear anything they said to

each other, but with a chance they’d mistake it for automated
ship systems and not live crew members of the Dancer. A slim
chance. But then, the Aces spent most of their lives standing on
slim chances.
“Ten and two,” Pip intoned, in a flat mechanical cadence. “Ten
and two.”
So, twelve pirates aboard now. Gunner checked his smoke
canisters again. Six strapped across his chest, and Dran carried
even more. The Ganymedian wouldn’t be as bothered by smoke
as a human, but Gunner hoped it’d be as reluctant as Gunner
was to release them; ultimately, they’d all have to breathe
whatever flooded the Dancer’s compartments.
The lockport opened into a room with five other doors: two
small hatches in the floor and ceiling offering access to cables,
pumps, and fuse boxes, the door into the command cabin, and
doors in the walls on either side opening into ore-holds. The
pirates probably planned to split up and advancing through
multiple doors, weapons drawn; they’d probably keep to that
plan when they discovered the way to the cabin blocked.
Get as close as you can. Retreat slowly, luring them into the
traps. Stay quiet and undetected for as long as possible, rather
than letting Morgan’s goons know defenders were waiting for
them right away. Give the traps time to do some damage.
Those had been Gunner’s words to Dran earlier, and he saw
no reason to change those plans now. The invading smugglers
who went through the door on their right in the lockport would
face the Ganymedian in the lightless ore-holds, and those who
headed left would be coming into Gunner’s waiting embrace.
Here, right on cue, was one of them now.
Gunner had already gone to the floor, blanket first to keep the
smoke canisters from scraping or clunking on the deck. He had
his RAY pistol in one hand, hunting bolas lying wrapped in a
second blanket, and now, a smoke canister unhooked and on
the blanket, ready to throw.
The smuggler hadn’t seen him yet, because his light-beam
hadn’t yet dipped that low. It was the suit chestlight, so

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Morgan’s man could keep one hand free for a crowbar and the
other for a RAY pistol very like Gunner’s. The man was wearing
full Rocket Ranger space armor, its scorched collar hinting at
the fate of its former owner. A second pirate was right behind
him, clomping heavy-footed and taking no pains for stealth,
but moving warily. Expecting trouble.
Gunner kept still, RAY pistol aimed, hoping the foremost trap
would provide some help. It was a seemingly-careless array of
open-topped ore bins, standing aligned this way and that with
tow-cables draped over them as if left that way by a wearily
untidy mining crew. Some of those cables were fully electrified,
their hind ends soldered to plugs, and the plugs seated in
sockets that connected them to the Dancer’s main winch power.
More than enough to fry a man if it touched flesh, and not
space armor. Both pirates were wearing the insulated gauntlets
that had come with their armor.
The first bin they should come to had two pieces of matting
draped over its edge and pinned there, overlapping, by some
of the now-deadly cable. Gunner had printed “Tinglesar/
Morgan’s?” in crude block capitals on the topmost matting,
before arranging it so that message would catch the eye.
It worked.
The smugglers stopped to read the words, trade looks, then
peer into the bin, leaning forward so their chest-beams would
lance down into its empty interior.
Gunner calmly reached out and flipped the handle of the chain-
latch beside him. With a rattle that didn’t quite have time to
become a roar, the chain let go under the heavy weight of a
winched-to-the-ceiling ore bin loaded with rocks.
The bin plummeted to crush the neck, head, and arm of the
foremost pirate against the edge of the bin. His comrade
stumbled back with a startled cry as the falling bin smashed
him aside, to rebound off the rear bulkhead—and a
disintegrator beam flashed out across the hold as another of
Morgan’s goons, somewhere behind the foremost pair, mistook
the loud crash for a direct attack and fired blindly.
That bright reaching death passed well over Gunner’s head—a

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small beam, from a disintegrator pistol—and succeeded only in

clipping the edge of the second pirate’s armor, not harming him
but spinning him around into a heavy thump-thudding fall.
Shielded from the view of the trigger-happy smuggler and
anyone else back in the lockport with him by the canted bulk
of the fallen bin, Gunner crawled swiftly to the fallen pirate,
snatched off the man’s helmet, and beat the revealed head with
his smoke canister, bouncing the man’s skull off the decking
until bone gave under his blows.
Then he retreated as quickly and quietly as he could, dropping
the seized helmet and his own gear onto his unfolded first
blanket and using it as a drag-cart to tow all evidence of his
presence back around behind a few of the rearmost bins. He
arrived behind cover just as one of the smugglers coming out
of the lockport put a hand on a cable, had time for only a
startled “Eeeeeep!” and fell, trailing smoke from crisped hair.
A smell like scorched bacon arose, someone swore, and there
was a startled yell as the canted bin hanging from the overhead
chain shifted with a squeal as someone else prodded it warily.
Followed by more cursing.
Checking his own insulated gloves again, Gunner trotted
forward like a sneak-thief, plucked up one of the draped cables,
and flicked it back and forth. Its end danced about on the far
side of the bins, someone shrieked, and the burnt flesh smell
got stronger. Then, of course, someone started firing. Not the
disintegrator pistol—it was probably on the floor somewhere,
with its electrocuted owner sprawled beside it—but a regular
handgun. Spraying bullets.
Stupid weapon for shipboard use in space, but then, smart
people didn’t stay with smuggling an instant longer than they
had to.
Time to go. Gunner triggered a smoke canister and lobbed it
high, so it would come down in one of the bins with a real
racket—it did, touching off a furious volley of firing—and
retreated right out of that hold. Setting off a second smoke
canister and then closing the door on it, he turned into the
passage beyond and took his time traversing it, moving with
care down the dim and narrow hall because its floor and some

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of the doors opening off it were the next traps.

The passage led to several holds before turning around the
end of a hold to reach the flitter bay. As Gunner headed that
way, the faint tat-tat-tat of distant gunfire somewhere ahead
told him Dran was entertaining its own set of trigger-happy
smugglers. Opening the door into the last hold before the flitter
bay, he stepped into that hold, then turned around and let out
a sack of ball bearings across the passage floor, readying a
smoke canister to breach only when the advancing smugglers
were near. He just needed enough haze to keep them from
noticing the little metal spheres underfoot at first.
After he started firing, it wouldn’t matter what they noticed.
Gunner hoped.
Leaving the door only just ajar, he settled down to wait and
listen. He didn’t have to wait long. When they came, it was at a
hard, mag-boot-clomping run. Ending in crashes, clatters, and
shrieks.
As the floor plates the Aces had unfastened in this passage
before flying the Dancer into the Belt shifted and slid under
those hastening boots, spilling Morgan’s men down onto the
latticework of framing that normally held the deck-plates just
above all the cabling runs that underlaid them, the spine of
the ship’s wiring harness. Some of which Dran had carefully
stripped bare and fully electrified, to fry the owner of any hand
or knee or foot coming into contact, of which, judging by the
screams, there were several.
“Ten and six now eight, ten and six now eight,” Pip promptly
intoned, in the uncaringly neutral tones of an onboard
computer.
They’d downed half of the smugglers already? Dran must have
been busy!
Gunner waited. He didn’t want to reveal himself by blazing
away, especially at targets in Ranger space armor. Let them
take themselves out amid the traps.
“Outer no longer engaged. All inner,” Pip added unexpectedly.
“All inner.”

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So either Dran had eliminated every smuggler who’d headed his

way, or they’d found the going too tough and turned back, all
coming his way—for Dran, being from Ganymede, was “Outer,”
whereas Gunner the Earthman was “Inner.” So, eight still
coming, right into his lap.
Moving warily now on a floor they knew they could no
longer trust. No more heavy-booted running. He’d have to
assume they all knew by now that lurking defenders and traps
were waiting for them, and would be moving with care and
coordination. The fun shooting gallery moments of downing
reckless idiots were over.
Abruptly there came a heavy crash, a curse, a metallic rocking
and booming noise, and then groans of pain. Someone had
hauled open a door, and had it fall on them. The Aces had
pulled the hinge-pins on most of the doors connecting this
passage to various holds, so the heavy bulkhead seals would
topple over onto anyone trying to pull them open. A one-trick
trap; unless they were real dolts, such crude hazards would
only get one smuggler; the rest would amend their behavior
and not get hurt.
Gunner felt for the reassuring grip of his axe. He’d need it
ere long; he expected . . . and hoped he’d not feel the bite of
someone else’s space axe. He’d felt them before, and hated the
very memory. Despite the useful mechanical enhancements
inside him that some of those wounds had made possible, the
scars where they’d healed still ached whenever it got cold and
damp, and— Another crash, much closer, and ball bearings
bounced as the heavy curved door rocked, its edge just glinting
into view around the dim corner.
Gunner triggered the smoke canister and tossed it underhand,
gently, out to where the passage turned. Then he drew back to
one side of the doorway, pulled the door almost closed, and
trained his attention on the tiny mirror he’d glued to the far
passage wall earlier, to let him see anyone approaching around
the corner.
Soon enough, they came—and went from sinister stalking,
guns raised—RAY rifles!—to windmilling arms and startled,

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choked-off shouts and helpless sidestepping and slipping and—

going down hard on their backs and backsides, bouncing and
booming amid more shifting floor plates. Gunner resisted the
temptation to fling open his door and start firing.
Wisely; the third fall made the fourth and fifth smugglers open
fire, spraying the passage as if foes were standing in a huge
crowd facing them. Go ahead, waste charges, you dolts. The
fewer teeth you have left when things get up close and personal,
the better.
Gunner held his fire, waiting to see how much of a problem
the ball bearings were going to be when the fallen tried to get
up again and move on with the caution they should have been
using all along. The reflection of a tiny light from beneath the
passage decking winked in his mirror.
Pip’s voice announced with impersonally mechanical calm,
“Warning. Warning.”
She was electrifying the exposed cables under this section of
passage floor, to try to fry more of the intruders. There came
a brief hiss, an even briefer spray of sparks from near the bend
in the passage, and a whiff of acrid burning but no screams.
Morgan’s goons were being wary now, and these all seemed to
have full armor and be secure; no gaps, no gloves peeled off for
comfort, faceplates sealed so as not to breathe the Dancer’s air.
“Door ahead open, Dikty,” one of them snapped, his warning
clearly audible to Gunner. Who stepped back, well away from
the door.
“See it,” Dikty replied rather grimly, and let fly with a
disintegrator pistol, driving the heavy door open with a squeal
of protest. “Any target?”
“None I can see,” the first smuggler replied, advancing
cautiously. Ball bearings bounced as he kicked them aside.
Gunner chose a bin to hide behind, one of the dozen the Aces
had so artistically arranged to look haphazard yet provide
continuous cover to someone retreating to the far end of the
hold. Crouching with only one eye peeking around the lowest,
darkest end, he went back to silently waiting. This was where
young, green operatives in his line of work tended to get

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restless, and pay the price. They wanted to be doing, to be

racing about firing weapons, blowing things up, and playing
dramatic hero. Which was how most of them ended up playing
disbelieving, gaping-in-terror corpses.
The door at the far end of this hold stood open; Gunner’s
escape route into the darkened flitter bay when he needed
it. He wanted to use it only when he really had to, not lead
these goons straight to the only way the Aces had to get off the
Dancer alive. There came a sudden bright flash, and a BOOM.
Gunner ducked his head back just before shrapnel started
singing and clanging off the hold wall and ceiling behind him.
The smugglers had used some sort of explosive charge to blast
the door wide open.
It was now creaking gently—and dangling from its hinges, he
could see through the afterimages of that flash. But they hadn’t
come storming through it yet, so . . . He triggered and threw
three smoke canisters, lobbing them high and in different
directions, trying to turn the hold into low visibility territory
in a hurry. He’d probably need all the cover he could—. They
came, fast and crouching low with guns at the ready. Four of
them. Despite the groans he’d heard earlier, Gunner had to
assume there were another four still functional, whereabouts
unknown to him. Yet.
Blast them; they were heading straight down the hold, making
for the open door! In a ring, facing out in four directions as
they went, moving in smooth unison as if they’d done this
many times before. Well, for all he knew, they had, hadn’t
they? He triggered a fourth canister and flung it, high and blind,
at where he judged they’d be by now, hoping it would come
down on someone’s head. It did, judging by the startled curse
and the heavy thudding fall and clatter of a RAY rifle on the
decking.
So Gunner smiled tightly, and threw another. This one they
saw, and shot it out of the air, sending it spraaaaanging off the
ceiling to one side. So one of these pirates was a swift and sure
shot—or a swift and lucky one.
Which, to a man with a hole blasted through him, amounts to
the same thing.

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Morgan’s men—they seemed to all be human males—had a

rough idea now where he was. By the sounds he was hearing—
their idea of stealth seemed to be avoiding idle chatter, not
sacrificing speed to strive for silence—they’d turned away from
heading for the door into the flitter bay to come and deal with
him.
Gunner picked up and tossed more canisters, not setting off
any smoke but just making noise from far walls and bins all
over the hold, to make them think they faced many foes—and
to cover the smaller sounds of a new bag of ball bearings being
sent rolling across the floor. One of his canisters ricocheted
into an open bin and made a thunderous din, and a smuggler
promptly charged that bin, firing like it was a new Space War
and all his to win in the next few moments.
“Janifer! Janifer! Stop wasting lead, you idiot! I swear—”
“Shut up, Coblentz! No one made you crew boss! Just shut yer—
aaaugh! What’s that smell?”
Unlovely sounds of choking, strangling, and energetically
gargling out one’s own upspew followed . . . and then the
stench hit Gunner, and his own throat closed up.
He shuddered. This had to be Smelly, being smelly. As in,
letting out a smell as a combat weapon. Gunner shook his head,
his eyes already watering as he gagged helplessly. Skunk-stench
wasn’t in it! This was truly HORRID. Fighting down his rising
gorge, he went flat to the floor and burrowed half under a
loose-lying metal bin-lid to shield himself, because if Morgan’s
dolts reacted like he thought they would—.
They did. In a sudden cacophony of competing roars and bursts,
the smugglers all started firing at once. Blindly and wildly, just
hurling lead and radiation and disintegrating beams all over
the hold. Which might be a clumsy way to make sure no one
was rushing or sneaking up on them while streaming tears
and upchucking were leaving them helpless, but sure used up
ammo like there was no tomorrow.

Let’s just make sure the ‘no tomorrow’ belongs to them,

not us . . .

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The din ended abruptly as they ran out of bullets and charges
and juice, started to curse and fumble their ways through
reloading—and Gunner was on his feet and running, RAY pistol
at the ready. He wanted a clear shot at an uncovered face, if he
could wrench a helmet off or catch someone who’d unhooded
to spew, and failing that do damage to lots of feet and ankles,
to slow them moving about if he could snatch long-range
weapons away from anyone . . .
They were farther away than he’d thought, still hidden from
him by the chaos of bins. So before his diversion, they must
have been right at the flitter bay door.
Gunner ducked low as he rounded the end of a bin, wanting
to see a target before it saw him, and that was when he heard
someone up ahead make a horrible, high-pitched bubbling sob.
A sound he’d never heard out of a human throat before, a pain
and panic-wracked high liquid keening that made him think
of a helpless, terrified child in bewildered agony. That rising,
wobbling wail suddenly sank and ended in a horrible choking
gurgle. Followed by the heavy crash of a space-armored body
toppling onto metal decking like the proverbial dead weight.
Which it probably was.
“Judd?” a smuggler called anxiously. “Judd, you okay?”
Those questions were followed by a heartfelt curse, then a shot.
Some sort of old hand cannon, by the echoing report, and fired
at nowhere near Gunner.
Who came around another bin and found himself almost in the
midst of three smugglers, one of whom was helmless—and was
also staggering back, an old Peacemaker in his hand, as he tried
to swipe some sort of yellow-brown wet goo off his face. The
other two were turning to face Gunner, RAY guns coming up,
so he ducked under the nearest gun and crashed shoulder-first
into its owner at gut level, slamming him back into his comrade
and taking them both to the deck. With him atop them, and
the helmless man still backing, almost atop Gunner. One gun
butt to an ankle tripped that man, over and back, and Gunner
rolled to avoid being caught in that flailing smuggler sandwich
and came up running, to and around the nearest bin—an
instant before a RAY beam chased him.

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Gunner kept right on moving, heading for a bin beyond, in the

direction of the flitter bay door. Off to his right, he could see
the man Dran had killed. By shoving some body fungi right up
the man’s nose and mouth and expanding it, judging by the
looks of the smuggler’s bloated and purplish dead face.
There was no sign of the Ganymedian, but as Gunner rounded
the next bin and crouched, fighting for breath, there was a
sudden scream from behind him, then another shot. Gunner set
himself, RAY gun ready, but the next person to lurch into view
around the bins was Dran, moving slowly and looking damaged.
The Ganymedian was dragging a space-axe not its own in one
hand, and waving a bloody severed human hand in the other as
a trophy.
“Unhanded,” it announced smugly to Gunner. “Let’s go.”
It then toppled sideways, to slide messily down the side of a
bin to the floor. Gunner snatched Smelly up, shocked by how
light the Ganymedian was—how much of it was missing?—and
made for the flitter bay door, dodging behind every bin he
passed to put more heavy metal plate between them and any
RAY and disintegrator beams.
The door was as open as the Aces had left it, and—
“Four hostiles straight ahead,” Pip said urgently, all trace of
machine voice lost to her rising anxiousness. “Right ahead of
you!”
The bay. The other four smugglers must be in the flitter bay,
ready and waiting for them. Gunner faded sideways fast, down
behind a bin.
“Get one I killed,” the Ganymedian growled, as Gunner set it
down. “Use as shield.”
Gunner frowned. He didn’t want to hurl anything explosive
through that door, with the flitter they needed intact sitting in
there, and Pip inside it. Pip would have disabled and dogged
the ports to keep unwanted smugglers from dropping in on her,
so getting inside the flitter would be slow even with her help.
Which meant, as he’d expected all along, they were going to
have to shoot their way out.

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“Not happy,” he muttered to Dran, “with leaving able and active

hostiles with guns right behind us, as we head into more of
them in front of us”.
The Ganymedian smiled bleakly. “So eliminate ones in here
with us. Fast.”
“Fast,” Gunner agreed, “so those in the bay don’t have time to
go to work on the flitter.”
Dran pointed. “Go to wall, and along it, all the way back
around behind. After throwing more smoke. Draw fire, and
then creep quiet.”
Gunner couldn’t think of a better plan, so he nodded. They
did that. Between them, Gunner and Dran had left two able
smugglers and one badly wounded and missing a hand, who
might by now have collapsed from blood loss or the shock of
his comrades cauterizing his stump with their weapons, or not.
You could count on nothing in shipboard firefights.
Their hurling of canisters drew a volley of RAY beams—three,
so Mister Handless was still able to shoot, at least.
“Contamination in flitter bay,” Pip announced suddenly, her
mechanical calm back. “Repeat: contamination in flitter bay.
Gunnery not disabled. Hazard warning, all hands. Hazard
warning!”
Gunnery not disabled? Ah. She was telling him it was a ruse,
no danger to him. A false warning, to give the smugglers pause
before they started dismantling the flitter around her from the
outside in—or to shift them out of the bay entirely. At least,
Gunner hoped that’s what she meant.
After her slip during the previous announcement, it was too
much to hope she’d fool the smugglers. This was going to come
down to shooting, and hand-to-hand—and the Aces had to win
but leave at least one of Morgan’s men alive. Alive and able
to communicate with the watching Prince, but too disabled to
harm the Aces while they made their own escape.
As the smoke billowed thickly across the hold from their
concentrated barrage, and the smugglers caught in it started
coughing and cursing—so their helmets must be off or

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damaged, or they were out of air—Dran and Gunner started

their stealthy journey along the hold wall to get around
behind the three. The Ganymedian was moving very slowly,
but waving energetically at Gunner to direct his attention
downwards. At the floor decking, where the Ganymedian
was shedding a narrow trail of what looked like brown moss,
literally leaving its body behind in a thin strip that its gestures
urgently indicated Gunner should walk on. So Gunner obliged.
Dran’s body fungi certainly made velvety-quiet footing. Their
progress was slow, but this hold wasn’t vast; a few minutes
would bring them to the bin that should be blocking the way,
against the hold wall to mark its midpoint. The trick would
be turning there and advancing through the maze of bins in
the thick smoke without getting lost—and blundering into the
waiting guns of the smugglers before they could get the drop
on Coblentz and Janifer and Dikty.
Ah. There was the bin. They turned along its near side, and
headed into the blinding smoke cloud.
The dark corner of a bin loomed up out of the eddying dirty
gray stuff almost immediately, and Dran stopped and waved
Gunner ahead.
Of course. This was his hold to fight in, so he was supposed
to have memorized the positioning of the bins better than the
Ganymedian. “Better,” however, didn’t mean “thoroughly” at
all. He hadn’t had time in all the excitement, and they’d dared
not arrange the bins in any sort of simple pattern, for fear
the smugglers would pick up on it and snatch away the only
advantage this afforded the Aces—.
“Hazard warning!” Pip rapped out. “Hazard level elevated.
Exposure time must be minimized. All hands, exposure must
be minimized!”
Still that mechanical calm, so it wasn’t a desperate plea for aid
right now. Gunner hoped.
Another bin loomed, and he slowed and started moving with
extreme caution now, striving for utter silence. The smoke was
so thick that visibility was about the length of his outstretched
arm. He looked back and found Dran close behind but a step to
the left, RAY pistol leveled into the smoke ahead. Where were

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the smugglers?
They could well be on the move, too, and might even have
learned stealth and prudence at last. So where would they
head? To the door they’d come from, or the one they’d been
heading for, he decided—with the way ahead and on, into
the flitter bay, more likely unless utter cowardice or wounded
pain had prevailed. Their buddies wouldn’t think much of
them retreating to sit the rest of the fight out. They’d already
traversed the trap-filled passage, and might not particularly
want to return there to wait, for fear of finding more traps, the
hard way. So their goal would likely be the flitter bay door.
Slowly, perhaps even waiting for the smoke to thin. Which
might take a seeming eternity to men knowing they shared
the Dancer with armed foes if they didn’t manage to breach
the hold hull ports, because if it wasn’t boiling out into deep
space with the precious shipboard air, it would be dissipating
throughout the entire ship.
So, would they mount a rearguard? Gunner would, in their
situation, but then again, he wasn’t reckless enough in the first
place to join a smuggling gang. No, you joined the ‘dirty tricks
for the good guys’ gang; MUCH safer.

He was still grimly entertaining that thought when he saw the

blood and the foot beyond it.
Dran saw it, too, and reached out a hand to tap Gunner’s
forearm silently in a ‘halt’ warning. Gunner obliged, and the
Ganymedian unhooked another smoke canister and tossed
it gently around the corner, so it would land just where the
supine smuggler’s chest should be. It did, with a thud, then fell
off the chest with a sharper thunk.
Dran’s hand was back on Gunner’s forearm warningly. He and
the Ganymedian waited silently, but there was no response.
It seemed the sprawled man ahead was dead or senseless—so
it was likely Mister Handless—and had been left behind by his
two comrades, who were somewhere ahead in this smoke, and
heading away towards the flitter bay door. Or not. That was the
risk. They might be standing just the other side of the bin, right
beside the smoke canister they’d just watched land, with RAY

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guns ready, to fry the first face that came around the bin.
Gunner looked at Dran, and Dran looked at Gunner.
The Ganymedian sank down into an ungainly waist-high mass
out of which his RAY gun jutted on one direction, and that
captured space-axe stuck out behind, like a long tree bough
thrust through a waddling bush. A bush that calmly padded
around the corner. Nothing happened. After a moment, Gunner
slipped around the bin to join his fellow Ace. Dran had calmly
buried the space-axe in the throat of the already-lifeless corpse
staring up unseeingly from the floor, just to make sure. There
was blood everywhere, and the man was missing a hand. So,
two smugglers left, up ahead somewhere.
The Ganymedian retrieved the axe as Gunner joined him, and
then pointed with its handle into the smoke. And started
padding off in the direction he’d pointed—the unseen hold wall,
well to the right of the flitter bay door, about halfway between
it and the door from the passage Gunner and the smugglers
had used to get here—without waiting for Gunner’s response.
Which, in the circumstances, was to shrug and silently follow.
Splitting up in this smoke would be utter folly, and Dran’s
destination was about as good as any, if Pip wasn’t in
immediate peril, though if the smoke thinned out at the edge
of the hold and they found themselves caught between two
groups of gun-toting—.
A deep, body-shaking rumble arose, ahead, climbing rapidly
into nigh-deafening thunder, and the smoke started to roil as
if giant hands were twisting it. Gunner started to run, heedless
of any noise he made—what did it matter, in this din?—and in
a few strides caught up to Dran, who was running too. Heading
for the flitter bay door just as fast as they could pelt, because
the rising thunder was the flitter engines.
Pip—or a smuggler, which would mean Pip was dead, or at best
a struck-senseless captive—had started up the flitter engines
without opening the flitter port into deep space—at least, not
yet—or the smoke and the bins, and Gunner and Dran too,
would all be hurtling out into the icy vacuum right now.
The thunder rose into a roar, the note of the engines climbing

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into a continuous shriek, and for just an instant, the thrust of

the flitter jets burst through the open hold door, and sent bins
flying. Then the engines cut out, and Gunner and Dran were
running through thinning smoke towards the dying wail of a
rocket shutting down again.
They sprinted past a leg—still upright, in its mag-boot and
some scorched space armor, with a burnt-out matching boot
flanking it. So that was another smuggler down. Must have
been caught in the rocket-blast and fried even before the bins
went hurtling. Which still left five smugglers, if Pip hadn’t
miscounted.
Gunner and Dran came out of the smoke looking frantically
both ways, RAY guns ready, but saw no one to use them on. So
they headed for the gaping flitter bay door, where the smoke
curling out was black and acrid, rather than the billowing
gray emitted by smoke canisters. The flitter bay looked—and
smelled—like the blackened inside of a fire-gutted building.
The flitter was sitting right where it should be, looking more or
less untouched, but facing in a different direction than it had
been, when Gunner had left it. So someone had started it up
and spun it around in the bay, likely to fry anyone else sharing
the bay with it. Gunner fervently hoped it had been Pip.
Then his heart froze. There were deep dents and scrapes along
the inside bay bulkhead, and matching damage along the
flitter’s hull. Was it—?
A pistol fired, somewhere around behind the flitter’s bulk, and
a bullet sang past Gunner’s temple so close that he felt it. He
hit the deck, hard and fast.
Dran’s space axe whipped over him, hurtling end over end into
the scorched darkness. To clang and bounce harmlessly as the
shooter ducked back behind the flitter. A moment later, a RAY
blast came along the blackened decking, also too close for
comfort. Gunner scrambled up and fled back through the flitter
bay door into the hold. Pursued by more bullets. Dran grunted,
right behind Gunner, stiffened, and then reeled through the bay
door with a groan.
“Hit?” Gunner asked stupidly.

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The Ganymedian managed a feeble nod in his arms, and

Gunner hastily got them both to one side of the doorway, out
of the line of fire. Now what?
He didn’t know who now helmed the flitter, if anyone, nor if
the command cabin of the Dancer was still secure against the
smugglers—or for that matter, how many smugglers were left.
Except that there was certainly one of Morgan’s men, and likely
two, sheltering on the far side of the flitter. With weapons
ready, and aiming to put holes through him just as soon as
they got a good chance.
He looked swiftly all around, just to make sure no other
smugglers were creeping up on him, and saw a few scorched
mining tools—including a blackened, jagged tangle that had to
be the remains of a cutting torch and its tanks—strewn among
the bins behind him. Tools that had been in the flitter bay. The
smugglers must have unlimbered them to try to cut their way
into the flitter, and Pip had started flitter up and spun the craft
to scorch the bay. She’d either lost control and scraped the
bulkhead, or more likely deliberately scraped along the wall to
crush a climbing smuggler into a smear . . .
Whatever had happened, the flitter was silent and motionless
now. With at least one able and active smuggler right outside
it. Most likely two. Chin-down on the hold floor now, eyes
straining to see anything at floor level in the flitter bay, Gunner
caught sight of momentary glints on both sides of the flitter, as
metal—guns—moved. Two smugglers, then, at least.
He still had a few smoke canisters, but they knew where
the damned door was, and seemed to have ammunition and
charges enough to blaze away at him if they wanted to, so . . .
He looked at Dran, who was rocking in pain and moaning
quietly, on the floor, but was at least still moving, and tried to
think.
If he—what was that?
“Coblentz,” a soft whisper rolled out through the bay and the
hold around Gunner, seeming to come from everywhere at
once, “you left me for dead. You rat. Now I am dead, and soon
you and Janifer will be, too. You bastards.”

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It was a voice Gunner had never heard before. He was certain.

Yet it had to be coming through the Dancer’s comm, which
meant it was either Pip playacting—or one of the smugglers,
who’d got inside the flitter or the command cabin!
“I hate you both. You’ll be joining me in death soon enough, you
will. When I get the hand I have left around your throat, there
won’t be a thing you can do to stop me. Just DIE.”
Something pale and white shone in the flitter bay air,
something bobbing. It looked like a man’s head. Drifting slowly,
bobbing gently as it flew. Heading around the flitter. The
smugglers cursed and started firing, RAY beams and then a
disintegrator beam, ravening fire that should have obliterated
the bobbing white thing, yet still it advanced on them.
A smuggler retreated from it, still firing, out from behind the
shelter of the flitter. Gunner rose on his elbows, steadied
himself, and calmly took his best shot. Caught in his RAY beam,
that smuggler convulsed, staggered back, and fell. The other
one went right on firing at the bobbing thing.
“I’m coming for you, Janifer,” it whispered, now loud enough to
echo in the bay and the hold. “I’m coming. There’s no escape.”
With a rising cry of fear the smuggler turned and fled. Gunner
fired but missed, twice, and the man was gone—out the door
on the far side of the flitter bay, back into the holds Dran had
defended earlier.
Dran.
Gunner caught up the trembling Ganymedian and started to
run.
“Pip!” he snarled aloud. “Pip, if you’re still active in there, open
up!”
The blackened flitter port ahead of him grated open.. Gunner
ran.
***
“He’ll live,” Pip announced. “I think.”
“How spacetight are we?”

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“Should be fine. A few scratches, but two of Morgan’s goons

obligingly smeared themselves along the bay wall to protect
the hull.”
“And that floating head? The smuggler’s ghost?”
“Me,” Pip said gleefully. “Thought I’d give them something to
shoot at besides you.”
Gunner found himself suddenly aflame with rage, as the Dancer
dwindled in the viewscreens behind them.
“We’re a team! We should know everything all of us have
prepared and as backup, so we don’t end up shooting each
other! Your haunting could have distracted me just as badly as
Morgan’s goons!”
Pip gave him a long, sober look.
“Sorry,” she said quietly. “You’re right. But tell me something:
did Pausert forewarn you about everything? Did he freelance?
Because you do.”
It was Gunner’s turn for silence. A long, brooding silence.
When he broke it, it was by saying, as gently as he knew how,
“I find I must apologize to you. I am sorry.”
***
“Success”, a terse voice rapped out of the comm,
unaccompanied by a visual.
Which was in keeping with the assurances Morgan had given
Prince Laranqir K’Semryl. No communications between the
seized Dancer and his Blood Red Blade were to include images,
or any wording that could identify the Prince’s own involvement
in this matter.
Which didn’t mean he wasn’t going to be on the spot, where
he could watch every last moment, and gloat. Prince Laranqir
K’Semryl was gloating right now. Silent indulgence, but rich—
oh, so rich.

Victories were not so plentiful that they weren’t be enjoyed,

when they came.
Yes. A few fast runs to make Morgan rich and attract the

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attention of the Rocket Rangers to a rocket ship that could

clearly outrun them, and the Rangers would hurl every ship
they could spare into hunting that fast ship down, and walk
right into the traps he’d have ready for them.
Those losses, plus the sabotage the new addicts on Earth
would do at his direction—through a suitably tortured chain
of intermediaries, of course—to grounded Ranger ships being
serviced and the handful currently being built, and the Rocket
Rangers would have too few ships left in space to fight what
he’d send at them on even terms. His ships would pounce, at
four or more to one, until the Rangers couldn’t stop or inspect
half of what landed on Earth. About then, Morgan would
unwittingly be carrying drugs laced with everything fatal and
contagious Earthside, to begin the humbling of humanity. Not
that the Prince expected this grand and many-staged plan to go
off with hitches. Plans never did. Even the dullard humans had
an expression involving counted chickens . . .
A startled squawk came from the comm. Followed by a string
of human profanity. Prince K’Semryl gave his full attention
to the viewscreens upon the instant. The Planetary Dancer
had swung suddenly around and fired at full thrust, seeming
almost to leap right at the Blood Red Blade.
“Some sort of autopilot!” a fearful shout arose out of the
cursing conveyed by the comm.
“Well, kill all power, you fool!” came another roar. “Yes, all of
it! You want to be blown out of space?”
There followed a fierce burst of static, but the Prince’s
helmsman was already taking them behind the nearest asteroid
that could serve as a shield, just as fast as the Blood Red
Blade could slice vacuum. The mining ship loomed up with
frightening speed—and then, to the Prince’s well-concealed
relief, abruptly went dark, turning in mere instants from racing
miner to drifting dark hulk. One last trick left by the departing
crew, no doubt. Set their abandoned ship into a full-blast
charge right at any pursuer, to cover their escape; a ship busy
evading the Dancer would have no leisure to blast a dodging
flitter.
He was only just in time to see that flitter vanish into the

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heart of the thickest cloud of asteroids—a tumbling tangle

of hundreds of ricocheting shards. Well beyond following or
leaving any hope of successfully destroying it from afar.
The Prince smiled. “No pursuit,” he ordered, “ and no cannon
fire.”
Yes, let them go. The Dancer’s drive was treasure enough, and
he cared not if word of its capture spread. When his name
was eventually linked to the seizure of the drive, the Prince
Laranqir K’Semryl seeming more dangerous wouldn’t harm his
future dealings with Earthlings at all.
***
“Me,” Dran rumbled unexpectedly, interrupting Pip in mid-
laughter, “I’ve always wondered why no one from Three Planets
Spaceways ever comes walking up here to ask why the same
three buyers always go to the same junked ship, but never buy
it.”
“Ah,” Hamilton’s voice came unexpectedly from behind
him, startling Gunner—who’d been watching the screens,
and there’d been no sign at all of their superior’s approach;
none—“that would be because I happen to be the owner of this
salvage yard, and long ago put myself in charge of its security.
Part of my cover persona.”
A bulkhead that Gunner had always thought was solid opened,
a panel humming to one side, to admit Hamilton Hamilton
Hamilton the Third into the command cabin.
As graceful and immaculately suited as ever. Every inch the
earthbound executive on his way to a boardroom, supreme and
confident in his mastery of the greater part of the finances of
a planet, if not the solar system. Handsome and not a hair out
of place—well, no hair would dare to be out of place, Gunner
thought—he turned his head to regard them all in turn, his
expression pleasant but inscrutable, then allowed himself a
fleeting smile.
“Aces,” he said simply, “have my thanks. Another mission
satisfactorily completed.”
They gave him silence by way of reply, as his words had held a

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 Three Aces for the Dancer

definite ‘but.’ Unless it was a gathering of breath for an ‘and

so.’ Nothing more, however, came out of Hamilton Three’s
mouth. He looked around at all of them again, then pivoted on
one gleaming heel to depart.
“I,” Gunner blurted out, “am still incredulous that our orders
were to let Morgan get his hands on a means to outrun the
Rocket Rangers. What’s the game?”
Hamilton Three’s smile returned, and it was full and bright this
time. “The drive,” he informed them, “is a killer. Any ship that
uses it will explode in deep space. Not long after it’s powered
up.”
Pip was smiling and nodding. So she’d anticipated this all along.
Dran sat there making its little pops and rumbles, and not
saying a word. Its expression, however, was as cynical and
skeptical as Gunner felt. At that moment, Gunner started
feeling even worse. His old wounds commenced to ache and
throb in earnest—or the metal gewgaws inside him did.
“I’ve lived long enough,” he told their smiling superior, “to see
this and that impossible thing made real, and yonder flawed
new gadget perfected and surpassed. Many times. What
happens when—not if; when—someone works out the bugs in
this drive?”
“Then”, Hamilton replied calmly, “the Ghost Aces will be
tasked with a rather more dangerous mission.”
The End

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Austin Arnold (Order #44005359)